Staying focussed towards what you have set out for, makes success a sure deal. Meaning to say, that if you decide to follow through upon your plan to achieve your goal, and you know that you are going to stay focussed throughout the time until you get to your goal, it becomes natural to say that you are surely going to make it. Its a 100% done deal.

But as you may know and perhaps have some experiences too, staying focussed isn’t a cake walk. It requires high level of persistence, combined with the resolution to make your way through the thick and thin no matter what happens. Also, there arises certain situations in life where you may feel tempted to question the very reason for achieving your goal which automatically results in a fluctuation of focus. Hence as you can probably feel intuitionally, that staying focus needs efforts. Conscious efforts.

a few ideas that ensure that you stay focussed have been summarized below………

HAVE A GOAL

Staying focussed is hard when you don’t exactly know what you are trying to do. Having a goal to achieve is the first requirement if you plan to get anywhere near being focussed. A plan will be a reminder to you that you need to get something done and it won’t happen on its own. You’ll have to put in the efforts. And hence, it motivates you to stay focussed.

KEEP A REGULAR CHECK ON YOUR PROGRESS

It really helps to know where exactly you stand in the true scheme of things. Keeping a check on your progress is the simplest method of keeping yourself focussed. When you constantly monitor your progress, you keep yourself aware about the pace with which you are moving forward. There is an automatic calculation at the back of you head…..

–  am I falling behind?

– do I need to improve my way of doing things?

– should I start earlier so that I get can more done each day? Etc etc…………

Hence, such a thought pattern makes it impossible to ignore your priority and you become automatically focussed…….

I didn’t do well in the last market crash, so I look over job listings for contract work.  Yesterday I saw a posting for a project coordinator/proofreader.  The first line of the job description read: One of the countries fastest growing multi-channel marketing agencies … instead of One of the country’s …. 

The hiring company’s website showed a contact email address, so I sent them an email identifying the error.  A corporate VP in a distant city kindly replied (to my astonishment) and explained that the company’s proofreaders confine their work to customers’ documents.  In other words, if a document doesn’t affect the bottom line, no one proofreads it.

Photo by Adrian Pingstone from Wikipedia (Public Domain)

Should Internet content writers follow the model of this company?  Perhaps they should.  Each and every piece of writing you publish should have a goal.  If you can accomplish this goal without proofreading, maybe you shouldn’t proofread.  For example, if you are writing for search engines (bot fodder), errors may not make any difference in how high the search engine puts your article on the results list.  If you want human beings to forward a link to their friends or to link to your article from their blogs, you may want to correct errors.

Fact Checking

This morning telegraph.co.uk published an article about Leonid Ksanfomaliti’s claim that he’d found evidence of life on Venus in photographs taken by the space probe Venera-13.   The author of the article identified Venus as “the red planet” and stated the planet’s gravity was 9 times that of Earth.  Commenters pounced on these errors, and the paper quickly corrected them.  

The view from Venera-13. Photo from Wikipedia (Public Domain)

If you make statements whose errors could be corrected by an extra minute reading Wikipedia, human readers may bounce to a better article.  They may also fail to link to your article.  You may have to resort to black hat SEO techniques to acquire backlinks.  A few minutes of fact checking can help you avoid the need to generate deceptive backlinks and the risk of getting caught cheating.  On the other hand, you may be writing for true believers who won’t let facts stand in their way.  Once again, it may be a question of the goal of your writing.

Writing Badly is a Right

…everything is given to us by the party and the government and only one thing is taken away: the freedom to write badly. –Isaac Babel

If you publish online, you will slip up and publish errors.  Sure as Brin and Page misspelled googol as google, you will encounter readers who think all your content should come down or that you should never write for publication again because of the errors.  No possible pardon is possible, they think, for those who confuse Mars and Venus.  Only authorities with credentials should write, etc.  I argue against this position by reminding everyone that appeal to authority is a logical fallacy and that even someone as inaccurate and syntax-challenged as George W. Bush deserves the right to speak his mind.

