more focus

Have you ever felt like you have so many things to do, that you aren’t sure where to start? When I start feeling this way, I do the opposite of what I should do: I get a little overwhelmed, and I end up avoiding all of the things I need to do. This is extremely counterproductive, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done it. I’ve gotten slightly better at recognizing when I’m doing this, however, and I try to focus on just one item, rather than let myself overthink about all of the things on the to-do list.

This idea of overthinking to the point of being counterproductive applies to more than just my to-do list, and maybe you’ve felt the same way at times. There are so many different things I want to do, change, or impact, but there’s no possible way for one human to do all of it. In fact, the second I try to do everything, I end up doing nothing. I’ve heard the term “spreading yourself thin” used to describe people that overcommit. In my experience though, I under-commit when I pledge myself to do too many things. What I mean by this is that if I’m “committed” to everything, I’m really committed to nothing, because I don’t have adequate time or energy to actually be involved in everything.

How do we avoid trying to be everything and do everything? While I still haven’t quite figured it out myself, I’ve started to see that we all have the power to “move the needle” in our own way. “Move the needle” is a term used by a few people that I know, and its meaning is exactly how it sounds. We have the opportunity to focus our energy and efforts on a select few topics and work at those significantly to make a difference in them. We can’t change the world overnight, but we can move the needle slightly on a topic that we focus on.

A lot of people will say that one singular person doesn’t have the ability to create real change and the people who say that can be entirely accurate if we don’t focus our time and energy. We have to think about the long-term focus of our lives just as much, if not more, than the short-term focus of getting an item on that to-do list done.

Having focus is how we are able to make a difference. What's your focus on?

There’s more to focus on.

There’s more to it all.