Why Your Inability to Focus is Killing Your Dreams

Why Your Inability to Focus is Killing Your Dreams

[00:00:00] If you're struggling to achieve your goals, the problem isn't your strategy. It's your focus. Your inability to focus is costing you everything you want. It's like holding the perfect key with no idea which door it actually opens. Precision is useless without direction. People are obsessed with tools, habits, and systems, and, and I can see why.

'cause I like them too. But they won't move you forward if you don't know exactly what you're aiming for. You can have that perfect morning routine and do all the deep work sprint you want, but without focus. It's like going on a drive with Google Maps with no destination of mind. Sure, you got a map. You might be moving, but you're not going anywhere that matters until you actually lock it in.

Destination direction must come before motion. In this episode of The Driven to Thrive broadcast, we'll dive into four issues disrupting your focus. How to set a focus and a couple tools to help you stay focused along the way, including billionaire Richard Branson's three role decision filter. By the end of the [00:01:00] podcast, you're gonna be well equipped, well equipped to start achieving your goals and moving in a positive direction.

So let's start with number one. Right off the bat, the number one issue killing your focus is actually that you don't actually know what you want. I know. Wait, don't, don't click off the show yet. Hear me out. The cold hard truth is that most people's attention is split in so many directions that they actually have no idea what they really, really, and I mean, really want the Spice Girls told us back in the nineties.

So tell me what you want, what you really, really, really want. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want. But the problem is most of us can't answer. I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. Because just like Queen told us back in the eighties, we want it all. I want it all. And that's the issue.

Now, this has derail me way more times than I'd like to admit, right? It it goes something like this because we [00:02:00] all wanna look good. We all wanna make a lot of money. We all want to be successful at work. We wanna be successful as fathers or husbands. We wanna live in large homes, drive nice cars, be respected, make a difference, have fun toys, like boats and stuff to play with.

Are you picking up what I'm putting down here? The problem is our attention is far too split. We don't actually know what we want.

Now, you probably heard this story before, but it stayed with me since the very first time I've heard it and it's, it's really helped me in my life. So I'll share it just in case you haven't. A young man asked Socrates the secret to success, and Socrates told the young man to meet him near the river the next morning.

The next morning they met and Socrates asked the young man to walk with him toward the river when they got up to their neck. Socrates grabbed the young man by surprise and ducked him into the water. Now, the boys struggled and fought like hell to get out, but [00:03:00] Socrates was still pretty strong and he kept him there until the boys started turning blue.

Socrates pulled his head outta the water, and the first thing the young did, man did was gasp and take a deep breath of air, and Socrates asked him, what did you want the most when you were in there? The boys replied, air, Socrates said. That is the secret to success. When you want success as bad as you wanted the air, then you'll get it.

Now gen, the story isn't just the secret to success, it's the secret of focus. You can't have everything all at once, no matter how bad you want it. And the fact that we all want it doesn't actually matter. You're not gonna get it all at once. So what do you want? Like air. The rumor is that billionaire, Richard Branson sets three goals a year.

That's it. Nothing else gets his focus. Well, as Tony Robbins tells us where focus goes, energy flows, and where energy [00:04:00] flows, whatever you're focusing on grows. Now, I still hate catchy slogans and Tony Robbins is the king of them, but he's not wrong. If you want to succeed at your goals. You have to know precisely what you want and gaining clarity on this one thing will actually 10 x your success rate.

Gaining that clarity on what you truly desire is a huge game changer, but you still have to navigate the shiny bobble e epidemic that we live in, and we'll dive into that after we get some help from our sponsors. Jensen Real talk for a second. You can't conquer your day if you're dragging ass from a bad night's sleep.

If you're trying to stay focused, build legacy, and crush your goals. Sleep isn't a luxury, it's a weapon. That's why we're a MyPillow household around here. From mattress toppers to towels, I use MyPillow products every single day. Lemme tell you, they deliver clarity, energy, focus. That all starts [00:05:00] with rest.

