To accomplish any objectives you set, you have to focus. Plain and simple.
Specifically, you have to be able to focus on the things that are essential to your business.
That’s what separates the opportunity seekers online from what I call “strategic entrepreneurs.”
The opportunity seeker is in a virtually constant state of un-focus. He’s scouring the internet landscape trying to find out “what else can I do?” “Where is my next opportunity going to come from?”
The strategic entrepreneur, on the other hand, focuses on the essential. An entrepreneur is constantly asking: “what’s the least I can do to make my vision of success a reality?”
Big difference.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur or an opportunity seeker, you are constantly assaulted by opportunities and other distractions vying for your attention.
So it’s absolutely vital that you learn to think like a strategic entrepreneur and learn to focus. I’ll show you how. But first, a quick test to see if this applies to you…
Are You Focused?
Take a second and think about the following questions:
- Are you easily bored when you’re not in front of your computer?
- Do you find it difficult to focus on a single task for more than an hour?
- Do you look for a technology solution for every purpose you can think of?
- Can you sit and read a book or a long magazine article without reaching for the TV remote?
- Do you run out of patience with long, in-depth, nuanced discussions of certain topics?
- Do you only frequent places that offer wi-fi so you can stay connected?
- Did you find this article because it said “warning!” in the headline and was distracting enough to take you away from what you were doing?
If you said yes to any of these questions, you might be vulnerable to threats to your attention and focus. It means you have distractions surrounding you that make you busy – not productive.
Because the reality is distractions can make you feel like you’re accomplishing things. But you’re not. Instead, they sap your energy and your concentration while you get nothing meaningful done.
If you want to be successful in your business, over just in your life, you must master the ability to focus. Otherwise, you will stay a slave to distraction.
Only by doing that will you be able to achieve all your business goals in the fastest time possible.
Losing Focus Will Destroy Any Business
What will a lack of focus do to you and your business?
At the most basic business level, losing focus means you simply don’t get things you need to get done in a timely manner.
You end up spending long hours working (or at least thinking you’re working) when in reality you’re really accomplishing nothing.
I call that “Fake Work.”
Focus is at the heart of your ability to develop a sound strategy. Put another way, you don’t have a strategy until you determine what you’re NOT going to focus on. What prospects you’re not going to go after, what products you’re not going to offer…
When you stay focused, it allows you to create leverage within your business. And leverage leads to scalability – and a profitable “hands off” business.
Losing focus also leads to procrastination and delays. When your attention is distracted too much, you begin to miss deadlines because you’re not following through and getting things done.
You spend too much time juggling activities of little importance to your ultimate success. And this creates its own problems.
It negatively impacts your ability to get customers, and once have them, it diminishes your ability to keep them.
And the bigger your business grows, the more important focus becomes. Because at higher levels you have so many more things to focus on.
Can you see how bad behaviors grow with and spread through an organization as it grows?
And can you see how this might apply to you and your business? If so, tell me in the comments.
Then in the next couple days, I’ll post another blog with some ideas on how to reclaim your focus and get back on track.