George W. Bush from Wikipedia (Public Domain)

Moreover, even bad articles may do good.  Recently I’ve read some Chinese blogs.  I don’t know Chinese at all, so I either have to wait for translations or read with the aid of translation software.  After struggling with a particularly scrambled machine translation, I asked myself some questions. What if this were as good as it gets?  What if I lived in a country with aggressive Internet censorship?  What if only articles with mangled text and misspelled keywords could slip through to tell me about life outside my country?  In that case I would feel privileged to read even bad articles.

  Example: My Dream. My Motive. My dream is to be a well known Performing Artist. Motive: Your hobby is not an career until you get paid for it. I wanna make money for something I love to do. In your one life don’t waste time being unhappy at a job. Don’t watch your life go down the drain. I love to sing and perform, that’s what is going to make me the best. MOTIVE…

  So a hobby is something you like to do, so what if you got paid for something you like to do? I call these kind of goals, dreams. Cause if I have the power to go up inside my head and image myself doing this, I just created a dream. Your hobby is something you do for free, until you actually start to get paid, and that makes it a job or career. So how much more would you do it if you were paid for it? Hmmmm???? Think about that one. ALL THE TIME!!!

   Now, psychologically, we put a weight on our minds with the word “Dream.” It sounds way more bigger then it actually is. Imagine me telling you: “I want you to help me lift my “757 Jumbo Jet,” 2″ inches off the ground. I know my jet is 60 lbs., but you don’t know it’s a model jet inside my apartment. See how the description of what I needed help with seemed bigger then we could lift, until I told you it was a model jet. This is the same way we look at the word “Dream.” Also keep in mind, that this is a sub-conscious decision to look at the word negatively. It’s not a conscious decision. The weight of the word “Dream” directly impacts our effort mentally and physically. And effort is the only way you can get results from anything. “Ohhh, he’s following his dream.” “Ohhh, he’s living his childhood dream.” Look at the definition of dream again. It’s not that hard to create a dream and live it. The point: Don’t over think the term, “Follow Your “Dreams!”

   What is your motive? You know my motive. I have to create a living for my family and myself. My hobby is singing, and I love to do it. Not only do I sing, but I’m above average. It’s my opinion, that life is too short to be stuck at a job, not having control over your schedule or your life. Plus, what’s the chances of you hating your job? I want to be happy, and travel the world.  We only have one life to live. So my motive is to create a living doing what I love. Singing….. Following my dream, accomplishing my dream, and have fun doing it is my goal or intention.

   So find out what your motive is, and really bring your motive to the light. “Huh, bring my motive to the light?” Yes, understand your purpose for wanting this dream. Your motive is what makes you stay up late when your tired. Your motive push you to make the necessary sacrifices.

Example: Your car represents your dream, and your motive represents your gasoline. Your Jet represents your dream, and your jet fuel represents your motive. Don’t allow yourself to forget why your following your dream. Cause if your car runs out of gas, or your jet is low on fuel, or if you forget why your following a dream can you imagine the circumstances or the consequences. Forgetting your motive or not having one is similar to the example of running out of the key elements in this example. (Fuel, Gas, Motive, Drive, Effort, Passion, Determination) Don’t ever run out or Don’t ever forget the cause. Stay around positive influences!

  Do not listen to people that don’t agree with what you believe in, it’s up to you to prove it to yourself. Everyone has their own theory or opinion. It’s okay to listen, but be careful because it can create doubts, sub-consciously. Just as the word “Dream” use to carry weight, peoples opinion could cause you to lack the confidence you need to push through the rough times. I’m going to be honest, it’s not going to be easy. Hey, life ain’t easy, why would accomplishing your goals or dreams be easy? Also visa versa, support from positive people, role models, and/or mentors is just as influencing. Get good people in your corner, get rid of people that means you no good. Your peace and success is at stake. Including family, sorry sometimes family members tend to have bad motives.

