Focus on clarity for clarity of focus

When we look at embarking on a full and purpose-driven life, there’s often a lot of talk around fear holding us back. Fear of change, fear of the risk involved, fear of making a mistake, fear of throwing away everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve, fear of the cost, fear of this, fear of that, fear of vampires… OK, that last one may not be a thing other than with my niece currently, but you never know…

And, undeniably, fear can be a deal-breaker. Kissing ourselves over the edge into action is usually a lot tougher than we thought it’d be. When the crunch comes, that sofa can look so much cosier and warmer than it did when we were nobly mapping out our way forward from the safety of our brainstorming session.

Yet there are a couple of other big tickets we need to pay attention to as well. And I’d argue these are the true bedrocks of success or failure…

2. Clarity of focus

One is focus. All the way back to the Stoics and beyond, focus has been a, well, focus of purpose gurus. Some time around AD 168, Marcus Aurelius (he crops up a lot on quote sites) exhorted us to:

“Every hour of the day give vigorous attention…to the performance of the task in hand with precise analysis, with unaffected dignity, with human sympathy, with dispassionate justice – and to vacating your mind from all its other thoughts.”

In more recent times and in their own inimitable ways, Robin Sharma and Mark Manson repeatedly urge us to get great at one distinct thing and then give our life and blood to it. Or, more precisely, give our life and blood to getting great at something and then carry on giving our life and blood in pursuit of even greater greatness.

Focus is a big challenge. We have so much eating away at our time, so many distractions, so many other things we could be doing, so many requests and demands from the people around us… It can be extremely hard to close out loved ones, turn away from stuff we enjoy doing, turn off the socials and the media, shut out the world in short, and just focus in on one pursuit.

And having done all that, how long will it be before our attention starts to wander? Before random thoughts start dropping into our minds? Before the smell of coffee or the sound of games outside lure us away again? Johann Hari has a brilliant if terrifying book on this – Stolen Focus.

Among a host of strategies, simply communicating our need to focus to our loved ones and colleagues will build understanding as well as the opportunity to ringfence time here. So will the creation and pursuit of rituals and practices so that they become habits – while we’re doing book recommendations, James Clear’s Atomic Habits is another. Breath work and meditation techniques in particular are great at calming and centring the mind.

Yet in the purpose realm, focus is more than attention. It really is about choosing one specific path and heading down it to the exclusion of all other options. However we want to dress it up, let’s face it, focus really comes down to sheer stubborn bloody-mindedness. Which is why there’s something even more crucial we need to do first. And that’s why we’re going to number it 1.

1. Focus on clarity

If we’re going to give up so much to focus on one thing, we need to be pretty clear about what that one thing is. 20:20 clarity in fact. Otherwise we’re on a hiding to nothing. I still don’t know what that phrase means, but if it means zip chance of success, then that’s good for me.

Imperfect clarity here shows up when the actual way forward is imprecise or insufficiently elaborated. Addressing this can be relatively straightforward. Most directly, we break the whole down into disparate pieces, we look at it from every angle, and we map everything out in crystal-clear detail. If the Mission part of the REALM model deals with the overall direction, then the Map element deals with this precision and detail of the way forward.

Yet a lack of clarity can also show up, far more detrimentally, in pursuing something that is not fully aligned to who we are. This lack of clarity is in fact a lack of self-awareness. Not knowing who we truly are can lead us to set off on roads that will never go where we wish because they are not founded on our true values, desires, abilities, passions, and all else that make us wonderfully unique individuals.  Which is where the REAL (Rooted, Excellent, Authentic and Loose) part of the model comes into play.

Clarity of ourselves allows clarity of direction allows clarity of focus on this direction. There’s probably even a neat little mathematical equation in there.

Self-awareness is the foundation for self-leadership on our chosen path. That seems pretty clear and focussed, don’t we think?

orangecairns update

A new year and the doors are open for business again after a long break and some great mind-wandering downtime. The first book in the Mapping Our Purpose REALM series, The Tribe of the Cowbells is out now on Amazon. I truly hope it talks to you. Two more books in the series are planned for later in the year. If you or someone you know are looking for help mapping a way forward, I would love to hear.

Julian King

I help people lead their own way forward