Happy New Year, all you lovely people! I hope you’re enjoying doing what you’re doing and looking forward to all that is to come with 2016.
I announced a few days ago what my 2016 New Years Resolution would be. I’m using the word “focus” as my intention to carry with my the whole year, as a guiding star hanging over me, reminding me to pick the things I really want in life and to focus on those. It’s something I really need in my all-over-the-place, big-dreaming, easily-distracted life. I’ve got too much going on and I’m really coming to terms with the fact that I just cannot have it all. Or at least, have it all and have any of it be very awesome and well-enjoyed. My “big to-do list” is just too big for me to handle properly right now.
So. Focus, focus, focus.
But, what exactly is it that I really want to focus on? How does one choose what to make the focal point of their present life, and how do you go about making sure that you still maintain a balance of your overall life while still keeping focused on a goal? I have no idea. I’m new at this, remember? However, I do have some ideas and I think I’m going to be able to figure this thing out.
The first step, I believe, is to remove all the extra crap from my life that is cluttering up my brain space (and my physical space) so that I can see a clearer picture of what is important to me. I started this last year, with one of my resolutions being to simplify my life, and finding a book that helped me change my mentality around what I need and how to let go. I’ve decided that this January (and maybe longer, let’s see how it goes) I will be focusing on “out with the old” in an effort to find out what I really want to focus on next. Will it be writing? My career in Early Childhood? A new business? Sewing? Knitting? Art-ing? Becoming a major fitness buff with a 6-pack and a killer bubble butt? (Don’t worry, this last one is highly unlikely and unachievable on account of my flat-butt genetics and my superior skills at being awkward and uncoordinated.)
Whatever it is, it’s going to be awesome, because I’m going to be focused and make something wonderful flourish and grow.
It’s time to kick it into high gear in the KonMari-ing department. I’ve accomplished a lot with this method of simplifying my life already (see this post and this other post for some of it), but there is a lot more to go through and decide what I love and what I no longer need bogging down my brain and filling up my home. Not only that, but actually getting it out of my house and my life has been where I will fall short no more. This last week I’ve already started my focusing and have given away and sold a ton of things. I now have an upstairs hallway again!! For the last few months it’s been absolutely chalk (chock? I’m not sure I really understand this saying) full of boxes, bags and random items that we no longer needed, but I wasn’t putting any effort into actually putting them out of my life. Let me tell you, it feels like a huge weight has lifted just to have passed on the small portion of our “to-go” items to people who will actually make use of what was sitting around needlessly here. Plus, the bit of $$ I made selling the bigger items is helpful for filling in the gaps of what we don’t have and need (or just plain want… let’s be honest – nobody “needs” a hair straightener, but it brings me joy, so that’s cool).
There’s also a lot of “letting go” and cleaning up to do in my life besides just getting rid of the physical stuff. Email accounts filled with thousands of messages piled up that need to be waded through, pictures and files on my computer that are a mix of “awesome – keep it forever” and “why did I save that again?”, constant contact with people and relationships that no longer serve me (also reconnecting and strengthening the ones that I want more of), and all sorts of other stuff that needs to be whittled down to keeping only the necessary and joy-giving. But I’ll keep it simple and focus on getting the physical stuff out first.
This year is going to be a good one, dudes and dudettes. I hope you’re all figuring out what it is that you really want, too, and that you make the steps to bring your own dreams to reality. There is no time like the present, New Year or not. Start right now (whenever it is that you’re reading this) to make your life better. We can do this!