3 Things that keep you focused so you can achieve any goal.
You know how you tend to reflect on your life at the end of every December in preparation for the New Year? Well, up until the past two years, this practice would tend to leave me devastated disappointed, and depressed. I always felt that I did not accomplish enough in the year, I definitely did not accomplish my resolutions, and I overall felt like I either got worse or stayed the same.
Why didn’t I lose the weight, why did I not have a new job, why did I cut my hair… again? These were all some of my New Year’s resolutions or goals at one time or another that I did not achieve. One year, in an effort to avoid the yearly disappointment and devastation, instead of getting down on myself, I took the time to analyze why I did not reach these goals. I realized that I simply lost focus. Once I figured this out, I took things a bit further and explored why I lost focus. I found 3 things that greatly impacted my ability to focus and I am going to share those 3 things with you in this article.
1.CLEAR DIRECTION
The first thing I realized was that I needed a clear direction. I needed to know where I was going if I was expecting to get there! Knowing my direction helps to keep me focused because it allows me to easily determine if I am on or off track.
Let me give a simple example, let’s say my goal is to lose fat. This is a goal, however it is not clear enough. What if I lose 1lb over the course of the year? I technically did reach my goal and lost fat however given the yearly time frame, I expected to lose more and therefore am left super disappointed and embarrassed… true story.
Now, let’s take the same goal and give it a crystal clear direction. Consider, my goal is to lose 20lbs of fat by December 25th so I can fit into the red dress I want to wear to the family Christmas party. With this clarity, I can track my progress on the scale because I have assigned the amount of weight I want to lose. Even more than this, I can also stay focus on my goal by literally trying on the goal…the red dress!
A clearly stated goal and/or direction helps me to easily determine if I am making progress towards my goal or not. It also helps me to determine and modify factors that can help me reach my goal.
2.ATTITUDE
Let me tell you, once I decided to change my life and took some real steps towards this, I was meet with obstacle after obstacle, disappointment after disappointment. Most of which led me down a negative path of thinking and (I hate to say it) a poor attitude. When this happened, I noticed my posture slumped, my eyebrows became furrowed and my general outlook on life became poor. Once my attitude became poor, so did my ability to focus.
Once in this state, it was hard for me to get myself out. I’m not gonna lie, many of times I had to find a way to get in and maintain a positive attitude, and it hurt. I couldn’t stand trying to be positive, especially in negative situations. It literally hurt inside. I mean, it was so much easier and more natural to be angry, upset, pissed off etc. when something bad happened or was done to me. But no one said staying focused was easy. You see, negativity would steal my focus and it was easier not to fight to get it back.
As soon as I realized my attitude was directly related to my focus, I switched things up. I no longer allowed myself to lose focus on my goal due to a poor attitude towards a real or perceived disadvantage or situation. To do this, I trained myself to always look for the positives and opportunities in any situation, good or bad. I also programmed an autopilot reminder in my mind that constantly states, “once your attitude slips, so do does your focus.” Take it from me… don’t get caught slippin’.
3.AWARENESS
Now to bring everything together, I must talk about awareness. Awareness might be the single most important factor that has helped me keep my focus on any goal I set. Upon my yearly reflection, I quickly came to the understanding that in order for me to maintain a clear direction and a positive attitude, I had to be aware of when I lost or was at risk of losing direction or the right attitude.
Even today, the smallest things threaten to get me off track. After practicing awareness for some time now, I tend to be aware of the major things that can get me off track. Now small things, well… they can sometimes slip through unnoticed. For example, I have a goal to lose 10lbs and recently I have plateaued. The scale just won’t move! I am aware that I am at risk of getting down on myself, feeling like I’m working hard for nothing or feeling like this fat loss journey is pointless. I am also aware that if I allow this to happen my negative attitude will cause me to lose focus on my goal. So instead of allowing this to happen, I think on the positives in my situation. Now if I did not have awareness of how this situation could potentially affect me negatively by causing me to have a poor attitude that would result in a loss of focus, I would have lost focus without even realizing it until it was too late.
It has taken much practice and patience with myself to get to a place where I am so aware of not only my surroundings but also my emotions. For the most part, I can identify the threat of losing focus right away or at least before it gets out of hand. Once identified I attack! I ensure my attitude is positive, and I also make sure I have a clear understanding of my goal so I can determine if I am still on the path and what I need to modify in order to reach it.
One major thing that helps me to do this is asking myself in any and all situations, “is this getting you closer to your goal?” This forces me to become aware of not only what my goal is, but it also allows me to determine if my attitude and therefore actions are moving me forward in the intended direction. I can tell you with certainty that without awareness I would be lost somewhere out there.
There are so many distractions, opportunities, and responsibilities in daily life that it can take a considerable amount of effort to maintain focus on goals. Today when I look at my life, I can clearly see that direction, attitude, and awareness has had a major impact on me achieving any goal I set. These 3 things, depending on how I implement and utilize them, can prevent me from being focused or keep me super focused. I’ll take the latter, thank you very much.
Like I said, no one said it was easy to stay focused. It takes effort but if you can incorporate the 3 things that I use to keep me focused so I can achieve any goal I set, the end of December might look very different for you (as it now does for me). The 3 things I have discussed in this article can be challenging to implement and maintain, however once you get it, you got it!
Who’s up for the challenge?
Talk later.