March 19, 2024

Focus and Action Go Hand in Hand

What good is having focus if you don’t take any action? Conversely, if you take action without a focus, how will you know you are doing the right things? As you can probably surmise, focus and action go hand in hand.

The concepts reinforce each other.

Suppose you decide that you need to increase sales, or reduce expenses, or clean out the garage, or whatever your goal happens to be. You plan out the steps and use that to set your focus. Then, when you take action and execute the plan, you’ll learn whether or not your focus was correct. Or, you'll learn that your plan didn’t work out for some reason and that you need to evaluate why and consider an alternate strategy.

The last sentence of the previous paragraph is important. Not everything you plan will work out and you need to keep that in mind. If you find something isn’t working out, and you don’t believe it’s going to get any better, don’t hesitate to pull the plug and find something else. Otherwise, the focus-action loop will get stale, and you’ll get frustrated. This is a negative reinforcement that will result in failure.

Failure is part of the process. Your actions should be iterative along with quantifiable measures of what’s happening. It can’t hurt to have substitute plans defined at the beginning of the cycle if that is possible. If not, just determine those alternatives when they make sense.

When you continue in this manner, you’ll find your focus is more intense. That’s because you believe the actions you take will lead you to the desired results and your focus will shift if it doesn’t.

If you need to extend this entire concept to a team, make sure they understand that the possibility of failure exists. This will help you guide them to different paths when necessary.

Of course, any problems with team members who are not “pulling their weight” will need top be promptly addressed. These members may not be clear on the purpose and benefits of the plan. When that happens, they’ll lose focus, and they won’t be able to take action. Or, the actions they do take will not coincide with what the team is trying to deliver.

When you approach your goals in this way, you will likely excel at your job or business. You’ll have a renewed sense of purpose, and you will bring the business to new heights.

“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee

dhf

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