The most likely reason why you aren’t achieving your goals yet, and why you seem to always be falling short of your marks is not that you don’t work hard enough, or that you aren’t intelligent enough or motivated enough to get what you want, the most likely culprit is your lack of focus on the things your really want. In today’s world where every kind of visual and mental stimulation is available via a simple scrolling motion on you touchscreen device, and when all around us endless streams of media stimulus bombards us with ads and ideas it’s hard to sit down and focus on one thing for an extended period of time, though this skill is essential if we as men are to achieve any kind of long term goals we might have.

If you were ever in a situation where you sit down, ready to do some work, or to read, or just to chill out and meditate for a bit, but then ll of a sudden your phone rings, you ignore it, and after a few moments it rings again. You already feel as if you’re “out of the loop” so to say, as if the outside world needs your attention and you’re just here sitting down doing nothing, not knowing what is going on. This feeling of not being connected is what leads to the modern lack of focus we see in many people, and is one of the things that keeps us from being the best man we can be, which why it is so crucial to learn how to focus in a world where over stimulation is the norm.

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Get disconnected

In the eastern traditions of Buddism and Daoism, it is thought that focusing on a single, simple thing for an extended period of time, without braking focus, and with no contact to the outside world leads to the growth of the soul and gets one closer to Nirvana, or to the essence of the Dao. In old pagan traditions of our European ancestors there is the tale of the hermit, the man who leaves civilization and all its troubles in order to be with himself and to focus on the simple life, thus making him a speaker for the gods, for in his silent focus and wild solitude he can hear their wisdom better than the people who are deaf with endless stimulus that civilized life provides. Even in the Christian tradition there is a myriad of saints who were wondering pilgrims, living in the desert, focused on a simple, yet focused life in order to get the favor of God.

Even in those ancient times people knew how easy it is to lose focus, and it was important to them to tell these stories about people who shunned the city life and connected with nature and their true self. This is why it’s so important to disconnect once in a while, to leave the city for a few weeks, or to simply turn off your wifi for a day in order to reconnect with your self.

Focus on one thing at a time

Although the modern world is one of multitasking and over-productivity even past the point of burnout. It is basically impossible for a human mind to multitask, we aren’t computers who can do multiple operations at once, we need to focus on doing one thing in order to get it done well, otherwise we take the risk of trying to do multiple things at one time and failing in all or most of them. This is one of he the biggest reasons why people who work hard fail. They do a lot of work on many fronts simultaneously, and end up not doing good in any of the projects they did. To make an analogy with a fight, taking on too many enemies at one time is a fool’s errand, since even if you successfully beat two of them, the other five or six are going to get you killed. Fight your enemies one by one, when doing something focus on the thing you are doing,turn off your phone and wifi connection and do the thing that must be done in order to succeed. I myself refrain from doing more then two mentally demand tasks a day, for example I would study and work on a project one day, but then I won’t be working on this blog the same day, I’d leave that for tomorrow, since most of my energy would be required in the past two activities of the day. Thus, I still get all my necessary work done with the best result I can achieve, only through a longer period of time, and with maximum focus and effort on my part, leaving nothing half-done or done badly.

A simple exercise to increase focus

I found a simple half an hour long mental exercise to help develop better focus that can be done anywhere with no equipment needed. One of the youtubers who’s work I follow and admire also had a similar exercise explained in his video which you can check out here;

Start the exercise by a few minutes of deep breathing and clearing your mind of any thoughts you might be having at that moment. Now focus on one thing, be it something in your vision like a tree or a buliding, a sound you might be hearing, like running water or cars passing by, or a sensation you might be feeling like cold wind or the weight of your backpack. Focus on it and try not to lose focus or think about anything else for the next few minutes, anytime you do lose focus, simply clear your head again and continue the exercise. After a few minutes try to focus on two things (two stimuli) at a time without focusing on one more then the other, focus on both equally. Then after a few minutes try the same with three things and so on until you are complete focused on all the stimuli in your surrounding, in other words until you’re focused on nothing but the present moment.

A big part of having focus is moment-to-moment mindfulness, having a life concentrated on the current moment is one of the most important things you can develop to help you with stress relief and to improve the quality of your mental state and life in general, you can read more about the importance of having the trait of mindfulness as well as how to develop it in the Stoic’s Guide to Mindfulness I published on this blog.

Having focus is the main trait a man needs to have in order to achieve his goals, along with a good work ethic and clear purpose, a man can achieve anything he focuses on. This is a cardinal step in becoming the best men we can be and the one thing that will serve us well in many different situations. Be best you can be brothers, and keep developing the alpha frame, if you haven’t already, you can follow my blog via the form at the bottom of this page. If you would like to support my work please visit the Donate page, thank you. For more information about how to develop focus, check out the links below: