Focus is key

take the slow road….

In BEST SELF we worked out our goals and narrowed it down to a maximum of 3 goals per category. That’s still a lot of goals but remember its all about harmony. Some goals may not appear as life changing as others but are still important. Remember we divided up our categories into goals and habits? This was for a good reason. Some of the goals in habit categories such as recreation or relaxation may be things we already do or do but just not as often as we would like… we are just acknowledging them as important aspects so that later we can add them to your 90 day, weekly and daily plans without guilt. I have 5 main goal categories at the moment and 4 habits categories, but this changes with my priorities. I realise that life for many revolves round a strict schedule of work or family commitments and filing in “me time” is hard. But believe me without that self care time life is much more difficult to navigate. I start my goal setting for the week with where I can fit in self care and move forward from there.

Back to the goals. To achieve each end goal (lets call it the mountain top) we need a series of smaller goals (milestones along the way) and each of these subsidiary goals, in turn, require a series of small steps. I like to think of these small steps as stepping stones across rivers and streams leading to each milestone, each further up the mountain: there may be many rivers we need to cross on our journey upwards to reach the end goal (the mountain top) and indeed many different routes across them. Don’t be afraid to side step and chose a different route. Don’t be afraid to backtrack and chose a different path altogether. But remember that even the routes we chose to abandon are still important to our journey as a whole.

Its a goal!

I’d just like to take a moment to talk about goals. Goals are those waypoints that put us clearly closer to our end goal. They are places to pin our pushpins to anchor us to the spot whilst we refocus and plan the next leg of the journey. It is important to make the goal achievable in the timescale. To get to run a marathon when we dont do any exercise at the moment may be achievable in a 1 year period (if you work hard at it!) but probably not in 90 days, so be realistic. We want a positive vibe and to be able to say we have achieved something. There is no magic wand: it takes work to swap out habits we’ve held for years and our first goals might be as simple as getting up an hour early to make time to exercise or eating salad for lunch instead of a pasty. Achievable goals that lead us to our ultimate goal are what we are aiming for.

Obviously to achieve our goals we may need to overcome habits and behaviours we have followed in the past. That is where the On the Right Track course comes in. Since childhood we have certain core beliefs about ourself, our abilities, our purpose in life. We can be stuck in a cycle of stress or negative emotions that act as huge obstacles on our journey. Challenging these beliefs is the first step towards changing our behaviour and the first step to paving the road to success.

Time to focus

When I first started this process myself I had so many things that spoke to me in my vision and so many different things I wanted to achieve. After a couple of weeks following my goal based plan it was clearly obvious that I was overloaded! I was doing a lot of things but with no depth or quality. My To Do list was all ticked off but it felt very superficial. After a couple of weeks it’s important to reflect on the short journey taken. What are the things that have gone well? What are the things that have not gone as planned? Which part of the plan shall we focus on first? What have we not managed to make time for?

Very often when goal setting we hyper-focus, which will often push aside anything we subconsciously see as unrelated to the goal. This is where the idea of balance is important. Reaching our goal of a big work promotion is not so great if in order to achieve it we’ve missed out on too much family time or cancelled 3 consecutive date nights with our partner as we are too tired to go out. In the Midlife MOT just like an MOT on a car we focus on the whole person: physical, mental, emotional and social. It is my firm belief that we are our best selves when we are in balance holistically. Balance comes in many forms: living true to our values, having control over our emotions, having fun alongside hard work. And just as a weighing scale needs constant readjustment so we need to constantly evolve and reassess where we are in order to keep the equilibrium. It is a constant cycle of plan - reflect - refocus that continuously moves us forward in balance and leads to growth.

Plan… reflect… refocus… repeat

Reflection is without doubt our best friend! We can only see how successful was the plan for the day, week, or 90 days by reflecting on the highs and lows and then refocussing on the next steps. Now is not the time to face away from reality. If something has gone wrong or not to plan then we need to note it down. I planned to have 4 days alcohol free in a week but had a week long celebration instead? I note it down, think about why and work out how I could do better next week. We don’t beat ourselves up about it: what’s done is done and in the words of Scarlett O’Hara that “After all, tomorrow is another day”. Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell, 1936). Remember as well the need to reflect on the achievements, however small and insignificant, even if ultimately those steps took us the wrong direction, they are still what I like to call exploratory steps. You may be luckier than me and take the right route first time but believe me most people don’t: it takes a lot of meandering to find the best path. It often takes a lot of false starts and backward steps but see these not as failures but more as experiments. I ask myself at the end of each day “What were my victories today?” “What did I learn today?” “How can I do better tomorrow?” . I also ask myself “How did I love myself today”: thats my reminder to stay in harmony, to practice self care and to not neglect those important feel good habits.

Enjoy the journey and remember there is always a new destination to explore, a new path to tread. Your vision is yours alone and I wish you happiness, authenticity and a continuous sense of awe in your quest to achieve it. Should you want to know more then please check out my On the Right Track course which not only leads you step by step along the route to your best life it also gives you the tools required to tackle the journeys you may chose to take in the future. Step forward with confidence. Step forward with my blessings.