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thrive@mypillow.com. Every time you purchase something from mypillow.com, not only are you supporting a great American company, you're help keeping your favorite podcast, me on the air. And so thank you for supporting American companies and thank you for supporting our work here at Driven to Thrive.

Don't just dream big guys. Sleep well so you can wake up, ready to win. The Driven to Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving, purpose-filled intentional lives. Welcome to The Driven to Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men.

I'm your [00:06:00] host, Brent Dallen, and we help Maine go from living to thriving purpose-filled intentional lives. Now we've already covered clarity on what you really want with that horrible nineties reference from the Spice Girls, tell me what want, want. We live in the middle of the shiny bobble ed epidemic in such a fashion that we have never had this before shiny.

So number two is the look shiny epidemic. There has never been a time in our history where we've had more competing for our attentions and more gadgets to make sure something gets our attentions. It's crazy because we have so much competing for that attention that we actually have to have gadgets to make sure we don't miss things, to remind us that our attention needs to go somewhere else.

It's kind of ridiculous. You have a dozen or more things fighting for your attention at all times. People appointments, emails, social media, on-demand, tv, music, advertising, popups. Your [00:07:00] phone is going off nonstop. But let's not forget about all those wonderful location notifications. Like I got a smart watch guys.

It was a gift from a friend. It's the only reason I actually have a smartwatch anymore, but my ri wi wrist is vibrating all the time. My phone. Thank goodness doesn't vibrate all the time because I turn off my notifications, but I can't even go anywhere without hearing other people's notifications going off on their cell phones constantly.

I'm a busy person, but Wow. A lot of people are stupidly busy. 'cause man, you can't, you can't walk through the grocery store without hearing multiple phones going off all the time. Highly successful people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Dan Martel, Cody Sanchez, just Bezos, and so many more names that you may be more familiar with, have gatekeepers to protect their focus.

They employ people to act as gatekeepers for their time. They don't have notifications popping off. They have people or a set time to check [00:08:00] email. They filter out distractions. In fact, I can tell you de Martel, after reading his book. Has a personal assistant. He doesn't see his email unless she sends it to him.

He doesn't see the rest of his email, he doesn't see his credit card bills. He doesn't see any of that daily stuff. Now I get it, maybe you're not Dan Martel and you haven't built an income that will support that, but you don't have to have a personal assistant to start to filter out distractions like big names and big CEOs do.

When I'm working, I do my best to minimize distractions. I go in my studio. I have zero notifications turned on my phone settings ever. I hide windows on my computer that I don't need. I have noise canceling. He headphones. You guys might have seen if you see my older stuff like these, and I turn on alpha by neuro beats because I get easily distracted.

If you don't know what that is, I, I'll be glad to share a link for that guys. But basically their music. At a certain [00:09:00] frequency that actually helps your mind stay focused and get less distracted. I have really great hearing and so if I don't have my headphones on, I hear everything going on in our house and I get distracted pretty easily, especially with two kids home homeschooling and five of us in my house.

So I'm doing what I can because I know that that distraction is a huge issue for me. I'm guessing I'm not the only one. So maybe like me, you can't quite pull off that personal assistant yet to act as a gatekeeper. But you can optimize your schedule, your spacing, your devices to minimize distractions, including your email, which takes way more time than it should for most people.

Once you minimize those distractions and have a clear idea about what you actually really want, you're gonna have to go head to head with hustle culture, which is number three. Hustle culture is actually stealing your focus. With the rise in the internet and social media influencers has come [00:10:00] the rise of hustle culture.

You may or may not be familiar with the concept. You probably are. Everyone is online showing you how to, how successful they are. Right? That's what, that's what Instagram and Facebook are. They're shrines to our own greatness. Yes, I am. I'm amazing. Uh, I've been laughing about that since before MySpace, but MySpace really encapsulated it.

Well, you could customize those a lot more than you can Facebook. And it was, it was truly just a shrine to how wonderful a person was. Right. No, I am amazing. That was the whole point of it, and that's what social media has become. Everybody wants to show you their success. And very few people actually post the bad days or the difficulties or the problems, right?

