About Purpose is about your purpose.
Aim: Identify and articulate your purpose.
Arm: Shape yourself around your purpose.
Act: Achieve your purpose.
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Focus on your Focus
Bob Ryan, About Purpose, Inc. ©2003
At a time when many people are talking about New Year’s Resolutions, I invite you to simplify yours. Instead of trying to break some old habits or make some new ones, I suggest that you focus on your focus. That’s not a misprint. What I mean is that you get serious about “the main thing.” These definitions from Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary may help:
Focus - 1 a : a point at which rays (as of light, heat, or sound) converge
5 a : a center of activity, attraction, or attention <the focus of the meeting was drug abuse>
5 b : a point of concentration
I invite you to look at your life, your resources, your activities and your relationships and ask yourself a few questions.
- What is your focus? Can you articulate your main purpose in life?
Take some time at the beginning of this year to reflect on “the main thing,” that is, what your life is really about. Can’t define it? That’s all the more reason to make this a priority. Your resources, your activities and your relationships should all be on a track to converge on that “main thing.”
This is the old challenge of “doing things right” or “doing the right thing.” If what you’re doing, no matter how well you are doing it, doesn’t support your life purpose, then you are not focused.
- Is the point of convergence clear, or is it hazy? Is your main purpose so overwhelming that you really can’t see if, how and where all the “rays” converge?
Sometimes it helps to define an intermittent focus. If your “main thing” is clear to you, but it seems too big to get your hands around, try the process of successive approximations, that is, identifying smaller, intermittent steps or milestones on the “rays” or paths to your main purpose.
- In what ways are you distracted from your focus?
Realize that we are finite beings and that we have a limited amount of energy and resources. The Bible has a quote in it that says, “No one can serve two masters.” While it was referring specifically to the pursuit of money, the point is clear. We must focus on our focus. Take a brief inventory in your life to identify those things that divert your from your path or obscure your vision of your purpose. If you’re going to make any New Year’s Resolutions, let them be around eliminating those distractions.
Focus on your Focus. The payoff is obvious – the energy you put into your activities and your relationships will result in moving you closer to accomplishing your main purpose. Simplify your life. Keep your focus in the New Year.