Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The Power of Focus

What do you do if your car goes into a spin?
Back when my younger sister was doing her police training, she took part in a defensive driving course. She told me that if your car is in a spin, you focus on where you want to end up and your hands will follow. I already knew this, I told her...
A few years before I was coming down a steep mountain road in the rain and I lost control of the car. I came around a curb too fast on this unfamiliar road and suddenly the car was spinning precariously close to the edge of the cliff.
As if fate had intervened, a few weeks before this event someone had told me what to do in such a situation - and today I am doing the same thing for you.
This person had told me - you put your foot on the brakes very slowly and you rest your eyes on a clear space. At the same time I was remembering this, I was already applying the brakes slowly. My body simply followed the memory as it rolled out in my head, as my sister repeated a few years later.
I had 3 friends in the car with me that day. One of these friends was very calmly giving me the same advice that I was already remembering. And the other two sat frozen, gripping their seat, not knowing that this spin could be brought back under control quite easily.
It was a surreal moment but one that provided me with an opportunity to realise something that has always served me. I knew as I applied the brakes slowly that there was no danger. I knew how to take control back over the car - not because I'd done it before, but because someone had guided me. Self-preservation kicked in and I followed that guidance.
And every time my life has seemed to hit an emotional tailspin, or a mental blockage, if not a precarious situation like bankruptcy, I've known what to do... apply the brakes slowly and focus on a clear space to come to a standstill! That is, don't stare at the cliff edge and freak out!
So, why, when it comes to money and business do most of us do the exact opposite of what we should?! We focus hard on what we don't want and we create it.
To me, running a business is no different to that unfamiliar, mountain road. You are going to make mistakes, and you are going to have to regain control when you do. If you don't, you will give up on yourself long before you've discovered the power of focus.
Knowing how to overcome danger is one of life's true gifts. It is simply about removing your focus from what you don't want and the resulting panic, and focusing on the positive outcome you truly desire. This is what all those Law of Attraction teachings are about.
What I want to highlight today is that these teachings are not some outer-space principles that don't work for you. If you are in enough danger and there is enough self-preservation in play, they will work. You WILL focus hard on the outcome you want.
It plays out in our minds - just as that switch to survival happened that day in the car. I simply focused on what I wanted. And it happened.
The problem is that only half of you wants to succeed, the other half is busy thinking about how much love you get from others when you are failing.
It is a part of our evolution, an unfortunate part, that we have been raised to see that gaining love from those around us is often about staying small like them. It's about not wanting, not having and being small...
But let's get real! You will step away from the smallness if you have enough motivation. And more often than not, being a business owner, having a calling to help others, having to fight for abundance are all tools the universe and the soul will use to make sure that you step up to the plate.
The more lack you experience, the more you will eventually kick it up a notch and tell yourself 'that's enough of the smallness, let's just get on with it.' And as you turn towards success, that focus brings the actions and outcomes that you need.
Are you there yet?! Or do you hear yourself saying that you've already spent too much money, or that you've never done the right thing? From that space, you never will. If you feel that you can't have the success you desire, you wont. It really is that simple. We are simplistic in nature. And that's why saying the opposite of failure also works.
True success comes from the power of focus. And right now, as we near the end of 2012 we are being asked to get back to our original goals - to refocus on them with a laser light intensity and to ENSURE that we survive through this focus.
But here's a question - do you even know what your goals are, or are you just doing things in an effort to feel fulfilled or important or loved? There is always a danger, if we are pushing too hard, to fall into a tangled space of unfocussed actions!
Right now, it is to time to step back from your business and ask yourself what you really want. Are you creating that? Or are you just doing things that kind of, maybe, sort of feel OK? There is a big, big difference between a laser light focus on a goal that is important to us, and 'just' being a business owner.
So, are you willing to take another step forward on a loose and tangled pathway that is making you feel ill at ease with yourself? Or is it time to retreat, rest and rethink? I can assure you that resting and rethinking are far from the end of the dreams within you. They are in fact the very beginning of their fulfillment.

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