The Power of Prioritizing well: How to Master Intense Focus and Excellence
"I'm a dummy" is the lamest excuse for not achieving what you want. New research on grit reveals that perseverance beats intelligence every time—and the best part? You can develop it through deliberate practice. My father, who had polio and walked with a severe limp his entire life, taught me the secret during a tennis match he was losing badly. What he did next changed how I think about excellence forever.
Part 5: When you find yourself excited about something and really passionate, then nothing can take your attention from it very easily. The things you are most interested in claim your most devoted attention, which can look like an obsession or hyper-focus. Here are some thoughts on how to take ownership of what you focus on.
What Is Intense Focus?
It involves something very popular right now in research called grit. What is grit? To me the word doesn't sound very scientific, but it's being researched in depth right now. It has to do with perseverance and—guess what?—grit is not tied to intelligence. So the excuse, "I'm a dummy," is irrelevant.
Grit alone, without focus, won't necessarily accomplish what you really want. According to Angela Lee Duckworth, who is really focused on researching grit:
"Gritty individuals are especially motivated to seek happiness through focused engagement (e.g., the state of flow) and a sense of meaning or purpose, but less motivated than others to pursue happiness through pleasure."
This clicks with my observation that people who thrive have a strong sense of purpose.
How Does One Become Gritty?
We are not entirely sure—there are some smart people trying to uncover that carefully. While they work on that, let me suggest practice. Practice activities designed to improve specific aspects of performance.
From what I have heard, in martial arts, practicing a specific skill or move is a common routine. Routine leads to excellence and helps certain moves become automatic. When I was 14, I spent hours teaching myself to serve in tennis. I wanted to learn to serve so well that the opponent would have little chance to hit the ball back to me, because I was too lazy to practice my backhand. I actually developed a pretty wicked serve, and it masked some of my other deficits.
The Navy SEALs practiced for weeks to perform what took a number of hours to hunt down and kill Bin Laden in his compound. They made a replica of the compound and practiced the scenario over and over before the raid was carried out.
Does that mean you practice being gritty when you practice a skill over and over? I think so. It takes grit to improve on one thing before moving onto the next—it also takes focus.
The Secret Ingredients: Optimism and Contentedness
Would you like to know what seems to help people, kids and adults develop grit and that intense focus? Optimism and a certain level of contentedness.
There is evidence that being optimistic and thinking that personality traits and life skills are malleable over time helps tremendously. In other words, if you believe you can change, you are more likely to change.
I recently read a very depressing blog/tweet entry that expressed something contrary to this: "It's not the pain, but the hope that kills me." Holy crapola! That's a formula for feeling like a total loser.
Duckworth suggests "a growth mindset encourages children to construe failures and setbacks as opportunities to learn and improve, rather than as evidence that they are permanently lacking in ability." Good stuff, right? It also sounds like the antithesis of perfectionism.
How about looking for progress or even excellence rather than perfection? Perfection leads to all-or-nothing thinking, black-and-white thinking, or catastrophizing. Being content is not perfectionism, and it is not complacency. It's a growth mindset combined with savoring the moment, the struggle, and actually being grateful for the challenge!
A Lesson from My Father
My dad had polio. He had a severe limp nearly his entire life. After going through a number of surgeries, he was able to play some sports. In South Africa, where he grew up, tennis was quite popular.
A few times he related a story to me about playing in a tournament against a superior opponent. He said this guy was thrashing him. So my dad decided to focus on getting better during the match and would focus on getting his footwork right and following the ball as he hit it with his racquet. As the match wore on, he noticed his opponent getting frustrated since my dad was enjoying himself because he was getting better, even though he was losing.
A nice ending to that story would be that my dad ended up winning, but I don't remember if that was the case. He taught me an important lesson, however, about being content. Had he been complacent, he would have just put his time in and gotten nothing more from his match. He focused on improving, and that was his real satisfaction—getting better. He was not comparing himself to someone else; he was competing with himself.
You can stop comparing yourself to others and focus on getting better. This is something I admire about marathon runners—I mean the ones who are competing against themselves and are happy to just finish the race. This is something I also appreciate about golf. I heard that the famous Bobby Jones had the philosophy that he wasn't competing against other golfers; he was competing against the course and maybe himself. That is an interesting way to focus with a growth mindset and be content.
(Incidentally, if you are trying to help your kids learn to handle losing, this is a pretty good formula for that. Add appreciation and respect for the opponent's abilities along with a focus on learning to get better, and your kids won't give up as easily and will learn to tolerate frustration and loss, even failure.)
