ELAN Blog ~ Week 46, DAy 234

ELAN Blog Principle Four is Cast a Wide Net, Focus on Your Goal. It seems like a contradiction, but in order to reap the benefits of focus, we must bring many experiences into our lives. Using a camera as an analogy, if we focus on the same scene over and over, no matter how clear the picture, we will be limited to only one outcome.

David J. Schwartz, Ph.D., in The Magic of Thinking Big, says that enlarging our social orbit allows us to discover new and stimulating things to do, enhancing our psychological sunshine. This social orbit includes face to face time with others. It has nothing to do with social media involvement that seems to soak up more and more of our limited minutes. Meeting new people and doing new things has the added benefit of boosting our confidence while building a healthy defense against people who may reside in our narrow focus that seem bent on convincing us we can’t accomplish something. By expanding our areas of interest and increasing our effectiveness in one facet of our life, other areas benefit. Time spent building any skill is not wasted because it pays dividends in our personal and professional life.

TODAY think of someone you consider to be multi-faceted –– in other words, they are involved in many things and not afraid to learn something new, even if it means failing at first or stepping onto the steep slope of a new learning curve. Study their behavior and attitude. Chances are they have a joie de vivre along with a smile on their face.

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.” Matthew 13:47

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin, 1903-1977