Focus: Unlocking your full potential

Hey luvvies, 
Y'all heard that TikTok audio that goes, "FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS"? This episode was partly inspired by it. We live in a world filled with distractions, and it's important now, more than ever, to focus – focus on your goals, your mental, spiritual, and emotional health, and the plans God has for you. Enjoy!

P.S. I added elevator music because part of unlocking your full potential is leveling up, and that's what an elevator does.

 hehe

Podcast Instagram: keepitclean_podcast
 Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

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Transcript

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We live in a world where distractions are literally all around us. And if you're not careful, they'll get the best of you. And now more than ever, it's so important to focus. Focus on what God has in store for you. Focus on the goals you have. Focus on your spiritual, mental, emotional well-being, and of course, focusing on your full godly potential. Because it is only once you focus that you'll find your potential. Let's begin this episode. Oh my lord, I say hello so methodically. Not methodically, kind of more like robotically. But anyway, welcome or welcome back to this podcast. And in this podcast, we talk about, like the name says, keeping it clean, keeping your mind clean, keeping your body clean, keeping your spirit clean, and of course keeping your conscience clean. Oh, and your friendships clean. So, you guys, today has been a very interesting day. I will say before we like fully get into the topic, I'm a bit sick. Yeah. So I'm sorry if my voice sounds a bit off. I am a teensy bit sick. But anyway, this morning, it was a very beautiful morning. I was looking through my wardrobe and I found a specific contract I'd written to myself on August 18th, 2021. I was 11. And what struck me about this contract is that many of my friends note that 2021 was probably one of my most one of the craziest years I've ever been through. Because I think I had a couple concerts that I um sang in. I had a coup that's when I began the podcast in 2021. And it's only recently it hit me that 2021 was one of my most focused years, and as a result, I think personally it was one of my most successful. Not only because I was able to perform in the many places I was able to perform, and I was able to speak and I was able to learn more, but because in 2021, I was able to grow closer to God and focus on his full godly potential for me because immediately you focus on that, like all the distractions go. It's beautiful. I was completely focused on what God was on what God's plan for me was in that year. And as a result, it was an amazing year. So I decided to make this episode because focus, unveiling your potential, beautiful podcast name. Because focus is so important. And I know y'all might be asking, okay, how can I focus? How can I find my true potential? And how can I keep this focus? Thank you so much for asking. You probably didn't, but I'm gonna answer those questions anyway. So first, I was watching a TikTok video the other day, and this guy was saying that every person on the planet has a God, whether or not they admit it, and I didn't understand that because I have like a bunch of atheist friends, so I was like, I mean, yes, I believe in the one true God, and my friends don't. So how how do they have a God if they don't believe in a God? And he went on to say that we all have a list of priorities subconsciously, and what is at the top of that list is gonna be your God, and I found that so crazy, I found that so amazing because your list of priorities directly impacts your views about God, it impacts what you're focusing on. So, meaning the first step to focusing on God's perfect plan for you and to focus on what your goals are and what your ambitions and your driven ambitions are means to find out what is on your priority list. Are you focusing on what should be on your priority list? It's a very simple exercise you can do to find this out. Very easy. Grab a pencil and a sheet of paper or like a pen and write down what your current priority list is. Then write down what you imagine your priority list to be. I will say that when you're writing your current priority list down, you won't always be happy. Sometimes it's painful because I remember when I wrote my priority list, I found out, I had to do a bit of um diving through my phone and stuff. I found out that what was at the top was social media. Even though in my mind, I think my conscious mind, not my subconscious, in my conscious mind, what's important is reading the Bible and going closer to God and showing people the amazing love God has for them and how you find peace in that. Yet I am spending, I was spending, because this is no longer me, I was spending seven hours, no, five to seven hours a day on social media. Consciously, you'll think, oh yeah, that's just social media. Subconsciously, what you're relaying to your mind, your subconscious mind, is that social media is more important than what you want to be at the top of your priority list. Writing this list won't always be easy. Genuinely, it won't. It will sometimes be very painful to write. Because truth is a beautiful thing. But truth can also cause it can also be painful because of how powerful it is. Um, I'm gonna give you guys an example. My priority list, because I had to do a bit of diving, a little bit of yeah, diving through my phone, I definitely recommend doing this. Grab your phone, open it up, look at your watch times, look at your tablet, look at your um laptop, and I really want you to think through what do I do in a day? What do I allot, what do I allot the most time to? What do I allot the most focus to? What am I focusing on? Because yeah, at the base, social media is at the top, but zoom in on that, and it's not social media that's at the top. You know what's at the top? At the top is this need for being like everyone else. That's what I found. Because, well, my problem was that everyone else had seven five to seven hours of social media time, at least that's what I thought, and it wasn't true. Because part of focusing is realizing that the people who are around you are not you, you're not focusing on your mom's goals, you're not focusing on your dad's goals. Yes, your goals might have a couple things in common, but at the end of the day, they're not