Week Nine 2015 – Redefining your focus

Our lives can be so busy we may loose sight of what our focus is and instead of achieving a lot we thin down our successes.

In case you didn’t notice (and this will prove the point of this blog) this is week nine of 2015 and I skipped week eight!  This was done on purpose and I needed to break the norm to find out what this is really all about. After the successful completion of my 52-week blog challenge last year, I began 2015 with the same pace of writing a weekly blog. This was partly due to a very positive comment from someone encouraging me to continue to write weekly, but also because it has become and habit and once a habit is formed it’s easy to continue doing something. I also added to my already fully packed bag of hobbies doing a video Vlog of my travels, inspired by my children who watch endless hours of videos in YouTube and the self indulgent Christmas gift I gave myself in the form of the famous Selfie Stick. So it was only appropriate to adopt this new task and produce this weekly video.

But last week, as I sat and edited my video Vlog and tried to look for inspiration to write my blog and I began to get that feeling that I was doing too much and accomplishing perhaps too little. This thought came into my head as I also stumbled upon an incomplete play I have been working on and never finished. I was really miffed when I opened the file and began to read the dialog and realised I had not finished giving life to the story and its characters and now going back was harder as I had lost the thread of the story and needed to re-read and re-think the idea. I had been so busy writing weekly blogs and video Vlogs that I had forgotten I was working on this script. And to top up all these feelings I watch the Oscars thinking “I’ll never get there if I don’t focus on trying to write that golden nugget that will get me to Hollywood” If I am too busy with lots of little projects I will struggle to get anything big done.

So I put the proverbial pen a paper down and decided to redefine my focus. Whilst I really enjoyed the challenge of writing every week I needed to think about what my focus as a writer is. Apart from the fact that I guess you do run out of subject to write every week and I have added the video Vlogs to my repertoire which I also enjoy doing, all this drove me to neglect my script writing which at the end of the day is where my real passion (and I think my talent) really is. Wanting to be in the limelight and doing so much has made me realise I have so much to give but at the end I am just churning stuff to get it out there. I felt a bit like a reporter of a dally newspaper having to meet datelines and get my work out on time, which at the end of the day takes away the pleasure of what I do and why I do it.

So I have made a conscious decision to continue to bring to you my blogs but not in such a prescriptive manner, I guess just like I did before 2014, I want to write about experiences I see and come across as and when they emerge rather than trying to find these so that I can meet a dateline to get this to you. I know my loyal and trusty readers and follower won’t mind to get my blogs less often combined with video Vlogs and the occasional script or short story (in fact you may be glad you don’t have to read my stuff every week! J) So from now own, some weeks you may get a Vlog, or a Blog or a short story, a script or just simply a note keeping you up to date with my work.

Taking time out is a valuable lesson we should all keep in mind particularly when we feel we have lost our sense of purpose or direction. Sometimes stepping back and re-examining what we do will demonstrate that somewhere along the line we got side tracked, or derailed or even distracted from the real purpose and meaning of our passion, our focus, of the things we really enjoy in life. I encourage you to take time off, like me, to redefine your purpose, your goals, and your focus.  Life is a destination and there are many roads that lead us to the end, but if we loose ourselves by taking to many avenues, we end up in the dirt track with no real direction or clear view of our end goal. I’m off to finish that script I never completed and start the next project, who knows, this may be the one that gets me that ticket to the red carpet one day!

Week fifty-one – Taking Stock.

Would you believe it? I have only one more to write before I reach my goal of writing a weekly blog for 2014! So it’s time to take stock and reflect on what I have done and achieved this year.

one of my proudest moments!

 As we all know, traditionally most people give themselves a “New Year’s Resolution” to help them change something in their lives, which in the previous year hasn’t work or they failed to achieve. These vary from “I will give up smoking” to “I will call mum every week” or the classic “I’ll loose some weight”. And all of these resolutions help us, at least for the first couple of months, to stay focus on something we really want to do or achieve.

And like everything in life, it is hard work! Soon after the resolution is made, we struggle to keep up with it. In the busyness of our every day life, we find ourselves over committed and this new thing is stretching us to the limits. Remember I have always said it is easier to say no than to say yes when it comes to going for a run or staying fit; but this philosophy applies to almost anything in our lives. Two months after our “new year’s resolution” most people generally have or start to dropped that self-commitment to improve or change something in their lives. It became easier to say no, and when you say it once, it becomes easier to say it again and again until you feel it’s time to move on and ditch the promise you made to yourself (or in some cases put it on hold until next year and try it again!)

So here I find myself writing blog number fifty-one of fifty-two blogs I committed myself to write this year. The challenge, if you remember and read blog number one, was to see if I could sustain writing on average a thousand words on different subject every week for the entire year. The idea was to challenge my ability as a writer and see if I have it in me to write so much, and to share with you all experiences and life learning lessons, which would then serve as the basis of a self book I could consider publishing in the future. It hasn’t been easy to do, I can assure you, and the time and effort that it takes to write these weekly blogs is tremendous. But one thing that has kept me going is the commitment I made to myself; It is almost as if I don’t want to let myself down by not writing one week (and I guess this is what is about, letting yourself down and no one else). I have had a feeling every week that if I don’t do the blog, the chain is broken, my challenge is lost and a piece would be missing therefore the challenge would be void.

Just like any of you who made commitments back in January this year, I have been tempted not to stick to my goal and give it up; many times too much work could have stopped me from writing any of the weeks, having been in hospital with a suspected heart attack would have been enough for anyone not to write that week, the death of my father, holidays, family commitments, or even the weeks where I had to really search for something to write as I faced a “writers block” right up to the last minute… and don’t forget preparing for my Half Marathon! Some many times it would have been easier to say “no I don’t have the time now, I’ll go back to it next week” But I focused on saying YES! Yes I can do it and yes I said I would do it, so get on with it and stop looking for reasons not to do it! Often your time is better spent looking for reason to do it and not on reason why not to do it.    

I had a great year, and I think I have accomplished a lot. These fifty-one weeks have helped me become a better person. And I don’t know if it is because to some extent I have been documenting my life that I feel I can look back and really relish on what I have accomplished, what I did, what I learned and what I will take away from all these experiences.

As I write this words I am also starting to wonder, what will I write next week? This very philosophical and reflective blog should have been week fifty-two, the final one, yet here I am rounding up my year with one more week to go. But you know what? This is exactly what I am talking about; now that I got it out of my system, week forty-one, I guess you could say “look none will mind or know if you don’t write a blog next week, anyhow you will be in Christmas mode, and enjoying the festivities” but I cannot stop, not on the last hurdle! So I am sure I will find an interesting subject to write about; anyhow the festive season always gives plenty of material to write about, specially with all the family together in one room! I bet you can’t wait till next week for the final chapter of my 2014 challenge!

I hope this week has inspired you to start thinking about your 2015 New Year’s resolutions and this time really stick to them! No matter what you want to do, achieve or change, remember that the key is to stay strong and don’t give in to the temptation that is saying no; no I won’t do it today, this week or this month. Next thing you know you have broken that commitment, you have let yourself down and broken that chain. Stick to it, work at it and you will see the marvellous effect of believing you can do anything you want to, it just takes that magic word to do it… YES.

Why not label 2015 as your year of YES – your Yea of Excellence and Self-discovery!