Everything Counts: 52 Remarkable Ways to Inspire Excellence and Drive Results

Chapter 4. Focus Counts

"Focus serves as an absolute precondition for every success you will experience."

The guiding principle that should drive your every decision is the law of focus. Everything you think, say, and do is either taking you closer to or further away from it; therefore, it must be your key decision-making criteria.

Focus can be defined as your ability to keep your thoughts and actions trained on achieving a goal; a picture in your mind's eye of something you want to be, have, or do. Your focus captivates your attention and provokes an irresistible sense of optimism and faith for the future. It's the equivalent of Moby Dick in a goldfish bowl—just too powerful to ignore!

There are only 24 hours in a day; that's a given. It's how you focus these hours and minutes that really counts. Between the ringing phone, urgent e-mails, instant messages, drop-in visitors, tighter deadlines, endless opportunities, and ever greater expectations, concentrating on what's most important—the highest and best use of your time—has become more of a challenge than ever before.

With all the distractions that abound on a daily basis, it's rather easy to routinely lose focus and be pulled off course. Every new opportunity is a contestant for time and focus that, once lost, creates collateral damage to existing results and momentum.

Time is the most precious of life's commodities. The material possessions that you desire eventually become faded memories without sustained focus. You must jealously ...