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Don’t Miss the Power of Focus

About a decade ago, a colleague said something to me that I haven’t been able to get out of my head.

What you focus on expands.

Those five words have changed so much for me in the last decade.

I think the maxim is true, whether you want it to be or not:

If you focus on the negative, guess what you end up seeing? More negative.

If you focus on the faults in people, guess what you see? Their faults.

Focus on someone’s strengths and guess what you see? Their strengths.

I believe focus also has the power to change your future. Let me give you a few practical examples.

Facebook Engagement.

Last month, a few of us decided to focus on the Facebook page of Connexus Church, the church I lead. 

We had built it a few years ago, but truthfully it had been in cruise control for too long. We made a few simple tweaks, began adjusting a few things every day, posting more frequently and referencing it more.

We saw a 10 fold spike in traffic in two weeks.

All we did was give it a little bit of focus every day. People are engaged, interacting more and the number of likes even grew by 20% in a month.

Weekend Services.

After two years of focusing on the financial future of our church (which led to more than doubling the amount of money we have available for our future), I decided to refocus our efforts on our weekend services.

This one’s a little more ‘organic’ to measure because we never stopped running them and I think our team has always done a great job with them. But I believed if they got more of my focus, and our focus, they could become even better. I want them to generate that spark that makes them truly irresistible to unchurched and churched people alike.

After a month of focus on that, we’ve seen attendance grow, engagement increase, seen a few ‘wow’ moments and have heard more buzz than we’ve heard in a while. This will be a major focus for me in 2013.

My blog.

I blog in my spare time — it’s my hobby. And after blogging off and on for five years, in October last year I made a commitment to blogging 2-3 times a week indefinitely moving forward.