How to Get Laser-Focused – 3 effective ways to achieve your goal

I must say that the ability to stay focused is a great force in what you want to achieve in life. If you can master this skill you are on your way to success. The best definition that I’ve seen about focus is the concentration of attention or energy on something. Another good one is the maximum clarity or distinctness of an image rendered by an optical system. Keywords here are concentration, attention and, clarity.

But how can you get focus in this chaotic world that we live in? In my work as a mechanical cad engineer in a marine engineering industry, it has been a stressful environment. Noise generated from colleagues (even boss) can create distraction from the work you want to accomplish. Life in the MRT can be stressful too specially jostling for a position on your way to the office and way back home.

So here are the top three keys on how to master your focus and achieve the activities that you have set;

1. Write it Down– (Begin with the end in mind.) You must be able to have a clear picture about what you want to accomplish. The best way is to write down your goals. I know lots of ideas have been written about this topic. This may sound easy but in reality it will take some time and a good practice of self-discipline. I still have challenges about this but one thing for sure that this worked out great for me. I’m still in the process of mastering this skill. I am still very much working on a 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. job though it has been a culture of practice to spend more extra time at work. I’m telling you this since I’m practicing this skill mostly outside of my work. Even as I write this article, I am distracted by lots of other things like Facebook, (this is very addictive as tons of information are shared from each of your friends), email, twitter, digsby, IM, YM, and other social media platforms. The best way is to shut off every single form of tools that will not help you in accomplishing your current activity. Never multi task as this can hamper what you want to accomplish. I must admit that this had been a struggle for me but I am doing my very best to overcome this challenges.
2. Make it clear and compelling – (If you can’t then you must.) There is a need to create a compelling reason why you need to do the task. If you don’t do this, imagine what will happen to your dreams or your goal. Say, you want to build a school for the children, what will happen if you failed on this dream. Imagine the thousands of children that will be deprived of that education, there’s a possibility for them to do illegal ways of making ends meet. If you dream on spending more quality time with the family, imagine the pain of not being able to spend with your children the growing years of fun, play and education. If you will not do it then you will never be. Make it a habit to do it now. One of my worst enemies is procrastination or locally called as mañana habit (mamaya na – in Tagalog), means tomorrow or indefinite time in the future. A bad habit that most of the Filipinos have inherited from our Spanish conquistadores. Here’s a good advice from the famous Michael Jordan, “Just Do It”. No wonder, he is considered as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
3. Persistence – (Money grows on the tree of persistence.) This is an act of continuing or a repeating behavior. It is almost synonymous with commitment and perseverance. Repetition is the mother of skill.  I’ve heard this from Tony Robbins a number of times even during his UPW seminar here in Singapore. This goes hand in hand with focus since you got to have persistence before you advance to another level of activity that is in alignment with what you want in life. Never give up on what you want to achieve whatever it takes. As long as you do it in an ethical way. Keep on practicing the skill; master it until you can consider yourself as a world-class player in your own right. Your ability to visualize yourself of achieving your dreams or goals is a key in your dogged pursuit and practicing your skills in a consistent basis.

Frankly speaking, I’ll tell you that this is not an easy task as I’ve told you that I still face this challenge even when I was writing this article. It has been always a battle for me and I will always fight it until it becomes a habit.

Here’s another tip that might help you. As I was writing this article, I am listening to a classical music. I think it helped me in my concentration and attention to this activity. Your environment plays an important role too so create any possible ways of convenience for you as you do your task.

It’s good to post some affirmations on your wall, or post it note. I made this habit of posting some form of powerful quotes or declarations even on my Facebook or twitter to motivate myself. It is a good form of autosuggestion. It’s a great feeling for me and even more when other friends like it too.

Here are some personal selection about focus affirmations and quotes from successful personalities.

