When you aspire to reach your goals, you must learn how to keep your focus. Because when distractions or interferences come, and they will, you’ll be able to manage them without skipping a beat. Read along as we share tactics that we use to maintain focus. We’ve also gathered some tips from other sources because not everyone thinks alike.
Put Your Purpose in Mind
To keep your focus, keep your purpose in mind. If you aren’t constantly made aware of your visions and goals, then you’re likely to lose focus on the tasks that help bring those dreams to fruition. Ask yourself on a daily basis, “Where am I going? Where is this action taking me?”
We know there are thousands of ways to get distracted, but with your purpose in mind, you’ll put more effort into shutting those distractions out. One of the easiest ways to get distracted is by being wrapped up in other people’s drama. If someone in your life is constantly causing drama or getting tangled in it, it might be time to reevaluate that relationship. Otherwise, you may lose track of where you want to be in your life, worrying about where they are in theirs.
We always try to consider whether our words and actions will get us where we want to be with our family, marriage, finances, and so on. If you need to remind yourself of your purpose or vision, write it down! Do whatever it takes to remember that vision on a day-to-day basis.
Keep Your Focus by Protecting Your Brain
No, we don’t mean physically protecting your brain—although that’s very important too. What we mean is protecting your brain from outside influences. Specifically, protect your brain from negative thoughts, feelings, and outside sources. Our belief is that words and thoughts have incredible power, so we do our best to avoid thinking or speaking negatively at all costs. We haven’t always been that way, but one day we realized that negative thoughts and words weren’t doing anything to help us move forward.
We had to wrap our brains in cocoons of positivity and make sure none of those negative influences would penetrate the cocoons. After all, what goes in your ears has a high chance of dictating where it is you end up. So do your best to filter those inputs and only allow positive thoughts, words, actions, and energy into your life.
And remember, if you get sidetracked by something or someone, you are no longer fulfilling your purpose or working towards your goal. You’ve stepped off of that path and it’s in your best interest to get back on it.
Science-Backed Tactics to Help You Keep Your Focus
Since our tips are solely based on our experiences and our journey, we figured it would be beneficial to share other tips, too. These tips are fact-based and will hopefully give you some actionable steps to work with to maintain and even increase your focus.
- Stop multitasking. Many sources agree that multitasking is not helpful and, in some cases, will make people more easily distracted.
- Set your priorities straight. This article shares a great anecdote for how to narrow down what priorities are most important to you.
- Exercise regularly. Some people are very high energy and need to expel that energy before they’re able to focus on one thing at a time. This point is for everyone but will especially help those folks.
- Work in a quiet environment. Many studies show that silence or near-silence is the best for improved focus and concentration.
- Take breaks. It’s common to hit a roadblock when you’ve been working on one task for too long. Don’t feel bad for taking a quick 5–10-minute break, then jumping back into your focused task.
For more focus-focused tips, check out this Insider™ article.
Keep Your Focus Relevant
As your goals and dreams change, and they will, recognize that it’s time to shift your focus to activities that pertain to your new visions. Goals are achieved and surpassed, and dreams can grow larger or change over time, depending on how your view of what’s important changes. So, whether you’ve got a new goal or a bigger dream, keep your focus on the actions that matter.
Once you’ve arrived with a clear vision and tasks to focus on, don’t just think about them, start doing them!
