Focus

I recently read several articles, that, when I started, I didn’t realize they were related. But as I read through them, they had the same theme, focus. I found it interesting, that in my business recently and how I manage my time, I have been learning about focus as well. I don’t think life is random, and part of my belief that the Lord is in the details of our lives, I find it interesting that as I was learning more about focusing my time and energies toward certain business goals, these articles and references were “randomly” found that aided in my search for more understanding and knowledge. I had not previously been looking for more information on the topic of focus, as I was searching for information about business things. But in my personal study of the scriptures and modern-day prophets, I was drawn to these articles in particular.

Backing up a few weeks. I was frustrated about a month ago because I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere with my business, with my website, with anything at all. I felt like I was putting in time and energy, only to be spinning my tires so to speak. I began to wonder if what I was doing was worth the time and energy, if I even really wanted to keep going, if there wasn’t something else out there that I was supposed to be doing instead. I have had several interesting experiences over the years that have helped me feel confident in the direction I have been going, but these thoughts were making me questions everything I had previously learned and understood.

As I pondered, I began to pray. The answer was almost immediate. I had no focus. I realized that I did have goals and an ultimate direction that I wanted to go, but in trying to get there I was just shooting off in a dozen different directions, hoping to somehow hit the mark without ever really aiming more than in the general direction that I wanted to go. I realized that yes, I had a direction, and yes, I had goals and steps to get there, but I was trying to “focus” on all the steps for all the goals simultaneously instead of one thing at a time. I realized that if I stopped focusing on everything all at once, and one thing at a time, I would be able to get where I needed to be faster and more accurately than how I was proceeding. I would also be able to do a better job when I focused my time and energy on one thing rather than many all at once.

This past week has been a much better week for my understanding as well as my business. I decided I wanted to learn more about digitizing art, and how photoshop works. I found many helpful videos and used some of my newest paintings to figure out how to digitize better. I am amazed at how much I learned, from the videos, and my own experimentation now that I understand the program better. I now have more confidence in digitizing my own art, as well as offering that service to others. Today as I sit down and figure out what my coming week will look like, I am excited to focus more on one aspect of my business rather than on everything all at once. It’s interesting, these are lessons that I know inside my head, but sometimes I don’t know them in my heart well enough, so I have to learn them better. I also think it has a lot to do with learning line upon line, here a little and there a little as we go along and are better able to understand harder and harder concepts. What do you do in your life to focus your time?