   Next, your life dreams, cannot be a dream, if you have not dreamed it yet. Tongue twister, right? Read it again if necessary. Remember the definition of dream? If you haven’t dreamed your dream yet, this is simple to fix. Creating dreams is fun & simple. 

Example: My dream is to be a famous singer. I watch movies such as, The Five Heartbeats, The Movie RAY, and many others. I go on YouTube and watch famous singers in concert. I also watch a lot of the interviews with performing artist to learn from them. I listen to there experiences, and there stories. I learn pitfalls to avoid, and this is why interviews exist. Remember when I mentioned peoples influences, and role models? You can create those positive influences, and role models through these interviews. You don’t have to have them as a mentor, and you don’t have to know them to get the power of influence working at your advantage. Just continue to learn and study everything that has involvement with your dream. I daydream some of those concerts I seen on youtube and image myself in their shoes, like a glimpse. I build my images of the lifestyle in my daydreams, through their videos, and put exactly how I want my reality to be when I accomplish my dream.  Before I go to sleep, I’m living that lifestyle in my head, so I cannot wait to go to sleep at night cause before I fall asleep, I’m imaging me before a show, things I’m going to do during my show. I can see what outfit I have on, everything. I live this in my head every chance I get, I call it brainwashing, or programming myself. It’s fun imaging my huge screaming crowd.

 ”You have to dream it, to believe it. You have to believe to achieve it. “

   Basically I’m painting my own image of what it’s going to be like. Sometimes when I fall asleep, my sub-conscious mind take the dream to new heights. I focus my mind on my dream and what I want in my dream. I sit and daydream it as much as I can, because I’m that person in my head. So when I am famous it won’t be nothing new to me, because I can tell that artist, “Hey, you know I lived this life through you?” So when I get on stage in front of thousands for the first time, it won’t be the first time. Many artist are not worried or afraid the first time and we know why now.

   Understand this, you don’t have to really dream the dream sub-consciously. If you do, and when you do, that’s good, but you don’t try to create that it’ll just happens. But you do want to create & live the dream in your dream for a while before it can come to reality. Remember, whatever you focus on expands.

   Last but not least, chasing dreams… Chasing dreams is, in some cases, a sacrifice. Cause you still have to create a living, but you have got to have a plan. What is a plan exactly? Scheme or method of action or arrangement, developed in advance… A plan is a step-by-step process to achieve a scheme, goal or intention. Step-by-step means you cannot go to step 5 without completing steps 1-4 in chronological order. If you start now, you will have about 300 steps, so a way to eliminate that is to know the different types of goals or plans. Short Term, Mid Term, and of course Long Term… This process will reduce the amount of steps you’ll have to take. After planning properly, you’ll physically know exactly how to achieve the attended goal and you’ll know how much time it will take. You also should know the advantages and the disadvantages, plus the pitfalls to avoid.

   “I’m so confident you will achieve your dream in life now. Why?”

Recap:

1.)You clearly know what a dream is, and how to create one.

2.)The word “Dream” alone no longer impacts you negatively. Also the word “Dream” no longer attach mental and physical failure to your effort to accomplish your dream.

3.)You understand the importance of “Motive” and how it directly effects your effort to get results.

4.)You know “The Power of Influence.” By friends, family, role models, mentors, etc….

5.)You know how to daydream and live the lifestyle or dream in your head first, to make it a reality, along with your efforts.

6.)Plus you know exactly how to plan your way to success, and the motto is: “You failing to plan is planning to fail.”

   And personally, I feel your 400 times more confident to succeed at accomplishing your dream, because you have understanding and control. So you will be successful if you want to be…. Remember have fun… Subscribe to my profile for more articles with similar information. Also support my singing career and add me on facebook.  Search:   Rodric Dennis King  

      Your number’s tell’s all the negatives, who left early, who took more breaks, who didn’t work hard, and who didn’t learn anything, who quit for the day, who’s being a student, who’s still learning, who’s growing, who doing their homework. All the excuses you make why something didn’t happen is your fault. No more excuses, you have to hold yourself accountable.

