How to focus on what you actually want to achieve

Or my alternative title to this post….here’s a few F words to start the New Year off with a bang!

It’s not the words you may immediately think of, but it just so happens that most of my words below start with F!

Instead of making (and ultimately breaking) resolutions for the New Year, I’ve joined a growing tribe of people who choose a word for the year.

Drum roll please……

My word for the year is FOCUS

I thought long and hard about this and considered other words like balance, order, simplify…but I chose Focus as it lets me incorporate other areas in my life.

I’ve broken FOCUS down into a few major areas that I want to work on during 2018:

• Family
• Fitness and Health
• Fun
• Friendship
• Blogging
• Photography (almost an F word)

In relation to these areas I’m aiming to become more ‘in the moment’, I want to concentrate more, engage fully and stop scanning and skimming everything.

Do you find with all the connections we now have – the notifications, the emails, the binging of messages, the amount we read online – that it’s hard to give everything our full attention?  I know I’m more distracted these days, I have so many things going on in my head, that I often find myself just wanting to pull the cord and retreat from it all.

I need to slow down, breathe and focus.  Do one job at at a time and follow through. I also need to be happy with what I achieve and not beat myself up for taking the time to stop and smell the roses every now and again, or read a book, or whatever it is……

It’s funny, when you think of retirement you figure there’d be soooo many hours to get things done, but instead there’s less time available!  I don’t have enough hours in the day for everything I want to accomplish anymore.  When I was a young mother I thought time went slowly, but then before I knew it, my three daughters were all grown up and left home.  Different stages of life we go through!

Making the list:

As The Mathematician and I were driving home from our Christmas break on New Years Eve, (over 5 hours of driving by the way), I mentioned my delight in choosing some F words for the year ahead.  He promptly started throwing a few more at me – and can I just say, it was a long trip home!!!!

In his attempt to become a bit more involved in my blogging world he insisted that I write them down so that I could include them in my post, which of course I did, nearly making myself car sick along the way, I might add.

So a selection of his words were – funtastic, free, flibberty gibbet (sometimes we say flipperty gibbet) , festive, fabulous, faces, future, fatigued….and just a few others!!  Who was he thinking of when he said ‘flipperty gibbet’ do you think??

You get what you focus on, so focus on what you want.

So back to being focussed – you may now realise that I am easily distracted!

I haven’t actually planned to have a word of the year before, but Sue from Sizzling towards 60, is an advocate for this idea, rather than resolutions.  Throughout last year on her blog, she referred back to her word Simplify and gave regular updates on her progress.  I like the idea of focussing on one word and trying to improve the way I approach life.  The way I see it, it can’t hurt!

2017 – a year of New Horizons 

Back in December 2016, I wrote a post in response to a photo challenge prompt of New Horizons and so it seems I had inadvertently chosen my word for 2017!  It worked well too, as the year was one of new horizons for both of us with our first full year of retirement.

2018 – Bring it on

So there it is, I’ve stated my aim for the year.  I will attempt to focus my mind and improve my well being at the same time.  I won’t get distracted (very often) and I will try to improve my relationships with family, friends, my fitness levels, my photography skills and my blogging commitments.  At the same time I will still have FUN, because what’s life for if you can’t have FUN along the way?

So to answer my own question in the title of this post, How to focus on what you actually want to achieve, I have taken the first step.  I have written my word, I have given some thought to what I want to achieve and I will now make plans to achieve my aim of being more in the moment and making time to focus on what’s important.  You are holding me accountable by reading this post!

Over to you now dear readers – what word would you choose, should you wish to choose one at all, for the year ahead?  I’d love to know what you’re thinking!

All the best for whatever you choose to do in 2018 – remember:

Don’t count the days, make the days count!

Deb xx

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