Reclaiming My Focus

Focus. It’s an ability I used to take for granted. But not anymore. For whatever reason—age, information overload, pandemic-induced anxiety—I’m just not able to concentrate the way I once did.

Is the inability to do so a warning sign of cognitive decline?

After coming across conflicting opinions online, that’s a question I plan to ask at my next physical. In the meantime, I did what I usually do when seeking answers, I found a book to read: Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again byJohann Hari.

What I learned—that our attention is being stolen—was disturbing enough but the fact that Facebook and other social media companies have intentionally designed their sites to keep us online and coming back so they can maximize their revenue has prompted me to shy away from logging on.

Despite this, Amazon knows what I’m reading, and Alexa often knows what I’m having for dinner. Google Nest knows if I’m home, and Google Maps knows where I’m at when I’m not.

While there are some positives to this—for instance, I no longer have to look up and then print directions—I don’t like feeling that I’m being surveilled.

So I unplugged Alexa and put her in the basement, and I closed out 60+ accounts I rarely use. I also unsubscribed from dozens of e-letters.

And, after a University of Oregon study found that if we are focusing on something and get interrupted, it takes 23 minutes on average for us to get back to the same state of focus, I’ve turned off the ringer on my phone and no longer leave email open all day.

The goal: to return my focus to what I really want to be paying attention to: my family and friends and the causes I care about.

The WordSisters Celebrate 10 Years of Inviting You into Our Lives

In 2012, when Elizabeth and I launched WordSisters, we weren’t sure where this adventure would take us or if we could keep up the discipline of posting once a week. Our original motivation was attracting agents and publishers, but soon we were blogging for the pleasure of writing. We had things to say and stories to share. 10 years later we’re still writing!

Through the years, more sisters in writing joined us: Cynthia and Bev are regular contributors, while Brenda, Jill, Jean and Rosemary have occasionally posted. 

Our insights arise from our lives—mothering, working, aging, living through COVID, reacting to events in the news, planning our futures and setting goals. I’m proud of the breadth of topics we’ve covered and the connections we’ve made with strangers all over the world . 

Most of all I’m proud of us for persisting. For being here long after many bloggers have faded away. 

One of our strengths is the variety of voices, styles, and subject matter each of us brings. In that spirit, here is a collection of best-of posts. I hope you’ll enjoy sampling them. 

Thank you for being our readers.

Ellen

No More Guilt with Every Bite 

What Work Would I Do if I Were an Immigrant?

Elizabeth

I Didn’t Come This Far

Until It Becomes Personal

Cynthia

Shake the Marbles

Broken Dreams

Bev

Let the Hope Shine

When It Comes to Your Age, Do You Share? 

Brenda

Confessions of a Pandemic Parent

I’m (Not) Sorry

Jill

Opposing Thumbs

Nudging the Universe

Twenty years ago, two friends and I started the year by taking an afternoon-long New Year’s Day “nudge the universe” class. As part of the class, we and the dozen or so other participants each had to make up a name for ourselves that represented a goal we hoped to achieve. With the goal of writing a book and becoming more creative, I chose “Author Artist.”

Then, after introducing ourselves using our new names, we were tasked with writing a song that celebrated what we hoped to accomplish, as if we’d already accomplished it. With the hope of nudging into existence my goal of writing a book, here’s the song I wrote (and then, much to my dismay, had to sing to my fellow nudgers):

Author Artist had a book
E-I-E-I-O
With a book book here
And a book there
Here a book
There a book
Everywhere a book book
Author Artist had a book
E-I-E-I-O

While I thought the exercise was silly at the time, it has turned out to be quite powerful: within a year I had a contract for What Do You Really Want? How to Set a Goal and Go for It, a book for teens that has since sold more than 50,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages.

I don’t share this to brag but to emphasize how important and powerful getting clear on our hopes and dreams can be. Even two decades later, my name and my song continue to resonate with me and, perhaps more importantly, motivate me to take action. But as we head into 2022, I’m considering a new name, a new tune and what new things I’d like to nudge into existence in the years ahead, including:

• Another book
• A stronger relationship with my significant other
• A New York City apartment for six months
• Proficiency in Spanish
• Retirement

How about you? What nudges would you like to give the universe in 2022? And if you had to choose a goal-related name for yourself, what name would you choose?

