Developing a Personal Purpose

CONCENTRATED ENERGY

“One unwavering aim is the answer. The longer I live, the more deeply I am convinced that the difference in men – between the weak and the strong, the great and the insignificant, is focused energy and invincible determination.”

– Fowell Buxton

Those who are to be successful tend to focus their business in one thing supremely, not many things indifferently.

The great difference between those who succeed and those who fail does not consist in the amount of work done by each, but in the amount of intelligent work.

Many persons who fail at business fail not for a lack of ambition or work ethic, but rather they fail because their work is too varied. They haphazardly move from one chore to the next, forgetting their main purpose many times throughout the day.

On most days we could ask one of these aimless persons to state his or her purpose in life and they will respond; “I’m not certain what my main purpose is, but I am a thorough believer in hard work and I’ll know my purpose when I see it.”

The appropriate leadership executive coaching response to this person is to scream out, “NO!” Ask yourself, would any intelligent being attempt to dig up an entire continent in hopes of finding a single vein of gold or silver? The one who is forever looking around to see what he can find, will find nothing of significant value.

If we look for nothing in particular, we find just that and no more.

We will find what we seek with all our heart. Our life’s ambition is waiting to be found and our focus to realize our ambition will determine when the two actually meet.

“The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation; and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine.”

– Emerson

If a salamander is cut in two, the front part of its body runs forward and the other runs back. The same can be said of the man or woman who has divided his or her purpose.

Leadership executive coaching experts will tell you that success tends to repel those without one true aim.

The giants of the human race have been men and woman of deep conviction with a single concentration.

Charles Dickens said, “I never put one hand to anything on which I could throw my whole self.”

“I go at what I am about,” said Charles Kingsley, “as if there was nothing else in the world for the time being. That’s the secret of all hard-working men.”

Too often men and women fail to become great because they habitually split themselves into mediocre pieces. They choose to be a so- so jack-of-all-trades rather than to become an unrivaled specialist.

Every great man has become great and every successful man has succeeded, in direct proportion to his ability to focus his efforts through one narrow channel.

“A general purpose in not enough. The arrow shot from the bow does not wander around to see what it can hit on its way, but flies straight to the mark.”

– O.S. Marden

It is the most invisible point of a needle, the very slender edge of a razor or an ax, which makes way for the bulk of material that will follow. A person without a sharp focus tends to splinter in all directions.

The person who masters a single line of work, the razor-sharp individual, will more quickly and efficiently cut through obstacles and achieve greater success.

The young graduate who is seeking a position today is not so often asked what college he attended as he is asked, “What can you do?”

Leadership executive coaching experts encourage us to form a solid plan, understand our objective clearly, and then go forward and work with all our might to see our plan become a reality. This is the way to a successful life.

Young people are often told to aim high, and this is good, but to aim without knowing clearly your target is effort that is wasted.

The magnetic needle of a compass does not point in any and all directions to focus on many stars, it points to one central North Star. This single focus has directed countless beings to safety and security over many centuries. Knowing your own central focus will bring the same serenity to your life.

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