Mental Exercising: Staying Focused on What Matters

Your life goes where the mind directs it.

If you are reading this, then you most likely are trying to guide your way out of a financial situation that you didn’t plan to be in.  If you have followed this series, then you have heard me say, “You can wander in, but you can’t wander out.”  That implies that if you don’t let your life wander, it’s likely that you wouldn’t be in the situation you’re in.  Not to say that you won’t have problems, but your daily reaction to each little decision would be different if you have a focused, guided mind.  Therefore, when you do have problems, the experience will be completely different.

The Best Time to Fix a Leak isn’t when it’s Raining

Although unexpected problems, and/or difficult situations can arise, it’s likely that some fundamentally bad choices can be avoided if you focus on what matters.  It’s hard to have the best financial life when you’re busy fixing past mistakes.  Said a more familiar way, “a penny of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  This doesn’t mean we can’t have a great financial life. It just means we are going to need to create a stronger focus on what’s urgent and important.

Urgent and Important

So, I want you to begin creating an atmosphere of learning around what’s urgent and important. There are a lot of things that need to get done in the course of a day, but not all of them are urgent and important.  There is a much greater lesson on this in the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , but for now what I want you to do is list 3 areas of your life that are most important to you.  For example, this could be finances, weight loss, and spiritual growth.  I want you to begin a broad brushstroke of learning on these subjects via your Bible, books, podcasts, youtube-ing, google-ing, and coaching (either paid, or free).  I call this Mental Streaming, creating a constant flow of experienced influence.  This will begin a daily habit that will change the course of your life forever.

Create the Urgency

Once you have the three areas your are wanting to work on and you have begun creating your mental stream of information coming in, I want you to zoom in on the one most urgent to you.  So, in most cases those reading this it would be the financial area.  Then, begin to focus on one resource of information to help guide you out of the problem, or into the goal you have set.  For example, this blog series is designed to guide you out of debt delinquency and make you mentally and emotionally stronger at the same time.  So,  although you are streaming info on the other two areas you have set, you are only actively working on one at a time.  Once you have identified 3 important areas, and 1 urgent area, I want you to put this list in your wallet, and on the refrigerator, to keep these things top of mind in your daily actions.

This is Not a Comprehensive Goals List

It’s more like a beginner’s way to setting goals when you’re not setting them at all.   Even if you only set one goal, and it’s urgent and important, you will gain ground.  But, long term you will need to learn to develop all areas of your life on a consistent, regular basis. Sometimes, slowing the wheels down and focusing will help you get traction and begin moving forward.  Do you have comments or questions?  Post them in the comments section below, or you can email me at tony@findingforward.com