Focus = The Key To Your Success
Are you struggling to stay focused in life?
Is your lack of focus costing you financial freedom?
Is it costing you that promotion you want?
Is it costing you the happiness you want in life?
If you're anything like me, it's costing you that, and SO much more!
What Is A Lack Of Focus Costing You?
If you're lacking focus in life, then you've probably felt like this:
Feeling burnt out
Not happy in life, but can't figure out why
Feeling like you're drifting in life
Every day goes by super slow
Feeling like a failure, but don't know why
Feeling alone
Feeling unproductive
Feeling like you're letting your family and friends down
Asking yourself what your purpose is and what you're meant to do in life
If you're like me, then you like to have fun!
But you also know that if your whole day is filled with pleasure and no work, then you get the feeling that you're wasting the gifts that God has given to you.
Are you starting to see how focus goes wayyyy deeper than you ever imagined?
It's okay, you're not alone, I've had the exact same feelings before...
Why Is Focus So Important??
Having focus gives you a sense of purpose
Focus helps you contribute your gifts to society
Focus helps you advance your life in the direction that you want to go towards
Focus helps you make a difference in the lives of others around you
Focus helps prove to yourself that you can accomplish things.
Most things aren’t that difficult, they just require a little persistence.
With focus and persistence, you can achieve pretty much anything in life.
As good as it sounds to achieve anything in life, there's still roadblocks that stop us from making progress.
Even if you want to focus, stuff still gets in the way!
There’s no friends to keep you accountable
Your work environment isn’t set up for focus & productivity
You don’t have any reason to be focused, you've accomplished most of what you want to accomplish
You'll just be making up a reason to be focused, there’s nothing you REALLY want to accomplish right now
You live in a work work work culture, there’s not a reason to work so dang hard
You'd rather relax because you don’t like what you're doing everyday
You're not inspired by the people that you work with
The stuff you're working on isn’t worth focusing your time and energy on
You'd rather be outside hanging out with friends
You don’t know what routine to be on in order to focus
It’s gonna take too long to accomplish the thing you're trying to get… you don’t want to focus for that long on one thing
You don’t want to set yourself up to focus on something that you're not that interested in, because that means more work for you in something you don't wanna do.
Trust me... I GET YOU 100000%
I feel your pain.
As a matter of fact, I feel your pain right now....
Does my story sound familiar?
I was struggling to focus on studying for the MC Developer cert for a while.
I gave myself a far out timeline to get the cert
My timeline seemed like way too long to stay energized.
After studying with Therion for about 50 days straight, I lost all motivation and felt like i was running around in circles.
Then I ran into the problem of actually needing to take the exam.
I told my manager that I would take the exam last week (May 19th, 2023).
I studied hard last week leading up to the certification and then I failed
I sort of knew it was coming because I hadn’t been focused consistently leading up to the cert.
I was in San Diego for a while and I’d rather be at the beach and hanging out in my free time.
I was also with my best friend and we were talking a lot, going places, and playing Madden, when I knew I should have been studying.
When it came time to focus on the work, I wasn’t interested because I knew the mountain was too tall to climb.
It caused me to look at my study material little by little.
When it was time to cram, I was studying hard, but it wasn’t enough to stick all the information that I needed into my brain.
Then as time went on and I got closer to the exam I realized that I had the focus in my grasp the entire time.
After I failed the exam, I realized that I really wanted to tackle this beast of a certification that we call the MC Developer cert.
Once I failed the MC Developer exam, I went back to the lab.
I devised a study plan (which I wrote about in last week’s newsletter)
Then I started to follow the plan
It was like my superpowers came back to me.
I started going to bed early
I started studying 2 hours per day
I started documenting my journey again
I started doing things that the old version of Kaelan wasn’t willing to do. And it was all because I had a plan in mind.
It's also because of 2 specific things that aren’t talked about that much:
Parkinsons Law and Accountability
Parkinsons Law States:
“Work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion”
This means that if you have 3 months to finish an assignment, you’ll take 3 months to do it.
If you have 3 days, you’ll do that same assignment in 3 days.
Remember when your teacher would give you an assignment and you wouldn’t do it until the night before??
