I had a friend in high school who wanted badly to be the student body president.
When it came time to campaign for the position my friend was gung ho to put together the best campaign he could possibly think of.
He met with every single group in the school to hear what they wanted from a school president and when election time came he had promised each and every group that he would deliver to them what they asked for if he was elected president.
Lo and behold he won the election by a landslide and now had the big task of fulfilling his obligations.
My friend quickly began work on every promise that he had made but in many cases these promises required more time and effort than he initially thought.
Bent and determined the new president marched forward in his pursuit of satisfying everybody as he worked so hard the entire year.
The year went by quickly and by the time you knew it we were getting ready for summer vacation and the close of another school year.
My friend asked me to sit down with him to help him prepare a closing speech for the year end assembly in which he was to address the student body and highlight his accomplishments.
When we sat down to put pen to paper and start listing all of his accomplishments we quickly discovered that when we really looked at what had been completed there really wasn't a whole lot.
All of this busy hard work had actually accomplished very little.
My friend had spread himself so thin that everything got started but nothing got finished.
We scrambled to put together a speech that sounded decent but had very little substance.
My friend was truly miffed by the outcome of his intentions and work.
I always wonder if my friend took any lessons from his time as class president as I know I did! The moral of this story is that we can accomplish what ever it is we put our minds to but we only have so much energy to direct towards chosen desires.
Unfortunately the more things that you take on the less that gets done and you can take that to the bank.
I make various analogies quite often of great athletes and entrepreneurs who have achieved great success in their discipline because it's such a great example of the importance of focusing your energies in order to make something thrive.
A perfect example of the focus of energy toward one specific goal is the famous poker player Phil Ivey who has achieved iconic greatness in a game that is considered to be one with a big aspect of chance involved.
How is it that somebody can continually win millions and millions of dollars year after year in a game such as poker? What is Phil Ivey's big secret? Phil was asked in an interview what it was that he thought made him so successful and if he thinks that he can continue winning for years to come.
He replied simply that yes he would continue his dominance because he "puts in the time.
" What he meant by this was that he plays more than anybody else on the poker tour, he studies his opponents longer and harder than anybody else and does whatever it takes to be the best at his profession.
This is the very definition of focus and if you put in half the work towards one goal that Phil Ivey does towards poker I guarantee success will find you quickly.
So, get out there, stop spreading yourself too thin and pursue your career dream.
Become the master of your chosen field.