When I ask my clients what is the biggest challenge they face in building their businesses I commonly hear that their biggest challenge to the success of their businesses is lack of focus. Coping with the endless stream of wonderful, exciting, interesting, and enticing bits of information, ideas and opportunities can be a very big problem for many small business owners. Often hours, days and even weeks can go by with very little significant progress made even though they have been busy, busy, busy.
Our email in-boxes are literally jammed with email that promises to hold the key to the actualization of our dreams. Fascinating articles beg to be read, promising books are everywhere, new technological solutions are around every corner, interesting people pop into view, invitations to explore beckon constantly. The myriad of ways to spend our time and energy is never ending and constantly growing.
And so, left to our own devices, we can go down one “rabbit hole” after another as we click on link after link, only to find that we have spent much of our precious time and energy chasing yet another BSO (bright shiny object) rather focusing on just those areas that we are certain will move us closer to the business success we crave.
What is the solution to fortifying our resistance against chasing those BSOs that really do little more than satisfy our curiosity and leave us with a profound sense of frustration with our lack real tangible results? Successful people do not have fewer BSOs to contend with – they have a strategy that allows them let the BSO fly past barely noticed and rarely chased while they select only those bits that will are truly worthy of their attention.
How can YOU stop yourself from following those BSO’s, like Alice in Wonderland, down yet another “rabbit hole” only to realize that you have been distracted and precious business-building time has passed that can never be recovered? The solution is not fortifying your will power. The minute you relax your will power – poof- down another rabbit hole you go. The solution is in your brain.
I’ve written before about the remarkable benefits of deliberately training your brain to draw your focus, your energy and your decision making powers to only those bits of information, ideas and opportunities that best serve you and your business.
Your RAS (Reticular Activating System) is the part of your brain responsible for filtering the millions bits of information that bombard you at any moment. It is the best tool you have for selectively focusing only on what will best serve you and your business. It is infinitely easier to train your brain to flag only those bits of information that are in your best interest than it is to use your willpower to ignore most of what flies past or to try to assess each and every bit of information as it arrives.
There are many ways to train your brain, your RAS, to do the work of filtering so you can stay focused on your priorities. By far the most effective method is setting magnetic goals and keeping them top of mind.
All those stodgy business consultants who tell you that you need to set goals so you know where you are going are missing the most benefit of goals – goals help you GET where you want to go by helping you every minute of every day to stay focused and choose only those bits of information and opportunities that will directly contribute to your success.
I’ll write more next time on how magnetic goals are your best tool for staying on focused and on track all day every day. Or, you can read about how “Magnetic Goals for Small Business Owners” will dramatically improve your ability to focus on what’s important and making it easy and natural to avoid distractions by clicking here. I assure you…it is not a BSO!
photo credit: Greg Veen