living your life, you're not living their life. So, also, I definitely do recommend if you want to focus on what's important and want to focus on what's at the top of your priority list, y'all just give me a minute. I need to drink some of this moringa water. I'm my throat is acting up. Okay, I'm feeling much better, but definitely when you're also looking at your priorities list, what I find really helps is having a vision board. And many people who know me know that I've had a separate vision board like every single year for the past five years, so I have like five different vision boards, and it has evolved over time. But it's only recently I was talking to someone, and she told me that the thing about vision boards is that you have to make sure you put it somewhere, you still you'll see it often, otherwise, it's completely useless. Because not just see it often, you need to make sure that it's the first thing you see when you wake up and the last thing you see. Because what you're doing is training your mind to focus on those tiny things. I'm sorry if you guys can hear some noise. I have some family members over and I'm loving it, but you need to focus when you have your vision board somewhere you can see, it really helps you to focus on that. Why? Because you are visualizing it quite literally. Like my vision board is right here on my bedside table. I'm literally looking at it right now, and when I wake up, it's the first thing I see. You know why? Because it's on the same side that my alarm is on. So when I'm waking up to turn off my alarm, what am I gonna look at? Well, reminding myself I have to get out of bed. My vision board. When I'm going to bed and I have to set my alarm, what am I gonna look at? My vision board. You can put your vision board as your wallpaper. I have my dad. My dad has his vision board as his wallpaper. I have a friend who has her vision board on her um desktop screen because that's what she looks at the most. I have a friend who literally recites verses every single day that align with the purpose she believes God has in store for her, and I love that. I think something very beautiful about focus is that it's very easy to start focusing. Very, very easy. You could start focusing on this episode within the first 0.2 seconds, but then keeping that focus, oh my lord, that is not easy. That is some tough stuff. In order to keep the focus, you have to either set goals or set systems. I recommend systems. I'm reading this book, um Atomic Habits by James Clear. Beautiful book, I absolutely love it, and he talks about setting systems, not goals, and for a very long time I didn't get it, but I'm halfway through the book now and I love it. Because past me would set a goal maybe every single day, play piano for two hours. I would not keep that, I wouldn't keep that very often, but you know what I do keep now? I have a cute little, shall I say, okay list that he recommends, and that is okay, good, amazing, perfect. So an okay piano day would be play piano for 30 minutes, good, play piano for one hour. Um amazing, play piano for one hour thirty. Perfect, play piano for two hours. You're solidifying what your idea of a good day is, meaning it's easier to focus on your tasks opposed to focusing on the big, big thing, you're focusing on something small. And then in the book, he also talks about um habit stacking. The theories technically, it's not really a theory because it is very proven, but the theory is that it is easier as humans to add a habit to something you already do. No, generally think about it. Let's say I ask you to start, I don't know, um, recording an episode every single day, you've never done it in your entire life, it's the first time, of course you'll fumble. It'll be hard. You've never done it in your entire life. It'll be a hard thing to do. But let me give you this example. You already wake up, easy, and you do, I don't know, some mic exercises, if that's even a thing, and you tell yourself that well, every day when I'm doing my mic exercises, I might also film the episode. Of course it will be easy. You're kinda adding it to a task you already do very consistently. So for me, for piano, what I did was first I moved my learning area from upstairs to downstairs. Why? Because my piano is downstairs and I finished school at 4 p.m. I'm supposed to start piano from 4.30. The whole day while I am doing my schoolwork, I am staring at my piano. So of course when it hits 4.30, I'll be like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go play piano. I'm adding it to a habit I already have of doing school up until 4 p.m. And it's becoming really easy for me to do piano now. Because now it's not really like I'm doing school upstairs and then I finish school and then it's time for me to come down and then I get distracted. No. Now it's um I'm done with school, straight walk towards a piano, done. Something else that really helps when you want to keep your focus is distracting yourself. But I know y'all are like, Nia, weren't you just talking about how the world is full of distractions? Why should I be distracting myself? Think about it this way, yeah? You are deliberately distracting yourself with things you know are good for you, so you're not letting yourself be impacted by the meaningless life things that happened around you. No, so how can you distract yourself? Thank you very much for asking. You can decide that you will tailor your for you page. Easy. So for me, what I do is that even on my Instagram reels, I'm almost always on the podcast account, which by the way is keep it clean underscore podcast. I'm almost always on that account because I know if I'm scrolling through reels, what am I gonna see? How to grow your podcast, how to find better mic settings, how to learn this for your podcast, learn this with marketing, learn this with growing your audience. Of course it's gonna help me. So now the things that used to be my distractions are actually educating me on things that I know I want to do in the future. That's one thing to do. Something else you can do is focusing. Look at your vision board. What's your number one goal? Let's assume maybe one of your goals is to become an engineer or become a music producer. That's actually one of my goals. Then you take a sculpture course. You're distracting yourself with something that is productive. You're distracting yourself from TikTok, from Pinterest, from Instagram reels, with something that's gonna grow your