Chris Brogan has put up a great post on this over on his blog (see http://www.chrisbrogan.com/notsuccessful) so I thought I would add my own 2 cents.

Chris, I agree with you 100%: I am allowing too many distractions get in the way of my success. 

What about you? 

I can't focus...

Between this blog, my stalled health care startups project, my interest in my professional association, my desire to write and the need to actually do my 'real job'... I just can't focus. Add to that my constant need to be on top of everything happening in comms, social media, tech, current affairs...

I spend so much of my time on social media sites, your blogs, sites like Tech Crunch and Mashable, and reading the news. Too much information is flying around my head and I can't focus on ANYTHING!

I can't finish reading a book: both The Cluetrain Manifesto and Trust Agents have been sitting, half read, on my bookshelf for months. In 2010 I read only one book: Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk and you know how much of an influence that book had on me. But, Crush It! is short: I read it in a week or 10 days. I am a slow reader and I have become accustomed by blogs to getting through ideas very quickly... I can't focus enough to read a long and complex book like the work of Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. 

Too many balls in the air

I am trying to catch quicksilver, but I am doing this in too many ways: this blog, my work, trying to set up my own website, trying to write a book... With too many balls in the air, it's no wonder I can't focus... For so long I have associated 'doing lots of stuff' with the path to success: chase success down enough one way streets and I am bound to catch it eventually... But, instead I am getting lost in these one way streets as I am actually trying to go in multiple directions at one time!
 

What do I really want? 

The only way to catch quicksilver is to definitively know what you are trying to grasp... Me? I am not so sure what that is and that is why success is elusive...