What I Learned From Staying Focused During Challenging Times

Life, just like a roller coaster life has its ups and downs. You may even experience a few twists and turns along the journey. ~Nancy Dadami

Sometimes, the downs are personal, and sometimes, they are environmental. Loss of a loved one, a cancer diagnosis, unhealthy air quality caused by fire storms, and draining or stagnant energy in your home.  

Whenever something disturbing happens, staying focused can be a challenge. This is what I learned from staying focused during difficult times:

Ten tips to help you stay focused during challenging times

• Give Yourself a Break – Take a deep breath, hold it, and slowly exhale. Do that 3 times and let your body relax. Feel your neck and shoulders let go, your belly relax, and your mind find calmness. I’m not saying to ignore how you feel. You’re allowed to have bad days and feel your feelings. It’s good to feel your emotions and let them out through talking, crying, journaling, or creating intentional art. The secret is not to wallow in those feelings for days.

• Set a “Worry” Time Limit – Set time limits to let loose your feelings and feel everything you need. Maybe you choose 10 minutes during your day when you won’t be interrupted and let your feelings out.  You can even set many time limits. For example, if you must get through a day of work or emotional difficulty, set a time later to feel all the feelings to get through your current situation.  

• Sleep Well – This can be hard to do when you’re struggling. You can be a victim of the monkey mind when quietly in bed. That is when your mind goes non-stop from one idea to another.  You look at options for current challenges, or they could be creative ideas for your next project. It is essential to get enough sleep so you bring the best version of yourself to your day tomorrow. Here is something I do to help stop the monkey mind. Focus on your breath, observe your inhale, and feel the air on your upper lip as it enters your nose. As you slowly exhale, feel the air on your upper lip. Bring your attention to your breathing each time you lose focus. Sleep follows shortly.  If you lose too much sleep, a power nap might be another action to help you catch up on sleep.

• Eat Right – When a crisis occurs, your body processes are vigilant.  It’s not the time to start eating unhealthy food. It’s when you want to take great care of your body by providing it with the fuel it needs. Set a schedule and ensure you eat healthy calories to fuel yourself. It is a time to get more vegetables, fruits, water, and good-quality protein.

• Keep Exercising – It may be even more important now to find time for your walks than at any other time. Walking in nature or your neighborhood burns off stress and worry. Other exercise suggestions are yoga, swimming, biking, hiking, weight lifting, dancing, and pickleball. Exercise helps you sleep better and feel more positive; it is a great way to get through hard times.

• Be Mindful – It’s easy to get distracted when your emotions are affected by what is happening in your life or the world. However, before starting a new activity, always center yourself with a good deep breath to be mindful of what is happening. The issue may still be there when you are centered, and you will be calmer in dealing with it.

• Keep an “I’m okay” Journal – It’s hard to feel like anything will ever be okay again when things are bad. However, most of the time, you can find some things that are at least okay about your day, if not something to be outright grateful for now. An I’m Okay journal helps you focus on what is going well. The more you focus on what is going well, the better you will feel. You can read previous entries in your journal for a boost to your confidence and positive outcomes.

• Clean Up Your Environment – Allowing your environment to get cluttered and dirty when the world is crumbling around you seems like a natural thing to do, but the truth is, it makes things worse. Clutter robs you of your physical and emotional energy, causing you to feel scattered, frustrated, and overwhelmed. Set a regular time to keep your environment clean to help you feel more self-confident, control, and successful.

• Get Rid of Distractions – Turn off your phone, social media, and the radio or TV when doing certain activities. If you need to focus, don’t do other things.  Research shows that doing multiple tasks is stressful to your brain. Even listening to music can cause you to miss out on essential points. Anything worth doing is worth doing 100 percent.
• Ask for Help – If you are having trouble controlling your thoughts and nothing you try is working after a few days, you may want to ask for help. Counselors, life coaches, and Inner Peace Strategists can help you through tricky times so that you can focus on the other essential things.

A life well-lived is going to have difficult times. The rollercoaster of life makes it exciting; that is how I learned.  Going through challenges helps you grow. You feel new emotions, try new things, and come out better for the experience, even if it felt impossible while it was happening.

Everything passes eventually, and you can get through difficult times without losing focus on what is important to you. Hold onto that safety bar as your rollercoaster car is diving. You will make it.

Nancy Dadami is an Inner Peace Strategist, Intentional Creativity Guide, and Feng Shui Specialist. She helps empower leaders, visionaries, creators, and entrepreneurs called to growth, learning, service, and freedom so they can thrive by living the best version of themselves, creating a life of abundance, self-awareness, purpose, and inner peace. Linktr.ee/nancydadami

 

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