Over lunch with a leader, I asked him, “What do you see makes the difference between the many in your business, and the few that truly win?”
“Focus and intensity,” he fired back.
Winning is simple to him.
It’s not about who you are or where you come from, but how willing you are to find a way to win.
He sees it at every level, including in his own game.
“Sometimes I see effort other people put in to win a piece of business,“ he said, “and I’m no longer willing to do that.”
He’s good with that choice; he’s got enough, and he’s willing to leave a little for others on the table.
What about you?
Intensity and Duration
Two rules for “manifesting” your reality are—intensity and duration.
The more intensely you go at it, and the longer you do it for, the more likely you are to create the results you want.
But of course that’s not the entire game.
Effectiveness comes down to focusing on the right things, with the right intensity.
An outfielder doesn’t need to charge after every ball, just with ferocious intensity go after the ones that come his way.
You can better focus on the right things when you tap into your intensity the same way.
The Elusive A Game
A few years back I had a client who wanted to get back to his A game.
When I asked him where he had left it, he didn’t know, other than he perceived it was somewhere behind him.
He’d lost a step, and he knew to drive top results in his current job, he needed to get back to the top of his game.
As importantly, he knew what it felt like to be playing his best game, and he wanted to get back to that feeling.
You know what it’s like when you’re right there, on the edge of your capabilities, things just clicking and coming together.
That feeling is one of our most addictive, yet it can take some practice to tap ourselves into.
Tapping Your Intensity
Most of what holds us back in life is… FEAR.
Fear of “hard work.” Fear of trying hard and failing. Fear of really going for it and being disappointed. Fear of committing. Fear of learning new things. Fear of uncertainty. Fear of doing our best and still not being good enough, so on.
Yet when we get beyond those silly fears and deeply tap into what we want, and the feeling of doing our best, we’re already on our way.
We remember what it’s like to be going for it. We think of those times in our lives when we were right there, eye on the prize, not only willing, but excited to pound our dreams into existence.
Imagine It Now
Think about your goal that really matters to you, and ask yourself, can you give more?
Perhaps not in hours, there’s only so many of those in the day. Perhaps just in the focus and intensity you bring to what you do.
How much focus and intensity are you bringing now? Really, if you think about this goal that matters so much to you, out of 10, where do you measure your commitment?
Can you want it more? Why? What do you get from putting more of you into your goal? How much does success mean to you?
Beside the outcome, how good does it feel when you’re really engaged in this goal? What’s the feeling of playing your best game?
What might you have to change to drive more focus and intensity into your goal? Master your time? Boost your towards and away from motivators?
Can you remove some of your constraints? Like a speed limiter on a truck, is there a governor that you need to remove?
What ways can you get yourself more into a mindset of higher focus and intensity? Do you need an enemy to be battling like a real or illusionary competitor?
Do you need to be pumping up your state more, and getting yourself in the zone for absorbing in your goal? (recall this is what The Cure and House of Flow are built to do)
Whatever it is for you, find ways to keep bringing out more of that natural focus and intensity and direct it with more precision into the goals that matter to you.
Practice Now Today
It’s easy to look at topics like this as “big” and therefore something you need to “get focused on,” when the smallest changes today can have massive impact over time.
Think about it for a moment.
If you were to raise your intensity and go after your goal more, what specific things would you do less of today? What specific things would you do more?
Would you cut out 20 minutes of low-value reading and sink it into your goal?
Would you set yourself a tight deadline that will force you to get serious? Cut off calls just a few minutes sooner to get more focused work done?
Will you get clear on what tasks make the most difference and structure your day to make more progress?
Perhaps for you, it might be as simple as just spending 5 minutes re-engaging with your goal, and reminding yourself of why raising your intensity feels so good to you.
Now, think about looking back some months from today after having raised your level of focus and intensity just one day at a time and see how much more of a dint you put in your goal.
If you can get yourself going just a little bit more today, there’s no telling what rewards might accrue.