The Holy Scripture says “Let your eyes look straight ahead. Keep looking right in front of you. Make level paths for your feet to walk on. Only go on ways that are firm. Don’t turn to the right or left. Keep your feet from the path of evil.” Proverbs 4:25-27 (New International Reader’s Version)

“What you focus on consistently, you tend to manifest in your life” -Tony Robbins

“Where attention goes, energy flows and results show” – T Harv Eker

“Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives”. – Tony Robbins

“My main focus is on my game.” – Tiger Woods

“The first rule of focus is this: “Wherever you are, be there.” – Unknown

“It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny.” – Anthony Robbins

Post from: Jerome Castañeda

How to Get Laser-Focused–3 effective ways to achieve your goal

Myth – I can’t be a leader if I’m not at the top or a title is needed like CEO, president, manager, supervisor, team leader. This is definitely a fallacy. Anyone can definitely become a leader without a title needed. The most important thing you need to do before you can lead other people is to lead yourself first. To become a great leader, one must first become a great person. To attract other people you need to be attractive first.

Personal development leadership is challenging yourself  to become someone more than mediocre. Here are some fundamental ideas that I can share with you to develop your personal leadership.

Continuous Learning – to quote the great Jim Rohn, “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” So make it a habit to read books or in my case listen to audio books. I make sure that I visit the library as often as I can or when I have finished the books that I listened. Read books that will inspire you, strengthen your character and get to know and model the life story of the greatest leaders of our world.

Positive Affirmations – another habit that you can practice (though it may look weird) is to get in front of the mirror and talk to yourself with positive statements. In my case, I say to myself “I’m the best; I like myself “over and over again. It is best if you reinforce the statement with intense emotions. Gratitude is the best affirmation you can give to yourself. Everyday I make it habit to thank God for the day he had given me like when I finished working.

Book Journal – this is a must have. This is your book of life. Write down your insights, feelings, dreams, and goals, ideas from a seminar, mission, or purpose.

Visualize – close your eyes and envision yourself achieving your goals or the person you want to be by playing at your very best. The mind works best with pictures of yourself in the future.

Goal Setting –  Goals make you move forward. It generates hope and positive energy. Definitely you need to write down your goals because it works.  Believe that you can achieve and exercise concentration and focus. Begin with the end in mind.

Exercise – you need to sweat it out. Doing something physical each day boosts brain function and fuels high energy levels. Everyday I walk a kilometer long from office to the MRT train station. I do also a 2-3 kilometer jog just along our home vicinity and some occasional aerobics at my room.

Nutrition – your performance depends on the food you eat. Be organic as much as possible, eat green in moderate amounts. Just like an automobile you need to feed it with premium oil and gasoline to maintain its peak performance. Take nutritional supplements as necessary.

Here’s an experience that I want to share with you during one of my son, Justin Daniel, swimming lessons when he was still 5 years young. At that time his coach was teaching older batches of teenagers on how to jump on a 10 ft diving platform. The coach took him a lot of time convincing or motivating the student to jump. This is part of their training to conquer their fears. His coach noticed my son where we are on the other side of the pool to come over the platform and to show how a very young kid can jump over the platform. Without hesitation, Justin Daniel climbed up and jump down the board. This scene inspired the student to finally dive down the pool. My point is anyone can become a personal leader. You just have to start to conquer yourself first before you can influence others.

Here’s how Justin Daniel dived down the 10 ft deep swimming pool.

Post from: Jerome Castañeda

Personal Development Leadership – a Leader Without a Title

First of all, I would like to thank God for adding another exciting year into my life. I am very thankful for the person that I become and the person I will become. I am thankful for my family, my wife Helen and my son Justin Daniel for the unquestionable love they have shared with me. They are the reason for my pursuit of continuous personal development. If I work hard on my self-improvement I become a better husband and a father to them. Next, I would like to thank God for the friends that I have met physically and virtually. I learned a lot from other people’s inspiration in life spiritually, emotionally,financially, physically. I thank the mentors for giving me the business skills of inspiration and what I can become as a person.

My wish for my birthday is for God to continue to develop my character of a potential person that I will become. To continue the hunger for knowledge, wisdom and skills of the person that I want to be, that is to make a little difference to my neighbors, friends. To become a better husband to my wife, Helen and a better father to my son, Justin Daniel.

