Christmas Eve at 5:30 pm, I was making brownies for Christmas. Our family loves brownies, unlike other “traditional” Christmas goodies. It takes two boxes. (Don’t judge, I add extra ingredients that make the box brownies amazing). I dumped the first box in the bowl and asked my husband to get eggs from the fridge in the garage.
The next part is fuzzy. In the moment between “Honey, will you get me eggs” to “OH MY GOSH WHAT DID I DO? I took the second bag of brownie mix and dumped it in the garbage. The sad part is, I don’t remember dumping it in the trash.
When I realized what I did, I freaked out! I just dumped the mix in the garbage. Stores were closing for Christmas Eve and what was I going to do?
As I looked at the mix in garbage, I did think for a flash moment… could I get it out? J/K
I quickly raced to Walmart before they closed at 6 pm and bought another box. All was well, and we enjoyed brownies on Christmas Day.
While funny and providing my family jokes for the rest of 2017, this experience was one in several the past few months. I’ve had so much going on in my life; that little things were going wrong.
A few examples:
- Dumping brownie mix in garbage instead of the bowl
- Getting all the way to work after an hour and a half commute and realizing I left my laptop at home
- Carrying eggs up the stairs to my bedroom because I forgot they were in my hand
- Asking where my cell phone is, as I wave it around in my hand
- Waking up in the middle of the night realizing I forgot to do something
And other stupid things because I am distracted by everything.
I’ve always prided myself on being a jack of trades, random girl, multi-taking Meg, but the truth is, all of this multi-tasking is making me more unproductive than ever and I am not achieving as much as I could. I believed I could have it all and do it all. And I have been doing it all.. mostly. The mostly is that I am burned out from trying doing it all and actually, not doing it all.
I’ve been listing to book The One Thing. While driving to work listening to this book, I am thinking about the million things I need to do at work, the kid’s schedules, my triathlon training, and homework for my MBA class. The words from the book reached from my speakers and smacked me across the face. FOCUS!
This figure is from The One Thing website. This picture illustrates perfectly my days and life.
It hit me. I have been doing a lot of things, but not doing any of them as well as I could be or even want to be. I sat in my car and thought about all the stuff I do, that I don’t “need” to do and why was I doing it. So I decide my word for 2017 is going to be FOCUS! I know the main areas of my life I want success: Family, Career, and Fitness. Now it is time to focus on the most important things in those areas and stay focused. Being pulled in so many directions is exhausting. This is going to require me to start saying “NO” to some things in my life. Which will be hard, but better to stop feeling scattered and better deliver on my commitments to others and myself.
MY WORD for 2017 is FOCUS!
I started a Pinterest Board with inspiration on this word. And I’ll be blogging more about my attempt to stay faithful to this word this year. Also, I love you comments on your word for the year or how you stay focused.