28 Days of Change- Focus

About three days into this twenty-eight-day adventure some things happened in my world that were rather unexpected. I didn’t want to stop what I was doing I just had to take a new approach on it. So I took five days to focus. Luckily the assignment I am currently working I have more than a little free time to take think time. Not everyone has that luxury and honestly I wish I didn’t right now but I am grateful for it. The first thing I needed to focus on was my situation and what were all the things I could do right now to keep me from freaking out about it. So I took a five mile walk and thought about what little good panicking was going to do me. And then I thought about options and solutions. And when I got home I wrote down my thoughts and made a to do list but made sure it wasn’t one list it was broken into smaller “doable” lists. So I used a stack of post it notes and put five items from my master list on each post it and enough room for notes if I needed to take further action on each task. I was able to complete fifteen tasks in my pj’s on a Monday evening and it lifted about twenty-five pounds off my shoulders. The next day I took care of a few more items and some had follow up steps so I moved those aside and pushed on and created a few more post it notes for other items I needed to focus on when I got to a point I could do that. I am now focusing on what I want to be when I grow up. I am thankful for the time at temp assignments because I am getting a feel for different office environments and looking at my skill set and what I have to offer and what I need to work on. I have applied for and interviewed for a few jobs I would have loved to have but didn’t but I was able to start to see why I didn’t get them. It’s so easy just to apply for every job out of desperation without actually looking at the job description and looking into the company. So I made some more lists. What do I want to do, what am I able to do, what are my strengths and weakness since that seems to be in every interview, and what atmosphere do I want to work in? I read a job description today where I had 90% of what they wanted but the 10% I didn’t wasn’t kind of key to what they were looking. I asked myself is this something I could learn and wanted to learn and express that to them in a cover letter? Once I did more research on the company I realized that it wasn’t really a place I would want to take money to learn that skill for. Did she just say that in her situation? Yes, yes I did. Again it goes back to applying for everything out of desperation. And it comes back down to focus. As I am closing down on my five days of focus I do feel more grounded and although I still have a lot of major work to do on my to do lists I think I have a good plan moving forward. And on another note seven days into this I have lost 3 lbs and cut down on my cheese intake. The dairy industry may take a hit this twenty-eight days. But 3M stock will be up from all the Post It Notes.