Focus!

“What would you do differently, if you could live your life over again?”

She pondered silently, as if to carefully review in her mind the important information she would share and then slowly, thoughtfully, she said

“I would have been more confident.”

I was a young mother at that time, carrying a laundry basket of children’s clothes through the family room. I paused when I heard the response on the television. I stopped and stared at it, dumbfounded.

“I would have been more confident.” I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t believe what I just heard.

She was Katherine Hepburn, and she was in her 90s.

Katherine Hepburn is now long gone but was a very successful actress in her time. The message she just shared, timeless.

Several minutes later I realized the television program had ended, and a new program was on. I was still standing there, staring at the TV, holding the laundry basket, thinking about those profound words.

“I would have been more confident”.

I went over her words again and again.

The things that went through my head. Is it really all about confidence? Did it take Katherine Hepburn until she was in her 90s to realize what she had lacked?

She was in her time, one of the most successful actresses in the world, I wondered what she missed in her life. Did she just give me the golden ticket to success? Is that the secret? Confidence?

I have shared her words with others, my daughters, my daughter’s friends, my friends. People who I have seen being held back by lack of confidence from achieving what they otherwise might. Everyone who I have repeated the words of Katherine Hepburn to, has looked at me, gratefully.

They say, if you know you can, you probably will, if you think you can’t, you definitely won’t.

Confidence, perhaps that is the secret to success.

How do we achieve confidence?

I am not talking about overconfidence, the kind that turns people off, and makes them want to avoid you. I am talking about confidence that comes with knowing.

Just knowing that you can.

Know that you can, and you probably will. How do we get to this point?

The confidence in knowledge. We learn that from focusing on that which interests us.

In my youth I lived on a block in Saint Paul that is between Summit and Portland Avenue, this block was 100% Catholic and the houses were big, they had to be because there were at least 8 kids in almost every family. At that time, there were hundreds of children on this one block. The catholic grade school coach was famous for recognizing talent in the young athletes that came through the school. He was my coach too, as well as one of my teachers. Now as an adult with my own children, and due to a school function, this coach was at my house for a school event-related party.

He stood in my kitchen with a drink in his hand. He looked at the photos of my daughters’ playing sports on the refrigerator, and then he looked at me thoughtfully, like he was remembering, and said slowly as if to himself, “Too feminine and too polite”. I said “What”? Then louder, actually way too loud. So everyone could clearly hear he shouted,

“You were. You were too feminine and too polite, for team sports. For team sports you have to be aggressive”.

Everyone got his attention and laughed at his comment. At least everyone but me, I merely smirked. That’s why I skied, I thought to myself in defiance.

When I was in the 3^rd grade, my older brother took me skiing for the first time. I immediately fell in love with skiing, and I skied whenever and wherever I could. When I grew up and could afford to, I joined a ski club. I skied out west, in Canada, and many other places. I loved skiing so much, I missed it in the summer and couldn’t wait for the first snow every fall. I wanted to and became a really good recreational skier. This was my focus. All the good skiers in my ski club raced, so eventually, I raced. Not thinking at the time that racing was a team sport, which I would never be good at, but I was a good skier, and so of course I could do that, I thought.

I never achieved anything better than a bronze medal. Not bad, but not good as I was a consistent bronze medal winner, afraid to ski as fast as you have to ski to win a gold medal. I wasn’t focused on winning; I wasn’t focused on skiing faster. I didn’t want to.

I was focused on skiing upright! I was focused on skiing well. That is why my confidence began and ended. My focus was not to get a gold medal, and I was not honest enough with myself about what my focus really was to just say I don’t want to race.

I didn’t like it. It was icy, the gates too close together. I just wanted to ski.

When I raced, people that watched complimented me on my skiing, the gold medal winners told me when they were on the chair lift and saw me skiing, they loved watching me because I skied so beautifully. The gold medal winners admired me… Ha! isn’t’ that something!

I had achieved what my focus was, where my confidence was, to be a really good recreational skier, and didn’t even realize it, all the while just thinking I wasn’t good enough. Not to win a gold medal.

So, what does that tell us about ourselves? What if we don’t realize what our focus really is?

I cheated myself, I didn’t understand how good at something I already was. I didn’t understand that I had achieved my focus and therefore my goal, because I didn’t understand how to identify it.

Do this for yourself:

Know what fulfills you at work, in your life, at home, in your hobbies, focus on it, and look for opportunities to do more of that which interests you the most.

Get to know it and gain confidence by focusing on that which you love.

Whatever your focus, you will achieve it.

It’s important to know what that is. Identify it, write it down, so that you don’t take yourself down the wrong path, and more importantly, so that you can know when you have achieved it!