I’m not sure where I’ve heard it first, but without focus, genius is impossible.

I’ll take this one step further. Without focus, very little is possible. Without focus, you are a slave to impulse. Without focus, you are a follower, and will be a poor leader.

I am realizing more and more each day, that I will never reach my goals in life unless I focus on one thing at a time. I mean 100% focus, until I complete a task.

I had mentioned in a post on my other blog that human multi-tasking is basically an illusion. Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and the clear corollary is that focus is the only thing that we can count on that will allow us to reach our goals. I’ve been learning a lot over the years from the masters, such as Earl Nightingale and Anthony Robbins, and most of what they teach brings things to a similar conclusion — if you don’t focus 100% on your goals in life, you will stray from your course, and you will never feel fulfilled.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, we are completely and utterly distracted. It truly is an MTV world, and it’s scary. So many people have so much potential, but so many of us will never fulfill that potential because we get caught up in a world of distraction. Blogs are one of the worst offenders of distraction ever invented. This is one of the reasons I never wanted a blog. As I mentioned, the only real reason I started my own is to keep a journal. And I’ve made it public, because I know that some of my friends will read it and maybe contribute as I contribute to their distraction ;). And (perhaps selfishly), I may get some good advice.

I always thought I was easily distracted because I’m interested in so many different things. But I wonder. Have you ever walked into Home Depot and get overwhelmed with all the things you never realized you can’t live without? Get my drift?

We are spoiled in many ways. We have so much at our fingertips to satisfy our curiousity. So much to occupy our minds. So much to entertain us. But most of it is passive. Most of us are comfortably numb. We enjoy life…but at a very mediocre level. We let the world happen to us instead of making things happen in the world.

I believe it’s because we have lost the ability to focus. To focus on our own special talents. To focus on something that will break us out of our rut. To focus on how we, as individuals, can improve the world. I think there is so much more joy that can come out of that in the long run then that great movie we’ve been looking forward to, or the new Harry Potter book. The cool music video, and the latest Survivor.

My goal is to learn how to focus. Even if it’s to focus on a small project around the house that I’ve put off for five years. The more we practice active focus, the better chance we have when we decide on focusing on how we can change the world. But it’s a good exercise for the “focus muscle” to focus on something small that we can complete. Small victories can lead to genius.