      Also the numbers tell you who stayed later, who does their homework, who takes more time to learn, who has new material, whose asking for help to get better, who doesn’t take breaks, who is first to arrive and last to leave, who is on time everyday. All the positive things you have to say about yourself at playing your position, you don’t have to, cause your numbers tells everyone that.

      So let’s get to the point. If you missed your sons football game three times in a row, your work should say that not your mouth. If a person is lazy, selfish, and always late, you don’t have to say nothing their numbers say it all.

    With that said, your job is to progress in your position every new day. You have to always be learning more. Always working for the next position, or taking it to the next level. In other words, if your a sales manager, and your sales is going up and down and it’s not a trend that your business is in. Something is wrong and you have to fix it, but don’t always think you can do this on your own. Find more experienced people and run it by them and see what they would do. Go online and research different material on the subject, build a plan, and then put it into action. Monitor your results, see what you can do to take sells through the roof. Your goal is to break records. Set individual goals for your teams. Or do competitions to make your employee’s compete with one another. You have to get the entire store on fire about your goals. No matter what it takes get the ball rolling in your direction. You shouldn’t be going to work trying to survive another day, push people.

    With any title, business owner, managers, or any position out there. You have to know where you are, what you got, and where your going. Set production goals. We are here now, and this is where I want to be by next month. Here is the way we’re going to get there. You have to know where the progress is, so you can find out what you want to push it too. If you flip burgers, learn more about your job, then the manager knows. Then start working on the next position, and be super good at that. Learn how to multi-task, practice it.. Make yourself irreplaceable. Make someone say, you could never replace who we lost. When you get a promotion, now you duplicate yourself. If a person cannot be trained to work that position like you did or better. You DON’T need them. You should have this attitude in any and every career. Definitely business owners or entrepreneur’s.

    Whatever position or title you hold, be the best, and set the example. What does set the example means? This means when I have a job, I’m going to learn as much as I can, I’m going to remain learning. I’m going to be there first, and leave last. Friendly as ever, and know how to re-train a person to be as good as I am or better. If I leave that position and I don’t re-train that person to do what I did, they would have to hire two people for the one position. Cause I raised the bar on the standards for that position. That’s setting the pace or being the example everyday. Not on and off, everyday.

    So always be a student, take less breaks, learn from everyone, out work everyone, and arrive on time everyday. Also your uniform or attire should be on point every time, hair, shoes, facial groomed neatly, shirt, pants, and shoes should always look like it just came out of the store. No matter what position, this is professionalism. Dress for the position you want, not the one you have. Remember always set goals, and continue to push yourself to know more and be more. If you sell $300 a day, tomorrow work harder and push for $350. After a consistent week of $350, push for $400, and never doubt yourself. Always push for the next level, everyday. And know what you have to do to get your promotion.

    Then, “Your Number’s Would Say A Lot.”

     Also don’t forget why you go to work. To make money. Why do you need or have a career? To make money & a living. So go to work with the intent to do a double in 8 hours. Don’t forget why you are there. Always learn your position with the expectation of working the position until your promotion. Never go to work to do your job and that’s it. You always could use more money right? Right, but if I’m looking for a reason to fire you, do you think I’m going to give you a raise, better yet a promotion? Image if one of you co-worker’s reading this now. They are coming to work tomorrow to take your job.

    I was a salesman for three years, and I was so good at my job. I had customers asking to borrow money for gas to get home. I did my job, and I worked harder, and it was because I went to work with a goal in mind. Perform better then I was yesterday, and I left that salesman job and now I’m a performing artist, and I give a show always looking at how I can be better. So my numbers said a lot…. “What Does Your Numbers Say?”

The Goal + ???? = The Result  

The Goal is the beginning.   (PLUS+)   The ???? is the process or effort required for. (Equals=) The Results.

