The Success Sculpting Coach: How To Stay...
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The Success Sculpting Coach: How To Stay Focused
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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
The Success Sculpting Coach: How To Stay Focused
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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
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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.
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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”).
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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?
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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.
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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.
Listen to the FREE Audio for this eBook
http://successsculpting.com/focusedaudio