It’s the first week of the new year—and that means that just days ago many people made inspiring yet challenging New Year’s resolutions. But sadly, statistics reveal that only 9% of adults keep their resolutions throughout the year and 80% of people forget their New Year’s resolutions by the middle of winter. Of course, there’s probably multiple factors hindering the success of a resolution, but the biggest hindrance is usually the lack of planning.

That’s why we created our Focus Plan. We’ve got a proven and easy-to-use tool to help you identify your goals along with the actions needed to actually achieve them—plus we give it away for free. In this article, we discuss how our well-being impacts our ability to focus and what you can do about it.

4 Areas of Well-being that Impact Your Focus

1. Physical Well-being. Research has shown that cognitive decline is nearly twice as prevalent in adults who are physically inactive over those who are regularly active. And cognitive functioning is integral to one’s ability to concentrate. So, what’s your exercise regimen? Are you moving daily? The general recommendation is for adults to get at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day—but of course, if you have fitness goals, then more time may be needed. And physical well-being isn’t isolated to exercise, so consider your nutrition as well. Think of food as fuel for your body and mind, remembering that it influences your overall health and well-being. 

2. Mental Well-being. This is where your thinking, feeling, and believing comes into play. We don’t always have control over the things that happen in life, but we do have control over how we respond. And our responses are directly tied to our mindset. So, consider the narratives that you allow to play in your thoughts. Are they healthy or true? Sometimes we need an outside perspective to help us analyze our thought patterns, especially the ones that have played on repeat in our minds for years.

3. Social Well-being. An article released by Harvard Health Publishing addresses how social environments can actually increase your focus because when you’re engaged in conversation, you have to pay attention if you want to have a coherent (and interesting) discussion. Your attention and ability to concentrate is driven by your brain’s executive functioning so it’s important to strengthen that function by remaining flexible mentally. You can exercise your brain in a variety of ways involving critical thinking and new learnings—but one easy (and hopefully fun) way is to grab coffee and dive into a conversation with a friend.

4. Spiritual Well-being. Where do you derive your purpose? Whether we recognize it or not, we all have influence in the lives of others and an impact on the world around us. So, do you recognize your influence and impact? Do you have a vision for your life and leadership? The convictions that drive your behaviors should also make you passionate about your work. By understanding your unique strengths and the values you hold, you’ll be able to grow your spiritual well-being; and therefore, your ability to focus.

How our Focus Plan Helps You Reach Your Goals

Now that we’ve dug into the four essential areas of well-being and how they impact concentration, we want to share how our Focus Plan can help you in this new year.

• You can list out the exact actions needed to reach your goals. We call these your disciplines. They are very specific actions that make it on your calendar. If you have a goal then you also have specific tasks that you must do or commitments that you must make in order to reach it.

• You can create your plan within a time frame that works for you. We recommend that our Focus Plan be used either monthly or quarterly. You can adjust disciplines or projects as completed or changed but keep your deadlines and don’t miss the action steps you listed as integral to goal completion.

• You can choose a theme to motivate you toward action. Pick an overarching theme for your Focus Plan. Make sure it’s something that inspires you! It can be one word or a phrase but make it relevant to your plan so that you can see that word or phrase and feel spurred toward action.

Our Focus Plan has been proven successful by thousands of leaders, so we know it works. We encourage you to download it (for free) today and get started on setting achievable goals so that when this year comes to a close you can list accomplished goals instead of attempting to remember your long-forgotten New Year’s Resolution.

(Also, if you’d like more guidance in creating your Focus Plan, we have an affordable self-guided digital course to help you do so. Purchase our Execute with Excellence digital course and build out both your Focus Plan and Ideal Week so that you can lead yourself with purpose in both your life and career. Or save 20% by purchasing the Self-Leadership Series Bundle.)

Our team of executive coaches are ready to walk alongside you in this new year! Reach out and learn how our 1:1 coaching can help you achieve the transformation you’ve been striving for!