Friday, August 25, 2006

A Simple System for Personal Focus

You know how us artistic types tend to seem flakey and scattered and often seem to have a really hard time following through on committments and goals? It's not because we're inconsiderate or stupid. It's because our minds are constantly reaching all over the place for inspiration, for new ideas, new connections and we have a hard time holding on to concrete routines.

I’ve discovered and integrated into my life a system that makes it easy to choose and accomplish my big dreams. To all the cartoonists, designers, dancers musicians, painters, sculptors comics artists, writers, film makers, actors, performance artists, comedians, poets, photographers, directors, choreographers… who am I missing? Our scattered multi-directional minds may be our greatest strength, but can also present some major life obstacles when we try to use that same thinking style on all of our day to day actions. Following through on a goal takes a certain amount of consistency and relentlessness. these attributes are easy for us while working on a project of great passion. But what about the other parts of our lives that support those passionate dreams? Things like money management, marketing, keeping up relationships with friends and clients and spouses, improving our emotional intelligence, our health, financial prowess, building our personal abundance? It takes focus, and a willingness to overcome our internal obstacles.

My name’s Scott Mooney. I’m one of those super-scatterbrained creative types. I’m a comic book artist, commercial illustrator (see www.moon-man.com), I manage systems and marketing for my family photography business with my wife (www.trinakoster.com), I’m a visionary, and as of this writing I’ve been a hardcore student of personal development for over three years. The courses, books, audios, seminars and coaching that I’ve ingested have made incredible improvements in my life and in how I feel about it. But still my scattered mind has kept me spinning my wheels professionally… until now.

In May of 2003 I was 4 years depressed and feeling like I was on the brink emotional breakdown, I got desperate enough to drop my barriers and put my trust in a great personal development trainer. Some may think he’s cheesy but he truly saved me from my accelerating downward spiral… or rather, he gave me the tools and motivation to rescue my own life. It was Tony Robbins with his 30 day Personal Power course. That step changed my life forever, putting me on a continuous journey of rapid and dramatic personal growth. But none of that incredible emotional success was showing up on my bank statement. I was still too scattered and confused to really take control of, or even to think about my life’s action plan. I was still relying on helter skelter fits of inspiration to get things done… and very few things really got done.

No day planner, scheduling system, or bing-bonging PalmPilot worked for me because what I had been assuming was a time management problem was really a focus problem. The only reason I know this now is because I’ve taken this course, called Simpleology, and integrated the systematic process I learned into my daily life and I've seen the difference in what has really changed. This course has shown me a simple way to create focus in my life with natural ease. I no longer have to force myself, bullwhipping my attention into staying on one thing. All I changed was a few habits and the results started to show immediately.

How can we stay focused on what we want in our lifes in a way that makes it really happen? Some people seem to have a natural talent for it. Not me. I’m all over the place… and I like it that way! Seeing things from many angles and getting inspired and interested in a lot of things is the source of my creativity and joy. I don’t want to give that up. However, I do want to create success and abundance in all areas of my life… abundance of creativity, fun, love, money, health, contribution, emotional intelligence, learning and having profound experiences. To that end I want to be able to focus on some key specific things and make them happen in my life.

It's a personal-focus system I have by now absorbed on a cellular level. I want to emphasize it's not about focusing harder, which was my old way. It's about focusing better. Simpleology 101 is a free course created by internet marketing Guru, Mark Joyner. Included in this course is a step by step system that keeps you focused on, and excited about what you really want in life, and it keeps you taking daily steps towards the accomplishment of those things. It’s about a thirty-day internet based course that’s broken up into little bite-sized packets that take about 15 minutes a day. Not only does this make it really easy to fit into your day, but it allows you to deeply absorb each lesson one at a time and allow them to become a natural part of your thinking.

Simpleology 101 is a very solid foundation of being able to manage your time and energy very effectively. Even though Mark saves the Simpleology money-training for the next course, Simpleology 102, this course (101) alone has massively helped me to more than triple my income, and that took place within 6 months. For me that came about simply by being able to focus on my roles in our photography business and accomplish my work effectively and with more fun so I stay motivated.

Simpleology 102 is only about a hundred bucks to join up and it’s focus is about creating more money in your life. It’s an excellent course, I’ve taken it myself and it’s made huge improvements in the way I run my two businesses. Taking the 101 course first is essential for getting the most out of 102. Basically what these courses do is teach you a daily system. 101 teaches you the system, and 102 teaches you a new piece of the system to add on to 101.

One thing to note is once you’re signed up to that course you have access to it permanently. You can take the course again, or revisit specific lessons as you wish. The forms and checklist and audios and the manual are downloadable for you to keep forever. You can print them off your own printer or at a copy shop.

It’s a focus-creation system… it’s basically a checklist and a few simple forms you run through each morning to help you stay focused and choose effective tasks for yourself to accomplish in your day, and it also keeps you in tune with your Big Picture. There’s even an element that helps you create your big picture. If the word “planning” makes you cringe the way it does for me, don’t worry. It really is simple. You just take it one step at a time, a little piece each day, and over a bit of time it begins to come together. You change it, tweak it, and discover what’s really important to you and what isn’t. You take steps and amazingly things get accomplished. For me it was more fun than I ever expected, and a real rush in the beginning because of the dramatic transformation in my ability to get things done. Now I’m just used to it and it seems normal to be able to do these things.

And the best part is I still have my creative mind, and it’s more powerful than ever before
as the dreams I create with it are coming true. This is because I’m systematically taking actions that bring them about.

If you’re resisting the idea I suggest doing the first few lessons for a few days and see if it’s helping you. There’s nothing to lose, since the course is free anyway. I found that even in the first couple of days I was saving so much time at work that the 15 to 20 minutes I took in the morning to do it was well more than made up for.

Another suggestion I can make is to approach it with an open mind and a sense of play and experimentation. To make real change in our lives we need to do things that seem unusual. If they seemed usual or normal to us that would mean we’re doing the same stuff we always do, which means we’d get the same results. If the results are desirable, if they’re helping you to improve things steadily and noticeably, that’s great, keep doing it. And if you want to change your results more dramatically, you’ll need to push the envelope a bit. If an exercise in the course seems silly or pointless, makes you grumble or laugh or shake your head at its silliness, that’s okay. Try it anyway. The worst that can happen is nothing. What's more likely to happen is a marked improvement in the fun and profit you experience in your daily life.

Why is the course free? Because Mark Joyner thinks enough people will like it enough to want to pay for 102. And he’s right. I enrolled in 102 and I’m glad I did. I don’t even use the entire system and it’s still making a big difference.

So check it out! Don’t wait. The sooner you start the course the sooner you start saving time, energy and money, and being more effective in your life. Go to; http://imaginate.simpleology.com/?L1

And once you do, I'd love to hear from you and see what your experience with it has been!
Cheers!
Scott Mooney