Focus is the Ultimate Meta Skill - How to Build Your Ideal Life Through Focus

If You Can Focus, You Can Achieve Anything You Want

Think about the last time you accomplished something big in your life.

You've accomplished something in your life that required focus. Even if it felt small, you've done it before.

Maybe that was a project at work, a personal record in the gym, or passing a class in school you were worried about.

It wasn't because you were smarter than usual.

It wasn't because you became lucky and won the lottery and had a plethora of resources at your disposal.

It wasn't (just) because you didn't know how to do it and figured out how to do it along the way.

It was because you simply put in focused effort over time, which made achieving your goal inevitable.

And you didn't get distracted along the way.

Building your ideal life is possible if you're able to maintain focused effort over time on both the small things and big picture goals in your life.

Focus is the Most Fundamental Skill

Focus is at the core of all other skills.

If you can't focus, you can't learn any other skill.

If you can't hold your attention on something, you'll never be able to improve it. You'll continue to fail because distractions control your time and attention.

You'll be swayed by the infinite distractions the world is throwing at you.

Want to get better at sales? Focus.

Want to improve your writing? Focus.

Want to be more present? Focus.

Everything comes back to focus.

If your mind is stuck ruminating on the best or dreaming about the future you can't make progress in the present, which is the only time you have.

If you can focus, you can literally achieve anything you want in life.

Even more, you can achieve everything you want and still enjoy the journey at the same time.

When your mind is present and focused on the task at hand, life feels good.

When you're completely engrossed at the task at hand so much so that you lost track of time, life feels like ecstasy.

You've had momentum before and you know how great it feels.

When you're making progress towards your goals and you're not overwhelmed by anxiety or stress, life feels fun.

When you're talking with an old friend you completely lose track of time and feel light.

On the flip side if you're constantly stressed you can't think clearly.

You can't enjoy life when you are anxious and always worried about the future.

When you aren't focused on the present moment your life is miserable at worse and stagnant at best.

You're caught in a cycle of racing thoughts, worrying about tomorrow, next week, next year.

You're stressed about how you're going to afford to buy a house in your lifetime.

You agonize over the girl or boy you lost.

This is such a dangerous place to be.

But if you can just focus, you can pull yourself out of the rut.

When you focus, you can finally start taking action and build the dreams in your head.

Everything you want in life starts to materialize when you focus on the right things that lead you to the life you want to live.

Focus in Our Current World is Fuc*ing Hard

I get it.

Being able to focus - to completely lock in at one task at a time without getting distracted - is incredibly challenging in our current society.

Actually, it really seems nearly impossible at times.

And it's not your fault.

Everything in our modern world - our smart phones we use every day, the social media apps we scroll, and even the streets we walk are designed to capture our attention and divert it elsewhere.

As humans, whether we realize it or not, our environment influences us in profound and powerful ways.

Being distracted and not being able to focus is not entirely your fault.

There's not something wrong with you.

You just need to acknowledge that an environment, culture, and world designed endless addict, distract, and numb you is inhibiting you to focus on anything and build the life you want.

We're chronically anxious, tired, and stressed. This is a result of living in this environment and being overwhelmed in a way that humans have not evolved to deal with.

But the wonderful thing is we can take control and change our environment.

But taking control of your life by reclaiming your time, energy, and attention is possible. It's not easy, but focus is a skill like any other that can be developed and strengthened over time.

We Are Stimulated by Default

We are stimulated by default

We live in an attention economy, where attention is the new oil.

Companies design their products and services to steal as much of your attention and energy as possible.

Everywhere you go someone is trying to sell you something. You just can't escape advertisements in any developed country.

The tv zaps your attention with sticky ads from companies to buy more stuff.

Fear mongering on the news sucks you in so they can maximize their profit by stealing your attention and energy.

Engineers of social media platforms get paid to design the ultimate addiction machine.

If you don't control your environment, it will control you.

We Expect to Constantly be Stimulated

I used to live at this apartment. I would go to the pool to do focused work and relax.

Every time I go to the pool to work, the tvs were on. Not just 1, but 2 Tvs on 2 different channels, volume on full blast.

No one is there or has been there for hours.

Why are the tvs always on by default? No one was watching them. Every day they were turned on in the morning by staff.

Why do we need to be stimulated by the tvs at the pool - a place where we should be relaxing and destressing?

This is insane to me. I complained to staff but no one else seemed to care.

To make matters worse, they installed speakers all around the pool to play music all the time.

Even at the fuc*king pool, we can't relax.