How To Become More Focused And Motivated

If you are one of those people who find it hard to focus, to feel motivated or to manage your time effectively, you are probably trying to do a lot, feeling overwhelmed by it all, and not achieving much in the process. Things are probably not going too well in your life and you are trying to compensate for that by initiating remedial actions. But, because you are not allowing your efforts the time and space to give you some success, they are not working as expected, hence you find it hard to motivate yourself and be focused. Couple with that is your possible fear of failure which adds its own anxieties, gradually becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, too.

Before you begin some self-training to remedy your situation, you need to understand why you are in this state. How you act routinely does not come in isolation from how you think. Your THOUGHTS tell you how to act, and those thoughts come from your SELF-ESTEEM which is formed by your SELF-BELIEF. Unless you tackle those three aspects first, no matter what practical ways you adopt to help you, they won’t work, because the root cause of your problem would not be addressed.

It is likely that your self-belief is the culprit. You have doubts about how good you are, what you want to achieve, and whether you will be successful at it, especially if you have not succeeded at certain things. You are perhaps a perfectionist who believes that things have to be done in a certain way. But by attempting to do them in only one way, they do not get done at all, because at the back of everything you attempt is FEAR: you fear the consequences of things not going right, and others being dismissive or critical of your efforts. You also do not get real pleasure or satisfaction from what you do, for those reasons, which encourages you to put off every decision until you think the time is right. But somehow, the time is never right, because not having any positive reinforcement, your self-esteem is low, which affects your thoughts, which tend to be negative and fearful, keeping you in that depressing downward spiral of unworthiness.

Someone once said: "What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it."

This is a great quote to start each and every day. Each year has 365 days in it and you can use them wisely, or you can waste them, the choice is yours according to your level of FEAR or LOVE. Fear is about paralysis and doing nothing, while love is about following our truth, purpose and passions. The amazing thing about each year is that every one of us has one thing in common: we all have 365 days. The difference between us is how we each use our days.

Successful people understand the quote and live each day in LOVE and truth, knowing they will never have that day again. They do what needs to be done, whether they like it or not. They have focus, and know what it is they want to accomplish. Most importantly, they move out of their comfort zones and take action to do it. So how can you make the best use of every one of your days, in your unique way? How can you start focusing and making better use of your time? Well, before you start each day, say the quote out loud, and really give it some thought. What you do will become more meaningful as you slowly realise that you have to do something in exchange for that day!

Next, you need to establish your PRIORITIES for each day. Treat some tasks as more important than others to give you focus. Stop trying to focus on everything, and settle for something that you can give the time to complete, in order to start getting results. Aim for just TWO priorities each day, no more, to begin with.

At the beginning of each week, make a list of 10 actions (two for each working day) and those are what you focus on for that week. It means you won't have too much anxiety doing them. Start with the simplest and easiest actions first, or the ones that give you the most pleasure. As you complete them (and you don't have to finish all of them that week, but aim to finish more than half), you will begin to get a feeling of competence, of achieving what you set out to do, and the fear will gradually ebb away, being replaced by a desire to do more. You are likely to find that having a whole week to do the list will gradually build your confidence and self-esteem, as you see real results unfold. On the weekend do something different and leisurely that you really enjoy, as a payoff to yourself for achieving your 10 goals or more!

In the meantime, stop trying to be perfect and accept both your strengths and weaknesses; start appreciating yourself as a valued person; stop focusing on yesterdays' failures - it is only a failure if you stop trying, and if you learned nothing from it. Otherwise it is a setback you can remedy. Don’t live in anxiety over today's problems - if you can fix the problem do so, if not move on. Don’t waste your day worrying about anything you have no control over, like what others might think, or tomorrow's uncertainty. Remember it is today that you are living, not tomorrow, and every action today lays the foundation for tomorrow.

If you do the things that need to be done today, tomorrow will take care of itself. Finally, look to the things you are not focusing on, or enjoying, just now. If they are part of your job, etc., it means that you are in the wrong job because you are not being motivated to do your best. You need something else to stimulate your attention; something that matches your desires, values and aspirations.

If you follow these simple tactics, while addressing your own fear of achievement, you will find that you will gradually start taking things in your stride and being much more productive in the process.

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