the success sculpting coach: how to stay...

The Success Sculpting Coach: How To Stay Focused

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How to Stay

Focused

How to Focus and Don’t Become a

Hostage to Distractions. Finally

Learn How To Stay Focused and

How To Focus Better.

By The Success Sculpting Coach © Copyright

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains

material protected under International and Federal

Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized

reprint or use of this material is prohibited except

as permitted by the author.


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Table of Contents

Keep your eye on the ball ................................... 4

Harnessing the power of your focus begins

with focusing on what you can control. ........... 5

Focus prevents you from being taken hostage

mentally by distractions. ..................................... 8

Get rid of distractions. ......................................... 9

Focus on something you fight for, not just pray

for. ........................................................................ 10

Focus on opportunities, but be aware of

obstacles. .............................................................. 11

Goals keep your focus sober instead of drunk

on distractions. ................................................... 12

Goal Setting ......................................................... 14

Know how stress affects you. ........................... 17

Performance indicators exist in everyone’s life.

............................................................................... 19

Summary ............................................................. 23


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Welcome to this edition of Success Sculpting

Coach featuring “How to Stay Focused: Don’t

Become a Hostage to Distractions,” and a

discussion of ways to truly harness the power of

your focus.

Listen to the FREE Audio for this eBook

http://successsculpting.com/focusedaudio

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

You've probably heard this said hundreds of times,

but do you really know what “the ball” is and how

it applies to you? If not, then it becomes a problem,

so consider the following points and how they

affect you.



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Harnessing the power of your focus begins with focusing on what you can control.

Sadly, many people allow too many

“uncontrollable” situations to affect them. They

don’t put their focus or energy into the things they

can control and allow them to have a positive

impact in productive ways.

How often do you focus on something you simply

can’t control?

For example, can you control your past? No. Can

you control the future? No. But you can influence

the future by what you do today.

Right here, right now is the best moment to place

your focus as it ticks by, but be sure to focus on

things you can control.


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If you find yourself drifting, devise a system to

catch yourself (for example, a time and goals chart),

because that is time you will never get back.

If certain things impact you in a negative way and

you feel unable to control them, you don’t have to

become a slave to them.

People become slaves to those situations and other

people that they feel they are unable to control or

change. But the good news is that the solution is

easy.

How do you change something or someone that

impacts you in a negative way that you feel you

can’t control or change?

You change it by re-filtering how you react to that

negative situation or person. Can you control

people?


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No. An exception is the modern prison system,

because it’s designed to manipulate behavior.

Essentially, however, you can’t control people; you

can only influence them.

Refocus your response to what you can control

versus what you can’t control.

Why allow yourself to be bothered or derailed by

something or someone you can’t control? Why go

out of your way to try to influence someone,

especially someone who has little or no influence

on your destiny other than the power you give

them?

Most people who influence you only do so because

you give them permission. When you revoke that

influence and remove their power, they can say all

day, “Do this!” and it doesn’t matter anymore.

Ask yourself, “Who have I given permission to

influence me?” Did you give it to the right person?


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How many times have you given power to the

wrong person? This is not a total error. The real

error comes when you give it to the wrong person

and don’t revoke it.



Focus prevents you from being taken hostage mentally by distractions.

Focus is like an immune system that protects and

defends you from the toxicity of distractions.

The body’s immune system automatically kicks in

and defends you against germs (like colds and

diseases), but it doesn’t always warn you, “We’re

defending this, we’re defending that.”

Your focus acts in the same way by making you

aware that you need to reduce distractions, just like

reducing germs in the environment. The key is to



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boost your immune system mentally as well as

physically.

Get rid of distractions.

It’s impossible to remove all distractions, but you

can control some of them. Think of it as a TV

program you don’t like.

You can control whether or not you watch it by

turning off the TV or changing the channel. The

strategy is to build up an immunity called Focus, so

that you don’t become a hostage to the distraction.

The essential question is, “Do I focus on things that

serve me or on things that sabotage me?”





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Focus on something you fight for, not just pray for.

Building focus isn’t something you only pray about

(“Lord, give me focus!”); it’s something you must

fight for.

But how do you build focus and what strengthens

it? Every moment of distraction and temptation

you can harness builds and strengthens your

focus.

It develops and strengthens as you become laser-

focused on the purpose that drives you forward to

get something done. And sometimes that means

you fight for whatever it takes to succeed.





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Focus on opportunities, but be aware of obstacles.

Focus helps you to recognize opportunities and

avoid being overrun by obstacles. Remember, “Do I

focus on things that serve me or on things that

sabotage me?”

Focusing on opportunities moves you forward,

while focusing on obstacles can bury you in things

like needless details and time-wasting tasks that

only delay your progress.

What are you focused on at any given moment?

Are you obsessed and overcome with the

abundance of opportunities or the abundance of

obstacles?

In most situations there is an overabundance of

both!


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Think of obstacles like hurdles in track and field

events. For the opportunity to win the race, runners

must clear all hurdles as quickly as possible.

They can’t ask the judges, “Can you get those

things out of the way?” The obstacles are part of

the path runners must clear, and they practice

getting over hurdles in order to win.

In much the same way, you must understand that

obstacles do exist, that you must clear them by

going over them, and by training yourself to clear

them faster each time you encounter them.

Goals keep your focus sober instead of drunk on distractions.

Have you ever seen someone who is drunk try to

walk a straight line? Sometimes they can barely

find the line, not to mention try to walk it.


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They’re all over the place. That’s similar to what

happens when people are drunk on distractions.

That’s all they talk about.

