The layers of learning how to focus

Something that I'm learning in real time: the difference between being willing to work hard, and being willing to focus. 

I was trying to figure out how to define these, and all I could think of is how they feel. 

For me, working hard feels like being frantically busy, all the time. Working hard can be super satisfying—maybe even mildly productive. But it also feels like overdrive—a frenetic energy that's unsustainable.

Focusing feels different for me. It's directed and purposeful. It requires discipline and guide rails when it comes to distractions. It is deep work, without the frenetic feeling.

Learning how to work hard is very different than learning how to focus. 

Full disclosure: focused work has been really hard for me, for a long time. But I didn't really know that to be true, because I was always capable of working really hard—and because focusing while I’m coaching a client comes really easily. But because I was willing to work hard elsewhere in my career, somehow I was able to work around the fact that I had a hard time doing focused deep work. 

Because I considered myself to be decent at executive functioning tasks (organizing, planning, problem solving, etc.), I never really thought about how much harder it was for me to pick one or two things to really focus on, over getting 15 disparate things done in the same amount of time.

In my career, I have been celebrated for the fact that I could "outwork" many other people in the agency world. I had a lightning fast email response time, I could craft solutions to problems pretty quickly, I could gather the right teams together really fast—speed and urgency were my jam. My brain likes to do lots of things all at once, so I thrive on that dopamine hit that comes from the juggle (and the external validation that comes with it!)

It's part of how I've built my business. I've always resisted to the urge to niche down—

coming up with new ideas (and ways to monetize them) is part of why my business has continued to do well enough for me to be a full-time photographer and coach for the last six years. 

You could see that as evidence of the ability to work hard—I certainly did.