Maintaining focus on what you want can be challenging. This is more so in today’s world where we have too much information available easily on our phones.
With all the distractions we have around us, it becomes difficult to focus on the things that matter to us. Yet, in order to truly achieve positive self-awareness, we need to focus on the things that are working for us more than the things that are working against us.
Whatever you focus on expands and grows. So it’s now time to press the reset button and start focusing on the things that make you truly come alive.
In the previous 3 articles, we looked at how you can improve on self-love and self-care. This was part of the 28 Days of Loving Yourself Challenge that ran in February.
Here are the previous articles in case you missed them:
- 4 Areas of Your Life You Need to De-Clutter.
- It’s Time to Give Yourself Self-Love and Kindness.
- Energy, Passion and Commitment: 3 Keys to Success & Fulfillment.
Today’s article winds up this series by providing 7 things you can do to improve your focus. We’ve provided these tips in a day-by-day format so that you have something specific to focus on each day.
A 7-Day Process to Improve Your Focus
Day 1: Reflection
Focus gives you direction and holds your vision of the end-goal. It also helps to eliminate procrastination.
Today, ask yourself, “When was the last time that you…………”:
- Engaged in an activity that you really love and enjoy regardless of what those around you think?
- Openly admitted to people that you’re not super woman and needed some ‘me-time’?
- Looked someone in the eye and told them that you don’t like how they treated you or talked to you?
Your answers will reveal where your focus is. And sometimes the revelation can be a very painful thing! Or, it can also be the wake-up call you needed.
Tip: Selfishly guard whatever makes you come alive. Make no apologies for BEING YOU.
Day 2: Take Action
Today’s activity is very short and hopefully very sweet. This is because you have only one thing to do today: take action.
Think about this question during the day:
“When I indulge in self-love, my day involves engaging in…..”
Take some time to write down as many answers as you can. It may take you a while to come up with answers if you’re not used to indulging in self-love.
If you do get stuck, think about the things you loved doing as a child. Go back as far as you can remember – even as far as 5 years old if you can. You’ll be surprised at how powerful your memory is when you give it freedom.
The younger version of you has a wealth of wisdom it can give the current you. This is because the younger you probably didn’t have as many hiccups, worries, responsibilities as the current you has.
If you grew up in a challenging environment or had a difficult childhood, then try to uncover the dreams and desires you had when growing up. While you may be living the life of your dreams financially or career-wise, chances are high that you’ve lost the sense of freedom, peace and calm you wished for.
Once you have a list of answers, choose one thing and take action on it. Let today be a day when you indulge in self-love, even if for just a few minutes.
Tip: Focus demands sacrifice. What are you willing to give up in order to have a better, happier & more fulfilling life?
Day 3: Planning
This practice is preferably done on Saturdays as you plan for the week ahead. Weekly planning is a very powerful routine that will help you reduce overwhelm while making you more productive in your work or business.
Your plan for today builds on yesterday’s activity. Looking at the list of items you created yesterday:
- Plan, schedule and engage in something that’s truly you over the weekend or in your free time.
- As you plan, add small bits of self-love throughout the week. Even sitting in silence and letting the world go on around you (without your active participation) is good enough.
- Take at least one hour each day over the next 3 days to think about your goals for this year. Re-commit yourself to focusing on goal #1 until you achieve it.
If you’re stuck when it comes to goal setting, check out the following articles on our blog for tips and resources:
- A Personal Experience With Goal Setting.
- How to Set SMART Business Goals.
- 5 Resources to Help You Overcome Procrastination & Get Things Done.
- How to Achieve Your Dreams Without a Lengthy To-Do List.
That’s more than enough reading for today. If you still get stuck even after reading the articles, we’re here for you. Simply request for a Clarity Coaching Session with a life coach.
Tip: Planning your week in advance will help you reduce overwhelm while making you more productive.
Day 4: Remove Your Masks
With only 3 days to go, it’s really more of tying things up now than starting something new. So we’ll share something that happens with amazing regularity among the clients we’ve worked with.
You see, most of our clients are high-achieving women. These are women who already have massive success in their career or businesses. They know what they want and go for it.
Success is not a new thing to them. In fact, most have achieved goals that they never thought they could. You could say that they have scaled and conquered a number of mountains.
Unfortunately, their success ends up being the one thing that leads to lack of happiness and fulfillment. They work long hours (and days) and because of their high visibility, they have adopted different masks to suit different situations.
So if you meet them in one environment and then in a different one, you can think you’re dealing with two totally different people. The word chameleon comes up a lot when we’re talking of masks and this is true of many high-achievers.
Success seems to breed chameleons. Not necessarily in a bad way. It’s more of having to learn to adapt to different people and environments depending on what the people or environments require of you.
With time, the masks become too heavy or hard to handle. They start cracking. If you’re lucky, you’re able to catch this and do some damage control before things go haywire. Unfortunately for many, damage control comes in too late.
Reputations are lost. Relationships are killed. Anger sets in from so many directions. And you’re left floundering.
