Focus

Plan, do, execute, stay focused, be your best self all the time, repeat. The better and more you do, the better and more you are. And the more you do, the more you’re trying to do tomorrow. Look cool, create, meditate, listen some music, draw, paint, sell, upsell, grow, stay hydrated, be a good mother. Repeat.

Set goals, organise, konmariate, cook, clean, decorate, update and don’t forget to exercise and take gorgeous pictures of all of it. Repeat.

Today I didn’t do any of those above. I overslept, my brain was scattered like the lambs in the mountains of Norway and I was, as you can imagine, in a really bad mood. Blaming myself for not reaching my goals, failing to be my best self, not ticking off my to do -list, not being able to produce a selling, inspiring, wonderful content in several social media feeds. Not answering emails, making those phone calls, not even having some coffee made.

Exhausting, isn’t it?

Trying so hard to do everything all the time seems to be the only measurement on happiness and success there is. What the hell is wrong with us? Why do we keep our standards so high and blame ourselves when those are not reached every day and all the time?

After the mental tornado of this day I finally sat down with my not so well earned coffee and realised something. It’s all about focus.

Just like when photographing, you can choose on where or what to focus on. What is the thing that you want to stand out in the (bigger) picture. Is it the trees outside or the small, lovely creature warming in our kitchen window?

Is it the failure? Things you didn’t do today? Calls you didn’t make? Emails you didn’t answer?

What if you intentionally choose to change the focus. What if the most outstanding thing today would be the only one you actually did? After thinking about this I know already that I wasn’t so honest with myself. I DID do things today and I did those well. I had some difficult discussions regarding my personal life, I managed to answer some of the emails and take care of the one lost package that should already be here in Helsinki. (Now it will be in Helsinki in an hour or so.)

I also did manage to get the coffee eventually too.

What I also saw after a while were all those awesome things in my life. Clients who have amazing ideas, people who send me messages, want to see me, want to love me after all. Amazing opportunities I almost missed when my focus was just on the failures. There are quite many of them to be honest.

And all those inspiring, lovely, super brilliant people around me who support me so much. I felt so much better immediately. So much better I managed to write you this article too!

Focus. That’s it. All you need to do is to focus on the things that actually matter.

You have a choice. Use it.