The hot days of summer linger on into fall in the great Pacific Northwest, yet one can feel ‘a bit of fall in the air.’ With the coming of fall, comes also a time for reflection. That makes it a perfect time to fall into focus.
What do I mean by this? This fall, I encourage you to spend time thinking about your greatest point or points of focus. It is your family, your business, your challenge to improve your physical, mental, and/or spiritual strivings? Once you become clear on your point or points of focus, take it one word further. That is, find one word that best sums up what’s up for you.
Yes, one word. Narrowing it down helps us focus on what it is that we really want to create. I’ve been encouraging myself and clients to do this for many years. The task is to choose one word that expresses the intention, awareness, love, joy, caring, connection and/or dreams upon which you want to focus.
Here’s some examples to help you choose your focus word.
A client chose the word “stretch.” In choosing that word, she took it to the max in many areas of her life. She took up yoga to literally stretch her muscles. She also stretched herself to develop a second location for her business. She made it a point to meet new people and by doing so, stretched her social circle. Here’s an example where her word was applied to all realms of this persons’ life and endeavors.
Another client chose the word “Promotion.” This person was thinking very specifically about his career. With Promotion in mind and awareness, he initially put his efforts into climbing the corporate ladder. Yet, the more he focused on his word, Promotion (with a capital P), the more he became compassionate to his employees. He created a deep sense of unity within his current team. He began to care deeply about how to promote each member of his team. After awhile, he did receive a tremendous promotion. Yet at the point this occurred, he was equally glad for the experience of learning to promote others, a skill which then served him very well in his new role. Here’s an example where the word was applied to a specific goal, which gave rise to both meeting the personal goal and bringing a positive influence on the environment.
As fall brings changes to our environment, as the leaves in the trees begin to change color and literally fall, consider your own fall into focus. Consider a gentle floating into focus. Then, let your word help guide you to create your amazing story.