Does this sound familiar?
Well, if this is you, then there is only one solution that works in the long-term. You have to remove the masks yourself. Do this within your own time and under a situation that you can control instead of waiting for life to catch up with you.
Because life will eventually catch up with you. And life can provide really nasty experiences when time is up.
Today, examine the mask(s) you’ve created:
- Are they serving you well or postponing the inevitable?
- How much stress are they causing your life?
- Wouldn’t it be easier to ease out of the masks so that you can be free? Free to love yourself and others fully and completely?
Take one step forward and remove your masks for this one day. Be the real and authentic you for once. It may feel strange, but the real you will become the normal with practice.
Tip: It’s time to remove the masks you wear and become more real and authentic to yourself and with other people.
Day 5: Motivation
Two more days and we’re done! By this time you have a lot on your mind and plate so there’s no need to add anything heavy.
Today, there’s just one piece of advice: Be authentic and the real you…and the Universe will have no option than to oblige by providing experiences that grow you, and make you happier and more fulfilled.
Energy goes where your focus is. If you want to change things in any area of your life, then examine your focus and change it.
Or in the words of one famous musician and actor…
“Stay focused, go after your dreams and keep moving towards your goals.”
~ L.L. Cool J
We couldn’t have said it better than that!
Tip: Sometimes it’s easier to shift your focus rather than trying to change a habit or experience.
Day 6: Gratitude
There are two habits that will improve your focus:
- Having a Gratitude Journal.
- Meditation.
These two activities are very simple, but it’s not easy to turn them into habits. However, when you make them a regular part of your day, you’ll have an easier time loving yourself and others.
Gratitude Journal
It’s much easier to focus on what’s not going well or what’s not working in your life, organisation, business, and the society at large. Unfortunately, this kind of focus leads to more unhappiness.
And you may also find yourself indulging in 3 habits that kill happiness and fulfilment:
- Complaining.
- Blaming.
- Gossiping.
Why not do the opposite instead?
Since it’s not easy to change a bad habit directly, the easiest thing is to start doing its opposite. This is where the Gratitude Journal comes in.
Simply put, a gratitude journal is a daily diary of things that you’re grateful for. Writing in this journal daily will help you shift your focus to more positive things. Aim to write 3-5 things daily.
Writing your gratitudes is best done first thing in the morning or last thing before you go to sleep. When you write in the morning, you start the day with a positive focus. When you write in the evening, you end the day positively which also leads to better sleep.
An even more powerful way of using your journal is to write in the morning then review and update in the evening.
Gratitude has tangible benefits including:
- Feeling better about yourself and your life.
- Having a more positive and optimistic outlook to life.
- Being able to focus more on solutions rather than problems.
- Increasing your self-awareness.
- Relieving symptoms of depression.
- Lower stress levels.
With time, you’ll find yourself getting new perspectives about your life. You’ll have clarity about what you want to improve and what you need to cut out. You’ll also start viewing your relationships differently because it will be quite clear (on paper) who it is that makes your life better.
With time, simply looking at your gratitude journal will be enough to make you feel better and more positive.
Your journal doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. But it does have to look and feel good to you. What matters most though is that you write in it daily.
Tip: Your level of gratitude will determine how people treat and respond to you across all spheres of life.
Day 7: Meditation
Meditation can be a tricky subject for Christians especially if you come from the perspective that it’s unChristian to meditate. Nothing could be further from the truth.
For our Christian readers, we urge you to find out how many times we’re told to meditate in the Bible. You can also find out different forms of meditation that are based on Bible verses. A good place to check is this article on Christian Meditation.
Having said that, what is meditation really?
It’s simply calming of the mind so that you’re silent and peaceful. You can repeat a spiritual word or verse over and over in your mind, or you can decide to be fully silent.
Since this is a topic that has different connotations depending on your spirituality, we urge you to find a practice that is in line with your religion.
If the thought of meditation doesn’t gel with you, simply turn it into contemplation and spend about 15 minutes daily contemplating things that make you happy. This is enough to create more inner peace and a sense of fulfilment.
These two practices (gratitude journal and meditation) are not a must for your self-love. However, they will accelerate the rate at which you’re able to create an internal environment that supports loving yourself and loving others.
This time, the choice is yours. Choose wisely.
Celebrate!!!
Congratulations on completing these exercises! Whether you did all of them or not, it’s great that you’ve stuck with it for a whole week.
At Biashara 360 we take celebration seriously. We celebrate small and big achievements. We’ve even learnt how to celebrate effort when working on overcoming our fears (yes, even we have fears of one kind or another).
Whatever level of work you did during the week, celebrate it. Your celebration can be as simple as congratulating yourself or giving yourself a pat on the back. Or you can be elaborate and do something bigger. It all depends on you.
What next?
This is really simple…go back and start all over again. Having a specific focus each day of the week will supercharge you into success. You will find yourself managing time better, reducing overwhelm, getting things done fast, and creating more time for what you want.
(Image credit: Unsplash)
