You work towards achieving your outcomes, but something keeps hindering your success. And that something maybe you. Find out how focus can affect success.

Have you ever had big dreams for your business?

Everybody does.

After all, that’s why we start our own company. Right?

Shamim is in the same situation. He has dreams he wants to accomplish. And working in week two of our program, he has already narrowed down to four the outcomes he wants to achieve.

The first is to get clear on what he can offer as a service to his future clients. And he’s looking at the tools and skill sets he already has that can promote his business and move it forward.

Shamim got to narrow down his possible service focuses – breathwork, lifestyle modification, and general health and fitness. But to offer these services, he needs a solid platform.

He knew a website is key to this. So, he started working on it to get it up and running soon. But, it’s been slow.

As he put it:

I’m going page by page, module by module. And it’s always under revision. Sometimes there is no content. Sometimes there is more content.

Shamim understands that writing and promoting free content to the world can help showcase his expertise and value. But he isn’t consistently producing it.

Add the fact that he also wants to get a certification in breathwork. Shamim feels that adding that certification can add value and authority to the service he wants to offer.

But he admits that he’s not very proactive about achieving his desired outcomes. He said:

I’ll start to work on it for a few hours and then I’d stop and move on, move on to a different outcome or something else.

What Shamim may not realize is how his own emotional fitness may be playing a role here.

Find out about how you may be sabotaging your own outcomes from the inside out.

The Core Component of Performance

Most people nowadays know who Tony Robbins is and how he is one of the godfathers of personal development and performance.

He presides over a million-dollar empire and fills stadiums. Everybody that goes to see him leaves on fire because his message is really that good.

Tony is also the one who developed the idea of emotional fitness. As he puts it:

One of the core components of performance is the idea of focus.

What you receive is what you focus on, right?

This brings me back to the story at the beginning.

Shamim has a vision and he knows what he wants for his outcomes. The problem lies in his lack of emotional fitness and focus. He can’t focus on finishing one outcoming, so he flits from one project to the next. He doesn’t really complete anything as a result.

Focus is what helps people like you and me perform our utmost for the best outcome. And when there’s no focus, there’s no outcome.

Tony also speaks a lot about the status quo, or what we’re doing when we’re not focused on specific outcomes.

You’ve probably been guilty of distractions – it’s a part of life. But what Tony says about it is that when we aren’t focused on our outcomes, we get stuck on the status quo.

And that’s not a path to seeing the outcomes that you want to achieve.

The Two Key Emotions

Humans have two emotions that propel them into action: pain or pleasure. Whether the action is to steer a person towards their outcome or away from it, we’re ruled by these emotions.

For example, when I wake up in the morning and I hear the alarm, I can feel one of two things: either “I don’t want to get up” or “I’m going to crush it today.”

These are pleasure and pain responses, and it’s also possible to feel both from waking up early.

Those are the days when your first response upon hearing the alarm is, “Oh I really don’t want to get up. I’m comfortable and warm right now.” But as you slowly wake up, you think, “There are so many things I have to do today. I need to get to the office before everybody else. I’m going to crush it!”

Having either or both responses is perfectly normal. But if you want to achieve your outcomes, you need to start focusing on them. 

And sometimes, that means pushing through that pain response from the alarm and turning it into pleasure.

My Challenge to You

I have a challenge for you:

Be conscious and aware of where your brain and focus go when you try to accomplish your tasks.

Does it go to pain?

Maybe you think of all the things you’d rather, do instead of working towards your outcomes. Or maybe doing these tasks requires a lot of preparation and you don’t feel you have the energy for it.

Or does your brain go to pleasure when you think of those tasks?

Remember that you’re not failing if your brain goes to pain – you’re human.

But this is where focus comes in.

You need to make a deliberate action to change your brain track. Instead of going down the pain connection, you need to replace it with a pleasure connection.

Imagine doing an activity you find pleasurable – like going out or talking to friends. When you think about it, you get a pleasure response, right? It’s the exact opposite of how you feel when you have to work on your website or whatever task you set for your desired outcome.

Maybe thinking about sitting down and doing some work stresses you out, so you procrastinate. You associate work with pain responses and may think things like:

“What if I fail?”

“What if I give this website to the world and people think I’m an idiot?”

So, what can you do to change that pain response to one of pleasure?

I’ll tell you one thing: 

Make an effort to do it. 

It is possible.

Start with looking back on your life and thinking about that task. It probably wasn’t always associated with a pain response. 

Using the website as an example again, think back to when you sat down and created something that was a pleasurable experience.

Maybe you don’t have a specific experience related directly to that task that gives you pain. If that’s the case, you may have to make a conscious decision to change your state of mind.

For example, you can put a rubber band on your wrist and just snap it when you realize you’re drifting into pain response territory. That snap can be a reminder that you’re trying to achieve an outcome and intentionally change your state.

Here’s another example for you…

I have a problem with cuddling with my wife. 

In particular, I zone out and don’t like touches after 7 pm. But that kind of thing doesn’t fly with marriage, right? She wants me to cuddle, but I do that only until 7 pm. Afterward, I tense up and make a grimacing face. And she gets her feelings hurt.

So, I intentionally changed my state.

When she came over to cuddle with me, I shook my foot. Of course, she didn’t notice – and that was the point. I didn’t need her to see me doing it, but I needed a reminder to intentionally change my focus and associate her touches with pleasure instead of pain.

Doing small acts like this can help you start changing your focus. It helps your brain to associate normal painful experiences with pleasurable ones.

Eventually, it turns into a habit and you won’t need these little tricks to help change your state.

Shift Your Focus

Your state of mind is everything if you want to achieve your outcomes.

As Tony Robbins once said, focus is one of the core components of success. And what you choose to focus on can help or hinder your outcome.

As humans, we’re all ruled by two emotions: pain and pleasure.

It’s those two responses that can dictate how we feel doing tasks and activities. Those responses can also influence the actions we take during those activities.

We can take action and consciously shift our focus towards one response or the other.

If you’re tempted to procrastinate when you sit down to work on your outcomes, it may be time for a shift. Purposeful and mindful shifts of focus from pain to pleasure can help reprogram your responses. And it will keep you on track towards the outcomes you want to achieve.

Remember, without focus, there is no outcome.

So, make sure that your focus is exactly where it needs to be to get the outcome you want.