Focus or Balance?

We all know that tremendous effort is more likely to lead to exceptional results than a half-hearted attempt (irrespective of what it is you’re aiming to achieve). We are often admonished to “throw our full weight” behind a project. This is what focus is all about, keeping our eye on the goalposts and not allowing ourselves to be distracted.

The truth is that just about anyone who has achieved greatly has two things in common – unwavering commitment to a singular goal and, believe it or not, many areas of their life which have been neglected to the point where they are a general failure in spite of the one area of great achievement.
Why is it that we idolize the man who “works himself to death”? When he passes away from the heart attack caused by his disregard for his health in favour of excellence at his job, will the company take care of his neglected family whose only benefit from his hard work was a monthly pay cheque? Of course not!

But how will you achieve any degree of success without focus? Where does one draw the line between balance and focus? First consider all the roles you fulfill, financial, job, family, social, intellectual, communication, physical and health, spiritual, maintenance, recreation, etc. Have you got goals in each area of your life? Do you have a master plan for every area you contribute to that will see you feeling fulfilled and happy when you achieve it? If you do, you will no doubt feel that your attention is so scattered that none of these goals are likely to be achieved with any real effect, and perhaps you are starting to feel that life is an extremely exhausting experience as you run around trying to meet all the demands on your time.

Here is something totally original – you will have to spend more time planning what you do and how to achieve your goals in each role you fulfill if you are going to achieve greatly in all areas of your life and balance all these roles. The reason for this is that you need to synergise the areas of your life so that all your activities achieve more than one goal. There you have it, the key to focus and balance in one neat package.

Let me give you a simple example – Fitness achieves greater focus when you are working, so it is good for your career. If you combine this with training your son’s football team and do the exercise with the kids, you are involved in his school and spending valuable father/son time too. You might want to teach them some life lessons and treasured values in the process, gaining you more respect in the community. Need I continue?

Carefull planning of how you achieve every one of your life goals, instead of just one, will lead to a balanced and fulfilled life with sufficient focus to give you meaningful impact (let’s call it a life footprint as I want to refer to this again). Are you mapping it out yet? Let me know how it goes.