I’m sure you’ve read a lot of material on the subject of focusing on the present. They’ve probably said things like:

The past is gone. The future is yet to come. There is only now. Focus on the now, etc.

Rather than focus on the word “now”, I want to focus on the word today because using the word “now” can get overwhelming. There’s so much to do NOW. However, when you use the word today, you get some breathing room to relax. The point of this article is to convey the power of the word today. Not the power of “now”, but the power of today.

Many people make the mistake of constantly looking too far ahead to the destination they want to arrive at and as a result, stumble on the various objects that are strewn on the path before them. It is prudent to look at where you want to go, but it’s also prudent to make sure you don’t stumble and hurt yourself along the way. However, that’s exactly what people do. They focus so much into the future that they fail to look at today.

Today is what will get you to where you want to be tomorrow. Let me repeat that for emphasis. Today is what will get you to where you want to be tomorrow. Why worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow if we're not even doing anything today to get there in the first place?

Don’t fall into the trap of tomorrow when it comes to pursuing your dreams. I’ll have more time tomorrow when there’s no school. I’ll have more time during the weekend when I don’t have to work. I’ll have more time this holiday season when everything has settled down.

The tomorrow you dream of doesn’t exist if you don’t start today.

Along the lines of tomorrow, we know we can’t predict what will happen tomorrow. It's out of our control. But today is fully within our control. We can also utilize the past to influence how we spend our time today, but that is the extent as to how much we can utilize the past. Today is all we have. Today is entirely within our control.

When you tap into the power of today, you're planting seeds in the springtime. There is no cold winter or hot summer in the time of today. Today is the perfect time for planting. Today has the most fertile soil that you will ever encounter; more fertile than the soil along the banks of the Nile River.

If you keep on planting in the fertile soil of today, you’ll find yourself harvesting and planting seeds for tomorrow. When you harvest, you can feed off of that and also sell some of that harvest to plant even more seeds that you can reap in the future.

Every time we plant in the soil of today, we initiate a ripple effect that launches a whole sequence of events that benefit us immensely, that of which we cannot see, but can only piece together after we look back. Such is the power of today.

When we fully utilize the power of today, we find that time actually slows down for us. We feel that we have much more time on our hands. Things get done; a lot of them.

How will you know if you’ve successfully tapped into the power of today? If you can go to sleep content with no worries. There is no sleep more delicious than knowing for a fact that you put a great deal of work in and have been productive today in moving forward toward the inevitable achievement of your dreams.

What is one of the best ways to tap into the power of today? Coming up with a detailed list of things you have to do today. Isn’t it really easy when you have step-by step instructions to a recipe? You just read the instructions and execute. Similarly, it’s prudent that you do this too with your to-do list.

Write down everything you have to do. Sort it by priority. Make sure that for each item on your to-do list, you break it down so that you know exactly what you need to do the moment you read it. Then execute. All you have to do is follow what’s on your list, one item at a time. One item at a time.

Remember, plant in the fertile soil of TODAY.