Narrow Your Focus

After devoting some time to the practice of envisioning…it’s time to start narrowing your focus by identifying the areas of your life and work that are a priority for you. These are not the areas of your life that others are telling you that you “should” focus on, but instead these are the areas of your life and work that YOU want to focus your attention and energy on in 2012.

So take a moment to think about the areas of your life that are important to you. For example, are you at a point in your life where you want to focus more on your relationship with your significant other? Or do you want to revitalize your personal energy? Or do you want to grow your consulting business? Or do you want to advance in your career by designing your own more entrepreneurial role?

Take into consideration the key roles: Self, Career, Spouse/Significant Other/Partner, Mother, Daughter, Sibling, Friend, and Community. Which of these roles are calling to you at this point in time? Where do you want to see changes and/or sustain recent changes? What areas of your life do you want to grow or evolve at this point in your journey?

Keep things simple. Start out with one or two priority areas of focus. If you try to make changes in all areas of your life right off the bat, you will likely feel overwhelmed. So begin by identifying your priority areas. Then, get clear on the the time frame. Do you want this priority area to be a focus for you for the next 30 days, 90 days, the first half of 2012 or for the entire year? The conscious choice is yours to make. Choose wisely.

Journey vs. Destination

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” — Ursula K. LeGuin

As we start the new year and begin to focus on new goals, intentions and resolutions…it is important to keep in mind that the journey is as important (if not more) than the destination.

Our society tends to focus on the destination and not the journey. We believe that when we reach the end-point (e.g. our goal), we will be rewarded for our hard work with everything that has “been missing” in our lives. We focus on all that needs to be done to reach our endpoint. This can overwhelm us and it may even make us want to quit before we’ve gotten started.

If we instead pay attention to the journey and appreciate the steps we take along the way, not only will we be living our life more consciously but we can learn a lot from the process itself. And we’ll be walking the path of the conscious entreprenur!

Keep dreaming big and envisioning.

Dwelling in Possibilities

“Believe there are no limits but the sky.” — Cervantes

One of the keys to effective envisioning is the ability to dwell in possibilities. This requires us to contemplate possibilities instead of contemplating impossibilities. Unfortunately, when we typically think about our dreams and goals for the future, we tend to focus on why we think that these things “can’t happen,” “won’t work” or “aren’t possible.” This sort of limited thinking dampens our creativity and clouds our vision with doubt and unnecessary limitations.

Try shifting your thinking to:

• Be open minded instead of close minded
• Envision success and not failure
• Focus on what you do want instead of what you don’t want
• Practice self-compassion instead of self-criticism

For the next few days simply tune into how you are thinking and talking about your goals, dreams and future. Are you dwelling in possibilities or are you taking up residency in the land of doubts and limits?

Want to learn more about dwelling in possibilities? One of my favorite books on this subject is “The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life” by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander.