How To Focus On What Matters And Ignore The Rest
“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”
It's time to focus on what matters. The modern world will throw everything imaginable at you with time-consuming temptations. No matter who you are, you're given twenty-four-hours at the strike of twelve.
Elon Musk and your Uncle Terry who works at Taco Bell (because it has sweet perks) both get twenty-four-hours in a day.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Time is the most important resource you have. Bernard Berenson, famed American art historian said, "I wish I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours."
Whatever you focus your time on is a decision of how you want to spend your energy.
Energy is the currency of a happy, healthy, purpose-driven life. We don't all have to set out with the intentions of changing the world on a scale like Elon Musk. The point is: Don't exchange what you want most for what you kind of want at the moment.
What distractions have been getting the best of you lately?
Distractions aren't always written in dazzling neon lights THIS IS A WASTE OF YOUR TIME . But, there is one way of slicing through the fat that I've found useful.
Think of it like this: if it entertains you now but will hurt or bore you someday, it's a distraction.
We all have reasons why we seek out distractions. At the very core, it's because everybody is afraid of something, loves something, or has lost something. The pain we experience in any or all these areas is heart-wrenching. It's the roots of human experience that run through all of us. None of us can escape pain or trauma. Not even the world’s riches will shield you from the rawness of nature.
A life well-lived is only relished at the edges. Living at the edges does not need to be Jackass extremes. It's a willingness to experience the emotions that frighten you, excite you, and form the person that stares back in the mirror.
All without judgement or the black hole of self-criticism. These emotions and feelings left unchallenged and unexplored have more of an impact on your future than your entire twenty-plus years of formal education.
Aversion to failure is not the point of learning. "The purpose of learning is growth," said American philosopher Mortimer Adler, "and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live."
Everything gets a bit uncomfortable when it's time to change. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try.
Sure, it could go wrong, but what if it went right?
How different would your life be right now?
I don't know about you, but that's worth a gamble to me.
Is it time to refocus your energy?
Shake off the bullshit that's not serving you, focus your energy on what matters, and move forward with the life you want, one step at a time.
When you're a true Renaissance artist, it's hard to choose which project to focus on -- the upside is one usually informs and inspire the others.
Why do we put off decisions that could give us a better future? I've been at that crossroads many times in my life. Whether it was a decision to start my own business, launch a podcast or even ask my partner to marry me. I knew all three of these decisions would give me a better life. But in the back of my head, all I could think about is what if I ended up being a colossal failure?