2016 Equestrian Life Theme: Focus

I love reading everyone's goal posts. I've done many of them in the past, but I'm just not feeling it this year.

Many years ago, I did a series of new year's resolutions for my personal life that were qualities I wanted to cultivate through the year, rather than specific achievable goals. I'm a pretty big goals person, but I like them to be broken up into shorter chunks and to be more actionable. Big annual goal-setting has never worked for me.

I thought a lot over the holidays, and during my blogging hiatus, about what I really wanted out of the coming year, and I thought about the year I set those qualities.

still one of my favorites

It hit me that I could sum up my hopes for 2016 in one word: focus.

I want to focus on doing fewer things, but doing them better.

I want to focus only on the things that really make me excited, that really matter to me, rather than frittering my energy and my direction away on too many things at once.

I want to increase my actual capacity for focus, which has sadly degraded over the last few months especially; longer stretches of paying attention to one thing at a time. No stopping to check social media, tidy the living room, chase the dog - one thing at a time.

In horse terms, that means more emphasis on the basics, instead of getting caught up in chasing whatever's next. Am I riding my horse on a regular basis? Am I getting him through and supple and working well in each ride, even if it's just at the walk? Are the things I'm buying true needs, and quality items, or am I just flailing and making purchases out of a loss of direction? How are my finances - solid and growing?

I'll try to touch back on this, maybe quarterly, to see how it's going. But that's where my head is for 2016. Here's to the new year.