The Fourth of Life's Secret Ingredients (4 of 10 or more)

Focus.

Oh, if we only had more focus in our lives.  Can you imagine all of the things that you could accomplish in life if you had the ability to focus on one thing at a time?  Remember that big idea that you had a half dozen years ago?  The one that you started to mess around with, the one that you thought "this is it!"  But then you got distracted (lost focus) and never went back to or perhaps did, but then lost focus again.

Well, I am telling you now that focus is one of "Life's Secret Ingredients".  You don't need focus to live, but you do need focus to accomplish more or much of the things that you want to accomplish in life.

Is it easy to stay focused? No.  Is it simple to stay focused? Yes!

Staying focused on what is important to you really is simple.  All you need is a piece of paper, something to write with and about ten minutes of time (daily, at first).  Once you have all of those things together you can begin to focus.  Here are the instructions:

Step 1:  In one minute, quickly right down the things that you most want to accomplish in life
Step 2: Categorize them (health, spirituality, professionally/career, family, fun)
Step 3: Take the most important one from each category and put it on it's on piece of paper (3x5 index card is a good choice)
Step 4: Tape them to your mirror in your bathroom
Step 5: Read them out loud to yourself in the morning when you get up and at night when you go to bed
Step 6: Once you are thinking about these goals and start to focus on them you will need to spend more time planning and working towards achieving them.  Depending on your goal it could simply mean that you carve out 'real' vacation time (no phone, no email, completely disconnect).  Others might take additional planning and resources (ex. building a zero friction, zero input, continuous energy plant).  Once you are focused, staying focused will be as easy as keeping those cards posted on your mirror. While you are at it, why not make a set to keep in your planner or coat pocket?


Super Top Secret:  Write them down, do not just type them into your electronic device.  Believe it or not, the act of physically writing them on paper activates something in your mind that makes it real.