In my sales training experiences, when people talk about achieving goals and having success in business, the word focus always seems to come up.  I wonder, do people really understand what focus is, how you get it, how you keep it and how your daily actions tie into it?  Many people think focus is invisible, like concentration.   But if we have no physical structure or foundation behind our concentration, then they day-to-day activities of our lives can make our concentration short lived.   

Techniques to Keeping Focused

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Keeping focused on your goals is simple when you have the tools you need to do so.  Here are three tangible ways to create and keep focus a part of your daily life:

If you are professional sales person looking to substantially increase your income, then write your sales volume goals down on paper.  Figure out how many leads need to be run in order to achieve the closing rate necessary to reach your desired sales volume.   Then, create and follow a detailed action plan that will keep you working on your income goal.      

If your belief system is to live your life with honesty and integrity (“the golden rule”), then you will internalize these things and make them become one with your daily actions.  If you believe in being honest and integral with yourself and others, in treating people the way they would like to be treated (vs. the way you would like to be treated – see Stephen Covey), you will begin to realize that your beliefs don’t turn on and off depending on your situation.  They become your life values and a way of living your life that carries through your business, home and social settings.   

If your belief system involves being strong in mind, body and spirit, you will naturally want to stay and keep healthy with diet, exercise and activities that fulfill your mind and spirit.  If you keep yourself challenged, read or listen to books, explore new ways of understanding yourself and others, then this is reflected in your daily actions.   

How can we condition ourselves to keep focus a part of our daily lives?  If we go all the way back to 1890’s and look at the research by Russian Psychologist and Nobel Prize Winning Physician Ivan Pavlov, we learn about the phenomenon of classical conditioning.   Classical conditioning is a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.   While investigating salivary response in dogs, he noticed that the dogs started to salivate before food coated in chili powder was actually delivered to their mouths.  He saw the dogs salivate in the presence of the lab technician who normally fed them.   He began to use a variety of neutral stimuli (bells, whistles, tuning forks and visual stimuli) to evoke the salivary response in dogs, in the absence of the food.  His research findings suggested that if a stimulus and a response are repeatedly paired, eventually the two become associated and the organism begins to produce a behavioral response to the stimuli. 

 Here are visual examples.  

... a dog will salivate at the sight or smell of a steak (unconditioned stimulus).  The dog will not salivate at the sight or sound of a bell (neutral stimulus).  

...the bell (neutral stimuli) is first presented to the dog, followed by the steak (unconditioned stimuli).  After repeated pairings of the bell and the steak, the dog will develop an association between the two stimuli.  

...the bell is no longer a neutral stimulus.  It is now known as a conditioned stimulus because it evokes a salivating response (conditioned response) from the dog, in the absence of the steak.

No, we don’t respond to our  environment quite the same way that Pavlov’s dogs did, however the same basic principles behaviorism and conditioning that apply to higher order animals, also apply to humans.  Humans have been conditioned over time to elicit different behaviors and emotions based upon our up-bringing, schooling, traditional though-patterns of our social environments, religions, politics and nationalities.  By understanding how classical conditioning works and how to administer the techniques ourselves, we can achieve new desired behaviors or eliminate undesirable behaviors.

Let’s get back to the topic of focus.  Here’s how we can apply the basic principles of classical conditioning to increase our focus, using these four techniques:    

#1 - Identify your setting (unconditioned stimuli):  When and where are you most naturally focused?  Recall the moments or places when/where you are most confident, energetic, creative and focused.  Is it in the comfort of your own home or office, in your car, at a park, in a gym, at your kitchen table?   This setting is the place where you will need to begin your conditioning. 

#2 - Create a trigger (the conditioned stimulus):  You may not be as naturally focused on achieving your goals during the course of a busy day out selling your products/services and as you would in the quiet comfort of your own home or office.  By creating a trigger, or conditioned stimulus, while in your desired setting and at your best, you can begin to invoke the frame of mind you want in any setting.  A simple a gesture, a handclap for instance, or a series of words like a mantra, is all that is needed to trigger the desired response.     

#3 - Pair the trigger with the response:   While you’re in your best setting and/or focused frame of mind (the conditioned response), while you’re most productive, creative and energized, repeat the use of your trigger.  Use it as often as you feel necessary to establish an association.  The trigger must be able to invoke a focused frame of mind. 

#4 - Use your trigger in other settings:   Once you feel good about your trigger, you can begin to use it when you feel it’s most needed.  In an unproductive meeting, during a stressful day, or when you feel you’ve neglected your action plan and goals use your trigger to get you back on track and focused on your life values and goals.