focus – NICOLE S. ARNOLD

Dear 2019: LET’S GET S*!& DONE!

January 27, 2019 No Comments

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…

It has been a year since I have posted. Last year I was all about setting goals and crushing them. Based on the fact that my first post of 2018 was also my last, it is evident that I need to do a little more than set goals if I don’t want to end up like this…

Here’s a list of many things I didn’t get done in 2018:

Blog once a month.
Study for and pass a certification exam.
Pick one of the 7,000 writing projects that I’ve started to finish and create an outline for others.
Read a book a month.

These were my goals for the first quarter of 2018. The only thing I accomplished was to continue to work out 4 days a week. It was easy for me to do because I love the way working out makes me feel and look. I have also found that my fitness transformation has inspired others and that makes me smile <cue Lil Duval & Snoop>. But why the hell can’t I put the same energy into writing, reading a book a month & budgeting (not on the list above, but still something that I struggle with as an adult) that I put into working out and eating right (80% of the time)?

To find the answer to that question, I have been doing a lot of self-reflection so I don’t end up playing Whac-a-Mole with my goals in 2019. I have been listening to podcasts, the voice within, and journaling to help understand what’s stopping me from progressing in all areas of life. When one of my favorite Podcasters spoke about identifying your word of the year, I was able to pinpoint the one thing that would catapult me to a place of significant goal crushing. That one thing, my word for 2019, is ACTION. I realized that I can plan the mess out of something. However, planning is only the first step. I need to do a better job at execution. Plans require action, and lack of action is why I did not meet the majority of my 2018 goals.

Oh, but Nicole you workout all the time. That takes discipline and dedication. You can do anything. I can. I just have to do some things to transfer that same discipline and dedication I have for health & fitness into other areas of my life. I was able to transform my physical body because I planned every workout, and then I took the action necessary to see the manifestation of that plan. I set my alarm for the days that I was going to the gym at 5 a.m. before heading to work. I put each workout in my calendar. I signed up for classes that required pre-registration. I laid out my gym clothes every night. I made sure that I had enough clean gym clothes to support my workouts for the week. I invited people to work out with me and shared my goal with others (ACCOUNTABILITY). I followed the social media pages of my favorite workout facilities and fitness influencers. I took action. My action in regards to working on being the fittest version of myself was FOCUSED, COURAGEOUS, and INTENTIONAL.

So that’s it. I need to take FOCUSED, COURAGEOUS, & INTENTIONAL ACTION in order to crush my goals. I need to plan time to write whether it is everyday or for several hours on Saturday & Sunday. I need to have the courage to share my voice with the world because there is someone who will be inspired by my words; there is someone waiting for the exact words that I am going to write. I need to be intentional about how I spend my time. I am currently sitting in a Starbucks in between two self-care appointments (#selfcarematters). I could have gone home, but I would have wasted time & gas ($$$) driving there and back. Plus, this would have required too many trips in and out of the car and it’s cold than a MOFO here. That’s why I took the necessary ACTION to sit here alongside my Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte and share these words with you. I had to be sure that my laptop was charged. I had to be sure to grab my idea notebook and planner. There may be someone out there who says that’s easy peasy and that it doesn’t take much to pack a tote bag. Some may say that I could have been doing this all last year. I could say the same thing to someone who’s been playing Whac-A-Mole with their health and fitness goals about how easy it is to pack a gym bag and sign-up for a class, but I am trying to be less petty in 2019. It’s about focus & intention. I was intentional when I packed my tote bag because I had already made the decision that in between my appointments I was going to take action on my plan to blog at least once a month.

So here we are on the 27th day of 2019, and I will say that I am doing an okay job of taking action towards accomplishing my goals. I went to a vision board event a few weeks ago where I was able to think more deeply about the vision for my life and be in the presence of purpose-driven, like-minded women. During that time, I heard a phrase that confirmed my word of the year: BULLDOG TENACITY. BULLDOG TENACITY= FOCUSED, COURAGEOUS, and INTENTIONAL ACTION.

That’s it. If I stay true to the course, which I should because I have no reason not to, you’ll hear a lot more from me in 2019 and I will have a lot of things to celebrate in 338 days as we wrap up the year.

What is your word for the year? What are you going to stop doing or do more of in 2019 to become the goal crusher that will propel you to the life of your dreams? I’d love to hear in the comments.

Calm Down and Focus: How to Crush Goals in 2018

January 14, 2018 No Comments

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.

via GIPHY

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