Choose what you focus on

GOOD or bad, negative or positive, past or future, faith or fear — you choose what you focus on. Whatever you focus on will also focus on you.

You are responsible for what goes on in your mind, mouth and what you do. There is no situation that lacks possibilities.

There are no hopeless situations, only people with hopeless minds that have cast away hope.

If you are negative, do not assume everyone is sharing your sour attitude and self-pity. If you feel discouraged and dejected never assume that the whole world has stopped hoping, believing, dreaming and doing.

Your personal situation is not a global adverse trend or barometer of hope.

Choosing your focus takes mindfulness, alertness and it is really challenging work. Work on your focus daily and pick it up when you are tempted to lose it. Go back to your strategy. Review your goals. Talk to a kind friend. Do whatever it takes to regain your focus. It is worthwhile work and work that you can do.

I also have to wake up daily, dress up and face my challenges.

I am not a spectator or mere commentator. I live here. I am also a player in this game of life until my time is up.

I write for both you and me. I have to also keep reminding myself to focus on the positive and that which matters.

To make it easy for myself I have distilled the word FOCUS into a mnemonic that means Faith, Options, Courage, Understanding and Staying Power.

Faith

Without faith, it is impossible to please God or to impress men. Faith is hope crystallised into present reality. Faith sees the future and believes it as present reality.

The opposite of faith is fear. Fear sees the present challenges as a continuum and doom loop. Do not believe everything that fear suggests because fear’s shadow is long and threatening.

In whatever situation you face, both faith and fear are always present and each makes a compelling proposition to you.

It is up to you to make a choice. When you choose fear, you choose to ignore the voice of hope. You throw away the possibilities of the future and embrace present reality as the dominant fact and narrative.

Faith sees differently

Faith says there is an exciting future that is pregnant with possibilities. Faith fishes that hope and those possibilities and embraces them as fact.

When you operate from a paradigm of faith you may look at the moment like a day dreaming fool.

Faith is the evidence of things hoped for. It is the reality that you choose to live in not the emotions that are pricking you now.

Now is cheap because it has already passed into history. Faith is exciting because it sees a larger world, great possibilities and is too exciting to let go.

Choose the faith spectacles to adjust your focus. There is more that is happening at this moment than the narrative you see or are exposed to. Choose your possibility narrative and that is the option that faith gives you.

You may be in the mud, but that is where vegetative growth occurs. You may be surrounded by bees but then this is where honey gets created. You may be under pressure but this is how diamonds came to be as they held on for millions of years under pressure. Stay in faith and in process.

Never laugh at a person who sees the future, believes the future and has a burning faith within him.

Such a person is a creator and not just a commentator. Faith is the raw material of all greatness. To get anything, you have to see it somewhere first.

Faith is “first sight” for anyone who dares do anything great. If you do not see it as real in your mind it will never fit into your life.

Defy fear and believe

You may say, “Milton, please be real! What if I die believing and nothing ever happens?”

Oh, it is better to die believing than to have died a long while back when you stopped believing. The tragedy in life is not death at all, but what dies while you are living. Do not let faith die and do not throw away hope.

Feed it through words, pictures and declarations.

Embrace the future and be so much in love with it that daily you wake up with a determination to see that future made real.

Options

You are a sum total of the choices that you have made. You are not marooned but you have options and there are possibilities that are too big for your imagination. Choose your options wisely. Choose to dare and take action.

Do not let situations choose for you.

Take back your power. When you blame and complain, you give up the power to choose. Do not surrender your voting rights to fear-filled fate.

Focus means that within the canvas of what is happening you choose to focus on what you really want. Focus on where you are going to, not just what you are going through.

Choose what you want to be and see happen. You have a choice to talk down or talk up. Use your options wisely. There are opportunities everywhere. If you do not see opportunities, that does not mean that they do not exist.

Focus means choosing to be opportunity-minded and not problem-obsessed.

Courage

It takes courage to focus on what other people do not see. It takes courage to paint a picture of the future that other people think does not exist. It takes courage to see what other people are not seeing. It takes courage to believe in possibilities.

It takes courage to stand up when you are hardest hit. It takes courage to think creatively and act with resolve. It takes courage to confront your fears. Without courage, life is left to be an empty meaningless shell.

People with courage and conviction make things happen. Courage is a choice to do something regardless of the emotions of fear or self-doubt.

Just do it regardless of the threats, jeers and nay-sayers. Do it even while afraid if it seems too fearful. Believe more in your dream than in your personal preservation.

Understand

Focus is a quest to understand what matters. Focus refuses to understand unreasonable suggestions.

Understand that there is more power within you than in your situation. Understand that you are not alone in your battles.

Whatever you win at a personal levels will always benefit more people than you think and know. Understand that the present is a loan from unborn generations. What will your great, great grand children likely say about your present actions and decisions?

May they never grow up to spit on your grave as they reflect back. May they never say you were so afraid that you did nothing. May they never say you thought so small that you deployed your mind for just survival purposes.

May they never dare say, you were too scared to face life that you decided to quit too early. May they never say you were so much of a coward that settled for the convenient goals that you half-heartedly pursued.

Understand that so much is at stake and the true jury is the gallery of the unborn, who will not accept your excuses, excuse your fears or see your obstacles.

Staying power

Focus is a choice to stay grounded. You need to have the power and faith of a stamp. Move your dream envelope and stick to it until you reach your destination.

Stay grounded and do not run amok. What is going on inside you is more important than what is going on outside you.

You have greatness within you and possibilities beyond your wildest dreams. Stay focused. Stay believing. This too shall come to pass.

Just keep your focus in the midst of the storm.

 

Milton Kamwendo is an international transformational and inspirational speaker, author and coach. He is a strategy, innovation, team-building and leadership facilitator. His life purpose is to inspire people to be great. Feedback: [email protected], and @MiltonKamwendo and WhatsApp +263772422634