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Your Focus

How do you make choices? Some of you might be like I am. I like to look at successful people, people who have <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://smallbizclub.com/startup/personal-readiness/unforeseen-circumstances/" target="_blank">overcome obstacles </a>and analyze what they have done.  I like to find out how they think and what actions they take, what they do.  For many people, choices seem so easy, and for others, choices seem so difficult. How are some people able to make the right choices while other people in the same situations don’t make the right choices?A lot of it has to do with what priorities you have and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://smallbizclub.com/startup/personal-readiness/what-do-i-want/" target="_blank">what’s important to you</a>, or your reason for doing something. If you have a specific goal, a specific deadline, I believe you will have a better chance of accomplishing your goal.  Let’s assume I have a plane to catch in two hours, and it takes me an hour to get to the airport under good circumstances.  I’ve just left my house and I see a sign that says “Golf Sale.”  If I know I have only got an extra 20 or 30 minutes to get to the airport and I don’t know what the road conditions are going to be or how long the lines at the airport are going to be, I’m not going to stop.  I’m not going to stop and look no matter how attractive that is to me, no matter how much that pulls me. Why? Because I have a specific purpose, I have a specific goal and I have a timeline.Many people however go through life and they don’t do that and what happens is that they have some vague goal with no specific timeline. That’s like saying, “Oh I’m going to go to the airport. I’ll catch the next available plane. It doesn’t make any difference what time it is.” If that’s my attitude, then every little thing that comes to my left and my right, in front of me and behind me, everything that I hear is going to take me off track.You’ve got to be focused and that focus starts with having a very specific goal, having a very specific timeline.  If you do that and you keep that in front of you on a daily basis you are going to find that your choices become easy. Your choices become easy because you have got a defined purpose, a defined goal, and a defined timeline.

Published: December 18, 2012

Nick Serba

Nick Serba has enjoyed a successful career spanning 30 years in Sales, Sales Training, Sales Leadership Training, and Sales Management. Some of his experiences include working as a General Manager with New York Life, operating numerous entrepreneurial businesses, and, for the last 20 years, serving as a Regional Vice President for LegalShield.