Permission to Focus Take 1

So, I kicked off my Permission to Focus gig last Thursday, May 1st.

The night before the post was scheduled to publish, I went to bed with a racing mind and even woke up in the middle of the night telling myself that I will get to the post early, before publishing, and remove it. I repeated over and over to myself:

“What the heck am I doing? What’s the point of this? I can’t do this.”

However, what ended up happening is that I didn’t get to the post in time because I was trying to multitask like a mad woman that morning and was doing so much that this slipped my mind. The post published and there was some activity with it on the Twitter-sphere. I then figured that I guess I can at least try, right?

What I did first was I figured out how to disable my notifications (mail and messages), leaving Calendar notifications the only pop-ups to display.

I then downloaded Evernote with the intention to keep track of my thoughts about focusing as well as to help me stay organized with day to day planning.

I then re-watched Marie Forleo’s interview with Todd Herman called “5 Secrets To Change Your Life and Make It Stick” about creating change and forming new, positive habits. (This video seriously pumps me up–if you haven’t seen it, check it out. Pretty inspiring stuff.)

Finally, May 1st breaks dawn and I’m feeling extremely nervous and unprepared. The negative thoughts that “You can’t do this” flood my mind. I just feel flat out stupid for even thinking that I am trying to work on changing these habits. What’s the point? I’ll change for a few days and then go right back into my old ways.

And there Jenny goes again, not giving herself permission to focus…or permission to even TRY.

Days 1 & 2 were awkward and yet, oddly fulfilling. Just simply telling myself that I’m going to TRY to make changes led way to some incredible inspiration:

I am slowly starting to understand that this is a process. I must take small steps to make this stick. It may not always be bursts of inspiration and it may not always be floods of negativity. It will be what it is–and by giving myself permission to just focus on that is pretty great.

So, while I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’m doing it. And, I’m going to allow myself to keep trying.

Have you ever tried to change any of your habits, such as multitasking? What challenges did you find while doing this? Any advice for a newbie to this? Tweet at me and let me know! @commbetterblog

[custom_author=jenny]