How to stay focused for success - part one

When I tell people I run marathons, I often get asked how I manage to stay focused on what can seem such a huge goal with weeks of training and preparation.

Recently I finished my eighth marathon (around the streets of Great Yarmouth) and wanted to share a few of the things I do to help me stay focused and motivated right up to the finish line.

And it doesn’t matter whether your personal goal is running, sport related or something else – try out some of these techniques and explore how you can apply them to keep you motivated, focused and ultimately successful at what you want to achieve.

1) Know where you are going

Whatever your goal or objective, you need to know where you are going – or you’ll never get there!

And you want to focus on what you want rather than what you don’t want – it’s a lot harder to not get something and much easier to put your attention on what you do want.

It’s worth spending a few minutes considering:

• Where are you now?
• Where do you want to be/what do you want to change or achieve?
• What will you be seeing, hearing, feeling when you get there?
• How will you know you’ve got there?
• What sort of time-frame do you have in mind? Is it realistic?

For a marathon I have an 18 week training schedule – I know what I’ll be doing each week and I know when my goal will be achieved (location, time, place etc).

The more I focus on the end success (for me, the time I cross the finish line) and imagine how good it will be, the more motivated I feel to do what I need to do to get there.

I’ll know when I’ve achieved my goal because I’ll have crossed the finish line (hopefully in just about one piece!).

So the question for you to think about is this: 

How will you know when you’ve achieved your goal?

More on staying focused and succeeding in the next article.

Dan Regan

Award-winning International Hypnotherapist & Coach

PS Here’s a photo of me running the Great Yarmouth marathon – still (just about) smiling after 25 miles!