How to Focus and Achieve Anything That You Want

I came across the quote below by Henry Miller a few months ago, and I can’t get it out of my head. I have been stewing on it for a few weeks now, truly trying to find how this quote fits my life. Because that’s what I do, I find something interesting and then I obsess over it… Until I find the next thing to obsess over. One thing that this quote made me think of is, if I am going to make my life art then I need to stay focused on the things that matter. But how to focus has always been something that I continually work on. That is why I’ve put together a list of ways to focus and achieve anything that you want.

To make living itself an art, that is the goal.
Henry Miller

I am a firm believer that we all make our own destiny. Things don’t happen to us, they happen for us. So as I have been a bit lost lately trying to create a new career while still working on my old one, I have kept this quote at the top of my mind.

Today, I finally feel like doing something. Correction, today I am finally doing something. Because that is the difference between me and the women that I look up to. They have already done it, and I have just dreamt of it.

Well not anymore my friends! Let’s consider the past few months of silence my unplanned hiatus from blogging and social media. Today I am back and more focused than ever. I am sharing what I did so that maybe you’ll feel motivated to start today too. Because you should start, and you should start right now.

How to Focus

Find Your Why & Be Specific

Just saying that you want to, or are going to, do something is not enough to keep you going when times get tough. This is why it is essential to find the reason that you are willing to wake up earlier, work later or miss out on time with your friends. Your purpose is life-changing, you just have to find it.

Answer these questions:

What makes you come alive?
How will you measure your life?

Get specific. Go into as much detail as possible. We all want to earn more money, but is that alone enough to pry yourself out of bed at 4:30 every morning even if you know that that is what it would take to earn more money? Probably not. By getting specific you have something to hold yourself accountable to. Anytime you feel like giving up, you can remind yourself of the reason why you are doing it in the first place.

Write down the goals you want to achieve

Creating goals for your life is essential to growing. I think that a lot of us don’t realize that from the time we were born we had goals to achieve: learn how to talk, walk, drive a car, pass the next test, graduate, etc. But as adults, goals are not as common. It’s almost like we feel like we made it. We made it to adulthood and now we’re done. Or we aren’t gracious enough with ourselves to think that we can learn something new because we’re “too old”. This is not true by the way!

This is where writing down your goals comes into play. When I say write them down, I mean every day. A few months ago I listened to a podcast by Rachel Hollis where she talked about her morning routine of writing down her 10 goals for 10 years. The purpose is to start your day off with intention. Just like finding your why, writing your goals out every day will remind you of the reasons why you’re working so hard. It will keep them in the forefront of your mind to help push you to achieve them.

Make a plan: Research/Learn/Gain Knowledge

Your goals are the destination, you need to write the roadmap. In order to achieve what you want most in this life, you need to create a plan to get there. Nobody expects you to be an expert in something without doing your research and gaining some life experience in the area. All of your goals can be achieved with some hard work and lots of practice/learning. So how do you do that?

Start with the end goal, and work your way back. In other words, reverse engineer your future.

Example:

Goal 1: Become a NYT best-selling author

Step 4 – Promote your book
Step 3 – Get published: Find a literary agent, self-publish, etc.
Step 2- Write a book: Break this down into writing X amount of words every day.
Step 1 – Research: What kind of book, what genre, how long, what is the plot, etc.

After you have set up the basic roadmap for your future, dig deeper into the details. The more you know which way you’re going, the more likely you are to succeed.

Start

I love a good daydream. I love to imagine what my life would be like if _____, fill in the blank. But my dreams will never come true if I don’t start. And neither will yours. This one is the simplest to explain, and the hardest to do.

The world needs who you were born to be. So just start.

Don’t Quit

After starting, not quitting is the second most important piece of advice I can give you. Let’s all sit and think about where I would be today if I hadn’t, continually, quit blogging over the past 3 years. Perhaps my goals would have been met by now. Do you want to know what the real secret to success is? Consistency. Don’t give up when it gets hard, push through. Let’s do this together. Let’s have eachother’s backs.

What are your tips to achieving your goals? Let me know what I’m missing out on!