Hi, Lia here! 👋🏽 It’s been a while — I took the last year to declutter mentally, holding my commitments up to the light and seeing if they still shine for me. If they were still bringing me joy.
And it turns out, a lot of things did not.
However, I did realize that writing is something I’ll always be called to. I’m still trying out different ways to express myself, and yet I still keep coming back to the idea of this newsletter. I’m finding more of my voice, discovering more of myself, and I want to document this journey and share it with any of you who are going through the same.
Today is the rebirth of the Swishie newsletter. 🎉
While I still plan to write about cultivating self-awareness and a positive mindset, I may weave in more about design leadership, recent books I’ve read, and even short stories from time to time. And possibly even start a career advice column.
So, feel free to unsubscribe (link in footer) if you no longer connect with this content or totally forgot that you signed up to this newsletter. I won’t mind.
For those of you who stay, I don’t plan to write here more than 1-2 times a month to give myself time to reflect what I learn. I look forward to growing together. You can always reply to this email or reach out at lia@swishie.com to connect!
❤️ Lia
Focus as a noun and verb
I recently finished Insight Out: Get Ideas Out Of Your Head and Into the World by Tina Seelig (more on this in a future newsletter!) and in a chapter about focus, I resonated with this following diagram (source: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown).
Focus is a key factor in finding success in life, so the ability to focus on what is important to you and remove distractions (top right quadrant) will point you in the right direction.
We’re all faced with messages, opinions, and information every day. It’s easy to get distracted and lose sight of how you actually wanted to spend your day. Having the right focus will keep you investing in whatever is worth spending your attention, time, and energy on.
If you’re like me, you may have been living on the bottom right - trying to get a bit of everything done. In my experience, this leads to burnout because you lose sight of what can be dropped.
Perhaps you’ve been guilty of focusing on the wrong thing, or simply procrastinating. Inaction or putting in a lot of effort into something that actually isn’t important to you can also be distractions in their own ways.
If you want to shift into finding success (and what I mean here is not necessarily traditional trappings of success in terms of money and a fancy job title, but having time freedom and thriving in your life), the key is focus.
Some small ways I’m doing this:
Giving myself some time to visualize how I’ll feel if I say yes before committing to a future event
Decluttering my physical spaces
Unsubscribing to mailing lists that I no longer read :)
Spending less time deciding what to wear (and possibly wearing the same dress for 100 days to help with this!)
Some goals I hope to achieve by being more focused:
Being more present
Creating art more consistently
Writing more consistently
Having time to reflect and observe
My plan is that by immersing myself in practicing more consistency, I will invite whatever is next for me to flow naturally.
Now, it’s your turn
✨ Are you focused on the right thing? If not, what can you do to actively shift gears? If so, are there distractions that you can rid yourself of?
Until next time!