Fiddlehead Season and the Art of Addictive Focus

Let’s be honest.

Focus may be the rarest commodity right now.

Even if we’re blessed with great ideas, energy, and know-how…

We’re still pulled in 17 million* directions at once. (*My humble estimate.)

We’re struggling, but we can’t get leverage.

But there some lessons here. For me…it’s all about Fiddlehead Season.

Focus on Fiddleheads

If you’ve ever come to the East Coast of Canada in the spring, you’ve probably seen (or even eaten) fiddleheads.

Fiddleheads are the delightfully curled young shoots of the ostrich fern, appearing just for a few weeks in early spring. Blink, and you’ll miss it.

And that’s why you need FOCUS…

Because missing the fiddleheads would be a tragedy of epic proportions.

Sprightly, green, with an earthy flavour that’s somewhere between asparagus and green beans…they are a treat that I just can’t resist.

When the fiddleheads are in the farmers’ market…you say YES PLEASE.

When the “soup of the day” is Maple Fiddlehead…you say YES PLEASE (and lick the bowl clean).

Everywhere, everyday…until the season is over before you know it.

It’s just like writing.

Finding the focus we need to write is incredibly tough…

But it’s not why you think.

Why You Need Focus (And It's Not the Reason You Think)

Most people think you need focus to be productive.

No siree, Bob.

Focus helps you feel like yourself.

Without focus, it’s easy to feel out of synch. Your attention bounces between urgency and itchy anxiety.

And you’re way more likely to abandon the work that matters to you.

Focus is your quiet declaration:

“I know what I care about. I know what I’m making. I know who I am today.”

Even if it’s messy. Even if it changes.

Focus isn’t about discipline or domination.

It’s about devotion…

To your creative self.

What If I’m “Not Creative”?

And yes, I hear this all the time.

And to be blunt…

It’s a big, stinky pile of bull crap. 💩

You don’t mean, “I’m not creative.”

What you really mean is…

“I haven’t figured out how I create yet.”

Creativity isn’t some Instagram-tinted vision, or a Hollywood fantasy, or a Hallmark movie-of-the-week. Your creativity isn’t scribbling romantic poetry in a quaint Victorian cottage with roses growing over the door (unless it is, and if so, all power to you.)

That’s nonsense.

Creativity is how you make *meaning…*with your voice.

Maybe you tell stories that make people snort coffee out their nose.

Maybe you’re a wizard with numbers, pulling impossible budgets for community projects like no one else can.

Maybe you breed begonias. Build rocket ships.

Or write weird newsletters at midnight. (Hi.)

Whatever you do, you don’t need permission.

You need to make what you can’t not make.

Want To Find Your Creative Focus?

Here’s the part no one tells you: focus isn’t hard to find.

It’s just hard to master.

It’s a practice.

A rhythm.

Just like learning how to play drums…you’ve got to just keep finding the time to show up.

So…

Here’s a cheat sheet to help you.

Start with the “obsession test.”

What topic, idea, or question won’t leave you alone? What do you find yourself ranting about at dinner? What pattern are you secretly collecting notes on?

Start there.

Pick one small container.

A 500-word essay. A 10-minute sketch. A one-page plan. Focus isn’t about deciding your life’s work. It’s about giving one idea a place to live.

Too many people stay stuck waiting for clarity, when really what they need is a small commitment and a little courage.

Ask: “What’s the gift on the other side?”

Don’t focus just to “check the box.” Focus because of what it gives you: peace. Pride. Something finished. A glimpse of what you’re capable of when you get out of your own way.

That’s what you’re chasing—not perfection. Completion. Connection. Creative power.

Isn’t Creative Work Too Hard?

Yes.

And also: what else is worth your time?

Yes, it’s emotional. Yes, it’s vulnerable. Yes, it asks a lot of you.

But so does hiding.

So does doom-scrolling through your Instagram feed. So does faking it. So does constantly reinventing yourself to meet someone else’s expectations.

Creativity isn’t the exhausting part.

We’re exhausted by resistance. By holding out, hanging on, and postponing of what we know we’re here to do.

Honestly…

This isn’t about waiting until you “have more time”.

The trick is to carve out little corners for your creative energy and protect them like a raccoon guarding a garbage can full of last week’s pizza.

You don’t reclaim your energy in days or weeks.

You need to greedily grab (raccoon-style) one little hour.

One page.

And one moment.

Stop Trying to “Do More”

I’m not kidding.

You don’t need to do more.

You don’t need to “fix” your attention span. (And no, you don’t need a better, beefier, bro-powered AI-powered calendar.)

You need to come back to yourself.

Every day you return to yourself, you prove that you’re not here just to tread water in other people’s chaos.

And yes, my friend, you are here to say:

I’m here to make something mine.

Because “focus” isn’t just a buzzword for project management seminars.

It’s how you come alive again.

So…

Yes, the world is goddamn noisy, full of hurricanes and heartbreak, with 17 million (my humble estimate) distractions competing for our attention.

But you have a choice.

In this imperfect, messy moment…

You can choose yourself.

Choose the work.

And sit in the damn chair, and do the damn thing you need to do.

In this moment, you can choose to focus.

Messy. Imperfect.

And magic.

Just like the fiddleheads.