At a recent talk, I was asked how I stay focussed on achieving what I set out to achieve. The truth is; focus is often confused with motivation, which is different again to discipline. By all means, I’m no expert, but it got me thinking.
Staying focussed; I used to think was concentrating on something for a long period of time without allowing yourself to be distracted. This is something I’m actually really bad at and have been since school. I was always easily distracted and anything I focussed on, if something better or more fun came forward, I was onto it!
However, I look at it a lot differently now, focus is almost like having a goal. Not all goals can be achieved overnight, long terms goals can take weeks, months or even years. For you to achieve them, you can’t ignore everything else that goes on in life, you need to crack on with daily chores, working, eating, sleeping, taking care of your family, meeting up with friends, hobbies etc.
It’s about having a main goal in place and understanding it’s not a smooth downhill tarmac road. There will be sharp corners for you to turn, uphill struggles and often you may not even be able to see the end of the road. But by staying focused and trying your best to understand the process and the obstacles you’ll face, but equally embracing the difficulties which ultimately strip you down and build you back up again. This to me is focus, but during this time, two key things play such an important part – motivation and discipline.
It’s crucial to understand that we can’t always be motivated. I’ve personally faced many setbacks, worries, doubts, fears; but also I’ve found that I’ve allowed other people’s thoughts and beliefs get me down too. All of this knocks your train of thought and can slow you down – if you let it.
Whilst we can’t always be motivated, we can always be disciplined. Discipline is in your own mind and even if you’re not feeling up for working towards your goal, there is no real excuse as to why you shouldn’t be.
On my expeditions, for example, I’ve focused on the main goal: the point where I complete the mission. During many times throughout, I faced great difficulty and near death situations – bringing me to lose motivation, where I now had to rely on being disciplined.
This could be, to name only two examples:
- In Mongolia, suffering from heat exhaustion in the Gobi-Desert, low on water, hallucinating, delirious and in a lot of agony, knowing I have to push on for 3-4 days until I reach the next water source and shelter.
- Being lost in the Jungle, cut, bruised, hungry and thirsty, trying to find my way out, with leeches sucking my blood!
What I found helped me the most, when I could no longer focus on the finish point at this moment in time and with having lost all motivation, is that I tried to remain disciplined. In the Gobi, I could only visualise walking 100 meters at a time and in the Jungle, we could only cover around 50 meters at time.
So I stayed disciplined on doing exactly that, I covered 100 meters, and then allowed myself to rest under my trailer to hide from the sun - for a very short five minutes, before getting up and pushing on again. Doing this over the space of three to four days was extremely slow and painful, but by breaking my goals down and staying disciplined; it saved my life.
In the jungle, we’d concentrate on heading in a straight line directly North towards the mountain face and with a machete in hand, we’d spend the next 20-30 minutes hacking through the bush, in which we’d only cover 50 meters, before taking a 10 minute break and getting up to do it again and again.
By doing this, we escaped the jungle!
I have found this has really helped me now that I’m back in the day to day swing of things.
Understand the difference between focus, motivation and discipline, but know they all equally play an important part. No matter whom you are or what job/life you have, we all face our very own setbacks, doubts, fears and struggles – effectively we all face our very own Jungle and Desert.
We all have that fight! When things get rough, become tough, don’t shy away and ignore where you’re trying to get to. Stand up, break your goals down, try to stay focussed and motivated, but when you’re at rock bottom, stay disciplined - keep on hacking through the jungle and ploughing forwards through that desert and you will succeed!
