5, 4, 3, 2, 1…Happy New Year! It seems like it was just yesterday that we welcomed in 2018 with open arms. Some brought in the New Year with flutes of champagne while others sang praises to God in church. I brought in the new year in bed with Steve Harvey and his fancy winter ensemble on the television and my husband by my side. Amazingly, that was 35 days ago.
January, where have you gone? I was just settling into you and your wonder. You are the first sign of new beginnings. You are the month that gave us 31 “Mondays”. You are the month that held a mirror up and forced us to look at our accomplishments and failures from the previous year. You are the month that lit a fire under our feet and caused us to strive to be better than before. You are the month of vision boards and increased gym memberships. You are the month of budgeting and goal setting. You are the month that thrusts many into a “get shit done” mindset.
The first week of January I was still in vacation mode, so I was not as productive as I planned to be. In reality, I didn’t get started on my goal setting, vision board, and meal prep until the 4th or 5th. However, when I sat down to plan 2018, I realized that a lot of the things that I set out to do were either the same or more in-depth versions of goals I had set for 2017: save more money, lose weight, become stronger, travel more, read a book a month, step out of my comfort zone (there’s so much wrapped up in this), obtain some certifications, and make writing a habit. I put everything on my 2018 vision board and set off to crush goals. Then something happened. I became overwhelmed. I had about 20 things on my daily To Do list, but I found myself only doing that which I had been doing consistently in 2017: working out and planning what I was going to do instead of actually doing. Everything else seemed like too much in my brain. I did not know how to organize my year-long goals into attainable tasks which made me want to give up before I had even started.
I was overwhelmed, and I needed to find a way to calm down and focus if I truly wanted this year to be greater than last.
It was not until I had a conversation with my best sister-friend that I was able to get my life together-well, at least get it more together than it was. She told me that I needed to decide what my focus would be each quarter of the year because I can’t focus on everything from January to December. This notion was life-changing. It is really what my husband has been telling me forever, but I guess it sounded different at that moment when my scatterbrain was trying to take me down. After that conversation, I had to sit back and think about what needed to be my focus for the first quarter and how I would make sure I was able to dedicate time to those tasks.
Here are my goals for the first quarter and my progress this past month:
1. Continue to workout at least 4 days/week: not quite. I worked out 14 times in January. Some weeks I worked out five times and one week I only worked out twice.
2. Blog once a month: Hello February 4th.
3. Study for an upcoming exam: in progress. This will get done because the exam is April 5th.
4. Pick one of the 7,000 writing projects that I’ve started to finish and create an outline: I have picked the project that I am going to finish, but I have not begun to outline it yet. I have signed up for a free online course that should help me with this. I should be able to make time for writing after this quarter because goal #3 is a mutha.
5. Read a book a month: This is an area where I really need to FOCUS. I need to stop reading 100 books at the same time.
- I finished reading Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell. There was a clearance sticker from Border’s Books & Music on this book. Clearly, I’ve had this book for 100 years. I’m glad I was able to finish it before the Rapture.
- I Picked the following back up to finish-didn’t finish. This is definitely an area of focus. I’ll finish them this month.
i. No Excuses by Brian Tracy
ii. Walls Fall Down by Dudley Rutherford
iii. Becoming a Woman of Prayer by Cynthia Heald
In 35 days, the biggest thing that I have been reminded of is that I cannot do everything at once. My husband tells me this all of the time. He says that I can’t help having so many brilliant ideas in my mind at once because I’m a Scorpio but that I need to focus on one instead of doing everything half-assedly. He is right. My sister-friend is right. In order for me to crush goals in 2018, I must learn to focus intently on a handful of things until I have created habits before moving on to something new. It’s like someone who wants to renovate their entire home and starts multiple projects at once. This will definitely cause anger and frustration. Their home was once a peaceful escape that needed some work that has now become a den of chaos because there are unfinished tasks in every room on every floor. Goal crushing has to be done one project at a time, and it is okay. Repeat after me. It is okay. I cannot do everything at once, and if this is the only lesson of 2018 I am grateful because it is a tremendous one that has taken me 38 years to grasp.
~Selah
