January's word: Focus

Let's start off by pointing out that quite a few of my words for the year were chosen around the fact that I have 3 papers, 1 semester, and a thesis dissertation to complete by September 8th this year. Basically, most of the year is going to be about me working like crazy in school and then celebrating. That's why I put them in the months I did. Since this is the first post of the year about my word-goals I'm just going to give a really brief overview of what I'm thinking each word means to me, now. This is very likely to change over the rest of the year, but I think it's good to get the initial reasons for choosing certain words down and why they're for certain months.

January - Focus 
I have no classes over the month of January, but I have three large papers to complete. This means I need to make sure that I'm keeping up on my work. More about this below...
February - Plan
I'm hoping to start working on a better schedule once my classes start up again. With regular exercise and assignments being completed before the hour before they're due. Also, I need to start figuring out my thesis topic so I can find an assemblage to work on. All of this requires a lot of planning, something I'm not always as good at following through with as I am at doing.
March - Commit
I hate making decisions but I'm going to have to make a decision on my thesis topic and this month I'm hoping to be able to commit myself to all the decisions I make and try to become more decisive in my everyday life.
April - Create
In my last post I talked about my desire to start taking photos again. I have other creative things I enjoy doing so this month I would like to focus on starting to incorporate these back into my everyday life (which will hopefully be a little more organized so that it isn't taking time away from the other things I have to get done)
May - Give
I want to show the people around me how much I appreciate and care for them on more of an everyday basis than I am doing right now. I also want to work on giving more to the rest of the world. Basically I want to focus more on others and less on myself this month.
June - Heal
For me the word heal is more looking at how I treat myself and others and working to make those things better, I'm hoping to build on the month of giving to help this happen. I want to focus on improving my mental, physical, and social health. I want to work on eating better both in the content and the source of my food.
July - Embrace
I can be a very judgemental person and I'm hoping to work on embracing all the things that aren't perfect in myself and others. I want to try and take anything negative that life gets thrown my way and approach it with a positive attitude.
August - Share
Opening up to others is not something I'm much good at in any part of my life. Sharing intimate stories and details of myself is difficult for me, so I'd like to work on doing that more with the people that I am closest to. I also want to be able to share all the positive moments and advantages that I have in my life with others, I want to be able to share the wealth of happiness and life that I experience.
September - Rejoice
As my dissertation is due on the 8th this month, I'm already going to be doing a lot of celebrating. So, why not embrace that and celebrate all the amazing things life has given me?
October - Love
I often forget to tell the people that matter to me how much they matter. This month is going to be all about loving life and the people in it. And letting everyone know what they mean to me. It's basically a continuation of my months of giving and sharing.
November - Learn
I'll have had a couple months off from being a student at this point and want to make sure that I keep learning more about life as well as academic pursuits, so I'm planning on finding a couple things I want to learn more about and working on learning as much as I can this month.
December - Reflect
Clearly, the end of the year is a time to look back. However, I'd like to take the entire month and see how I have done with each of these goals, what's changed, what's the same, and how I feel about that. I want to reflect on who is still involved in my life and whether or not I want them to stay and in what capacity that should be.

Well, that was longer than I planned on it being... here's a puppy to take a break! (Thank you, internet!)

Anyway, let's talk about January and how I have been trying to incorporate focus into my daily life, why I need to do such a thing, and how I'd like to do it better.

At the end of January I have three large projects due to finish up my autumn semester courses. They are all worth a large portion of my grade (the lowest is 50%) and have a lot of work behind them. I've been trying my best to focus myself and keep to a schedule (I'm woefully behind...) so that I'll be able to finish all of these with enough time to go over them and make sure they are the best that they can be. Staying focused on projects can sometimes be difficult for me, I'm a procrastinator so if I don't feel the pressure of time breathing down my neck, I don't always see the point in working on something. This is something I would desperately like to change about myself (even a little bit. like if I could do my reading in the weeks BEFORE essays are due. that would be great), I am the first to admit, however that bad habits that have been working for you for years are very difficult to change. That doesn't mean I can't try though. I'm hoping to be able to sit and focus on a project well before it's due by the time June rolls around and I'm starting in on my dissertation work. Because being that person that tries to do everything for their dissertation a couple weeks before it's due isn't really something I want to happen. So my first goal of the year is very academically driven.

But I would like to be able to apply some of what I'll get out of focusing in other parts of my life. I find that too often, I lose sight of my goals or the ways in which I want to get there. Or even just letting an application deadline pass for something that would help me get where I want to be in the future. It happens a lot. I want to try and let it happen less. I know I won't change myself entirely in just a few weeks, but really I want to work on focusing myself and my energies into good things for myself and those around me. That's why it's the first word of the year. So that I can use the focus I begin to develop now to continue throughout the year, to try and make sure that all the words I've set for the rest of the year continue to be relevant.