What I Focus On, I Ultimately Become!

This is so true!

• What I focus on, I find !
• What I focus on, seems real to me !
• What I focus on, grows !
• What I focus on, I become !

As I have been shifting from one season into the next, I have taken a pause for a moment to ponder what it is that I should be focused on. Where should I be spending my time, my thoughts, my efforts. Where can I make the biggest impact? How do I find more fulfillment and joy in my day to day accomplishments?

These are a few things that I know about myself, things that I enjoy and that bring me joy –

I love to just come along side people, because everyone needs people. It doesn’t matter what it is I do when I am with them. I could be just lending a hand, providing transportation, playing a board game with them, share a story, an experience, or even seeking clarification on a topic we share. There is a lot of loneliness in this world. Every little thing that can be done, even a simple smile can change a persons’ day, a persons’ world, a persons’ life!

I love to do what I can to stay healthy through movement, exercise, and most recently some hiking and I’ve even joined Orangetheory Fitness which I am really enjoying. I was feeling kinda impacted by just getting older but was able to turn that around first with my diet which I share breifly in a moment. But then after, I was feeling so much younger with more movement, strength, and agility that I wanted to get more serious about my exercise regimen. I’ve also been encouraging some of my friends to join me to be more active through free yoga online, hiking, just riding bikes, simple things that anyone can do.

I love to focus on clean eating. Healthy foods and healthy meals. I love flavor and variety. I wasn’t finding enough variety of healthy and flavorful foods at local restaurants so I started finding my own recipes through internet searches. It’s great that we have all of these recipes at our finger tips instead of those old clunky and dated recipe books on the counter taking up much needed space. I do still have a few that were handed down to me and I will continue to treasure them. I’m just getting started sharing my recipes on my website for my families and friends and plan to do more of that in the future.

I love that I have learned that I need to supplement my nutrition and I found a company that I can trust. It has a plethora of amazing products and they make it affordable and simple to implement into my lifestyle. Why supplement? Why not just eat healthy organic whole foods? Because our soils are depleted of nutrients, farming practices and techniques to grow bigger and faster at the expense of nutrients, the use of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers too. Our bodies are literally dying for the right macro and micro nutrients include vitamins, minerals and trace minerals!

Now saving the best for last….I love focusing on maintaining a growing relationship with God. I do this through doing my best to be in thought with God throughout my day. Reading my bible daily through my bible study lesson, my simple devotional book that points me to him and to scripture, in prayer, and through praise and worship music which I love. Sharing my belief, sharing my experiences, sharing His Word (The Bible) through scriptures when I find someone in need, or a method in which to share it to bring value to others. Yet, not wanting to offend anyone that is not yet a believer.

Still I keep asking myself, where can I make the biggest impact?

So that is why I have been taking a little pause’ What I am finding is that I need to get my foundation more firm. I need to strengthen my own mindset, my own internal self-talk, my thoughts, and my attitude. I need to stay fueled so that I can fuel others. This takes self-discipline. What I focus on, I become!

If I focus on positive attitudes and thoughts, being mindful and not constantly focusing on what might happen or what could happen, or what didn’t happen in the past, but rather what I desire to happen, then ultimately it will happen! I get to choose!!!

The issue here is that many of us have done the things we do, thinking the thoughts we have, focusing on negative self-talk, telling ourselves the same things for so long that we have developed some very deep rooted patterns. Patterns are difficult to break and change. With self-discipline and awareness we can begin that journey to our desired identity. Who we are authentically. The person we always wanted to be when we grew up. This takes a lot of work but it is our responsibility to put in that effort!

The good news for me is that I do not have to do it alone! There is nothing that I can not take to God and he will give me strength to be steadfast and break those strongholds – those patterns!

One of my favorite scriptures is 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ!”

I know that the Lord can help me redirect my thoughts, to acknowledge them quickly when I start to go down a negative path, to start a new pattern of redirection! To focus on what I want to find, what will seem real to me, what will grow, and what I will become!!!

Ultimately, regardless of what we are doing or what we are focused on, I think we all just want JOY in our lives. All day, every day! My dear friend Susan (love her too!), she tells me that if I am not living joyfully then I am robbing God of his joy. Psalm 16:11 “You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasure at your right hand”. Gods’ sacrifice in itself brings us joy! His love for us brings us joy! He brings us comforts and pleasures that we fail to even recognize every single day — let alone thank him for them!

So with that, each day I will start with being thankful and considering every single blessing, comfort, strength, and protection that God provided for me from the day before. Then simply ask for his help to manage what it is that I am focusing on and then help me identify and redirect my thoughts when they are not serving me to become the person I want to be when I grow up!