There are people who like to set goals and those who shy away from them. During this time of year, I see a lot of articles on setting new year’s resolutions. How quickly they fall apart. How to not break them. How it’s better not to set them. Etc. etc.
But I don’t see nearly articles on what kind of goals to set. Why resolutions might be useful. What type of resolutions are more likely stick vs others.
There seems to be a belief out there that there are people who stick to their resolutions and those who don’t. And that’s that. So if you’re the kind of person who can follow through you’re in good shape. But if you’re not, well there’s nothing you can do; you were built this way.
I don’t buy that.
While it’s true that we all work differently and some of us can execute on personal goals more efficiently than others, I think it mostly comes down to how we set the goals and the content of the goals. And what goals represent for us.
I think for a goal to be effective it has to be three things:
1. Specific: Lose weight is not specific. Lose five pounds is specific.
2. Time-bound: Lose five pounds by when? What you do if you want to lose five pounds in a month is drastically different than what you could do if you wanted to lose five pounds in a year.
3. Measurable: How will you measure success. Lose five pounds is measurable. You take your current weight and figure out what five less is. Be a better writer is not measurable. How do you define better? How will you know you reached that goal? What does achievement look like?
I think there are other helpful steps along the way like setting positive, growth-oriented goals. Or goals that are more resonant to what matters to you in life, etc. But these three are the single most important part.
Once you set specific, time-bound, and measurable goals, the trick is finding how you achieve that goal. This is the second biggest failure point. Most people assume there’s one path to success and if they can’t/won’t do that, they cannot reach their goal.
For example, many people who set the goal to lose weight join a gym at the beginning of a new year. If you want to lose weight, the gym is your best bet, right?
Not necessarily.
This is where “knowing yourself” becomes super handy. If you know how you work best, you can create your own path to success. The gym is not the only way to exercise. You can take daily hikes. You can ride your bike. You can buy a treadmill. You can do a sport weekly. You don’t even have to take the exercise route. You can choose to eat exclusively whole foods. Or cut out alcohol. The goal when losing weight is to eat better and move more. There are many, many, many paths to that end. And the best one is the one you’re going to do. The one that works for you.
When I started exercising, I took it extremely slowly. I ran at a laughable pace. I increased by tiny amounts each month. Even when I could do more, I didn’t. I knew what worked for me was the consistency. I needed to be able to do it every single day so it had to not be intense. I didn’t give myself recovery time. Would it have worked if I ran 5 miles 3 times a week instead of 2 miles a day every day? Sure! Did my way work, too? Yes!
The trick is finding the way that works for you.
Taking that measurable, time-bound, specific goal and breaking it into little chunks of achievable tasks that resonate with you. With your way of life. With your personality. With your capacity.
The great thing about having goals is that it allows you to live your life intentionally. You spend your time doing what matters to you. (Assuming you picked goals that speak to you and not goals that make you look good for others.) It’s a great way to battle inertia. It’s a rewarding way to honor your life and your time.
The one thing we don’t get to save is time so how you spend your time is the most precious decision you can make. And finding goals that resonate with you and breaking them into tasks that work for you is a great path to living intentionally.
I have no doubt that every one of us can achieve whatever goal we set our mind to. What makes us break our resolutions is not who we are but how we define them and how we choose the path to achieving them.
Since I am really tired tonight, I thought instead of writing a thoughts-related post, I could share my One Little Word assignment. This month’s assignment was all about setting intentions for the year. I spent a lot of time thinking about mine.
here it is as a spread:
The intentions I set are:
January – Quietly Present – take a break. ponder. walk, don’t run. take it slow and steady. be calm. don’t yell. be quieter. listen.
February – Joyfully Present – celebrate the joy of life. drink it up. buy a present. spread the joy. how could you celebrate more?
March – Kindly Present – be kinder to yourself. how can you be kinder? gentler with yourself and others. go slow. be sweet.
April – Bravely Present – take a risk. do something new. where are you not being brave? dare to do more or different.
May – Physically Present – go outside. breathe. and breathe more. can you do more to be healthy? what needs attention now?
June – Calmly Present – embrace the chaos. assume it will be fun. breathe. and then relax some more. lean into the joy of family.
July – Positively Present – focus on the positive. what is good about this moment? see the good. find the gem. life is beautiful.
August – Deliberately Present – choose your path. choose to show up. is this what you want to do? is it fulfilling you? look closely.
September – Visibly Present – See people. Let yourself be seen. who can you reach out to today? send an email to meet with them.
October – Deeply Present – go deeper. what are you taking for granted? what more is there? what are you not paying attention to? look around.
November – Unabashedly Present – be bold. show up. be you. what’s holding you back? what would feel great? now go do it.
December – Fully Present – soak it all in. experience all the moments. love deeply. forgive. hug. breathe the joy in. love.
