focus quotes

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

I do not love to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them when I should be about the king’s business.

I really concentrate on what’s on my plate at the moment and do the very best I can.

My unpredictability is what separates me. If you move in so many ways, your opponent is not focused on what he’s doing. He’s focusing in on what you’re doing, and it freezes him. When they freeze and you hit, they shatter like glass.

I only live in my music, and I have scarcely begun one thing when I start on another. As I am now working, I am often engaged on three or four things at the same time.

Meditation is a great way to keep my body well-centered while juggling shooting schedules and recording sessions.

You cannot be creative with people around you.

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body – the wishbone.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

From a young age, I learned to focus on the things I was good at and delegate to others what I was not good at. That’s how Virgin is run. Fantastic people throughout the Virgin Group run our businesses, allowing me to think creatively and strategically.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

I don’t really read a lot of newspapers. I don’t pay attention to what is being said or written about me. I’ve had lots of experiences in the past when I got too much into it. That sort of diverts your focus.

You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.

I don’t really focus on these things – on what tags are given to me or what people think of me off the field – stuff like that. My main focus is always to do well on the field for the Indian cricket team. When people say good things about me off the field, I am more than happy to accept them.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

In T20, you don’t have time to get distracted – it’s so quick, you have to run around in the field, and while batting, you don’t actually think about anything else.

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.

I always had a sense of discipline in me. However, there was a time when I couldn’t divide my time properly between off-field things and on-field assignments. The focus would be missing at times, and that would affect my preparation for matches. I managed to change that.

Whatever you want to do, do with full passion and work really hard towards it. Don’t look anywhere else. There will be a few distractions, but if you can be true to yourself, you will be successful for sure.

As a kid, I used to see how Sachin Tendulkar used to win matches under pressure for India in Sharjah or other places. So I was always keen to repeat the same in similar situations. I don’t take pressure on myself when I am in the middle. I love pressure, and I always believe that pressure makes you more focused.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

I tend not to look back and dwell on a project once it is finished.

My priority is cricket. Everything that I get apart from it is a result of the effort on the field. Everything else follows. I am pretty aware of my priorities, and I don’t really focus on things that are not as important to me as cricket.

If I am a cup maker, I’m interested in making the best cup I possibly can. My effort goes into that cup, not what people think about it.

I focus on one thing and one thing only – that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.

Everybody asks if putting is like shooting free throws. It has a very similar kind of mindset. And it’s just you, the ball, and the target.

I’m bloody awful at multi-tasking.

You have to stay fresh and blank in your mind when you go out to bat. You complicate things, and you’re gone.

Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy – it won’t come out while you’re watching.

One man cannot practice many arts with success.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

You want to do good things, and once you’ve done a couple of good things in a row, you think ‚Well gee, let’s not mess this up.‘ But I am lucky at this point that I have something I really love to do, and it completely holds my attention. I never feel frustrated by it.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

I can have people around a lot more because I’m not always chasing them away so I can work on my novel. My non-novel, I mean.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

I have no time to think about other writers. I am too busy with my own problems.

Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.

Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system, and that is not attention.

Music for me, it demands full concentration.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.