     That should help you paint the image a little better. If the goal, plan, or dream is set, then the results are there already. WHY? Cause you planned it. WHY? Cause it’s the goal or finish line. So the goal and the results are already there, the only thing miss is the process. THE EFFORT YOU HAVE TO PUT INTO YOUR DREAM, YOUR GOAL, YOUR PLANS…..

    When you set a goal and your mind is made up, your goal is already met, and already achieved, it’s just not tangible yet. What makes it tangible? The process in between the beginning and the end is what changes the results at the end.

GOAL + ???? = The Results        Or            The Beginning  +  ????? = The End

If the goal is the beginning and the result is the end. What goes where the question mark is? Effort

    Have you ever had something stolen from you? Ever allowed someone to borrow some money and it was hard to get it back, if you got it back and it ticked you off? Makes you very upset, right? Ever thought about why it makes you upset? Cause it’s not about the money, it’s the principal. What is the principal? What you had to do to get your money or property back. What you had to put up with to buy you property, or earn you money. What you had to go through to earn your money. This is all effort you put in, to make the money. This is the effort you put in to make the money to buy your stolen property. You can’t get that effort back, and that’s the real source of your anger.

     So planning is definitely a good thing, but effort is everything. And remember in between the beginning of your plans to the end result, the effort you put in changes the results.

Effort- Exertion of physical or mental power: It will take great effort to achieve victory.

            An earnest or strenuous attempt: an effort to keep to the schedule.

            Something done by exertion or hard work: I thought it would be easy, but it was an effort.

            An achievement, as in literature or art: The painting is one of his finest efforts.   The effort is what makes the difference, and this is what makes effort such a substantive and authentic joy. The dreams, and goals set the direction but effort is the vehicle that makes it all happen. So for an example: So let’s play with the idea and make it a little more clear. If you have a dream to go to the Bahamas that is across the ocean in your own sailboat. That’s the dream or goal you want to accomplish. Next is the plan, buy a sail boat and learn how to sail, then sail across the ocean. So you really got to learn how to sail. This will take some time & effort, and this doesn’t directly effect the goal, but it is vital to the plan to accomplish the dream.                                                               After you have finally went through all that training you put in the effort to save money for a sail boat, which you have now. You have even put the time aside to make the sail possible. Now you fight the winds, the nature of the ocean, went through heavy rain, but you finally reach your destination safely. Not only did you accomplish your dream, but you have a new sailboat which is an asset, and you are experienced at sailing.    So it’s very important to set goals, and to have dreams. But just as important if not more important is the effort you have to invest. One more simple example: At a track meet, before you run. There is a starting point and the finishing point. (Relate this directly to the point of goal setting.) What is the goal? Win the race. Inbetween the start and the finishing point is all effort. The longer the goal, the more effort is required. 1/4 Mile is a shorter goal      V.S.       5 1/2 Mile goal        So, “Short Term Goals” take short amount of time & effort. And “Mid Term Goals”  and so on and so forth. Once the race start towards your goals or dream, always remember that effort you put in is everything. Focus you attention on investing effort in your goals, and dreams. Look at it like a bank, if you invest $5 in your account on Monday, on Friday you cannot expect to pull out $35 dollars cause you really need it.      And this is why so many people fail after they set a goal or create a dream. Somewhere in the race they quit, give up or slow down. It’s so easy to create goals, and dreams, but the process of putting the required effort into the mission, is the missing piece of the puzzle.    So if your not going to find the effort and hold yourself accountable for your actions, don’t waste time out of your one life for no reason at one. Time… You don’t get it back and it is very precious, so don’t waste what time you do have. Also, vica versa, create goals & dreams for yourself time is limited and very short. Make your life worth something more everyday. Create a goal, accomplish it and move on. Create a dream, accomplish it and move on. Before you know it you’ll have three books to write, then sell because of your accomplishments. That’s that type of people that does that, right.   Remember, no effort, no result… The value of any acheivement cannot be separated from the process of achievement.

