Day – Focus

If This Archetype Chooses You – Time to make up your mind – will this be a good morning – or bad? Do you wake up fearful, fretful and exhausted? You’re too much of a worrier. Worry borrows trouble and erases pleasure. It’s OK to plan but it’s destructive to worry. “Rumination” is endlessly thinking over a problem in a circular way – it isn’t going anywhere. If you dream only about your problems, you are at risk of wasting your valuable dreaming time.

Creatives Build Routines – Then Explode Them
We construct lists and calendars in our Training Journals that are very much Works In Progress. Every effort’s an experiment. If you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems, so we have to build good systems. As Zig Ziglar reminds us, there’s no elevator to success. We have to take the stairs, one step at a time. We will build ourselves so strong that ultimately we can trust our subconscious, even our unconscious, to do the work for us. Creatives create independent selves to transcend their selves.

Taming Wild Mind to Focus Productively – Buddhists are fabulous at training the brain to calmness. This is a physical discipline and it does take practice. But as in any practice, we start out needing both effort and commitment. You will have to “forgive” yourself over and over – “I suck at this.” Learning to enjoy the process is key. Meditation teaches us how to live in the present moment. You are your own toddler, so mother yourself. Be delighted by the effort and moved by the commitment. You don’t yell at a toddler for falling down. Study the work of Pema Chodron (libraries everywhere) for assistance.

Your Toddler Self is Frightened by Everything. As we meditate and the fears boil up, we talk to ourselves calmingly. Focus on small, pleasurable things, the green grass, the blue sky. Give thanks for the green grass and the blue sky. Focus on the breath – out with the worry, in with the fresh day of joy and discovery. Now close your eyes. Are you still seeing the green grass and the blue sky? Isn’t that wonderful? Now they are yours forever. Tonight you will dream about them. Cherish them in your heart.

How Strong is Your Negative Voice? This is the first enemy we must defeat. We all have at least one – some of us have many. Banish them firmly. Your negative voice is belittling, angry and demeaning. It doesn’t think you can accomplish anything. It is not a helper, in fact it is toxic and we are going to tell it goodbye. Read Viktor Frankl’s wonderful Man’s Search for Meaning and Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With the Wolves for advice on how to pluck the lotus of joy from the mud of despair.

Creative Opportunity – Learning to focus at our advanced age is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a daily practice of mindfulness and joy in the classroom of creation. Be proud of your effort, your commitment and the confidence you are modeling for all future generations that life itself is a dazzling gift. You are alive at this perfect moment for some perfect reason. Let us find it.

Models & Mentors – “Your habits will determine your future” – Jack Canfield

“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine.” – John Maxwell

‘Practice isn’t something you do when you’re good. It’s what makes you good.” – Malcolm Gladwell

“It’s easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.” – Benjamin Franklin

#Haiku: Focus

Energy
Resurgent
Depowers dread
Repowers health-
Dare –
Aim –
Fire