I had a friend that was fitted for prescription glasses. It changed everything.
He realized he had been squinting his eyes to see, to read, to work, and people thought he was continually upset or filled with anxiety. Now that he could focus, he could relax.
Everything became clear. And he no longer pushed people away with negative facial cues.
Focus is what gets things done. The ability to shut out the noise changes everything.
The problem comes in our understanding of what it means to focus.
As men, we lean into working harder, pushing stronger, and straining our reach. The best definition of focus is to "see clearly." And seeing clearly doesn't mean greater intensity - it means greater intentionality.
Focus is forged in the discipline to extract yourself from the unnecessary.
The greatest writers know that what they often need is not the right word, but removing the unnecessary words.
In his great book, The One Thing, Gary Keller wrote: "To-do lists tend to be long; success lists are short. One pulls you in all directions; the other aims you in a specific direction."
When we launched the BraveMen podcast in April of 2020, in the midst of massive anxiety about Covid and extraordinary fear of the pandemic, we addressed that issue right from the start. That podcast is available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Focusing our lives is about bringing Jesus into the center, the core of our lives, not just adding Jesus to the mix of our lives.
Focus produces hope, clarity of thought, and energy in life.
My prayer for you, my CMN brother, is to bring Jesus into the center of your life in 2023. I pray for you to know what to cut away from your daily activities so you can be more focused, more Christ-centered than you have ever been before.
Let's do that together this year and watch how God blesses our lives and ministry.