Because we want everybody to think we're successful. And with that came a whole generation of work, harder culture. Now look, let, let's be honest, I am the first person to say that most people. Could put in more effort and work harder [00:11:00] because realistically, a lot of people are just lazy. I would actually even say most people are fairly lazy, but it's bred this belief with hustle culture that being busy equals success and it doesn't.

Somehow in our Americanized culture, we have bought into this idea that busyness equals success. We're not quite to the Japanese culture yet where you are supposed to be so busy that you pass out at work and that's looked at as a yay. You look how, what a hard worker you are that you're passing out at work.

Thankfully we're not quite there yet, but we are definitely heading in that direction here in the us So everyone fill up their schedules with a bunch of meaningless crap thinking that being busy will. Signify that they are successful or doing well. Now guys, I can fill my schedule to the brim. It won't necessarily reach, [00:12:00] help grow the reach of my podcast.

It won't necessarily make me a better father or whatever goal I'm chasing, but I can absolutely pack my schedule. Ah, busy, busy, busy when you take it outta the office. Busy work somehow has just become hustle culture. Now, if you've ever worked in the corporate, in the office culture, you're familiar with the concept of busy work.

Actually, I know a lot of blue collar guys. You're probably familiar with the concept of busy work as well. Ah, busy. Busy, busy. We've all pushed a room to justify us still being at the job site because we knew a project was coming down the road in two days and they didn't wanna lay people off. Right. So you're familiar with busy work.

Well, honestly, if you take it outta the work context, isn't that what Hus hustle culture really has become is busy work. We have to show people we're busy. I already told you that billionaire Richard Branson sets three goals that he works on every year. That is [00:13:00] what gets all his time. It gets all his energy, it gets all his focus.

The man owns well over a hundred companies. Estimates are between three to 400 actually, but in the course of the year, the only thing he focuses on are those three goals. So maybe we should entertain the idea that just maybe. Being busy is not beneficial, beneficial. Even if all those things you're doing align with those one or two things that you really, really want,

pay attention to the concept of the 95 5 principle. 95% of your results comes from about 5% of your effort. Uh, there's also another principle called the 80 20%. Principle, maybe you wanna lean towards that 95. Five is a little strip high for you, or maybe you think that's a little exaggerated. The 80 20 principle still states that 80% of your results comes from 20% of what you do.

So [00:14:00] what does that tell us? Maybe the best use of our time. Isn't the other 80% of the stuff or the other 94 5% of our time? Our effort, maybe the best use of our time would be if we put a little more effort instead of being busy into that 5% effort we are putting in are that 20% that we were, that's getting us the 80%, depending on which principle you wanna stick with, whichever one you will accept.

I know 95 5 is. Like I said, pretty tight for some people, but 80 20 has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt, and I would say 95 5 has as well. But consider that instead of filling your calendar with all the busy stuff, ah, busy, busy, busy. If you isolated the 20% of what you do or that 5% of your effort, that really moves the [00:15:00] needle and focus on the.

Tasks that fall in those categories, those things, how much farther could you go and how much faster now that we're paring it down from busy work to what actually really moves the needle and matters. We need to avoid this giant mistake if you're gonna be successful, and that is the misconception, that presence and focus are the same thing, because presence is not focus.

Now, I'm the first one to hammer on the idea of being present in whatever you're doing, completely present in the moment. Somehow we've entangled this idea in our understanding that if you are present, you are focused, but they're not synonymous. Being present is a very important skill to learn, and it is a skill guys, but being present is being focused on the moment now, the what I'm doing currently, the where I am with who I [00:16:00] am, right?

Completely present in the moment that is being present. However, you can be present in the moment without being focused and you do it all the time. For example, the other day I was sitting having a cigar with my friend Andy, and I was a hundred percent present in that moment. We don't do it that often.

He's a good friend of mine. The conversation was great. The company was great. I was lost in the smells and the flavor of the cigars and my drink and the conversation we were having and just relaxing. With a close friend. My mind was right there not wondering about other things, not focusing on other things.