Here’s page one bigger:
and here’s page two bigger:
I had been looking forward to December for over two months. The months leading up to it were quite busy and rough for me and I knew I’d be taking about twenty days off in December and it couldn’t come soon enough. Each time I felt upset, I’d remind myself that the vacation was coming. The downtime. The time to relax. Reflect. Plan. Lounge. Snuggle.
And then it came and it went.
Just like that.
Time’s so ephemeral. The days seem to pass so very quickly.
I found myself worrying each day that I had one fewer day left. And then I’d step back and scold myself for wasting the precious time with worry. And on and on the cycle went. Even though I did plan some, lounge some, snuggle a bunch, and relax a bunch, I just didn’t feel whatever it was that I had decided December was supposed to bring.
It didn’t meet my undefined expectations.
Today was my first day back to “normal life.” My kids went to school and I went back to work. I woke up before the alarm this morning (which apparently was a good thing cause I’d forgotten to set it.) And I just felt the unease all day. I felt unprepared. Not ready to face the “real world” just yet. A part of me felt like scolding myself. I had just had one of the longest time-off’s of my career and I was not rested enough, peaceful enough, or prepared enough.
I felt like I was being ungrateful.
But instead of scolding, I decided to just go easy on myself. One of my goals with being present is not brushing away any emotion. I don’t want to sweep the crumbs under the rug. I don’t want to wallow either. I just want to feel what I feel and give myself permission for it to be OK. Whatever is it, it’s ok.
So I slowed down. Way down.
I did my exercise and got the kids ready. I took the kids to school without stressing about being late. I went into Nathaniel’s classroom and didn’t try to rush back home. I came home and slowly made some breakfast. A little bit of sketching and then I started my work day. Meetings, email, and a few little tasks. I got some work done. Not a huge amount but enough to feel productive. More than what I would have gotten done if I were busy scolding myself for being grumpy. Because I wasn’t preoccupied with my feelings and how inappropriate they were, I was able to focus on the work.
And now we’re at the end of my day. I have a little time for art and a conversation with a friend and then it’s bed time. When I listen quietly, I can feel a small sense of peace. A little gratitude for the work done. I don’t feel euphoric but the heaviness I woke up with is gone. I feel like now I have a path through this fog.
It might seem counter-intuitive to slow down but it aligns with my goal of being present. I am still doing all that I have planned for this week, so it’s not necessarily about doing less (though it could be) but just doing things more deliberately, not multi-tasking, not thinking about the next task while I am doing one, etc. Just really being present with each thing I do.
I am not sure how long it will take me to get back into the groove of things. But in the meantime, I am taking this as a lesson in practicing my word. (Interestingly enough, my intention for January for the OLW class was to be quietly present. So far, so good.)
There’s something magical in slowing down and living deliberately. Paying attention to the moments of life. It creates a lot of room for gratitude.
And silent joy.
Like last year and the year before, after I thought about my word and my plans for 2013, I began to think more and more about what the word and the priorities meant. Since I tend to be self-reflective during this time of year, this is very long and mostly for my benefit (I like having a record of my plans and my thoughts) so feel free to skip. I won’t be offended.
By the way, this is influenced by Chris’s annual review article. I’ve read this before and have always liked the idea. I’m a technical person at heart and all these specific goals, measurable steps, etc. are right up my alley. Since I have my list of 9 priorities this year, I thought it would be a good exercise to see if I could come up with 3-5 goals for each.
I will post about each of the projects I mention over the next week. I’ll then come back and link them here but I promise it’s all coming in the first week of the year.
One of my goals this year is to specifically do less. I know this might not seem so from the list, but I am focusing on what I know will feed my soul but no more so I can also rest and breathe more since I know I have a big commitment this year as I work towards getting my coaching certification.
So here we go:
Goals for Each Priority
Family
1. Teach Nathaniel how to read by using the same book I used for David.
2. Take photo of full-family and write updates weekly (Project Weekly Diary).
3. Write daily gratitudes for me and David (Project Gratitude Journal)
4. Have a family tradition where we do something together each weekend for 1-2 hours.
5. Create gratitude-focused art with Nathaniel each week (Project Nathaniel’s Gratitude Pages)
6. Create gratitude postcards with David and mail them out (Project David’s Gratitude Postcards)
7. Volunteer in both David and Nathaniel’s schools
8. Schedule minimum bimonthly date nights with Jake
9. Tell our family stories (The Savor Project)
Health
1. Continue running daily, work your way back up to 5K a day
2. Find a way to incorporate strength exercises weekly
3. Come up with three healthy ideas for each meal and use them
4. Get minimum 7hours of sleep every night and 8 on the weekends
5. Meditate every day
6. Floss daily
Work
I don’t share much about work on my blog and I won’t here either but I promise you I have 5 specific goals for work for 2013.
