Meditation + Writing Challenge

I'm setting an intention/goal this month to meditate and journal every morning for about 20 minutes. I've wanted to commit to both of these for a while now, so I'm excited to see how it goes! 

Since it's January and a lot of people are doing the Whole30 (I did it last Jan) I've been thinking a lot about commitments, extreme commitments, moderation, and balance. I claim to be not competitive, which is a complete lie. Every time I sit down on the bike at Swerve, I immediately want to win (and dance and have a kick ass workout). Tonight I sat on my bike, saw my competition, and thought game on. I was pretty tired today after the weekend and could have "taken it easy" but those thoughts just went out the window, and I was ready to WORK. I ended up winning on my team... but also kind of destroyed myself! Not sure there is enough water I can consume right now to feel 100%. (I promise there is a point to this aggressive competitiveness). 

So it got me thinking. It got me thinking about this motto I had in high school "go big or go home." It reminded me of my resolution every year to "be more mindful of what I put in my body." It made me think about my intention to mediate and write daily. I'm always so confused as to why I can keep certain goals and challenges and not others. I realized that an extreme "go big or go home" goal is kind of like my Swerve competition. I do not quit. When I really set out to accomplish something I put in 110%, but when I say I'd like to do something, without really setting a clear challenge or goal, it falls off the wagon. 

Then it got me thinking about focus. When I sit on that spin bike and realize I want to win, I'm focused. I'm not thinking about my to do list or how my day went, I'm working my ass off! When I said to my sister last December "there is no way I could ever do Whole30" then two weeks later decided to go for it, I went for it and survived all 30 days. I went for it because I wanted to show myself that I could definitely get through the Whole30. So... what if we add focus to our intentions and goals? At the end of this writing challenge I'll have 30 awesome short stories. Or maybe I'll be able to guide my own meditation after meditating every day for 10-20 minutes. 

In our asana practice we talk a lot about our drishti, our focus point. Having focus clears the clutter in our brain and creates space for energy to flow. If every goal just had a little more focus, maybe we'd accomplish way more!