Never underestimate the power of focus. It’s your direction in life, keeping you on target and giving you momentum. From the first moments of your day, your focus is an important facet of your success. When you roll out of bed, what do you focus on? What do you want to accomplish today? As Tony Robbins says…

“Where focus goes, energy flows.”

In his book, The Power of Focus, Jack Canfield outlines the Four D’s of honing your focus, giving a “4-D Solution” to refine it:

Dump it. Learn to say “no”. Jim Collins’ book Good to Great describes why so many businesses will never become great – they don’t know how to say no. It’s crucially important to learn this skill if you want to move forward effectively. Say no to bad clients, bad relationships, and bad habits so that they won’t impede your progress.

 

Delegate it. Do the tasks you are good at and get someone else to do the rest. Years ago, when we were facing a mountain of debt and potential foreclosure, I was working hard to build a business and get us out of financial trouble. Even though money was tight, I paid a high school kid to cut my grass. People thought I was nuts, but I didn’t have time to cut grass as I focused on my business. It paid off, too: we did get out of debt and attain success. Global Gurus is a great resource for finding experts to assist your business.

 

Defer it. Some things should be put off till a later time. Focus on what needs to be done now. Push the rest to a back burner until you can get to them. Prioritize your task list, and take care of vital items first.

 

Do it now! What things need to be done right now? Do not put them off – do them immediately! Learn to procrastinate procrastination. People put off the things they’d rather not do. Learn to do things that are uncomfortable. These are the things you don’t want to do but that must be done in order to achieve success.

Daily habits determine your success.

If your habits are effective, and you have them completely mastered, doing them over and over, you will find success. These may be personal lifestyle habits that set you up for overall success, like working out or journaling. For example, many successful people make it a priority to win the morning. They plan ahead in the evenings, then get up early and dive right into their morning routine for maximum productivity. (10 High Performance Habits that Lead to Success)

Other habits may be specifically business-related routines. These could include staying organized, planning your time, and tackling the toughest projects first.

Are you in sales? Take a look at our Free eBook “The Daily Practices if Sales Professionals”. It will help you increase your book of business and exceed your sales goals. Download it here.

The fewer things you focus on, the more effectively you’ll master the habits necessary to succeed at them. If you focus on multiple things, you have to develop a set of habits for each of those things, so multi-tasking can actually dilute your effectiveness. It’s important to focus on what you want to accomplish, so you you can develop the habits that will get you there. When you have good habits, good things happen. But when you have bad habits, you will lose money, time, clients, relationships, because bad habits cause you to go further away from your objective. I’ve never met a successful person with bad habits.

There are times when your momentum might slip. Maybe you had a bad day, lost a contract, or hit some other setback. When that happens, you can use habits to get back in the zone – tomorrow! You can quickly regain momentum by living in those habits.

Beware, success my blind you. You may get distracted by it and lose focus, thereby losing direction and momentum. As success comes, intentionally maintain your focus on what got you there.

The eye of the tiger

When a tiger hunts, it picks out one animal from the herd as its target. It maintains that focus no mater what happens.  That’s the type of focus it takes to win – to fight through obstacles and take yourself to the next level. One of the key ingredients for above-average success is your ability to shed the unnecessary distractions focus on the prize.

Some musical inspiration for you…

The tragedy in life is that most men and women die with the dream still within in them. Don’t let this happen to you. Decide what you want, then develop and master the habits that will guide you to achieving your dream.

Joe Pici trains tactical skills for sales, performance management, communication, and conflict resolution. He has been internationally ranked by Global Gurus in the top 30 for sales training. Contact him at 407-947-2590 – Joe@PiciandPici.com