Are you focused on the right things?

Focus on what you need, not what you think you want.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend struggling to make a career decision, keep plowing ahead in their current role or move on to something new. They had set very firm goals for their career advancement and hadn’t seen the promotion land according to their timeline. I could hear the frustration in their voice about missing the deadline. However, when I started to ask questions about how this promotion expectation had been set, it was based on their personal goals and desire for advancement. It wasn’t on a business need or a performance goal set by the organization they worked for, which created a disconnect. This disconnect, frustration, and feeling of desperation was making my friend unhappy and driving them to make career decisions to more quickly reach their goal and find happiness.

It’s easy to look at this situation and shake your head thinking this person set themselves up for disappointment. Unfortunately, that is true, but my guess is most of us have been guilty of focusing solely on a goal we set for ourselves (realist or not), which can create unnecessary stress, making us unhappy and act is ways we later regret.

For example, most of us start off with some sort of resolution or goal. Mine use to always be to exercise more, drink less, eat better, save more money and advance my career. I would create a spreadsheet with my goals, create a tab for each month, and immediately start tracking my progress. Knowing if I could stick with my plan, I would achieve all my goals and be the happiest I’d ever been.

Thankfully, I gave all that up a few years ago. I no longer try to predict my future in such a prescriptive way and I don’t expect outside circumstances to bring me lasting happiness.

I finally just snapped. Pushing myself to visualize the life I wanted, over and over again, and obsessing about writing down my goals finally got to me. I got to a point where the last thing I wanted to do was think about those things and review all the past failures of broken resolutions.

I wanted a fresh way to look at life, to be able to enjoy each moment, but how? Could I really do that without a plan and a tracking spreadsheet?

This idea created its own anxiety. I started to freak out. I’m a planner by nature, so how could I move forward without a defined set of goals. Instead of falling back to old patterns, I got up from my computer and set out on a walk.

I walked a trail I now walk nearly every day and let my mind spin with thoughts, some stressful, some searching for an answer, tasks that had to be done, but I eventually relaxed and was able to ask myself, “What will make me happy?”

The answer wasn’t a simple one, but I found it had a lot less to do about me and a lot more to do about what I could do for other people. All the inward focus of weight, career, and such, was making me unhappy. I’m never going to be perfect, nor should I try to be, but I should be the best I can be and I wasn’t doing that by fixating on spreadsheets filled with future goals. There is something to be said for enjoying the here and now.

I started to think about all the times I had canceled plans with friends and family to work just a little longer, accomplish one more task, inching a tiny bit closer to a goal. This clearly wasn’t making me happy or fulfilled. Work is important, but it shouldn’t be the sole focus.

I feel happier and more settled this year, and I don’t have a resolution or goal in sight. I’m approaching every day with the intention to stay in the moment and simply do the next right thing for the people around me and in turn do the right thing for me.

This is not to say I don’t still have dreams and a vision for my career, and yes, I’d still like to lose a few pounds, but I think about those things when it’s time to think about them. I don’t need to think about it, stress about it and obsess about it at other times when I can’t do anything to change it.

It’s simple though not always easy: Take a walk or a deep breath and check in with yourself. See what the next right move is, the thing you should be doing in the next few minutes. I know it makes me feel calmer and more centered, and, so far, has never led me to feel anxious or worried.

If you set a bunch of resolutions at the start of the year and are finding it hard to stick with them, maybe this is the perfect time to shift your focus from what you want in the future to what you need right now.