Putting You and Your Interests Back Into Your Life

Time to reclaim and reconnect with our interests.  As Susan Fernbach stated, “…it’s important to reclaim some of your own focus, goals and projects.  These can help recharge your batteries and help you feel good about something, especially amidst the grief that comes with loss of ability.”

It’s not just amidst grief, it’s amidst life that seems to get in the way and steers us off course.  It’s amidst being overworked, overstressed and out of balance.

We must make time for what’s important to us, for what gives us pleasure and joy.  And it won’t just happen.  We have to proactively put it into our days, into our lives.

We all know that in order to be effective ‘givers’ to those in our care, be it our children, our elderly parents, a sick person, we must fill our well.  For when we run on empty we’re no good to anyone.

To be effective in general we need to feel good.  And a big part of feeling good is engaging in things that excite us, that resonate with us.

We want to feel alive!

Yes, we have our obligations,our long and never-ending to-do lists.  But we must infuse that list with things that are meaningful and purposeful to our selves as well.  Otherwise our life will run away and leave us behind.  And then we’ll wake up one day and wonder, ‘where did I go; what happened to all that I used to be, that I used to enjoy.’

I recently had one of those wonderful but all too infrequent, long and introspective conversations with an ‘old’ friend; you know the face-to-face kind with no technological interruptions (purposely orchestrated).  She said, “I used to be so much fun.  I lost that part of me and I want to get it back. Nobody would consider me a fun-loving person anymore but in the past people always said that about me.”

In my book, she’s still so much fun and so easy to laugh with but I know she’s referring to the fact that she rarely goes out and does enjoyable and fun things like she used to.  The chores and obligations of life have taken over.

Sometimes it’s easier to succumb to the usual and customary than to plow through the mire, lift those feet high and create new footprints.  But we must so that we can cultivate our garden of growth.

We must stop, pick our heads up and create a new path.  We can come back to what we want to do and who we want to be.  It simply (but not so easily) takes the mindset to do so.

4 Questions to Ask Yourself:

1. What do I want?  What is it I really want?

Be specific.  Envision it in your mind.  For example – You want to start reading books again.  Picture yourself in your cozy reading spot totally absorbed in a wonderful book.

2. Why do I want this? What’s the purpose?  What’s my reason?

If you have a strong enough reason, you will find a way or create a way to make it happen.

3. Where am I and where do I want to go/be?
4. What actions steps will I take?

Again, be specific.  I will set aside 20 minutes before bed to sit down (in my cozy spot) and read.

The key to these questions is Focus and Priority.  “What you focus on, you move towards.”(Tony Robbins)  We must put ourselves into our priority list.

When we infuse ourselves with that which is meaningful, enjoyable and important to us, we’re living an actively charged life.  That can only be good for all those around us. By tending our garden, we are spreading the germinating seeds of beauty.

 

Your Turn – What’s the first thing you’re looking to reclaim this new year?  Or perhaps something totally new?  What will you focus on putting into your life?