knowledge, that's gonna help you in your future, that's gonna make sure that you have some good job opportunities or you can start an amazing business. It's important. You can also, of course, read a beautiful book. I am reading um an Agatha Christie Halloween night or last Halloween, I can't remember, it's something to do with Halloween. Um, I'm also reading Atomic Habits, I'm reading The DNA of Relationships by Gary Smalley. I was reading, I was reading um better than the movies, but I stopped that. You can learn a new language, very beautiful, very stunning, so that in your future, if you want to travel to a new country, then you're good, and you can speak in their language, which I find to be so beautiful because y'all, I'm from Kenya, and as crazy as I know my friends like find this and stuff. Whenever I have um a friend who lives in the US or who lives in a completely different country come to Kenya and they've never been and they speak in Swahili, it makes me happy, and I know it makes the Kenyans around them happy. Why? Because it shows that you have taken the time and effort to research on our language, and I'm so grateful for that. I'm so happy about that. And then also, I really need to add this completely off-script, but if you've been with this podcast for a long time, you know that off-script is my speciality. I love going off script. I'ma tell you this: when you are trying to focus, have a couple friends with you, a couple accountability partners. I have one of my friends, and every day we text each other what our daily goals are, and we're able to follow up on them, like at the end of the night, and it's beautiful. Why? Because we both have this one goal to focus on what God's plan for us is and what our goals are, and those two align. And it's beautiful, it's absolutely amazing. While you're focusing, I want you all to ask yourself this, yeah. So you're focusing on this and that. Why? This will really help you because I remember when I was going through my TikTok watch time. Why was I focusing on TikTok? Why was I focusing on Instagram? What value was it providing in my life? Because for y'all, your priority lists might be different. It might be devotion and Bible study family, then TikTok immediately. Why? Because I don't know, you spread the gospel on TikTok, or you have a TikTok account you're trying to grow, you're trying to become a social media influencer, both, all three are very admirable things. Absolutely admirable things. So, to be honest, my priority list won't be your priority list. So, really focus on that. Okay, y'all. So, we are coming to the end of this podcast. I didn't even feel it was ending. It feels like it's been a couple minutes, it feels like it's been five minutes, but anyway, I have an amazing challenge for you guys. So, if any of you guys are trying to focus more, I have created a 21-day challenge. Why? Because I've been told and I have done my research, it takes 21 days to establish a habit. So, what do you do in this 21 days? Thank you so much for asking. Five things you want to focus on every single day for 21 days and what you'll do to focus. So, here is my list. So, number one for me it's piano. I love piano, and of course, I have my systems which I've implemented from Atomic Habits. I definitely recommend you read Atomic Habits if you're trying to get more into focusing on the plans God has for you, reading for 30 minutes a day. I love reading, and I truly believe that knowledge has so much power and immediately you're able to unlock that knowledge. Beautiful, stunning. I mean, there's a reason that King Solomon asked for knowledge and wisdom. Um, one hour of phone time every single day besides Saturday and Sunday. Why? Because I feel like my phone is beginning to govern my life, which it shouldn't be doing. For devotion, I love devotion. There's so many ways I can do devotion. There's um I have a cute little booklet, I have Bible verse mapping, I can listen to a sermon, just trying to make sure that God is in is at the center of my life every single day. And then lastly, vocals. I'd also like to add this, it's not really something I want to focus on too much, but I'm trying to get rid of k-dramas because I love a good K drama. My friends know me for this, I love one, but I don't think they're helping me too much. I mean, yes, I'm learning Korean, so sometimes it can be good for me because I hear a word I learnt during a class, but I don't think they're necessarily helping me. So I'm trying to get rid of watching K-dramas, and I would love to see what you're doing to focus more. So please, please, like I said, the podcast Instagram is keybitlin underscore podcast. It's I really like it. Um yeah, definitely follow it. If you have any little like pictures you want to take every single day, definitely tag me. I would be so glad. And yeah, y'all, I'm trying to start this thing where I ascribe a Bible verse to every single episode, and this episode's Bible verse is Philippians 4 8. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of is good and reputable, if there's any excellence, and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. And if there's anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. I'm sorry y'all, my accent switches up and my throat is aching. But yeah, please y'all meditate on this verse. Philippians 4 8, it's a beautiful verse. Before we end this episode, let me add this. Focus is an absolutely beautiful thing. Though I can't promise that you will always be focused. Because there's some temptations out there, and we're human, we're bound to sin. That doesn't mean we should um use the grace God has for us for evil, no. That simply means that we will continue to do our best, our absolute best, to focus. Although sometimes we will stumble, though we will never fall. Through the grace of God, y'all, you will never fall. In Jesus' name, amen. Anyway, you guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. This was the Keep It Clean podcast. I love it when you guys listen to this episode. Definitely don't forget to rate the podcast. It's if you're on Spotify, don't forget to follow or like, depending on the podcast platform you're using. Go follow the podcast Instagram again, keep it clean underscore podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this. I truly appreciate it. Y'all have been given the information, so go forth and focus on the things that are true, noble, pure, lovely, good, reputable, admirable.