Art
1. Sketch minimum three times a week (Project Weekly Sketching)
2. Art journal weekly incorporating hand-lettering (Project SixBySix and Project Gratitude PostCards)
3. Pick one of the online classes I didn’t complete and do the work
4. Experiment with at least three mediums
5. Experiment with collage/mixed media once a week (Project Gratitude Journal)
6. Continue to create for my design teams (Maya Road & My Mind’s Eye)
7. Create a new Savor Project for 2013 (The Savor Project)
Celebrating
1. Write at least three long thought/idea oriented blog posts a week
2. Make a list of 3 achievements each week for each family member and have a celebratory breakfast/lunch once a week.
3. Send one kind email to someone each week
4. Have and end-of-day ritual each night and a welcoming-the-day ritual each morning
Reading
1. Read a book a week (Project A Book a Week)
2. Read regularly to and with David
3. Teach Nathaniel to Read
4. Regularly attend both book clubs
Gratitude
1. Write down two things I am grateful for each day (Project Gratitude Journal)
2. Write daily for David (Project Gratitude Journal)
3. Create gratitude-focused art with Nathaniel each week (Project Nathaniel’s Gratitude Pages)
4. Create gratitude postcards with David and mail them out (Project David’s Gratitude Postcards)
5. Create gratitude postcards for me and mail them out (Project Gratitude PostCards)
Learning
1. Get Coaching Certification
2. Continue to coach clients
3. Take two classes locally
4. Learn to drive on the freeway – still not giving up on this one
5. Learn to ride a bike – nor this one!
Belonging (I changed this around a bit but it’s still about building community)
1. Go out to breakfast/lunch once a week with a good friend (or a potential good friend). If not possible, call/email a friend to reconnect.
2. Invite guests over for dinner at least once a month
3. Extend an invitation to someone new once a month
4. Send out gratitude cards to people whom I am grateful for
There we go. As more creep up over the year, I will likely come here and add/alter as needed.
Schedule for Blog
I’ve also come up with a tentative schedule for my blog for 2012:
Mondays : Gratitude Journal
Tuesdays : Sketching
Wednesdays : A Book a Week + Gratitude PostCards
Thursdays : The Savor Project
Fridays : SixBySix
Saturdays : Weekly Diary
Sundays : David’s Gratitude PostCards and Nathaniel’s Gratitude Pages (we will alternate this each week)
I will also aim to post self-reflection/thought posts minimum three nights a week. Likely Monday through Thursday.
Thoughts to Cultivate
For the last two years, I created major focus areas I wanted to have throughout the year. Things that I want to come back to again and again. Some of these I will repeat for this year since I still would like to keep them forefront on my mind. And others are new for this year. These will likely show up in my art journals + self-reflection but I also want to have them here for reference.
1. Let go of worry Since my goal is to be present this year, I think this is even more important than usual. My goal this year is to remember to stay in the present moment. To breathe and see if I am worrying about something in the past or future vs the now. I also plan to use The Four Questions and listen to more of Tara Brach regularly.
2. Do Less I started slowing down last year and this year I plan to do so even more. With the coaching, I now have a lot of my free hours not free. I want to make sure I am making quality time to be with family. Quality time to rest. I do not want to burn out. I plan to do less this year. And let myself off the hook whenever I need it. Better to do one piece of art each week then to do 10 and then burn out.
3. Do not yell This one is self-explanatory. I absolutely hate hearing other people yell. And yet I do it more often than I’d like. This year, it’s a non-negotiable. It will not happen. It’s not a 5-10% thing. It’s all or nothing and the goal is nothing. People I love deserve my respect. (This is word for word from both years. I wish I could say I adhered to it. But, no. Ic did have much better moments in 2012 but for 2013, I want to be even more resolute. Stronger. Kinder. Quieter. Calmer.)
4. Be mindful I want to be a lot more aware of my own feelings. Those of my kids. Aware of how my actions affect others. How I actually have time before I need to react. How I can choose what to do next. How I can choose the tone of my voice, the way I feel, the way I react.
5. Celebrate I want to focus on all the good things in my life more purposefully this year. Take scheduled time to celebrate. Celebrate those around me and myself. Spread joy. Spread kindness. Make rituals. Reach out to people and celebrate together. Life is a present. The best gift ever.
6. Cultivate Belonging I have been struggling with community for a few years now. I think working at home and juggling all that I do makes it harder for me. I’ve also cultivated some social anxiety recently, it seems. So instead of trying to cure-it-all, my plan this year is to narrow down my focus. Find the few people I care about and cultivate those friendships. Focus on establishing deeper ties. Not necessarily wider but deeper. For me and my kids. That’s my plan this year. Let’s see if it works better.
