Focus allows you to live a life of full intensity with all your passion fueling your momentum in a singular direction.

Focus isn’t about less but about more. It is the ability to interconnect all you are and all you do around a central life theme.

It is the difference between being a diffused light or a laser.

When you lose your focus, you lose your way. Before you know it, you’re drowning. You’ve chosen to exist rather than to pursue the dream you were created to live. Why?

Part of what costs us the life we are created to live is that we don’t lock in. We lose focus because we become distracted by our circumstances. We get pulled out of the direction we’re supposed to be walking because we start looking in the wrong direction.

The first step in getting focused could be described as concentration. Concentration is directing all of our energies and resources to a specific task, idea, and direction. So to focus, you have to make this adjustment—to concentrate all of your energy and resources on where you are going. Set your eyes on where God is calling you and don’t look back (and certainly don’t look around).

Your potential becomes talent only when it is harnessed and developed. Your talents become strength when they are focused and directed. It is here where you begin to discover who you are and the potential God has placed within you.

Without a sense of destiny, you will diffuse your energy. When you are focused, you are your most powerful.

A destiny is not something waiting for you but something waiting within you.

Clarity comes from knowing who you are and what really matters to you. We lose our focus when we are lost in ambiguity. It feels like uncertainty, but it’s not because the future is uncertain; it’s because our lives are unfocused. Of course there is uncertainty in the future. Guess what? We’re all uncertain about the future. It’s not the uncertainty that paralyzes you. It’s uncertainty about who you are that blurs you—uncertainty about why you are here or what really matters.

When you have focus, you also develop the uncanny ability to see what others are missing—what others are blind to. When everyone else sees the world falling apart you see how everything is coming together. You see all of us—all humanity, all history, all the universe—as interconnected. Everything that happens in life is connected and your ability to focus brings it together into one story. It is not incidental to you that the word universe means “one story.” You see beyond the moment into the future. You see beauty when others only see tragedy. You see hope when others only see despair. You see possibilities when others only see problems. You see others when others only see themselves. You see eternity when others only see history. You see God in everything. You are a seer.

Erwin Raphael McManus — Wide Awake (pp. 125-149)

 

I spent many years of my life without a lot of focus—and completely disconnected from my destiny.

It reminds me of someone who’s lost but they don’t realize they’re lost. They missed their exit 35 miles back and they have no idea they’re driving in the exact opposite direction from where they want to go.

We all lose our focus from time to time. Unfortunately, some of us lose our focus for a lifetime and our destiny passes us by.

Many things cause our focus to become fuzzy and lose grip of our destiny: bills, sports, kids’ events, chores, school, family drama, personal issues, addictions, etc. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” Yet, how many of us know what our why is? Once we get bogged down with everyday life, our habits take over and rule 90% of our entire being.

And then, unfortunately, many of us assume our destiny is something “out there” and search the world high and low for the answers that are patiently waiting within us all along. “A destiny is not something waiting for you but something waiting within you.”  Most of us make the mistake of running as far from ourselves as we can; then we wonder why we end up feeling lost and separated from our destiny.

Let me fast-forward to today: I’m in school pursuing a master’s degree in a field I’m extremely passionate about. Some days my classmates think I’m crazy because I have read so many authors about all things counseling, religion, spirituality, etc. 9-out-of-10 times when an author is mentioned in class I’ve either read their book or have them in my Amazon wish list. Needless to say, my focus has been on my destiny for quite some time. Even when I wasn’t in school, I was reading authors that were teaching me more about my destiny. And now that I’m back in school, nothing can distract me from losing my laser focus.

If you are unsure of what your destiny is—your why—I  encourage you to consider what kind of focus you have. Just as McManus said earlier, “When you lose your focus, you lose your way.” Are you choosing to simply exist instead of pursuing the dream you were created to live?

One purposeful step in the right direction can drastically shift your focus and change your entire future.

Have a blessed day.

Peace and Love,

~Travis