Ask The When I Grow Up Coach The F Word (Focus!)

Ask The When I Grow Up Coach The F Word (Focus!) When I Grow Up by Stephanie Corfee (and yes, I bought this for myself have it hanging in my office!) It’s the third installment of Ask the When I Grow Up Coach! Each week or so, I pick one of the questions that have been posed to feature here, until there are no questions left! Disclaimer: A few of the questions that have been posted are from other coaches or would-be coaches. While I’m absolutely happy to share my story and offer any advice I have on being a coach, I’m only gonna post the questions that can be applied more universally. Hope that’s helpful! Heres the question for this round (ooh, its one of my favorite topics!) How do you learn to focus on one thing or is it even best to do so? I have many interests and I am trying to figure out which direction to go. I have been trying to do a little of each but that doesnt seem to be working. Ah, one of my favorite topics, and also The F Word is my book: Focus (The S Word is Should)! I know, I know -its enough to send us Renaissance Souls running. This is usually where I link to my review of The Renaissance Soul and shake you by the shoulders and exclaim, Youre not flaky or ADD or unfocused, (wo)man! You dont have to put yourself in your own personal jail by Picking One Thing! It doesnt have to be that way! Youre a Renaissance Soul, and you can and will thrive by working on multiple projects at once in the way that works for you. And thats the key: figuring out what works for you. And that takes some time and some experimenting. For me, I work best in 45-min time blocks, because after that length of time I start itching for something new to work on. I also have to have my hand in 2-3 different projects, because anything more is too overwhelming while anything less bores me to tears. But for you well, you might decide you work best by working on four projects at once, devoting a full day to each of them every week. Who knows? Not you nor I -til you start experimenting! Thankfully, youre not alone in your Renaissance Soul-ness, and there are a ton of tools to help you. Here are my faves: the book The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstein. Tons of great exercises to help you figure out how you work best and make you feel that youre a lost cause! Its the Number 1 book I recommend. Puttylike and CareerBranches are two great sites/blogs/resources/coaches/ladies whose Focus (ah! F Word!) is Renaissance Souls, even though they call it different things. Emilie and Ilona are two ladies worth reading/fanning/following/enjoying. Productive Flourishing isnt for Renaissance Souls per se, but man, do Charlies products planners help me and my clients learn how time management works with our creative minds! Not to toot my own horn, but The Declaration of You will abso-freakin-lutely help anyone who needs help distinguishing what they wanna do for themselves and what they feel like they S Word alert! should be doing, based on the expectations of others. Its about (re)discovering your own interests, passions, values, and yes declarations to figure out what you wanna, um, focus on and/or prioritize. Not dirty at all. Our e-course is currently closed for registration, but all the content is in our illustrated workbook, which you can do at your own pace. Barbra Sher coined the term scanner (which I personally dont like for some reason it reminds me of the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica!), while Ive yet to read any of her work (I know, I know!, Im on it), I know I couldnt make a resource list and not include her or her book Refuse to Choose here. In summation (I love saying that! Its so lawyerly!), its about giving yourself the time, space, energy and exploration to find out what your process is. I know its extra difficult because being a Renaissance Soul is not widely understood nevertheless embraced, you can figure out how you work best. And once you find that out, its full steam ahead!