TO focus is to direct your attention, effort, energies, imagination, visualisation and will power with your strong belief and maximum emotional intensity on the essence of your goal. That is, to converge or put all your attention on the sensation that you choose to experience once your goal is achieved.
You may have heard of the saying that ‘You can do anything if you put your mind to it’.
The focus of your thinking on your goal is the invitation of your goal to you because energy flows where attention goes. You create by moulding energy.
According to the law of vibration and attraction, your subconscious mind or inner mind is like a magnet and when you consistently and passionately focus your thinking on your goal your subconscious mind will magnetise to you all the resources and people required to realise that goal.
Charles Haanel explains: “Thought is energy active thought is active energy and concentrated thought is concentrated energy. A thought concentrated on a definite purpose becomes power. This is the power which is being used by those who do not believe in the virtue of poverty or the beauty of self-denial.
“Attention develops concentration and concentration develops spiritual power and spiritual power is the mightiest force in existence. The power of attention and concentration is the weapon of a superman and a superwoman.
“Concentration of focus indicates that consciousness can be localised to the point where it becomes identical with the object of its attention. When you are concentrating you are impressing the subconscious mind.
“It is the method by which every great inventor, every great financier and every great statesman has been enabled to convert the subtle and invisible forces of desire, faith and confidence into actual, tangible and concrete facts in the objective world.
Every success has been accompanied by persistent concentration upon the object in view,” Haanel said.
What you think or what you are focused upon and what you get are always a perfect vibrational match. It means that what you focus your thinking on most positive or negative with your strong belief and conviction you will create because your mind transforms your predominant thought into reality.
Focusing your thinking on your goal works like the way a magnifying glass works. When a magnifying glass is steadily held under the rays of the sun for some length of time and those rays of the sun are concentrated or focused on one spot like on a piece of paper, that spot will burn from the concentrated and focused energy that is produced by the magnifying glass.
In other words, to focus is to concentrate your mind on your goal and become so absorbed in the object of your goal such that it is the only thing that you are conscious of at that particular time.
For example, animal experts tell us that a skunk cannot bite and throw its scent at the same time.
Dickson was given a teaspoonful of cold water to carry over a distance of 200 metres without losing any drop. Behind Dickson there was a soldier armed with a sword and instructed to cut off Dickson’s head if he lost any drop of water from the teaspoon that he was carrying.
On his left hand side there were people to discourage him while on his right hand side there were people to encourage him.
Finally, Dickson flawlessly succeeded in carrying a teaspoonful of cold water to the finishing line 200 metres away without losing any drop on the way.
When Dickson was asked how he managed to succeed while working under such pressure, he answered: “I managed to reach the finishing line and succeeded because I focused my positive thinking entirely on the finishing line. None of those people helped me”.
After finishing writing their report, renowned scientist Albert Einstein and his research assistant searched their office for a paper clip. They finally found one but it was badly twisted for use.
While they were looking for a tool to straighten it, they found a whole new box full of paper clips. Professor Einstein opened the new box and took one paper clip and shaped it into a tool to straighten the twisted clip so that he could use it.
When his research assistant saw what Professor Einstein was doing he was puzzled and asked him: “Why are you doing that Professor when there is a whole new full box of paper clips?”
Professor Einstein answered: “Once I am focused on a goal; it becomes difficult to deflect me.”
An admirer of the British physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton once asked him the question, “How have you made discoveries in Astronomy that go beyond anything achieved by anyone before you?”
Newton answered his admirer, “By always focusing my thinking on them”.
In the military, the numbers are so important that most world armies have an intelligence branch called Order of Battle that informs commanders about the size, location and nature of the opposing force.
The retired Prussian general Karl von Clausewitz in his book written in 1832 entitled ‘On War’ advises that ‘The principle of force or concentration of focus is the fundamental idea. Always to be aimed at before all and as far as possible. The greatest number of troops should be brought into action at the decisive point. Keep forces concentrated in an overpowering mass’.
General Clausewitz’s ideas and military philosophy of war have lasted for more than 184 years.
Today, his book On War is widely quoted at renowned military training academies like Sandhurst in England, St Cyr in France, West Point in the USA and many other such places around the world.
In 1945 at the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) the allies won the war largely because of general Clausewitz’ principle of concentration of numbers. Where the Germans had two soldiers, the allies had four soldiers.
David Schirmer and Bill Harris observe that “The law of attraction states that what you focus on you will get” and “When you focus on something with a lot of passion it makes it happen even faster”, respectively.
Esther and Jerry Hicks explain that “Every thought, every idea, every being and everything is vibrational, so when you focus your attention on something even for a short period of time the vibration of your being begins to reflect the vibration of that which you are giving attention to…Focus activates attraction.
“The more you think about your goal, the more you vibrate like it; the more you vibrate like it, the more your goal is attracted to you. Your focus is the invitation. Your attention to your goal is the invitation. The only reason anyone ever experiences anything is because of his or her attention to that subject.”
What you focus on you create.
Therefore, focus on what you want to experience and not what you do not want to experience. Norman Vincent Peale advices that “Hold the picture of your goal in your conscious mind until by a process of mental and spiritual osmosis, the image of your goal sinks into your subconscious mind. At that point, you will have it; for it will have you, all of you”.
Swami Budhananda states that “A businessman with a one-pointed mind will prosper in business; a musician with a one-pointed mind will become a great musician; a scientist with a one-pointed mind will become a celebrated scientist,” and Linda Byrne writes that “As you focus on what you want, you are changing the vibration of atoms of that thing and you are causing it to vibrate to you’.
Therefore, focus your thinking with your strong belief and conviction on your goal and you will attract that goal into your own life.
•The author is a motivational mentor and consultant in positive mindset change.