Speaking of focus: Something I like to do to focus my energy and practice is, I make it visual.

I choose the one thing to focus on that will make all the rest I want to do easier.

A single vision.

My ‘focus plan’ is actually a very simple sticky note.

For June my focus in life is Flexibility – in every sense of the word, and for dance it will be Shimmies.

In addition to that I use a whiteboard for keeping a wider view – literally – on the month.

Top left are the dates where I am teaching online or have plans (like visiting my family ?)

Bottom left are my reminders and ‘todos’

Note that I made a point of putting meditation and flexibility practice at the top of my todo list.

Why? They make everything else easier:

• Meditation gives me energy, helps me recover faster from TKD/ballet and refocuses my mind
• Flexibility practice does the same, but for my body, AND it helps me with my shimmies 🙂

On the right I made a ‘tracker’ – the blue dots are meditation (I try to do a few sessions per week, but at least once) the green (because its my focus for June) is flexibility work, the orange is belly dance and the red is ballet/pointes

I also make sure I have the eraser always nearby. If the situation changes, so does ‘the way’, while my focus (unless the situation calls for a change there, too!) will keep guiding me forwards.

All this to say: it’s perfectly possible to have many plans/interests/things you like to work on at once and still have balance. Still feel focused. Still have progress. Still have hope.

As long as there is a ‘common thread’ that connects what you want to do, and you make sure to prioritize the things/people/actions that give you good energy (this includes rest/self care/strength/flexibility/nature/time outs for me – and implies eliminating or spending less time with the things/people/actions that take energy away) so you have ‘reserve’ to take on the rest.

I compare it to reading multiple books simultaneously – combining random titles or books that are not really making your heart sing at once will create overwhelm, but when the topics contrast/balance and/or somehow complement each other, there is often a common theme that binds them, and this gives very interesting results.

Long post! But I wanted to share.