Setting up 2024: Focus and Intention

Focus, and Intention.

These are my words for January, maybe for the year.. I want to start with January though. As I sit down to write today my head is filled with swarms of things that I need to do, to be, to accomplish.. that's what new years are for, right? Resolutions to be better, do better, push farther... That's all well and good until you burn out in the middle of January or February or maybe you make it all the way to June.

This year I want to focus. Focus is not something that I would say comes naturally to me. I tend to jump from one thought to another trying to remember all the things that I have to get done, what I should be doing, saying or not saying, or even to the feelings of other people.

To focus means to concentrate attention or effort, it also means to adjust ones eye to a specific range. Leaning into both definitions I have realized that I need to adjust my seemingly wide field of range. To learn to control my wants and my feelings to things that are more important to my immediate scope of relationships, and my home. Whether it's working towards saving for the honeymoon we never got to go on, or trying a new recipe that is healthier for me. I want to focus on more of the things that matter most to me instead of doing all of the things that I assume people want from me.

The definition of intention, is to import significance, or what one intends to do or bring about. I want to be intentional, with my time, with my finances, with my health. I want to pay more attention to where these things are going. To think ahead, if I am not intentional, then where will I be in a year? I don't know for sure, but I can tell you I will probably be worse off than I am today.

Call them goals or resolutions, or whatever you want, but being focused and living my life with intent started with walking.. I can't change all of me all at once, but this week I have been walking. Next week, my goal is to have intention with my health and with my finances by creating a meal plan, focusing on proteins and vegetables and shopping once instead of every couple days.

I have also been looking at my sleep logs and noticing that I need to change my sleeping habits as well. Lately, it has not been uncommon for me to get 9-10 hours of sleep a night. You might be thinking, "Wow! I wish I could get that much sleep!".. but for me its been unintentional, it's been unplanned, it's been cutting into my mornings and my evenings and even during the day I still feel tired. So, this coming week I will also be setting a new sleep schedule for myself, hopefully also creating a new routine for me to be more focused and intentional in my daily life as well.

You heard it here first.. Cheers to a focused and Intentional January!

Photo of my sleep times lately for accountability later this year