This year I wish (i preferred the terms – will make it happen) to put the learned skills in internet marketing into action.  To continue to learn and improve the skills together with like minded individuals through mastermind groups. I want to start my own projects like BayanihanOnline (still under construction) that I just started with the intention of being a service and inspiration to the many.

Post from: Jerome Castañeda

My Happy Birthday Wish for 2010

WOW! 2009 will be my  most memorable year! It was the year where I learned to develop my skills in internet marketing. My objective at that time was to learn how I can generate more leads to my network marketing business through pay per click. I learned more than what I expected and the thought of passive residual income while you sleep is such an inevitable and powerful tool. Internet marketing is such a lonely business if you do it by yourself so I highly recommend that you find a mentor just like when you enroll to get a college degree.  I developed my skills in the field of search engine marketing – both in search engine optimization and Google adwords.  It was my first time to buy a domain name for jeromecastaneda.com and learned to use this powerful blog resource of WordPress. Actually, I managed to rank on the first page for some keywords about my blog. Woohoo! I was able to dominate almost all the sites on the first page for my name Jerome Castaneda and hope to totally dominate it next year 2010. Indeed, wordpress is the king!

I had the chance to attend Tony Robbins Unleashed the Power Within 4 day’s seminar at the Singapore Expo.  In those 4 days I had the chance to shape my destiny in my thoughts and managed to do a firewalker on burning coals. It was also in this event that I truly take care about my health especially  the food that I ate.  I just developed the love for green  stuffs, vegetables and fruits. Wow, it was truly an awesome time to remember.

It was the year where I regularly attended a Personal Excellence and Growth Meetup with great life coaches, Mr. Patrick Lim and Ms. Jessica See. I’ve met like minded people and exchanged life experiences and philosophies to grow and become the person that I want to be. There were 2 things that I learned if you want to succeed or grow in life, 1. the people you know or associate with and 2. the books that you’ve read.

2009 was the year I started to grow my spiritual relationship with the Lord God through CFC-FFL Singapore (Couples for Christ – Foundation for Family and Life) as a member for the Servants of the Lord (SOLD) group. Here I got the chance to meet God filled spirited people where there’s no inhibitions about telling your personal challenges in life. Here we prayed for each one’s personal success, family and health miracles. I highly suggest to any individual to join a spiritual or religious group especially if you’re working away from your family just like me.

Now, some people (especially with hardcore employee mindsets)  may ask me why on earth should I spend much time learning stuffs that is outside of my job skills as a Mechanical Engineer. My answer is very simple my friend, I have Big Dreams. I am taking Jim Rohn’s advise to work hard on myself than what I do on my job. Personal development builds up my character and my attitude at work. I have the power of concentration and the focus to become a very productive engineer not only at work but with my relationship and communication with my colleagues.

As I looked forward about my 2010 goals, I am very excited about the potential person I can become. Year 2010 will be the start of my 10 year master plan. I’ll continue the commitment of my never ending personal development blog, to become the best father to my son and a loving husband to my wife. I’ll continue to read or listen to books or audiobooks, to meet like minded individuals in personal development and internet marketing fields. I’ll continue to work and apply my skills in internet marketing, to help local businesses generate more sales to their business. I’ll continue to take care of my health by having a regular exercise and watch out on the food that I take. Most of all, I’ll continue to praise and worship God for all the blessings and for the person I become.

Post from: Jerome Castañeda

Thank You 2009 and An Exciting 2010 Goals!

success journal

Finally with the help of my wife, I managed to create a success journal. This will be my greatest gift to myself of all occasions (father’s day, birthday, new year, etc) so far. Btw, thanks to my wife for creating it patiently. You see I do a lot of note taking whenever I attended a talk, seminar, learning experiences, ideas, from books I read, friends that I talked to  but I wrote this mostly in sheets of paper, notebooks (runs out of pages quickly). So this time I make sure its a thick one that will last longer.

Post from: Jerome Castañeda

Success Journal