The secret of achieving goal lies in focus. When we truly focus on our goal, we start focusing on solutions to the problems that we might face while trying to reach our goal; instead of the problems.

What really is focus?
Focus is a state of mind in which you see nothing else but your goal. The distraction, opinions, hurdles; they all don’t matter to you anymore. You know it from inside, when you are ready to do all it takes to achieve your goal, you push yourself to and beyond your limits. Temporary success does not matter to you. You reach a milestone, and you celebrate it for a while; then move on to another while focusing on your ultimate goal.

I can not emphasize more on the power of focus, but to make it simply understandable, let me share a story with you; a real life story, not a tale.

Lets call it Man With The Only Hand!
The Year is 1938, there is a young man named Karoly Takacs in Hungary of age 28. An army man and a bright star with extra ordinary shooting skills. By this age, he has won all the major shooting championships that he had participated in and is ambitious to win Gold Medal in World Olympics scheduled to be held in 1940. He has done all he could to master his craft and all is set for him to be the next Olympic shooting gold medalist.

During an army exercise, a grenade explodes in his hand; his right hand, the very hand he uses to shoot with excellent precision. Karoly suffers a bad injury to the hand that was supposed to be the best shooting hand in the world. He will never be able to use his best hand for shooting again.

Now, Karoly is left with two choices; either to wine for the loss he has faced and live a life of pain and suffering, with shattered dreams; or build on what he has now i.e. his other hand; the only hand he has that could make him the best shooter in the whole world. Karoly chooses the second option and starts his practice secretly and trains his only hand to be the best shooting hand. He bears the pain that comes with his right hand’s suffering as well as the pain his left hand faces while getting it to train for shooting. He practices and practices and the day some for Hungarian national pistol shooting championship in the spring of 1939.

He appears at the competition venue, his old mates greet hum cheerfully while appreciating his sportsman ship for coming and supporting them in their contest. Karoly replies, I am here to compete with you guys, contestants are stunned; to their and whole audiences’ shock, Karoly wins the contest and becomes National Shooting Champion with his only hand. Karoly doesn’t stop here. He continues his practice and trains hard for 1940 Olympic.

Comes 1940, World War II has started and Olympics are cancelled. Karoly is focused on his goal, he continues his training for 1944 Olympics; but they too get cancelled.

After the World War II, Olympics are held in 1948. Karoly is now 38 years of age, not on his sportsman prime, had to compete with young professional shooters from around the world. He competes and wins the Gold Medal for 25 meters rapid pistol shooting. Then again in 1952 he wins the Gold, creating history by becoming the only Olympian at that time to win two Gold Medals for Shooting.

Learning points in this story are:
- If you want to achieve your goal, you need to be dead focused on it. That you will only be if you dream for it, work for it and live for it.
- You must ignore the distractions, the hurdles, others’ opinion etc.
- You must build on what you have right now. It could be a material resource, a skill or any other strength.
- You must not settle for less than what you dream for. There will be times in your journey where you’ll find temporary success, you must not stop and continue your journey until you achieve your goal.
- Never give up on your dream. Sometimes, life will punch you hard right in your face and you’ll fall. You must get up again and continue working for your dream until you achieve your goal.