Focus, In Practice
Crush one thing, then move on to the next. That was the subject of yesterday's post. Focus is a weird thing, and often difficult for us humans to execute. After all, there are many things vying for our time, attention, energy, and resources. However, whether we like it or not, there's simply not enough time, attention, energy, or resources to attack everything.
Today, I want to share some real-life examples of how this concept works through the lens of personal finance. The most common and notable version of this concept I see people shortchanging themselves is debt. Specifically, the payoff of debt. When we try to pay all our debts off at once, we'll likely pay none of them off.
Here's an example of what this looks like, using some nice round numbers for simplicity's sake. A family has ten $1,000 debts, totaling $10,000. This couple determines that it can afford to pay $1,000/month extra toward the debt (above the minimum payments).
Conventional wisdom says that if they pay $100/month toward each debt, they can have their debt paid off after 10 months! That's exciting!!! Here's what that looks like in practice, though:
After 1 month: 0 debts paid off
After 2 months: 0 debts paid off
After 3 months: 0 debts paid off
After 4 months: 0 debts paid off
After 5 months: 0 debts paid off
After 6 months: 0 debts paid off
After 7 months: 0 debts paid off
After 8 months: 0 debts paid off
After 9 months: 0 debts paid off
After 10 months (if everything went perfectly): 10 debts paid off
The gap between month zero and month 10 feels massive. Grinding month after month after month without feeling a tangible win is terrible. Inevitably, life happens, expenses pop up, or they get sidetracked. Failure is likely. Not because they didn't have it in them, but because they lacked focus. Discouragement sets in. A sense of defeat saturates them. Quitting is on the table.
Let's try this again, but with focus as the primary objective. Instead of paying $100/month toward 10 different debts, they decide to focus all $1,000/month on one debt each month. Here's what that strategy looks like:
After 1 month: 1 debt paid off
After 2 months: 2 debts paid off
After 3 months: 3 debts paid off
After 4 months: 4 debts paid off
After 5 months: 5 debts paid off
After 6 months: 6 debts paid off
After 7 months: 7 debts paid off
After 8 months: 8 debts paid off
After 9 months: 9 debts paid off
After 10 months: 10 debts paid off
Will life still get in the way? Probably. However, look at those wins! Almost immediately, this family would experience and benefit from wins. From a psychological perspective, wins matter. Getting a win provides much-needed encouragement, confidence, and motivation to not only keep going, but even step on the gas harder.
This one small shift in perspective can be the difference between complete failure and world domination. Same dollars, same timeline, same commitment. Different focus, different results.
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