Without This One Mastery, Greatness Will Be An Illusion
Deep down in the mind and heart, we all adore greatness. Most of us get inspired and amazed by people who come in the category of greatness or genius. These people have reached a significant place in this world by the virtue of what they have done or become. The respect for them comes more because all of us somewhere have this deep need to be at that place, but situations, difficulties and problems seem to get the better of us.
Think about people like Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Muhammad Ali, Stephen Hawking, Thomas Edison, Mahatma Gandhi, Sachin Tendulkar, M S Dhoni; the first thing which comes to mind is the sheer consistent effort that they put in to reach such a significant level in their respective lives.
If we reflect on the process of reaching greatness, the road is not a very glamorous one. The road is full of distractions. Every imaginable and possible roadblock welcomes you at every turn. You will find more people against you than with you. Every little or big effort seems insignificant at times and the road never seems to reach its destination. In the journey, every possible emotion is experienced by the body at some point.
In this path of reaching greatness or becoming successful, the challenge is not how quickly or slowly you move, but how long you can maintain one of the most priceless gifts you have, and that is your Mastery of FOCUS. Without a significant mastery over this super skill, reaching any significant and meaningful place in life is next to impossible.
This is the mastery of geniuses or people who thrive in the space of greatness. This is the mastery which serves you more than anything else. Everything else seems to be dependent on it.
The focus is one of the most overly used word and yet the least practised in real life. We have been hearing people say, “You need to focus on your goal” or “Don’t lose your focus” or “Be focused in life”. But unfortunately, neither our education system nor our family and society has taught us the importance and process of mastering this skill.
What is Focus?
Focus, in layman's understanding, is an art of concentrating on one particular thing and eliminating everything else. This is the single most important guide or a GPS map for you, for your career. This has the much deeper understanding which we will see below.
Let’s take an example; imagine you are driving from a city to another city. Now you have never been to that city before and the journey takes about 8-10 hours. In the process, you need to cross through many smaller cities and forest. As you go through, you will a face a lot of distractions on the way, a lot of detours, lot of traffic, and it would turn out to be a long boring journey. However, if you managed to reach your destination, it’s because you made sure you were focused on your destination.
If you had lost focus on the way, you would have gotten delayed or completely missed the destination. How many of us in the past have wanted to be something or pursue some life goals and then today, have ended up being at another place, doing something completely different? What happened is this: somewhere along the way, we lost focus and the whole track got changed. And to justify it, we will have millions of excuses.
Something similar happens in our lives every day in varying shades. We are either focused on our outcomes or dance unconsciously amidst distractions. We all have some focus in our lives for long-term and short-term and the “How” & “What” of focus majorly determines our outcome.
When we see a great, successful person, we need to understand that one of the most primary things the person did was to take control of his/her life, by focusing on a moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. Without taking control of focus, the person would not have been able to reach where he/she reached finally.
Why is Focus important?
We all are powerful spiritual beings on this human journey. We have got infinite power and potential, and what lies inside us are unimaginable possibilities to do anything or achieve any feat. But how often are we successful in doing or achieving what we want? Why is the percentage of champions or great individuals always a tiny fraction compared to the masses? If we think of one reason, it comes down to what they focused on.
In the simplest understanding, our focus determines where we reach, what we do and how well we do something. Our complete life in the long term and the short term revolves around this one thing and depends on what you are focused on.
Steve Jobs focus was to “Create a dent in the Universe” and look what he did with Apple.
How many of you have gone trekking on the Himalayas, or gone for a river rafting or a world tour, or possibly started your own venture, or simply bought a set of clothes similar to those which an actor had worn? If you have never done these activities, it means you were to never focused on them. And if you happened to do so or will do it sometime in future, then it means these are a part of your focus.
In the mastery of this skill of Focus, there are two very important aspects. These are extremely powerful ones which shape our life events. These can also be considered as the two (2) laws of focus.
Law 1. What you focus on, expands.
Law 2. What you focus on, you feel.
In part 2 of this article, we will go deeper into these laws and also understand the “how” of focus, how to know what to focus on, and the ways through which you can leverage this amazing gift that nature has given you.
Till then, reflect and be aware of where is your focus going every second, minute and hour; and practice getting your focus, focused on the outcomes you intend to achieve.
