Lean IN, instead of out!

I knew last week's biggest challenge would be to deal with all the distractions coming at me.

What are my distractions though? Coming from the frame of mind of the previous week anything and everything that takes my attention away from kung fu was deemed to be a distraction. 

It's true, my brain likes to hyper-focus once it gets excited. You could also call it the shiny object syndrome or I have been told this is my ADHD brain. (I'm not diagnosed by the way and am not planning on, nor do I actually know a lot about neurodiversity).

But I do recognize this week more than ever how my attention shifts almost seamlessly when I immerse myself in certain situations. Last week, having had four opportunities to train at the kwoon gave me a high and my focus was on Kung Fu. Everything seemed perfect, except getting ready for my market was way too hard to do. I didn't have the fire or drive to create a ton more stuff or even figure out my setup as I usually do. To my surprise, I managed fine after all, without hyper focus and long sleepless nights of creating last-minute stuff or stewing over my display until the very last minute. 

While I had to drag myself initially to this market, (which I thankfully applied for back when I was all excited for the next one to start), I slowly but surely started to feel the shift again. The interactions with my customers and other vendors helped me to engage with my own creations again. And just like that the fire came back with its pleasant excitement about all the possibilities and new ideas.

But wait a second what about my kung fu now and my farm or our homeschooling?

Well this is my dilemma and maybe also my blessing. I am excitable. I tend to only want to focus on one thing and that one thing becomes a passion (not calling it an obsession) for a while. I'll listen to podcasts and I'll research, I'll be inspired and my brain seems full of ideas that will dominate most of my thoughts and conversations. All other aspects of my life I tend to check out of and then a negative spiraling down occurs for those. When I'm disconnected from an area of my life it becomes hard for me to even think about it but the worst is that doubts will start to creep in.

I did not want to think about my craft before this last market and I started questioning if there is a point and if people even wanted to see let alone buy my stuff. But once I was there, the market felt like a spark and a rekindling happened. I got home after three long days ready and itching to sign up for more. (Which I did.)

So this pattern has been on my mind these last few days and I remembered a blog post on kwoontalk quite a while back, which was encouraging us to get back to training at the kwoon. It was pointing out the benefits of staying engaged and the impact the right environment and people could have if you want to continue to improve. Needless to say, I needed this post! It was the same pattern just a different area of my life. It took me an awfully long time to drag myself back in, for in-person classes but once I was there it became easier and easier to the point of not wanting to stop.

I guess the point of this long-winded write-up is, I have to find better ways to manage this pattern I'm seeing more clearly now. Balancing and learning to juggle all these roles I play is a lifelong learning curve I'm sure. But for now, my mission is; every time I struggle with an area in my life and I feel the doubts coming trying to convince me to quit, I'll remember this blog I wrote once "lean in" instead of "out"!