The Road to Boston: Part II, Narrowing the Focus

It is now 8 weeks till race day. I am starting to take myself a little more seriously as it rapidly approaches.  My training, which is already quite strict, will get even more so, and my diet will become a discipline, where 95% of all things that I take in throughout the week will benefit me (this includes my wine intake unfortunately…). My life will somewhat be monopolized by my upcoming race, and as I focus on it, my decision making process will come down to a simple question, “Will this help me reach my goal?”
I find that narrowing focus in life in general can be helpful. With any goal that you have in mind, you can ask yourself that question and see if it is helping you, or being detrimental to your success.

Today I had a terrible day. I woke up in a sweaty panic, and immediately stood from the couch, trying to wipe the nightmares from my mind by pretending they didn’t happen. But they remained with me. I drove into work and as I was crossing the street to my building I slightly twisted my ankle, which immediately caused me to worry and frustrated me greatly, to get hurt now after all this training would be very disheartening. I went in to work where my boss pulled me into a meeting and told me that I was not prioritizing appropriately and then proceeded to give me a deadline for a project which will be nearly impossible to meet. I took a deep breath and began to work, but then, as if forgetting the meeting and deadline she had just set before me, continued to send me numerous projects which made it impossible for me to even begin on the original project. My cell phone vibrated and I welcomed the reprieve of a short break to check my messages. It was a facebook message from someone who I had not heard from in a long while, but they seemed to think that I needed to hear their two cents on my life, where it was headed, and everything that I am doing wrong. Already feeling close to tears at this point, I frantically blinked back the ones that were now forcefully brimming. To feel judgment on your life is hard, but to feel misunderstood on the judgments that they are making feels almost worse.  Unfortunately, I had, and have, no desire to correct this person, and they can go on thinking of me as they would like, and whereas it hurts me greatly to be misjudged and to have my character called into question, to reopen the lines of communication would be far more damaging. After this I plowed into my work, wanting only to get lost and be preoccupied. After a few hours I stood up and stretched and as I stretched I looked down and out of the corner of my eye caught the sight of a dark spot on my chair. I looked down closer and to my horror, realized that the crimson tide had come early (sorry for the male readers…). I immediately spun around so that my back was to my cubicle wall. I reached around and pulled at the back of my black and WHITE dress… there was a blood stain square on the back of it, about the size of my hand. There was no controlling the tears at this point, they silently spilled over and I felt everything that had happened that day was right on my dress… I felt stained and dirty, gross and embarrassed. Luckily, I had worn my long coat so I shrugged it on and walked into the bathroom. I removed my dress and put on my coat, buttoning it up and feeling like flasher. As I began to wash my dress in the sink the tears freely ran down my cheeks, obviously I was not crying just over my dress, but the day was still young (this was right around noon) and I wanted nothing more than the day to be over. That was when I had my first “narrow your focus moment of the day”. Solve one problem at a time Holly, I told myself.  I completed washing my dress and thankfully was able to scrub out the stain (thank you lycra/poly blend material). So I now had a clean wet dress… wearing only my coat, but going with my mantra of solving one problem at a time, I merely went back to my desk, draped the wet portion of my dress over my fan and turned it on.

I then opened my facebook account read the message one more time and then deleted it. There was no reason to keep it on file. I knew that if I did I would keep coming back and re-reading it, analyzing the details, and hashing it over and over again in my mind. I set my phone down and tried to push the lingering thoughts out of my mind.

As the day continued on whenever I would feel overwhelmed or frustrated by something, I just broke it down and solved it the quickest and easiest way. However, the stress of the day wore me out mentally and that night while I was training with my trainer I hit the worst mental block and could barely finish the workout. I went home and cried… my poor sweet kitties cuddled with me as my tears soaked their fur. The ever present rational side of my brain nudged me in the right direction… narrow your focus it reminded me… I turned on worship music, wrote in my journal, and prayed… which for me is the trifecta of narrowing my focus. It brings everything back to what is important… God… who He is, what He stands for, and why He created me.

Once you narrow your focus to that, the daily nuances fade away and while drawing on his never ending love for strength, you are able to set your sights to tomorrow, and can rest easy in His promises.

Goodnight bad day… tomorrow is going to be better… wait and see.