Many of us have competing priorities for our time, attention and effort, both at home and work. Sometimes, it can be difficult to focus on one thing before you get sideswiped in an instant to have your focus diverted to something else that just can’t wait! So how can you keep your purpose front and center and how can you apply yourself in the way you wish, when life is so fast paced and constantly changing? How do you keep up the momentum needed in pursuit of achieving the ambitions that you have set yourself so that you will make the impact you want to? The answer is to identify some key points to reflect on each day, to keep you focused and on track as you seek to apply yourself in the most purpose driven way; day in, day out.
The intention is not having a rigid approach but the only alternative is to hope that the ‘purposeful you’ will keep showing up, guide you and positively impact your day to day. The issue with this is, when you are busy and become diverted onto something else, it might not. If you don’t make a conscious effort, the risk is that you get to the end of your day and wonder how it passed you by, what you achieved and whether you were driven by your purpose at all. This could make you feel deflated and unfulfilled and if this is the case, it is not going to help you live and lead with purpose or create any sort of meaningful impact. The key is to remain focussed and take charge of how you will apply your principles, live your purpose and create the impact you want.
It’s really important to be intentional about focus and not lose sight of what’s important in our day to day. To maintain focus on what really matters, think about what conditions you need to have in order to feel ‘in the zone’ and guided by your purpose. During our programs, we work with the concept of Flow, as studied and written about by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990). We see this as critical to underpin our approach and explain how someone will also feel comfortable and motivated to authentically live their purpose and create the impact they want.
What else do we need in order to maximize our contribution and impact? We will all need to have certain things in place to feel in control of our approach and ready to face the day ahead. These might be factors related to the state of mind that you wish to be in, in order to approach your day. It might be physical factors that you feel you need in order to concentrate and be at your best. For example, working out at the start of the day to give yourself a boost and feel ready or simply settling in a mindful way before making a start on what it is that is on your plate for the day, whatever works for you, but they all represent the focus that we all need to have in order to thrive. Think about yours, do you have an approach to focus? If not, do you think it would be beneficial if you did?
Once you have identified these areas of focus that you need in order to live your purpose you may find it useful to note them down, perhaps if the words work together, create a pneumonic. The important thing is that you have identified what you need to think about every day, to start you off on the best foot and keep you striving in a natural, purpose driven way. We recommend 3 words.
Also useful, is thinking about what events in your upcoming day might represent ideal opportunities to live your purpose and create an impact, no matter how small. This is related to focus; by keeping mindful of what you want to do and stay aware of, so that you may spot those opportunities when they arise. It can be difficult to keep your head up with a clear focus with a million and one things going on, but that’s one of the important factors of being purpose driven, stay focussed…if you don’t practice what you preach, you may not feel as fulfilled or as purpose driven as you hope to.
Focus is the key. Use points of focus that resonate most strongly with you, that will put you in the zone of heightened awareness and also allow you to show up as your purpose-driven best self more often. By staying focussed and moving forward with momentum, it will keep you moving in the right direction and achieving what you want along the way. Good luck!
To learn more about honing your focus , please get in touch.