Focus Makes a Difference

By Kathy Condon

As a Career Coach I teach people that they must focus on their outcome. It sounds like a cliché these days yet over and over again I have seen the results. Let me tell you a story.

I had the good fortune recently of being able to pack up and head for Long Beach, Washington for a week, alone, to reflect and write. I packed up my car with two boxes of stuff that accumulated in my den. I'm talking stuff here that goes back five years at least. Maybe there was something there I could use in my work. I didn't fully understand what that box would mean to me.

The first day I used as a totally relaxing day. Yes, I did watch the Blazers/Lakers, otherwise, I kept the TV off and the radio. I bought only healthy food so there would be no temptation to eat junk food. I wanted to understand Kathy Condon. Is she on the right track? What level should she take KC Solutions now? What do my clients need?

My first reminder of "focus" came on that first day. I've been to Long Beach when the sand dollars are plentiful. They are often laying one every three feet. These are perfect shells with nary a crack or chip and some reaching as three inches in diameter. This time, however, the beach was barren of shells and any kind of sea life except for the occasional crab shell.

My thoughts went to the sand dollar once again. They have really have become a symbol of my many trips to this wonderful peninsula beach. I watched as people dug and looked for a special treasure from the sea. I started to jog down the beach. My goal - a perfect sand dollar for me and my two daughters. Just as soon as I made the decision, there appeared the first sand dollar--- perfect in every way. Then another and still another, hidden from others yet waiting for me. I knew what I was looking for and I found it, while others with no particular outcome looked and looked and found nothing that they wanted to keep.

I walked back to the condo with my treasures and was stopped by others along the way. Where did you find them? I smiled and said, "Right down on the edge of the water." I lay my treasures on the patio outside of door. While having a cup of coffee a sea gull arrived and walked right over to the sand dollars, then looked at me. It was like she said "Kathy, a job well done. You focused on what you wanted and you found it."

It was time to turn my attention to those boxes of papers that I had brought along and had not looked at for years. There were seminars I had attended. It was really quite interesting because I had taken notes, and then typed them up so that I could share the contents with my daughters who were unable to attend. How clever of me to have put them in a notebook so that they could be read like a book. I say that with tongue in cheek, because I am not known for my paper organizing abilities.

There was a Jim Rohn talk about writing down your goals. He said, "Only 10 percent of the people listening to (him) would consider writing down their goals. Then only three percent would actually do it. Yet if people did it, they would have at least eight of their goals come true within the year."

The next layer down of papers was my goal list. Except I had decided to be an overachiever and wrote down 100 things I would like to have, see or do in my lifetime. The date was 1995. I sat there with music playing and wrote "victory" beside each one that I had accomplished. I was astounded at how many I had actually accomplished. I was also amazed at how different my list would look if I had created it today. The first list had a number of material things listed that I was no longer interested in owning. In fact, it is a game for me now to see if I can clean out a drawer or shelf and get another bag of "stuff" out of my condo and share it with someone who might really need it.

Goals focused on come true. My week at the beach was quiet. I decided it was time to prepare my goal list for 2003. This time I wrote down things like visiting the Japanese Gardens, go for a hike up on Saddle Mountain, speak in front of 1,000 men and women and share my experiences on the art of networking from my book that I was just finishing writing.

Yes, there were a few material things: a new floor for my bathroom and a great ceramic water cooler/filter for my drinking water. Overall, though, the list contained items that would nurture or help me be the best person I could be so that I could live my life at peak performance. Then I could share my talents with others in order that they may grow and prosper in their lives.

If you don't know where you are going, you probably won't get there. My girlfriend is coming over for weekend from Boise. Since I am the host, I have decided to include in our activity itinerary a number of things on my "goal list." If I hadn't written them down on my list, I am not sure I would have thought of them. Not only is this logical, I am feeling awfully smug that I will be able to write "victory" besides so many of them so quickly. It is call FOCUS.

By the way, I never saw another sand dollar on the beach the rest of the week. I wasn't looking for one and I didn't need any more.

Kathy Condon is a Career Facilitator and Founder of KC Solutions-A company that is Connecting and Developing the Potential in People. She also has recently released her CD/tapes "Connect with People-It's the Little Things." She can be reached at kathy@kathycondon.info , (360) 695-4313, www.kathycondon.info.