Building Discipline Through Micro Focus: How High Performers Turn Small Habits Into Major Success

What separates high performers from everyone else isn't just raw talent or luck—it's their laser-like focus on the right priorities and their commitment to consistent, disciplined action. In my recent podcast conversation with real estate developer and entrepreneur Steve Hayes, we explored how his unique approach to focus, goal setting, and personal discipline has driven his success in business and life.

Steve's journey from a construction worker to a successful real estate developer offers powerful insights for anyone looking to elevate their performance in business or personal endeavors. His philosophy of "inch-wide, mile-deep" focus and his unique approach to goal setting provide a refreshing perspective on what it truly takes to achieve extraordinary results.

Let's dive into the key principles that have guided Steve's success and discover how you can apply these same concepts to transform your own performance and results.

Defining High Performance Through Micro Focus

For Steve, high performance isn't about doing many things at once or constantly multitasking. It's about concentrated effort in the right areas:

"High performance is focused, not scattered. It's not 'I'm doing 100 things 100 miles an hour'—it's 'I'm doing this one thing 100 miles an hour.' It's inch-wide, mile-deep. The power of the sun can melt through metal as a laser, but it'll only give you sunburn in general. So high performance is micro focus and macro results."

This perspective challenges the common notion that high achievers must constantly juggle multiple priorities. Instead, Steve suggests that true performance comes from narrowing your attention to what matters most and going deep in that area.

In his real estate development business, this philosophy translated into a deliberate shift away from trying to be everything to everyone:

"We used to build for other people, and we just changed our focus to niche down and focus more on home service and growing just being the best at one thing rather than trying to be the best at everything."

This clarity allowed him to concentrate his energy and resources where they would have the most significant impact, rather than spreading himself too thin across multiple business areas.

The Value of Saying No

A critical component of Steve's focus-driven approach is the discipline of declining opportunities that don't align with his core goals:

"Building businesses is easy. Saying no to businesses is the hard thing for me. Starting something and letting it drain you, as long as you have cash flow, you can have an illusion of thinking that it's doing fine."

For entrepreneurs who tend to see opportunity everywhere, this insight is particularly valuable. Steve has learned to evaluate potential ventures not just by whether they could work, but by whether they align with his long-term vision:

"It's been figuring out what I didn't want to do... and then zeroing in on what's going to get us to the actual 10-year goal. What's going to make the most amount of impact?"

This principle recently led him to dissolve one division of his business to create space for another that better supported his main objectives—a counterintuitive move that demonstrates his commitment to focused growth rather than expansion for its own sake.

The Power of Intentional Goal Setting and Visualization

Steve's approach to goal setting goes beyond the typical SMART goals framework. He emphasizes the power of writing down goals, visualizing their achievement, and then "setting and forgetting" them—allowing your subconscious and the universe to work on their manifestation.

"I wrote down a goal because we own some land on a golf course and we were going to build our house out there... I wrote down 'It's Christmas time and I'm living in our new house,' and I just wrote the feeling of having accomplished the goal."

What happened next surprised even Steve. Without deliberately planning it, circumstances aligned that allowed him to buy a different house and move in—spending that Christmas exactly as he had written in his goal, though through a different path than he had anticipated.

The Medium Matters

Interestingly, Steve believes the physical act of writing goals on paper carries special power:

"Paper comes from trees, and I believe there's power in the system. I believe in writing on paper. Lead from a pencil is stone, so it's Earth. I believe there's power in writing things down and not just putting it in a cloud like an Excel sheet. I have more of a connection to feeling like I have the world helping me accomplish these goals where I can kind of set it and forget it."

He maintains a dedicated goal journal where he not only writes down his goals (currently at 95 and counting) but also documents the date he wrote each one. This allows him to track how long it takes for goals to manifest, reinforcing his belief in the process.

Conversations with Your Future Self

One of Steve's most fascinating practices involves holding conversations with his future self:

"I try to talk to my future self because my future self already figured out the problems. On whiteboards in my office, I just write out questions and then answer as my future self, or my future self asks the question and my current self has to answer in the best way it can."

This technique allows him to tap into his intuition and wisdom that might otherwise remain dormant. It's based on his belief that the "future you" already exists in some form and has already solved the problems you're currently facing.

Building Unshakable Discipline Through Small Wins

When asked what advice he would give to someone struggling with procrastination or lack of discipline, Steve offered this powerful insight:

"Find the easiest thing that you can say no to that you normally say yes to when no one's looking, and do that and start there. Because consistency compounds. I would take the easiest thing because if you try the hardest thing, you're just going to continue to keep failing. You're going to stay in your same addictions."

This approach—starting with small victories to build momentum—provides a practical pathway for anyone looking to develop greater discipline. By focusing on manageable changes, you build confidence in your ability to follow through, creating a foundation for tackling larger challenges.

Habits That Support Goals

Steve emphasizes that effective habits must directly support your larger objectives:

"I'm a firm believer that you don't decide your future—you decide your habits, and your habits decide your future. Habits have to align with my micro focus on accomplishing the goals that I'm after."

This alignment is evident in how he maximizes his time, such as reading while on the elliptical machine:

"If my body's doing something physical, I'm breaking a sweat, and I'm reading something, I'm feeding my mind. Habits need to align with a goal and support it in one way or another."

The Power of Self-Awareness and Authenticity

Perhaps the most profound shift in Steve's life came when he embraced complete authenticity and self-awareness:

"When you become true and you let go of your secrets and you actually get them all out there, you become a whole different person. The man in the room with no secrets is the freest man in the world, and you can't stop a free man."

This clarity and congruence between his inner and outer worlds allowed him to move forward without the drag of hidden aspects of himself—creating space for accelerated growth and achievement.

Conclusion: The Compounding Effect of Discipline and Focus

Steve's journey illustrates how sustained success comes not from sporadic bursts of inspiration but from the consistent application of discipline, focus, and self-awareness. His approach challenges us to:

1. Narrow our focus to what truly matters rather than diluting our efforts across too many priorities
2. Set clear goals and trust in their manifestation, documenting them in physical form
3. Start small with building discipline, choosing easy wins to create momentum
4. Align our habits directly with our larger objectives
5. Embrace complete authenticity to remove inner obstacles to performance

The beauty of this approach is that it's accessible to anyone willing to make these commitments. You don't need extraordinary talent or resources to begin implementing these principles—just the willingness to start with small changes and trust in their compounding effect over time.

As Steve puts it: "Consistency compounds." Each small action taken consistently builds toward remarkable results, creating a foundation for the extraordinary performance that might otherwise seem out of reach.