I’m a big believer in goals, hard targets to shoot for, mountain tops to dream of. And yet as I journey through my 7th decade, instead of New Year’s Resolutions, I find myself more intrigued by “Areas of Focus” for the months ahead or “Thoughts to Hold in Mind” throughout the coming year. Think of them as soft goals, EQ goals, internal growth goals.

For 2021, my soft areas of focus were to:

  • “Listen with Love, Hear with my Heart”
  • “Calmness is my new Superpower” (Intensity is both a personal strength and when ineffectively excessive, a weakness)

For 2022, my soft areas of focus:

  • “With My Thoughts, I am Choosing My World” (Self Awareness is so vital; with it I see how much I am participating in the structuring of the world I experience)
  • “Give the Gift of Full Attention” (builds on “Listen with Love, Hear with my Heart”)
  • “Push the (Comfort) Zone” (Run to the Roar, Chase the Lion, Camp out in the Cave (that you fear to enter), Do One Thing Boldly Different Daily, Expand the Inner Extrovert, When Courage Calls, Answer!)

The change you seek will occur when you keep these thoughts constantly in the forefront of your mind; write them in your journal daily, send your self-reminder emails, constantly visualize the better you that you want to be more often, link your self-concept and identity to it, measure your thoughts and behavior against them. Repetition is key: repetition, repetition, repetition until the new behavior, the new thought pattern is drilled deep into your subconscious and becomes habitual.

And no, I’ve yet to master it. But I’m on the path.

Closing Quotes:

“You become what you think about most of the time.” – Brian Tracy, b. 1944

“Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.” – Napoleon Hill, 1883-1970, Think and Grow Rich

“Any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted.” – Robert Collier, 1885-1950, Secret of the Ages, Riches Within Your Reach

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862

As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier