Start the Year with Clarity and Focus
By
Blooming Flowers
At the beginning of each New Year many people make resolutions that they fully intend to keep. Often, despite their best intentions, people fail to stick to their resolutions and they continue with self-defeating habits and limiting beliefs. What happens to those good intentions? Why do some goals seem impossible to achieve? Why do some people perpetually maintain unhealthy habits? Why do people stay in unfulfilling jobs?
Part of the reason is the lack of clarity when originally setting goals and not outlining an action plan to follow through on their desires.
On the other hand, some people don’t bother to make resolutions at all, because they have never experienced much success in achieving their goals. Instead they decide to “go with the flow” and see what occurs in their life. However this strategy does not appear to be much better.
If you truly want to take control of your own destiny, then you must clarify your abilities, preferences, and talents, and formulate your goals. William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), a prominent American political figure, popular speaker, and nominee for President of the United States eloquently said:
“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for. It is a thing to be achieved”.
This quote very nicely states that our destiny is in our hands, but it also places a lot of responsibility on our shoulders. How do we know what our true purpose is and how do we go about achieving it?
5 Tips for Finding Clarity and Focus in the New Year:
1. Hire a Life Coach
A professional Life Coach is trained to actively listen in a non-judgmental manner to what is being said and can also discern what is not being said. They expose and restate this information back to the client to fully reveal their deep seated deisres. They also ask potent, powerful questions the client may be unaware of, or unwilling to ask themselves. If the client is unsure of their direction, a coach can help uncover secret or unrealized wishes and dreams.
The client gains clarity and intent of purpose and decides what they want to focus on achieving. The conversation between both parties creates an alignment of energies and momentum to accomplish the objectives. Another great benefit of a Life Coach is that they act as an accountability partner and check to see if you follow-through on your goals. They give you acknowledgement when needed and help you ignore the negative influences in your life. Plus, when people know they are being held accountable they usually tend to achieve more.
When I was training to become a certified Life Coach, part of the process involved a lot of personal coaching, to help me clarify what I truly wanted. I can attest to the power of coaching in helping me discover what I really wanted from life and achieving those goals.
2. Meditate
In a nutshell, meditation enhances clarity of thought on the mental level. With meditation you go beyond the intellect to the “no-mind” state and access your true being. Your being is perfectly clear on what is in your best interests, and your true abilities and potential. Meditation is also healing because it reduces the number of negative thoughts in your brain. It can help you become aware of negative and depressive thoughts, and enables you to recognize that you have the ability to bring yourself out of this depressed state.
Meditation really does work! I notice that when I don’t meditate I do tend to have more negative thoughts, and am more confused as to what direction I should take in daily life.
3. Operate from your Heart, not your Head
Most people are strongly rooted in their heads and intellect. We find it difficult to operate from our heart center, because we view the heart as being easily broken and mushy. However, as a result our heart center is weak since it does not get used much. There is plenty of popular advice asking us to pay attention to the heart such as the song “Listen to your Heart” and we have all heard the phrase “Your Heart’s Desire”. Try operating from your heart center once in a while! You will find that it is very wise, and you will begin to see great beauty and unity in the world around you.
A nice meditation technique for opening your heart center is to imagine that you are headless! Even though this sounds strange it is worth a try. Forget your head, and focus all your attention on your heart – really try to see and feel from your heart. It will seem a little odd at first, but if you persist, you will begin to sense it blossoming and experience a loving feeling. Think about it – when someone falls in love we say that they are “out of their minds”!
I tend to be a mixture of head and heart oriented. Generally I am quite head-oriented, just like most people, but sometimes this feels limiting and constrictive. I tend to operate more from the heart center when I create and this feels expansive and helps me notice the beauty in the world.
4. Take Baby Steps
Very often when we do decide to accomplish something, we are overwhelmed with the odds or all that we have to do to get where we want to be. Clarify your true intentions, outline an action plan, focus on your goals, and then break down what you need to do to reach the finish line into baby steps. When you complete one small step in the direction of your dream, you feel a sense of satisfaction, and progress.
We can all accomplish small daily actions (e.g. read a magazine article for inspiration for a blog post, respond to five e-mails, get supplies at the store, exercise for half an hour) and move in the right direction. However if we think about the finish line too much we may get discouraged and not take any action at all.
One goal I have set for the coming year is to paint more and start selling my art. This seems kind of overwhelming right now, considering all the other obligations I currently have in my life. Nevertheless, I am determined to make this happen and I have decided to make this a priority in my life. I intend to take some creative action each day (apart from anything related to work or home). I intend to create (e.g. sketch, paint, write, take some photos) each day, even if it is only for half an hour. Hey, half an hour is better than nothing, and all those half hours will add up to finished work (that I can sell!). If I have more time and energy, I will do more.
5. Be Creative
When you are experiencing creative “flow” you are in the “no-mind” state. This helps bring clarity and healing to our lives. Plus it is just plain, good fun! A lot of times, just like coaching, our art reveals us to ourselves (even if that was not our intention to begin with). It has an uncanny way of uncovering hidden stories and releasing what needed to be set free.
As we begin the start of a new decade, decide to live your life with clarity and focus. Try some of the suggestions offered and see if they help you make clear decisions and focus on your goals. Or if you already have some proven techniques, please share. We would love to hear what works and learn some new methods also.
Would you be willing to try Life Coaching to help you clarify your intentions and focus on your goals?
What other tools do you use to bring clarity to your decisions?
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