Regaining Focus to Advance our Professional Competence

I haven’t posted for a while. There have been a few reasons: first, we had a baby in August and the fall was just keep head above water time. Second, the spring has been busy, but not so much that I couldn’t find a little time to write some blogs. To be honest,  it was more a matter of what to post about. I have toyed with all kinds of topics and frankly felt a little paralyzed by having too much to say. I was just so unfocused.

So it hit me that I should write about how focus is important to efforts to increase our competence and confidence. For me, I had that focus for a long time. I was clear on my goals. I was clear on aspirations and knew what skills I needed to develop to get where I wanted to go. However, in the last year it was gone and personal life aside, I really didn’t have a professional excuse for it because I’ve always been “busy” at work. I’ve always prided myself on getting things done. Getting things done right now isn’t as much of a problem as is how what I am doing connects to where I want to be in the near future.

What my new professional self is to look like given my new priorities as a dad is what I now need to discover, and I need some focus to figure out my professional goals at this point in my career and life.

I have written previously about how intentionality is a value of the field of student affairs. Intentionality runs opposite to what I have experienced myself lately: this lack of focus. And you know what, that has impacted my work and my professional development. I have become less intentional I’ve dabbled in a lot of topics and have not retained much of it. I have had difficulty concentrating on tasks. I get distracted by the littlest things such as the bird out my window right now. Hey birdie. What’s up. Nice day out……

There’s good resources out there on getting focused and finding what matters to you. I have recently discovered this via a few friends on Facebook and I think I need to use it to guide what I do. I always like a good venn diagram and this one is one of the best!

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So I’m making a commitment to get more focused. I’m thinking that using this model will help me though I might edit it to add that “I could be great at it” and “It’s something I hope to love” and “The world needs it and I don’t yet have it” and “This is a skill I need to continue to get paid”. I know I need to get excited about my professional life, both present and future, again and I think it’s coming.

I think it’s likely I need to “survive” this semester and then revisit what matters to me professionally when I’m not distracted by the noise around me. Hopefully that doesn’t mean you won’t get another blog posting before then but I don’t know.

What are the things on which you need to focus?

What are the things that are distracting you?

What can you eliminate from your daily routine to minimize the noise and renew your focus?