Focus!

Here are some excerpts from a Linked in post by John Hope Bryant, founder of Operation HOPE. The post is entitled, FOCUS + Consistency = Success.

Focus Rule #1: Be ruthless about your own time. And obsessive about your own passions too.

Focus Rule #2: Be PRESENT. ...many people say 'I can't be happy because I was hurt (as a child),' or because 'this person or that person did something to me,' or alternatively, 'I will be happy when I move to a new city,' or 'I will be happy when I get a new job.' Nope. Not true. This is just a bad tape playing in your head, destroying everything present and possible around you.

Focus Rule #3: Understand (embrace) that something has got to give.

Focus Rule #4: Create more time.
When you live your life with internal confidence, you stop letting other people or circumstance to define your priorities. You're not hating on anyone else. You are just doing you.

Focus Rule #4: Do you. Once you understand who you are, and once start the process of becoming 'reasonably comfortable in your own skin,' you immediately realize that other people are not able to destroy you, nor can they create a future for you. Only you can do that.

Focus Rule #5: Execute.
Train yourself to not get distracted with the drama that life will serve up everyday.

Focus + consistency = success.

Let's go.

Read more here.

Focusing on what matters

Ann Voskamp writes today about staying in the pool. That was Olympic gold medalist swimmer Mark Phelps' secret: he stayed in the pool long after everyone else had left. Ann writes:

One needs God’s strength to exercise consistency.

To consistently step back, breathe deep, focus — and know Life is dessert — too brief to hurry. Too delectable to be distracted through. You don’t wolf it down.

Life isn’t an emergency. Life isn’t 20 open screens and one flickering attention span. Life is a gift. Crazy grace.

Simplicity isn’t a matter of circumstances — it’s a matter of focus on what matters.

Read more here.