The Impact of Focus

Transcript:

Welcome to this weeks You Are Destined For Greatness. I'm coming to you today with my friend Scout. Scout's a pretty cool dude, and he's also probably the biggest 3-year old Quarter Horse I’ve ridden before. He’s a pretty good sized horse.

I wanted to talk to you today about something that is very common with riders and also very common with parents and teens. That is when riders ask our horse to do something, and they don't do it, a lot of times we get frustrated when they won't do what we want. Sometimes we even get angry, sometimes we just get sad, it's like, "Hey, man, I thought we were friends, I mean, it's not that big of an ask, I want you to step over there, how come you're not doing it?" And what happens when we get frustrated and when we get angry, okay, is usually we get more aggressive with our cue. Sometimes we'll pull on his face real hard, we get fast, we walk him on the rear, we kick him in the sides, and what happens when that happens is if we're not making a clear communication, then he gets frustrated. And then it turns into a cycle of frustration and anger and nothing works out well. If I get sad and depressed that he won't do it, then what I do is less. I quit asking. I start making excuses for him and all kinds of bad behavior and that turns into a cycle of me never getting what I want.

Same thing with our kids, right? I mean, if the focus is on all the things that they do, all the things that they're constantly doing wrong. They're doing wrong, they're doing this, they're doing this, I can't believe them, I don't know why, and all this stuff, ok? Puts us into the same feelings, frustration and anger. You know what we do when we feel frustrated and angry? Everything that's not going to help the situation, okay? Everything that makes them not want to cooperate, everything that makes them not feel understood, then we put our kids and ourselves into a bad cycle. Same thing. If we just feel sad and depressed or if we feel fear because we're worried about what they're going to do, then we do less. Then we don't show up as the confident leader that they really need if we're feeling saddened or depressed that they're not they're not doing what we want.

So the difference here is the focus of thought, the intentional focus on what you want to be thinking about in those moments, okay? Because sometimes this horse isn't going to do what I want, and sometimes my kids aren't either. Sometimes guys, gals that work for me don't either. So what am I going to do? Okay, The answer is to help them and to help me, to help me feel better and to get the best results that I can and be the best influence to my horse and my kids. What I need to know is, I need to focus on the result that I want. I want to decide how I want to show up in this situation. And I want to change my focus from what I'm not getting to what I want to get. When I change my focus to what I want to get from what I'm not getting, that's what makes the positive difference, that's when I have the highest influence, and that's when I'm going to end up with the best results. And that's what I'm going to feel better too, because that's just kind of part of the deal.

Hey, thank you for joining us for this weeks You Are Destined For Greatness. And remember, You Are Destined For Greatness.