"Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, depression, worry — all forms of fear — are cause by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence."-Eckhart Tolle
A brick layer focuses his undivided attention into carefully placing every brick. He lays that brick so perfectly that eventually, he builds a wall for the future.
People are always in a habit of trying to know all the reasons why things happen instead of just living their life to the fullest (which is a life well lived in thought, word and action-Virtue). And letting the chips fall where they may.
Being successful in any area requires you to focus on the process and not of the results. That is quite hard to grasp for some people because the whole of humanity was programmed to always focus on the results.
"Your moment of power is not in the past or future but right NOW."
Most people attend pep rallies to get a hot motivational bath from a seminar to get all hyped up and wake up the next day, back to reality. And some people even fantasize and day dream too much of the possible future in their career and relationships, and most of the time, because they expect too much of the future and the lack of control of the emotions, gets depressed of their current situation. Motivation is a good way to push you forward into a bright future but emotion is a poor master education is not.
"If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn't need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around."-Jim Rohn
The proper approach is to have a goal in mind, and simultaneously detaching yourself emotionally from the outcome and begin to focus on the work or process that needs to be done right now, to achieve your goal. Realize, that you can't control the results but you can control the action.
Apply this to your life as well as to your career. Freeing yourself from the need to understand "why" things happen in your life is as useful when dealing with relationships, family, friends, love ones and foes as it is when going about your work. It also has the added benefit of making you a much better and relaxed person.
"The Pareto principle also known as the 80–20 rule states that, for anything that is happening in your life right now in any area, roughly 20% of your results come from 80% of the action. In other words what you do right now 80% will determine your 20% future."
Focusing on the process or work to be done is an exercise in observing and responding to the ever present moment of Now. People who predict and dwell on the future dwell upon a nonexistent place and to the extent they also park their ability to act out there, they can miss opportunities to act in the now.
"A journey of the thousand miles begins with a single step."-Confucius
Just like a mountain climber, he has a goal in mind and that is to reach the peak of the mountain(Results). And also carefully focuses at each handhold and the next handhold(Process/Work) because, he knows that the only way for his goals to materialize is to begin to focus his attention right now. Means that, to take each and every handhold to get to the top of his dream.
"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God's gift, that's why we call it the present."
-Kung Fu Panda
All we have is now. It is much better to react in the present time than a future time that doesn't exist.
The future is NOW.
"You can't control the results but you can control the action."