My New Goal: To Be Insanely Happy

When we are five, we laugh 113 times a day. By the age of 44, that number shrinks to 11 times a day.

Those statistics, which I came across in Voice of the Innovator, made me feel sad for my adult self who, now in her early 60s and pretty much isolated due to the pandemic, often laughs even less than that.

A few days after reading that statistic, I emailed a long-time friend I haven’t seen in years, ending my message with these words: “I hope you are doing well…healthy and happy.”

He responded immediately with one sentence: “Yes, insanely busy and insanely happy!”

That simple reply gave me pause.

Despite having read at least a dozen books on happiness and taken several happiness classes, including Berkeley’s the Science of Happiness and Yale’s The Science of Well-Being, the idea of being insanely happy had never even crossed my mind.

In fact, happiness, even at a basic level, often felt elusive. And the busier I was, the harder it was to be happy. Instead, I was stressed and anxious, and often heard myself saying, “I don’t have time to be happy now. I just need to get this done.”

Then my friend Laurie sent me a video clip of an orangutan’s reaction—one might say insanely happy reaction—to a simple magic trick in which a man makes a chestnut disappear. Watching the video made me laugh and provided me with a jolt of jolly. The first time I watched it, the 13^th time and even the 21^st time.

And while I’m still not laughing as often as a five-year-old, I’m definitely ha-ha-ing more often in pursuit of my new “insanely happy” goal.

Just thinking about the video makes me laugh. Perhaps it will do the same for you.

Your Future Self Will Thank You

 

Back in 2014, I attended a lecture at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing. The speaker was Kelly McGonigal, an author and health psychologist who teaches The Science of Willpower, a popular Stanford University course.

According to McConigal, one of our biggest mistakes when making decisions is not picturing our future selves and how the decisions we make today will impact us in the years ahead.

That’s one reason why so many people put off doing things that could make a big difference in the decades to come: eating well, exercising regularly, maintaining friendships, saving for retirement and other actions that research has shown makes a big difference to quality of life as we age.

One way to set up your future self for success is by getting in touch with your hopes and dreams. I’ve been keeping a bucket list of mine for decades.

But because that list has gotten unwieldly—in large part because it now serves as a catch-all for everything from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to taste-testing brandy Manhattans to building a cabin with my partner Steve to visiting the world’s most beautiful libraries—I also now keep an index card on which I’ve written just 10 things I want to accomplish in the next 10 years.

Even if I cross only one item off my index card every year for the next 10 years I’ll have a few accomplishments my future self will be able to look back on with pride as well as some experiences she can recall fondly.

Manifesting Me

Some years, I’ve called my future self into focus by giving her a name that had to do with one of my goals. One year, she was Author Artist. Shortly after, I signed a contract for my first book and become a real-life author.

I’m not the only one who uses names to bring the future into focus. On a recent episode of the Meditative Story podcast, music producer Larry Jackson shared a story about his work with Jennifer Hudson. On the day of their recording session, she arrived with two Pomeranians. One was named Oscar. The other Grammy. Admitting his cluelessness, Jackson asked her why she’d chosen those particular names.

Hudson’s response: “Well, I won an Oscar already and now we about to win a Grammy, ain’t we?” They did, and perhaps having two four-legged reminders of her future self-played a role in making that dream come true.

There are also other ways to call our future selves into focus. Journaling and dream boards are two common methods, but one of my favorites is by projecting yourself into the future.

One of my friend’s friends did that recently. She’s always dreamed of working for Spanx. So, one day, when in Atlanta for business, she spent an hour sitting in the Spanx lobby, picturing what it would be like one day if her future self really did work there.

Ready, set … age

Another tool that’s helped me get in touch with my future self is AgingBooth, a free face-aging app that lets you fast-forward your looks. Seeing what I might look like in 2050…when I’m 92…has helped me realize how much I’m looking forward to becoming my future self.

Will she be kinder? Still able to play 18 holes of golf. Eager to discover new authors? Finally rid of her bad habits.

What about you? How do you bring your future self into focus?

Me in 2020, at age 62

Me in 2050, at 92