I have wanted to write about this for a long time and it just fades into the background, forgotten. The ability to focus is so significant, yet it is easy to forget about. So much of our lives are automatic and unconscious, especially as busy adults. Focus needs consciousness. It needs intentionality. But this one thing is life changing for anyone who applies it consistently. I have a few stories to share about this and how I slowly became conscious of this ability. I think anyone can do this, it just comes down to being aware and intentional about it. Also, it is worth noting that focus doesn’t seem to come naturally to most people. It’s a skill that needs to be practiced and developed.

The first story I want to share goes back to when I was a senior in high school. I ended up taking pre-calculus and was struggling a bit at first. I could have struggled on and ended up with a C or maybe C+ in the class, but the fact that I was struggling woke me up a bit. My baseline with high school grades was decent without much effort. A 3.5 was my typical GPA. But this class was actually challenging me beyond this baseline. I realized I had to do something more than I was doing. As in, more than memorizing and regurgitating information, which was very easy for me, LOL. The solution wasn’t putting in a lot of useless, unproductive hours. I had to focus and find the thing that I wasn’t understanding.  I went back to the chapters we had covered in the textbook and read them again to understand it at the base level.  I realized there were some assumptions happening that I must have missed. I also noticed that when I was reading I wasn’t really paying close enough attention. My mind would wander. In class, I’d only half listen. After realizing this, I truly focused in class and started taking notes, which really ended up helping me.  I realized I needed a lot less time at home because I’d gotten most of the information the first time. I ended up with a high A in that class. I knew this was significant, because the teacher noticed and commented on this. 

Another time this happened to me was when I started college. To my dismay, the strategy for success I used in high school didn’t work as well in college. I was shocked when I realized my GPA after the first semester was ~2.9. Part of the problem was the workload. I wasn’t used to the amount of work expected. Another part was, again, my lack of awareness. I hadn’t heard the professor announce the assignments the first time around and was scrambling to finish them at the last moment because of this.  They weren’t on top of you in college, no one really cared if you did the work or not, if you showed up or not. I realized it was up to me to succeed.  One of the first things I did was get a planner, this really helped. I’d also pay close attention to what the professors said at the beginning and end of class because that’s when they would mention important things.  Sometimes they would even spell out what would be on the tests.  Each class I took, I applied my focus to what the professors said and took notes.  I’d notice that there were certain patterns to being successful, regardless of the class I was in. To my amazement, I ended up with a 4.0 GPA for most of the remaining semesters and graduated with honors. This was definitely not predicted by my first semesters’ results. A similar thing happened to me when I took Cost Accounting in college. For some reason I struggled at the beginning. I really worked at it, put some extra time in to really understand it and after the final, my professor emailed me and said I’d gotten the highest grade in the class. She noticed my turnaround.

It took a while, but I started to realize there was something amazing going on. I’d always had something of a fixed mindset. But this was proving otherwise.  I have applied this technique of focus to programming, dance, piano, singing, songwriting and art among other things and it’s always the same.  I can’t help but think that this is the point – this is what being present, truly present can offer you. It’s pure magic. It’s the difference between being lost in a fog of life where you feel like you have no control to having control over your life.

This also brings to mind the 80/20 rule. I can’t specifically say what a person needs to do in a given situation but if you are really focused, really present, I think this information will absolutely come to you. You start to pick up on what works and what doesn’t. This also serves a a reminder that no matter how you start off, you can almost always turn things around. It takes effort, of course, but it comes down to applying focus on the relevant thing at hand.  I think this is separate from intelligence. But it may be a key part of being intelligent, like a missing puzzle piece. I don’t know if the amazement and pure magic of this comes across with these stories. I can’t really put into words how I felt when I turned these things around, I wish I could.  I wanted to share this because from the outside nobody would know this. I was pretty mediocre at these things and then was able to turn it around. I do think most people can apply this in some way.