WEEK 108: SINGULAR FOCUS

Dripping water hollows out stone not through force, but through persistence.    Ovid

REFLECTIONS (learnings and actions): This week I want to build off what I spoke about last week in terms of "making a decision and then making it right."

Just to recap, we often make a decision easily, yet question it at every change we get. Crazy, true!

Why do we do this?

I have learned this week it comes down to one simple thing. 

What is it?

A singular focus.

This idea reminds me about a story of a group of warriors who traveled by boat to a distant land. As you can probably understand, the warriors had every intention to win, but every one of them had a sliver of doubt as well.

The leader of the warriors kept them focused on the idea of winning, but he drilled this point home once they arrived to the distant land.

What did he do you ask? 

Well, once every warrior got off the boat and grabbed their supplies...he grabbed a torch and then threw it in the boats.

They turned in shock and some were angered from the leaders rash actions. But was he rash?

After some confusion, the leader explained there was one choice to get back home was to win! There was no retreat.

The power of this story was highlighted this week for me, as there were many challenges that could have kept me from my LYP (traveling, devoting time to rest with family, devoting time to businesses and LYP...all in a different country).

Often times, we are quick to make a decision, yet we leave a back door open in case we feel we can not achieve what we set out to. Although you might have all the motivation in the world and are gung ho right now, you still leave the possibility that you can quit.

The learning from last week involves first to make a decision. Second, you need to put all of your actions into making it right. This is where the lesson to eliminate the other options and cultivate a singular focus  from helps you "make your decision right."

Just like the example of the leader burning the ships (the possibility of defeat) so that his men could focus on having one singular focus to win, we must remove all doubts and options which stop us before we achieve what we set out to...our dreams!

That means endless problem solving and the knowledge you will be faced with failure along the way.

Yet, through it all you know you might lose a battle, but you will win the war!

Thus, decide to achieve your dreams and then have a singular focus to make the decision right...no matter what!

Top three activities that move me forward?

1. Exercising consistently.

2. Taking the time to have meaningful conversations with the ones I love (OJ Meggo).

3. Tracking and reporting on my performance. I did not do this for a couple of days and saw the importance when my data was skewed.

Biggest lessons and learnings?

Cultivate making a decision and then having a singular focus to make it right...in all aspects of life.

What are you grateful for?

Being able to travel and see different parts of the world! I highly recommend you do this as much as you can, as it truly humble you, while at the same time amaze you!

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PLANNING (Implementation Intention):  You will follow through 2X to 3X more likely to complete your weekly task than you normally would just by filling in the following statement.

I plan to complete the weekly task [day] at [time] in [location]. 

A reminder you might have to use multiple Implementation Intentions in order to follow through.

EXECUTION (strategies used):  From week to week, I use a combination of many strategies. There are always some which are used more than others depending on what comes up, but I wanted to offer a link to all them at once. 

My advice is to identify the I CAN'T statement you tell yourself during the most. Then find a strategy below the statement which resonates with you, and then start using it. 

Enjoy!

STRATEGY LIST