The Focus Challenge
Until you learn to really focus on a task, you just aren't going to get it done very well or in a timely manner. Believe me, I know. Like most of you, I have experienced the frustration of an unfocused day, week, and life, even. I have many interests and struggle to become the master of one thing. Let us change perfection to excellence.
What Can You Be Excellent At?
Go ahead and identify something you want to be excellent at:
Cleaning the toilet
Getting homework finished on time
Accepting compliments
Washing your hands
Showing respect to people you interact with every day
Leaving that stupid phone alone when you are with family!
Find opportunity in failure. Go ahead—pick your own thing to become excellent at.
Pick something you know you have the resources for. Being an excellent billionaire philanthropist might be a little far off today.
Pick something you can build on. Set that budget. Eat a homemade lunch instead of fast food. That might be a good start to more financial freedom and self-control.
What can you be excellent at next? What would you like to be excellent at?
Focus on that like nothing else matters.
Questions for Reflection
Before you dive into your excellence journey, take a moment to honestly consider these questions:
What's one area of your life where you've been making excuses instead of putting in the deliberate practice needed to improve? How might shifting from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset change your approach to this challenge?
Think about a recent failure or setback you experienced. How could you reframe that experience as valuable data for improvement rather than evidence of your limitations? What specific lesson could you extract from it?
If you had to choose just ONE thing to become excellent at over the next 90 days—something that would have a meaningful impact on your life—what would it be, and what would your daily practice routine look like?
Ready to Develop Your Grit?
Excellence isn't built overnight, but it starts with a single decision to focus intensely on what matters most. Your journey toward mastery begins with that first deliberate step.
Take action today: Choose one specific skill or area you want to develop. Write it down. Create a simple daily practice routine. Then commit to showing up consistently for the next week—not because it's easy, but because that's exactly how grit is built.
What will you choose to become excellent at? The time to start is now.
Practicing at Life
Learn how deliberate practice, mindset shifts, and persistence can turn failures into stepping stones for success in sports and life.
The Power of Practice: Turning Setbacks into Stepping Stones
When I was much younger, I spent hours in my driveway practicing free throws. In my mind, I wasn’t just a kid with a basketball—I was Larry Bird in the NBA Finals. Three seconds on the clock, down by one against the Lakers. I would repeat the scenario over and over, visualizing the pressure, taking the shot, and improving with each attempt. That repetition built my confidence, and eventually, I got the chance to put my skills to the test in a city league free throw competition. I won.
Fast forward to today—I’ve taken up golf. Before playing a round with friends, I spent some time at the driving range, testing out different clubs. I felt pretty good with my driver, sending shots soaring to the fence. When it was time to hit the actual course, my first tee shot was solid—but then reality set in. I found myself off the fairway, struggling to get the ball onto the green. I miffed shot after shot. The frustration set in, but then I recognized a pattern: at the driving range, I needed multiple attempts with each club before I got the feel for it. On the course, however, I only got one shot at a time.
If only I could practice those shots over and over again!
Opportunities Over Obstacles
This experience made me realize something deeper: life works the same way. Learning to focus on opportunities rather than dead ends takes practice. Whether it’s free throws, golf swings, or life’s challenges, the follow-through matters.
Life presents plenty of opportunities to learn from our mistakes and setbacks. When we shift our mindset to see these challenges as temporary—not permanent—we can use them to our advantage. The key is committing to what is healthy, helpful, and useful so that failures don’t feel like roadblocks, but stepping stones.
Learning Through Repetition
Think about a skill you’ve mastered. Maybe it was learning an instrument, training for a sport, or picking up a new hobby. How did you stay focused? How did you talk yourself into pushing through the difficulty? That same persistence can be applied to the challenges you face today.
Deliberate practice—the kind that involves goal-setting, feedback, and repetition—is essential for mastering any skill. Whether in sports, academics, or professional growth, those who embrace mistakes as part of the learning process make the most progress.
So the next time you feel stuck, remember: repetition, focus, and mindset shape success. Just like in free throws or golf swings, the more you practice overcoming setbacks, the stronger you become. Keep swinging. Keep shooting. Keep growing.
Take Action
What is one skill or goal you've been struggling with? How can you apply the principles of deliberate practice to improve?
Think of a past failure—what lesson did it teach you? How can you use that knowledge to grow today?
What small, consistent action can you take this week to build confidence in a challenging area of your life?
Who in your life can you encourage to see setbacks as stepping stones? How can you help them stay motivated?
Let’s commit to growth—one shot, one swing, one step at a time.