First: I know I have the ability to achieve the object of definite purpose in my life, therefore, I demand of myself persistent, continuous action to achieve this, and here and now promise to render such action.

Second: I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind played over time inexternal events and physical to become a physical reality, therefore,concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes each day thinking about the taskthe person I intend to become, thereby creating a clear mental picture.

Third: I know through the principle of autosuggestion, any desire that shelters persistently seek expression through some practical means to get the object back of it, so I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of theconfidence in myself.

Fourth: I have clearly written description of the primary goal of my life andnever stop trying, until you’ve got enough confidence in myself to achieve

Fifth: I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth there and justice, therefore, I will engage in any transaction thatdoes not benefit all whom it affects

Learn a way to success here

This year is going to be fantastic, and I’m going to make sure that I do everything I can to make it as fantastic as it can be. It’s difficult, sometimes, to work out what you want to achieve during the year, and personally I always try to do far too much at once so I end up achieving nothing.

I’ve decided, then, that I’m not going to make any goals or resolutions for the entire year, because that’s too long. Instead, I’m going to focus on something different each month or for a few months at a time. That should mean that I’m able to get things done but still have the variety I need to ensure I don’t get bored and give up.

Like a lot of other people, fitness is going to be the focus for the first few months, until my next term at university is over. I would say that I’m already in ‘okay’ fitness, but I would love to see some improvements, especially since I’m going to be in a play at the end of term and I have to pass for a Greek soldier! I’ve never really been athletic or muscular, so I’m not expecting too much. Mainly, I think I want to do this because I want to feel proud of myself – I’m not usually good at meeting my own expectations; I procrastinate, I give up too soon, etc. so I want to do this to prove to myself that I can do it. I want to know that I can be disciplined enough to work on my fitness every day so that I can use that to get more of my goals throughout the year done.

Goals have to be specific but at the moment ‘focusing on fitness for a few months’ is not specific at all. So, I think that I would like to be able to do all of the workout plans on One Hundred Push Ups – that is, 100 press ups, 200 sit ups, etc. I also want to be able to run 15km. I’ll give myself until the end of March for this resolution, and then I’ll change the focus to something different. I’m not expecting to achieve all of this by the end of March, but if I manage to practise regularly enough then I’ll be proud of myself for doing that, my fitness would have improved a lot anyway, and by that point maybe it’ll have become a habit, so I’ll continue after March while doing my other resolution.

2011 was such an amazing year, so 2012 has a lot of work to do to keep up the good work! Good luck to everyone reading this – I hope you can all achieve whatever goals you have for the year and whether you have any goals or not, have a really great time

• Losing weight. This is one of the most popular things that people wish to do in the New Year. Unforunately, the two things that you have to do in order to lose weight (diet and exercise) are very difficult at this time of the year. After Christmas, there is often still an awful lot of bad food left in the house, which just means that there is an awful lot of temptation there for you which you might not have anticipated. In addition to this, is everybody in your family is still eating bad food, the temptation can be far too close to you for you to possibly resist. The main thing that you have to worry about with regards to exercise is the weather. In January, which can be the coldest month of the year, there is very little motivation to go outside and actually do some exercise. This is why not many people manage to lose weight in the new year.
• Save money. This is the second most popular resolution that people make, but it never really works out for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that there is usually a rather large credit card bill after Christmas, which will need to be paid. Because of this, you realise that you will need to cut back for a couple of months before you can even pay this off, and by the time you have paid it off you will probably have forgotten about the fact that you were supposed to be saving money in the first place. Secondly, the tempation of the sales is huge. If you go shopping, you might find that you’re buying things which you would never even have considered in the past just because they look cheaper.
• Get a new hobby. New Year is a very bad time to be thinking about getting a new hobby simply because everybody else is doing just the same. Classes will be busy and overcrowded, and this means that you will be put off carrying on. You’d be much better starting later on in the year when things are at least a little bit quieter.