Narrowing your focus. Less is more...
Confucius says “the man who chases two rabbits, catches neither”. Here's how intentionally narrowing your focus will help you achieve more...
Happy New Week Everyone!
Last week, I was asked how I am able to juggle all my different ventures and my honest answer was that I wasn't able to, in order for me to fully succeed I had to let go of all other things and focus on one main goal. For me right now that’s building my marketing agency. This year I stripped back and started doing less to get more. There’s a quote from Confucius that says “the man who chases two rabbits, catches neither”.
Source: Visualize Value (my fave page on Instagram)
If you’re giving 25% to four different things you can’t expect 100% back from any. When your efforts are divided you are limiting your growth potential. You have to find that one thing, amplify and maximise it. Go big with it.
In life there are seasons and I believe I will be able to achieve everything I want if I focus on the right things during the right seasons. As humans we are full of ideas, we have roughly 6000 thoughts coming to our mind daily (Newsweek), but we need to narrow down the thoughts we actually act on. The things I do alongside my business such as my podcast and newsletter don’t distract me from my goal but add to it. Rather than doing things that pull me into different directions, I am now only doing things that point me in one specific direction.
It was a difficult decision deciding what I should focus on. Here are a few things I considered to help me make my decision:
What are all the things that I want to do and achieve? You can’t narrow your focus without knowing what your options are. Therefore it is important to try a bunch of different things. I've tried a corporate job, an eCommerce business, a review platform, etc. This all showed me different things I'm good at and what I prefer.
What am I most passionate about? In order to succeed at anything, passion is key, passion is what keeps you going when you don’t want to. It is important to decide on the thing that you know your passion will see you through. If you’re doing it for the money that’s not a strong enough motive.
Which has the most upside? You have to weigh up your options and see which has the most potential. Which do you think can have the greatest impact on your life? Life is all about making the right choices and avoiding making bad decisions. Every day we are at a crossroads on what path to follow, you have to choose the path that will lead you to the right destination even if it’s the more difficult one.
I know this newsletter is about narrowing your focus and just doing one thing but before deciding what to focus on, it is important to try different things to know what to focus on. For example, Lebron James when growing up was an all-around talented athlete, he was good at American football and basketball but at some stage, he had to make a conscious decision which one he was going to double down on. He has now become one of the greatest basketball players of all time. This could not have happened without him deciding which sport to give his all to and perfecting his craft.
I know they say the average millionaire has 7 streams of income but that is usually after perfecting one stream which opens many doors. Narrowing your focus will help you feel less overwhelmed as you don't have to do a thousand things at once. Focus on getting one right and then the rest will follow. Narrowing your focus will help you become less stressed and preserve your energy.
Be intentional about what you decide to focus on and where you put your energy.
Have a great week!