How can I become more focused?
2021 has started and you want to be more focused on your work and your business. As you are probably aware focus starts with you and how you approach your day. I know you are busy, which means limited time, so I am going to give you something to focus on for yourself each month. It’s easier to concentrate on one thing you might want to change about yourself than a whole lot of things. So I am providing a list of things you can try for each month this year, and by the end of the year you will have twelve new habits going into 2022. Remember you can’t change yourself over night, but you can build a new habit in twenty-eight days and that habit will be sustainable. Take each of the suggestions below and practise daily for a month. Carry the new habit into the next month and by the end of December you will have twelve new habits.
Here are twelve areas of your life you might like to work on this year:
January - Believe in yourself - You can become a successful business owner. That belief has to come from the deepest part of you that is at the core of who you are. Part of belief is understanding why you decided to go into business. Revisit why you wanted to go into business. Does it still resonate with you? If not, what do you need to change in your mindset that will return that initial excitement of when you first started your business.
February - Steady your mind - It’s impossible to make good decisions when your mind is scattered. Take five minutes every day before you start your work to breathe and release any anxieties that may be swirling in your mind. The anxiety is taking up space in your mind. That space can be used to create strategies. Take five minutes another three times throughout your day to calm your mind.
March - Congratulate your wins - Often we are too busy to celebrate the wins. Give yourself a pat on the back for your wins, including the small ones. You may have written a new blog post, or found a new, more efficient way of increasing your productivity; give yourself a pat on the back and let your staff know about the wins. It builds morale in you and also your employees. They like celebrating the wins, too. It makes them feel part of the team and has the flow-on effect of increased productivity.
April - Become more determined - You want to be successful in your business more than anything else. You’ve invested a lot of time and money. To take your business to the next level, you sometimes need to increase your determination. You are the best in your field. Start an affirmation: I have a successful business. Say this several times a day, and support this with the belief habit you developed in January.
May - Pause to see the beauty around you - It’s easy to get too focused on the business and forget there is a beautiful world out there. Pausing to look at the sky and noticing the shapes and colours of trees and flowers in your environment is enough to give your mind a mini-holiday. Take some relaxing breaths while you are doing this and it will add to the new habit you learned in February. Pausing to see the beauty around you is one step on from that. By appreciating the beauty around you, you will appreciate the beauty in others and yourself.
June - Learn from the mistakes and let go of them- None of us is perfect. We all make mistakes. It’s part of being human. Learn from them and move on. Put systems in place if you need to rectify a problem. The lesson is learned so don’t hold onto it. Holding on takes up space in your mind. Let it go!
July - Become calmer - This is revisiting February’s practice and an extension of May’s. When you feel the anxiety rise up, take some deep breaths and close your eyes. Three deep breaths when you are feeling stressed will briefly pull you back for a few minutes. Your mind will thank you, and so will your heart. For a few minutes, your mind stops racing and your pulse rate slows. Becoming calmer is good for your health. Practise at least three times daily, more often when the pressure of work becomes overwhelming.
August - Create better relationships - The secret of a successful business is the ability to build relationships. The more you respect your customers, listen, hear what they want and give them what they want, the more your business will grow. All your customers want to buy your product. Make a good product and create a relationship so that they keep coming back. People don’t always buy on how much it will cost them. Your price can be a little higher than your competitors. The important questions to ask yourself: Am I giving value for money? Am I continuing to build the relationship by putting my customers first? If you answer yes to both of these questions and your clients are talking about you to their family, friends and colleagues, you have the right ingredients for building your relationships. Don’t stop! Be vigilant at all times that you are putting your customers’ needs first.
September -Become assertive - I stated above about putting your customers’ needs first. Do this, but also be aware they aren’t taking advantage of you. If you notice the scales have tipped more in the customer’s favour and you feel you are being used, take a good hard look at your customer’s motives and assess what is happening. Success in business doesn’t mean you are a door mat. Success means having control of your business while helping others achieve their goals.
October - Feel the fear and do it anyway - You may be thinking about putting a new product out in the market. It’s going to cost financially and take a lot of your and your team’s time. You believe the rewards will come when the product is developed. Be brave, understand the risk and do it anyway. Just be sure when the product is finished and ready for the market, you will be able to recoup your costs. Ensure you do your due diligence, make the decision, and trust the process. Accept your fear is real, accept you have done your due diligence to the best of your ability, and just get working on that project.
November - Build your confidence - Become the best leader you can be. That means building your confidence in your abilities, your staff’s abilities, and the quality of your products. Back in August you focused on building better relationships. Knowing you are relating better to others, means building your self-confidence. Practise mindfulness throughout your day, let the negative thoughts go, unless you feel you need to do something about a situation, focus on the positive and what you have control over in your business, and feel your self-confidence grow.
December - Become compassionate - Caring for others is one of the most important qualities of being a leader. Life happens for you, and your employees. You employees have all kinds of issues happening in their life. They rely on you for their job. If they are below par on their application to their work, there is something that may be going on in their life that is affecting them and they don’t know how to fix it. Showing them compassion will help them immensely. They begin to know you, that you, the boss is human and they can approach you. Once they realize they aren’t alone they will begin to share their issues and you can then both work towards a solution. December is the month of celebration. Building compassion in this month, together with all the other habits, you have worked on throughout the year will spill into 2022 and set you up for greater success.
For the first blog of every month, I will write about how you can implement each of these habits in the coming month. Leave a comment below to let me know how you are going. What are your challenges and what are your wins?