Having a focus

[The-red-centaur]

I was discharged from hospital yesterday. I'm doing ok. I feel like I have a lack of direction and focus however. 

I want reasons to keep going, reasons to get up every day, reasons to look forward to my future. Those concepts are strange for me however. I have bbeen suicidal for most of my life. I'm 31, and the only things I've really done in my life is survive. 

I was talking to one of the occupation therapists while I was in hospital, we talked about what do I hope for, what drives me, etc. I know a lot of my values, but my dreams seem to waver a lot. I often don't know what I actually want. 

There are some things I want to accomplish, but everything always seems to get in the way, I lose focus, and I no longer see the point of pursuing my dreams or life in general. 

There are some things I really want to do this year. 1-work towards a solo exhibition. 2- get back into running a market stall. 

I don't know how to begin or where focus on each of those things. I can't even focus on simple things thanks to adhd and autism.

How do I work towards having a better quality of life, and having a focus towards my dreams. I feel lost. 

[Ru-bee]

Really glad to hear that you're doing okay and starting to look forward @The-red-centaur 

It's really cool to see that you're making the time to consider what you're wanting out of this year, and setting some goals to help you get there.

There are so many ways people approach bigger goals like this, I guess it's all about finding what works for you. Like for me I know that I get overwhelmed easily with large goals and let my anxiety over them cause me to stop before I've even begun. So I break the big goals into smaller achievable tasks, like spend 15 or 20 minutes researching online, or putting down 5 or 10 ideas...just trying to focus on the task in front of me. It's funny, since I've started sewing I find that when I start a project making something new, I'll get a pattern and look at it and get a sense of dread and think it's all too hard and there's no way I can make this. But then I go to the instructions and just start at the first one, and then the next and the next, and suddenly I've made something that I honestly didn't think I could by just taking it one step at a time.

Maybe that can also help when you feel your motivation lull, if you can just push yourself to check off the small tasks until it starts to come back a little?

Do you feel like that resonates with you at all? Or what are the main challenges that tend to come up for you when working towards a goal?

Oh I'm also a big fan of the pomodoro method when I'm struggling to concentrate - having short periods and knowing I'll have a break lets me push all my random, off-topic thoughts to the side, because I know I can google them when I have my break in a few minutes.