KarenThe effective way to achieve focus boils down to having a strong enough “Why” for everything that you do.
Samuel Johnson once said: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
What would you do, if you knew you only had two weeks to live? Of course, I’m speaking figuratively here. But, when it comes to blogging, we all have our laundry list of tasks that Must. Get. Done. Some of these tasks are really Should. Get. Done. tasks, though. They’re not really that important and can be pushed down the list while other tasks definitely should percolate upwards to make the top of the list. The lists get longer and longer, but are we actually receiving the results we need to survive?
Focus is something that is imperative if you want to make a success of your site and your business. If you don’t have focus, important things just won’t get done. Or, you’ll do a half-ass job of them just to cross them off your list and get onto the next one. You’ll ignore money-making opportunities in order to work on less important (but easy) tasks.
To go back to my question: What would you do, if you absolutely had to?
If the bank was going to come and take away your house in two weeks due to non-payment, what would you do to earn the money to stop them?
If your child was sick, would that motivate you to get out of your comfort zone and actually implement some monetization strategies on your site?
If you needed to raise the money, wouldn’t you find a way? Wouldn’t you be so focused on that reason that nothing and no one would stand in your way?
Would you stop farting around with tweaking the design of your site and start your first info product?
Would you reach out to other bloggers for collaboration projects? Would you reach out to your competition, if they were in a position to help you?
Would you get up early, work though your lunch hour, work every evening, and stay up late so that you can write the best content that you can to attract the traffic necessary?
Wouldn’t you do anything (legal, of course) if you really had to? Wouldn’t you stop doing those things that are easy for you, but aren’t getting you closer to your goals?
Would you invest in yourself by doing what’s necessary to grow your business?
Of course, the reason ‘Why’ is not often as dire as some of these examples. Maybe you just want to earn an extra $100 or $250 per month from your site and you are okay with your progress. In this example, your reason Why is still within the realm of your comfort zone. But, what if you ramped up your reason ‘Why’ so that you needed an extra $1000 per month from your site in order to buy medication. How would this change your mindset? Don’t you think that you would gain the focus necessary to do so?
Sometimes we have to artificially inflate our Why’s so that they are a strong enough motivator to push through any fear that we have.
If your Why is not strong enough now, then you have to write down the reasons that will focus you like a laser beam on those activities that will bring you success.
It’s not enough to say that it would be nice to have an extra $100 coming in each month from my site. You have to tell yourself that it’s a necessity to earn $1000 each month from your business because otherwise you will lose your house, your family, your children, your medication (whatever you hold dear).
Do you think that you would be able to achieve focus with those strong enough reasons? What’s stopping you?
Karen writes at A Meaningful Existence, a blog devoted to helping others put meaning into their existence through practical personal development strategies. You can subscribe to her RSS Feed and also find her on Twitter at @kruby.
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Excellent examples on using a deadline Karen.
Because of the deep traditions created from the 40 hour work week, we all have this mindset of “if it gets done in 40 hours, I’m fine” but in reality we could be doing the same amount in a fraction of the total amount.
I’ve heard this once before and wish I could remember who brought it up but it basically went into the mindset that if we knew we only had 2 hours to accomplish something, we’d get it done. If we had 8 hours to accomplish the same thing, it would take us 8 hours.
We, as humans, have a hard time realizing…time.
It’s when we place restrictions upon our alloted time that we really get down to brass tax.
So yeah, as you so eloquently put it, impose a sense of urgency on everything you do and you’ll soon realize you can get a lot done.
Just curious, do you (or other readers) use to-do lists, time management tools or other services to get things done?
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Hi Murray,
You’re thinking of Parkinson’s Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
It’s a great example of how we can force artificial deadlines on us to motivate our actions. What if you didn’t have all the time in the world to get your stuff done? How would that change your mindset and actions?
I do use to-do lists and I email myself reminders in order to get things done. I try not to do too many things in one day in order to concentrate on the most important tasks.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
Karen
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Very nice article thanks for sharing it thanks again
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Thanks, Waqarhassan
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Karen,
I like your idea of creating a sense of urgency.
You are absolutely correct, so much of prioritization is screwed up by people. IF you really had only a short time to “get everything done” or ELSE it would really focus you on the things that needed doing versus the fluff.
Steve
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Thanks, Steve.
You can definitely use the ‘Or Else” phase to motivate yourself to get the most important things done. ‘Write the next killer article Or Else you’ll “.
Use whatever motivates you to concentrate on your ‘Why’.
Karen´s last [type] ..How to Get Your Own Personal Freedom…Starting Today!
Awesome post Karen!
You really have this ability to write about things that really matter to me and more importantly are timely and pertinent! I spend too much time resting on my laurels and this post is a good reminder that we can always be doing more.
Excellent examples in this post too, really brought home the urgency we sometimes need to instill in our goals and expectations.
Thanks Karen!
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I’m so glad that my articles are relevant and timely to you, Alex. Thank you so much for letting me know that – it made me smile.
Yes! Don’t rest on our laurels because you have so much potential.We often overestimate what we can do in 5 years and underestimate what we can do in 1 year. Give yourself artificial deadlines to motivate you to push yourself farther than you ever thought possible.
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Karen,
You have an excellent point about “inflating the why” of doing something. People are so scared to dream big that they never allow themselves to achieve the goals that they really want to achieve.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
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Hello Karen, great article on focus.
There is a book called The One Minute Millionaire which is half story, half instruction. The book tells the story of a woman who had 1 month to raise a $1m to keep custody of her children. You start off thinking she’s never going to raise $1m but as the story progresses, you realise that if you really want to do something you can.
So why don’t we all go an get a million by the middle of next month? Because we aren’t sufficiently motivated. Get motivated and you can achieve anything.
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Ooh Karen, you hit a nerve here.
I find myself wishing I was in that kind of do-or-die mindset more often. The sheer adrenaline of NEED rather than WANT pushes us to do miraculous things. It’d be nice to be able to harness that energy without the pendulum looming overhead, lol.
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