Their conversation is filled with complaints about

the things that distract them from accomplishing

what they say they want to accomplish.

Avoid such conversations at all costs; they only

keep you down and hold you back.

Stay sober in order to keep things straight, and

avoid traps where a conversation is focused on

distracting themes.

“It’s the kids, the boss, the job, the Internet, the

past, the present, the future, what I could have

done, what I should have done; if I could just

rewind the hands of time.”

What do you have after all that? Not much that's

actually worth anything. Keep your focus sober!


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Goal Setting

Goal setting is as old as man, but the majority of

people fail to approach it the right way. They fall

into a trap where existing goals – there to serve

them – actually morph into something that literally

sabotages them.

Basically, goals give your focus a target, and the

right goals keep you sober so that you don’t get

drunk on distractions. Let’s look at three types of

goals.

1. Outcome Goals: Focusing on the results

you want from the event, the activity, the

person, the product, or whatever you

ultimately like to experience (the “effects”).

2. Performance Goals: Focusing on bettering

your best (making your best even better).


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3. Process Goals: Focusing on doing the right

things the right way and in the right place

(focusing on execution of the process itself,

the “cause”).



In goal setting, the focus is mostly on the outcome

and not on the performance and the process that

actually produces the outcome.

For example, a lot of people who want to make

money are obsessed with making the money. “I’ve

got to make this money.” They tend to lose mastery

of the processes and how to boost the performance

to actually help them make the money.

The obsession with the outcome goal is

simultaneously the potential destroyer of the

outcome goal, in that it distracts from the

performance and process goals necessity to



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produce the outcome. Consider car manufacturers.

They want cars, but what will produce the cars?

What if they never considered the manufacturing

processes or the performance metrics to ensure that

the right automobiles came out on the assembly

line?

When setting goals you must know your outcome,

your target, and you must focus on getting better.

I’ve seen many good-hearted people with good

intentions who wanted to build Internet businesses

and improve their lives.

But they have been taught, trained, and overly

conditioned to be obsessed with, “Oh, what’s the

goal?” that they don’t understand how to improve

the process in order to reach their goal.

What you are good at right now has brought you to

your present point, but that will not necessarily


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take you to the next point. Obviously, you need to

learn and understand new, better or different

processes, as well as beef up the quality, quantity

and focus of your performance.

But if there’s no change in process, how can there

be a different outcome?



Know how stress affects you.

One of the errors in goal setting is that it’s always

about the endpoint, the outcome. Very rarely is it

about mastering the process and becoming

proficient in the performance that automatically

produces the outcome.

People familiar with the psychology of training – of

how motor skills, neurology and the body’s

functions are intertwined – know the effects of



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stress on the entire body. Despite how good a

person may be at an activity, when stress enters the

body, it minimizes performance.

It’s why a person taking a test may know all the

answers but forgets how to spell his name, not to

mention remember the otherwise easy answers

when he is not under stress.

This happens because a negative trigger is set off

within the nervous system, within the brain, within

the muscular system (usually tightness) when the

body senses stress.

It also happens to boxers, ball players, and other

athletes who miss their winning marks when the

focus is on the outcome and stress negatively

affects their performance.

The difference from an emotional standpoint is

disassociation. When you perform a given activity

and start to feel stressed, suddenly you get nervous


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and tend to forget things, like how to play a game

you've always played. But when you focus on the

process, you become disassociated emotionally

from the outcome.



Performance indicators exist in everyone’s life.

“Opp-hoppers” are people who hop from one

opportunity to another, to another and another,

because the current opportunity isn’t happening

fast enough.

For example, they just must make money, but it’s

not happening fast enough, so they go on to the

next opportunity.

And suddenly, they’re like a frog hopping from

one lily pad to the next, because they haven’t



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mastered the process of anything. They are unable

to excel in the performance that will produce their

desired outcome.

Specific performance metric processes produce

desired results. If you perform the process well, the

outcome takes care of itself.

Think of the outcome (the effects) as a lagging

indicator. Consider a football, basketball or hockey

game, or any kind of athletics, and look at the

scoreboard.

That’s a lagging indicator. It tells you how the

teams are doing on the field, the court, or wherever

the game is played. Your bank account and weight

are also lagging indicators.

If you’re overweight, the scales indicate how you

perform at buffets and at the gym.


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It’s possible to influence lagging indicators. The

question is, “What’s the leading indicator that

influences the lagging indicator that influences the

scoreboard?”

Using the athletics analogy, the leading indicators

are how individuals play on the field.

Everyone must establish their numbers; for

example, in basketball, how many shots they took

and how many shots they made, how many free

throws, turnovers, blocks and assists.

In football, how many yards were gained, how

many yards lost, passes thrown and pass

completions?

Essentially, what are the stats? An individual’s

scoreboard, lagging indicators, outcomes, effects,

and all other items are the “cause.”


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How do individual players improve their

individual numbers?

Their performance and processes impact and

influence their numbers, which is why they’re in

the gym. They’re constantly training.

They look at the playbooks, at films, and all kinds

of indicators in order to improve their individual

processes and performance, which collectively

impacts how the team performs, which impacts the

score on the scoreboard.

Focusing on the process ensures that you’re doing

the right thing the right way to get the right

outcome: “If I do the right thing the right way, the

outcome will take care of itself.”

No receiver catches 100% of passes thrown to him

by his quarterback, basketball players don’t make

100% of their shots, and baseball players don’t hit

100% of balls thrown to them at home plate.


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Summary

Life isn’t about being perfect. It’s about staying

focused and constantly improving. It’s about

mastering processes and enhancing performance so

that you reach your goals sooner and better than

expected.




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