I wasn't problem solving. I was just there completely present in the moment, and I am not focused. In fact, it's one of those times that I'm okay with not being focused because your mind needs a break sometimes. Most of my waking time, I'm. Deeply focused on the goals I'm trying to achieve. Everything else is a passing side [00:17:00] note, but understand, you can be present with your social apps, you can be present with playing with your phone.

You can be present with your family, which is great, and I really encourage that because family is really at the core of everything we do here. But it's not the same thing as being focused on your goals. Presence has become a really popular topic on the internet, but it's not focused and it can actually derail focus and vice versa.

Being focused can actually derail presence. If you're focused on the wrong thing, it happens a lot, which is why. If your relationships are not where you want them to be, I want you to know I got you. Relationships take a whole lot of work and can fall on the back burner pretty easily as your empire building in your life.

Men often suffer from damage to their relationships while they're trying to provide. I help men with skills, tips, [00:18:00] techniques to rebuild thriving relationships with the people that they love. Even if they've struggled with being the husband and father, they wanna be in the past. There's still hope and we can help you with that.

So reach out and schedule your free discovery Call at purpose-driven men.com to learn the skills you need to connect deeply with the people who matter most. So how do you set focus beyond just avoiding all the distractions? Well, it started with what you want, what you really, really want. Thank you, spice Girls.

Think back to our story of so trees at the beginning. What do you want in life? Like that young man wanted air, and that's a really hard concept for some of us. That's why I think the story of Socrates, whether it's true or not, helps you understand an accurate description because there is nothing you want more when you're drowning than air, right?

[00:19:00] So what consumes your dreams? Maybe it's a big house or a lot of money, or maybe you really deeply want to help people. Maybe you wanna build your own business. Maybe you really want to a thriving relationship with your wife or your kids, or both. What do you want? Like that young man wanted air because that's where you gotta start for your goals.

If your heart's not in it. You're not gonna stay focused on it. Like I said, Mr. Branson sets three goals because there's not time to really, truly put all into any more than that, and the goal's worth having take time in devotion. So I wouldn't recommend looking for more than three goals because let's face it, you can't, whether you like the man or not, you can't fault the fact that the dude's got it figured out.

He's a high achiever, billionaire with. Between two to 400 companies. He's been knighted. The man has something figured out, [00:20:00] right? I don't know if he's a great person. I'm not saying he should be your role model, but at least when it comes to achieving his goals, the man seems to have locked in on the pro locked in.

That was a weird sign for me to make while I locked in. The man has achieved goals year after year, after year, and he does it pretty well, so maybe we should actually pay attention to them.

It helps if those two or three goals are overlapping goals that compliment each other. Well, they should all be fighting for error worthy, but it will really help you achieve them if they overlap in the way they work together. So some people will set a professional goal, a personal goal, and a health goal or something like that, a physical goal.

Whatever you do, once you set them, stay focused, protect them, make decisions focused on those goals, keep your [00:21:00] eyes there. If it doesn't move you closer to your goals, and you say yes, you are losing focus. Just like a runner keeps their eyes focused on the finish line, keep your eyes focused on the goals you have set.

You're no longer just moving. You've locked in your destination on Google Maps, and now the journey begins. Guys, I hope that helps you out. Focus is the key in this highly distracted world and will help you stay on the right path and start achieving your goals more effectively. Join us next week as I sit down with counselor Kent Darcy, to discuss the lasting impact of your parents' divorce on your life and how's likely sabotaging your life.

I know not all of my audience has been through a divorce or have parents who are divorced. But at this point, it's about a 50 50 split on average, and your life has been touched by divorce. And Kent Darcy has some really insightful things to share with us about how that [00:22:00] impacts us. In my case, my wife's parents are divorced and I can see how that has affected her as an adult and I, it was just an eye-opening conversation, guys, so share it with a friend.

I guarantee you next week it's gonna be really enlightening for you guys. Until then, be better tomorrow because of what you do today, and we'll see you on the next one. The Driven to Thrive broadcast purpose, growth, and lasting impact for men, helping men go from living to thriving. Purpose-filled intentional lives.