Focus.

What does it really mean to be focused?

Being focused has a bigger meaning than simply how to work for 30 minutes straight at your day job. It's about knowing your end goal, knowing what does and doesn't push you towards it, and how to minimize distractions from your life.

But before we get into all that, let's start with distractions.

When your buddy invites you over for a night of pizza and Game of Thrones it sounds great right? It's probably something you look forward to. But let's think about this; by taking the action of eating pizza and watching TV for three hours are you going to get the reaction you want? Is it going to push you directly towards your goals? 
 Unless your goal is to be overweight and know the name of every character in Game of Thrones... Probably not.

There’s a simple solution to this.

Say no.

It’s not always fun, but you have to have a criteria for why you do things. So the next time your buddy invites you over for a night of fun, ask yourself, "With my end goal in mind, is this action going to be good or bad for me?" Everything that doesn’t align with your long term goals, say no to.

Don’t be ashamed of doing something good for yourself.

A lot of you are probably thinking, "I don’t know what my end goal is yet!". But there is hope, so long as you can figure it out. Because it’s easiest to take your eye off the ball when you don’t know what the ball looks like. You must CLEARLY define what your end goal looks like, set deadlines, and attack relentlessly until you achieve it.

Think of the most destructive problem in your life right now that is keeping you from reaching your end goal. Really think about it. It’s easy to go from one shallow thought to another (Which is compounded when you throw in the distraction of electronics and the internet).

How can you break this vicious cycle?

"Productive meditation" as Cal Newport calls it in his book Deep Work. 
 The idea is that you think on a hard problem in your life for 20 minutes at a time, and when you get districted, gently guide your mind back to the problem at hand. This helps you retrain your brain and over time you’ll be able to stop distractions before they even get you in their vice like grip. You begin to focus on your problems. You begin to attack. And while the rest of the world is like a dog chasing it’s own tale, you will be truly focused.

You will be thinking, while the rest of the world is simply reacting.

"But finding my end goal is hard!"- "I don’t have time."- "But I love Game of Thrones!"- I’ve heard every excuse in the book…

To every single one I say this:

Have some fucking gratitude.

You need to understand that if you have the ability to read this on the internet, you are at an advantage over the 60% of the world's population that doesn't even have access to the internet or technology. So stop bitching about how hard it is to choose what you want to do in life. You CAN choose. Only 40% of the world's population can say that. So when you're bitching about how hard life is while you're watching Game of Thrones in an air conditioned apartment, realize that in that precious free time you could be making your life great in ways that over half the world couldn't imagine.

Take advantage of it. 
 - @BradleyGrey