About a 6-minute read

I started this year with a new “Power Word.” Do you have a power word for 2020? Have you heard of this concept?

Many experts from a variety of fields talk about how having a Power Word helps you hone in on a theme that will help you grow over the year. Your power word is supposed to guide your actions and decisions in a way that will help you build and maintain momentum toward accomplishing what is most important to you.

I had 2 power words for 2019: SIMPLIFY and COMPLETE. As a recovering perfectionist, I’ve spent most of my life struggling to finish things because somewhere in my mind, I believed they weren’t ever perfect, or even good enough to finish and put out into the world. So last year I decided that imperfect action would be better than NO action. And you know what? It was! I took a leap of faith and I finished so many projects I had been putting off, it had me wondering why I waited so long. Even better, they were absolutely good enough because they were DONE. Perfectionism only paralyses us and deprives the world of what we have to offer.

Something else common to perfectionists - and people in general - is that we think things need to be complicated if they are going to be of any value. Know what? That is definitely NOT TRUE. I decided to take a lesson from my habit-based coaching practice and work hard at SIMPLIFYING things. That included everything from my business to household chores. We’re much more likely to get things done when they’re simple because simple things are far less overwhelming. I’m not going to lie, simplifying can be a difficult skill to master. It takes practice. But it’s SO worth it in the end.

While having those 2 power words helped me turn last year into one of the most productive years I’ve had for a very long time, there was a lot of outside “noise” that kept me from doing as much as I could have. Because, well, life happens. To all of us. Unless we have a plan to cope with what life throws at us it’s easy to stray off-course. So this year my power word is FOCUS. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we really focus on what we’re doing.

So, where was I? Oh yeah…

Why is focus so difficult? I have a few of my own theories, and I’d love to know yours. Since we are constantly bombarded with messages from social media, TV, email, mobile phones, billboards, magazines, newspapers, music players, and so on, it’s really difficult to focus on only one thing. All this technology was supposed to help us simplify our busy lives, and yet it has complicated them and overwhelmed us more than ever. Our attention is pulled in many different directions at the same time. We’re expected to multi-task, even though study after study has shown not only that our brains are incapable of focusing on multiple things at once, but also that multitasking makes us FAR LESS productive than if we followed one course through to completion. It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed! Yet people still brag about their ability to multitask, and employers even list it as a requirement on many job descriptions. When will we ever learn?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve developed this “monkey mind” that’s jumping from thought to thought, project to project, and task to task. Unless you learn to intentionally engage in some sort of mindfulness practise, life is likely to feel more and more overwhelming and you’re likely to be less and less focused, as you flit from thing to thing, and in the end never actually feel like you’ve accomplished anything.

Some days, the ability to focus seems like it requires a magic formula, looking for Merlin himself to wave his wand and put me into a trance so I can stay on task. Other days, I become so completely focused and engrossed in what I’m doing that I lose track of time and all of a sudden the dog is crying and dancing by the door because it has been 4 or 5 hours since I paid attention to anything else.

I can tell you that focus takes practice and discipline. It requires both the desire and the intention to make it happen. And it becomes even more difficult as we age. Information comes at us faster and faster, technology changes far more quickly than we can ever keep up with, and the ageing process plays the cruel game of making focus, memory, and recall feel like something we used to have. It’s a work in process.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because these principles apply to all areas of life, including diet and wellness. Something I hear from people all the time is how they’ve tried this diet or that diet, or this new program or that one, but none of them has worked. So I’m afraid it’s time for a little Tough Love. None of them has worked well because you haven’t stuck with one or practised it consistently for long enough. You haven’t been focused on what you need to do to succeed. By now you’re probably tired of hearing me tell you that diets work - as long as you follow them. The catch is that you need to follow them for a long enough period of time for them to be effective. A few weeks of this one, then jumping to that new one and jumping ship every time the next new, fabulous, shiny thing comes along is only going to feed your monkey mind, give you a lot of confusing and conflicting information, and make you feel like a failure when you don’t see the results you were promised.

And here’s another piece of tough love. Diets are going to fail you. Every. Single. Time. Yes, even if you follow them. Why? Because when you’re finished with the diet, no matter how well you’ve focused on it, you’re going to return to the same habits and behaviours that made you gain weight or get out of shape in the first place. Diets are simply not sustainable, because they don’t teach you how to change your mindset, change your habits, or change your relationship with food or your body. That’s why the diet industry earns over $700 Billion per year. And that’s why habit-based coaching is so much more effective. That’s why I get so completely excited when I see my clients make lasting change and reach their goals. So, instead of wondering which diet is the right one (spoiler alert - there isn’t one), start looking at how you can change your daily habits in a way that will bring you lasting change.

Here’s my formula for success. FOCUS. Focus on ONE thing, one small - even tiny - thing until you master it. Then, find the next ONE thing to focus on and do that. Build your habits one at a time. It’s not glamorous, and it’s not a quick fix, but it will lead you to where you want to be a lot faster than spreading your attention over multiple things. Be the tortoise from the fable of The Tortoise and The Hare. Take things one step at a time.

Unsure where to start? Well, just start somewhere and see how it goes. FOCUS on what you want to achieve, and then break it down into tiny steps. Even if you start in the middle, you’ll get feedback that lets you know whether you’re on the right track, and then you can adjust course as needed. But until you focus on that ONE thing, then practice and practice, rinse and repeat, you’ll never really know how well it works for you. You’ll never make sustainable change because those behaviours won’t become habits that your practice consistently.

So, how am I going to really engage with my power word this year? I’ve created a new vision board. I’ve done the 5 Why’s exercise (ask me if you want more info on this). I’m using a planner and scheduling my top 3 priorities each day. I’ve created a 15-minute morning ritual to help get my mindset in the right place every day. I set a timer and work for 25 minutes at a stretch, with woo-woo productivity music playing in the background. Every little bit helps, and while I don’t expect to be perfectly focused every moment of every day, remembering my power word helps me ask myself whether what I’m doing at any given moment is actually helping me focus on my goals. That’s important not only for my business, but also for my health, my personal development, my relationships, and all other areas of my life.

Where will you focus your efforts? Try it. You just might like it!

Have a health of a day,

Juli