by Kingsley Okonoda

Created on: April 18, 2009

He stood there rooted to the ground. The result of the professional examination that he had just written had been released and behold,he could just not find my name on the pass list. As he read through the list a few thoughts came to his mind and his mind began to work like a machine in overdrive. So how did he get to this level? What really went wrong? The phrase that kept coming to his mind was 'the power of focus'. The thought of it was so strong that he had to do a quick re-appraisal of the situation.

It has been said that performance is a product of motivation and ability. The output that we get out of our activities is a reflection of the motivation we have which ultimately lead us to put the required effort and the ability that we have for the task in question. Well a good number of people have abilities for what they are doing. This ability may be inborn or may be acquired by training, either formal or informal. Quite a number of people will also tell you the reason why they are getting involved in whatever it is that they are doing. After all we all want to appear as rational people and we have good reasons for whatever we are channeling our effort into. Why then is it that we find so many people start something and they are not able to finish? How is it then that a lot of output is not commensurate with the ability that we possess either innately by virtue of our genetic makeup (nature) or by the virtue of the training that we have received and our environmental influences (nurture)?

The answer is in focus! Focus is the ability to stay on course in the face of distracting issues. We must be aware that our lives are multi-facet and all the different areas are as important as we take them to be. Take for instance a married person who has committed himself to another to love and to cherish. He made a vow before God and man to take his wife above all others. At the same time he is driven by professional goals to excel in his chosen field. Surely such a one has to balance his time between nurturing his relationship and giving the extra push, time and effort that professional excellence demands. There are a thousand and one other areas that we can think about. These issues can be distracting and lead to one taking his mind away from the goal and loss of focus.

Another reason why we may lose focus may be because of varied number of interests and a good measure of talents to back it up. Take for instance a lady that is very good in a foreign language. She has

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