Yeah… That’s Parkinsons law in effect lol…
That’s the funny thing about laws of the universe, they work whether or not we’re aware of them.
Last Friday, I gave myself 2 weeks to pass the MC Developer exam.
My brain went into overdrive and I’ve been studying like a madman!
I feel like a mad scientist (Albert Einstein status over here), focused on the task at hand and passing this cert.
And it’s all because I gave myself a short timeline to accomplish my goal.
Is this always the best thing to do?
Maybe not.
But who cares?
My mindset is: "Give it a try and see if you succeed"
Worst case scenario, you can always set another timeline to accomplish your goal and work towards that.
Just make it a timeline that forces you to take massive action and cut out procrastination
Next up… Accountability
Remember how I told you last week that I was going to take the MC Developer exam on June 2nd (two weeks from when I failed it the first time on May 19th)?
Yeah, that was MAJOR accountability.
I told you (and everyone else who reads this newsletter), what my plan was.
Now I HAVE to follow through.
If I don’t give it my all, then I won’t feel good about myself because I’ll feel like a fraud.
There’s something STRONNGGGGG about accountability.
It’s like having a gym buddy.
When you have someone that goes to the gym with you everyday, you end up going more often and seeing more progress.
Why is that?
Because when you have someone that knows what you’re up to, it sticks in your brain more.
As humans, we’re designed to stick to something when we have a partner that is aware of what we’re up to.
If we do something by ourselves, we can back out of it.
We can make excuses and nobody will know.
But other people won’t let us make those excuses.
They’ll call us out on our B.S. when we try to come up with reasons that we can’t do something.
It stings, so we’d rather get it done.
Plus, it’s an ego thing.
If we can stick to something when other people are watching, it boosts our status.
It’s just the way we’re designed as humans.
Think about how cool it is when you say you’re going to do something and then you actually do it.
You feel on top of the world.
So with that said, here’s how I'm gaining more focus and here's how you can too.
If you follow this plan, you'll gain more focus and accomplish what you say you’re gonna do.
How to hack your focus and achieve anything you want?
Here's an actionable game-plan to help you gain more focus and achieve anything you want.
Step 1 - Read about Parkinsons Law and understand it’s power in your life
I’d recommend reading the 4 hour workweek.
See how Tim Ferris uses Parkinsons Law to become 200% - 500% more productive every single day.
Step 2 - Pick a goal you want to achieve
Set a timeline to achieve that goal that’s realistic but short
Preferably make the goal work related.
Reason #1 - You’ll make more money after achieving this goal.
Reason #2 - You'll be recognized by coworkers for accomplishing this goal.
Step 3 - Tell other people about your goal - #Accountability
Pro Tip - Only tell people about this goal one time, then don’t talk about it anymore.
Apparently, dopamine receptors in your brain make you feel like you’ve accomplished the goal if you talk about it too much. (Which makes you lazier.) It’s crazy how the brain works.
So don’t go babbling about it all day every day.
Talk about the goal one time and then get to work baby! YEE YEE!!!!!
Step 4 - Have a consistent Sleep Schedule
(10:30 PM - 6:30 AM)
Every single day of the week (Sat & Sun included)
Step 5 - Plan and Reflect in the Monk Manual
(Write down the top 3 things you need to do for the day)
Step 6 - Plan the upcoming week
Go into your calendar and plan your week so you know all the meetings you have next week and create your study schedule.
Step 7 - Schedule each day the night before
Before you go to bed, look at your calendar to see what is on your schedule tomorrow.
Adjust your study schedule in order to fit in all of your meetings and other daily priorities.
(Doing this helps you know WHEN you’re going to do your Priorities)
Step 8 - Focus for a minimum of 2 hours per day
45 Minutes of focus (Focus Session #1) - at 6:45 AM
45 Minutes of focus (Focus Session #2) - at 7:45 AM
Pick a time that works for your schedule
Any other focus time will be a BONUS everyday
That's all I've got for ya today.
Kaelan Moss - MinuteAdmin out ✌🏽
Bonus Tip - Make tweaks that fit your schedule and routine so you can stick with this plan long term.