7. Self-Compassion I want to be kinder to myself. I want to cultivate awareness so I can see when I fall back into my non-productive patterns and forgive myself. I want to show my kids that we all mess up and we all deserve forgiveness. I want to be kind, kind, kind. I want to practice non-judging awareness. And, most significantly, I want to quit taking things personally.
8. Be open While I want to learn to forgive myself for not enjoying some of the things others might, I also want to continue to ty new things. I want to be willing to do something just for someone else. Be open to the possibility that I might like it. I want to be brave. I want to be an example to my kids that we practice courage regularly. It’s not inherent. I want to show that sometimes we fail but we get up and try again. I want to move away completely from anything that encourages shame-words. I want to show that failure is a part of life and so is showing compassion to oneself.
9. Gratitude And, finally, this year I plan to kick the gratitude thing up a few notches. I want do practice it myself, cultivate it in both my kids, send it out to my friends. Just make it front and center in my life. I know it’s one of the biggest links to happiness. And so easy to do.
And there we are. I am sure more will come up. But these are some of what’s on my mind.
Here’s to hoping 2013 is fantastic for all of us!
Picking a word this year was challenging. Partly cause I grew to love Savor so much that I felt strongly that I didn’t want to let it go. When I look at my list from last year, I am amused at how many of the same words were on my list this year, too. Here was the list I tinkered with for months:
- brave
- calm
- quiet
- shift
- shine
- true
- present
- now
- breathe
- celebrate
- light
- still
- listen
- open
- center
- moment
- unlock
- guide
Like last year, I resisted my word this year. Even though present kept coming up, I just didn’t like the way it sounded. I didn’t like how long it was, how many e’s it had (when you’re a scrapper, these things matter!) and it just seemed too bland.
But no matter how much I resisted it, it kept coming back to me. And after I finally decided to stop pushing back so hard, it felt completely right. It was going to be my word for 2013 and that was that.
One of the things I love about the word present is that it has multiple meanings:
- Right now: This is the first meaning of present that resonated with me. Being in the right now. Not thinking about the past or the future. One of the things I hear often in the meditation I listen to is how there’s no suffering in this moment. And how a lot of it is either about the past or the future. So if you stay in this present moment, you can reduce suffering a lot. And I’m all about reducing suffering, especially in 2013.
- Right here: The second meaning of present that really resonates with me is having presence. Being here. While I am playing with my kids, actually playing with them and not also doing email or talking on the phone. Or even thinking about anything else. I think one of the strongest ways I can show my love for them is with my attention. Actually being there for them. And doing the same for each thing I do. Being here. Paying attention. Not numbing, distracting. This is sort of like savoring but in real-time.
- The gift: The final meaning that resonated with me was the idea of life being a present. The days I get are a gift. The days I get with my family are a gift. The days I get as a healthy person. The days I get to do art. The days I get to read and write. So much of my life is such a gift. Not to be squandered, not to be taken for granted. Not a moment to waste. I love the reminder of these precious moments being a gift.
Like last year, I changed my blog banner on my site and bought myself another ring with my word on it. I am still wearing the savor one as well since I am not ready to let that word go yet.
And there we are. The year of being present.
Like last year and the year before, I also made my Priority List for 2013. Just to remind the idea behind this is:
I was listening to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and one of the things the author mentions is managing our time and how we spend much of it doing what’s urgent instead of doing what’s important. As in, we’re often reacting instead of thinking ahead and calmly acting in the direction of our dreams and priorities.
So I decided it would beneficial for me to make a “Priority List”. A list of goals and people I want to prioritize during the year. This way, when an opportunity or request came my way, I could check my list and make sure it is aligned with my priorities before I accepted it. It’s easy to lose sight of things and take on projects that end up eating a lot of my time and not making me fulfilled. If I had my list to look at each time, I could keep what’s important at the forefront of my mind and make sure to prioritize it.
Here’s my Priority List for 2013:
- Family
- Health
- Work
- Art
- Celebrating
- Reading
- Gratitude
- Learning
- Belonging
Like last year, these are not in order. Yes, most of the time my family comes first. However, there are times when work takes higher priority because it has to for a brief time. Or sometimes I might choose to exercise even if my son wants to play at that moment. These priorities are fluid for me. They are all a part of me and I want to make sure I value them and dedicate time to each. I also want to make sure I turn down anything that doesn’t line up with one of these.
The list is similar to last year but not exactly the same. And like last time, I know you could make everything fit into one of these categories but, in my heart, I know what these mean. And I know when something comes along that doesn’t fit. Above everything, I want to stay true to my gut. I’ve made the mistake of doing something that will look good and make others think well of me before and it was a lot of heartache for me and so I want to listen to myself more and trust my gut and know that if I turn down something that feels wrong, other opportunities will still come my way and I will know when the right one is there. So I will have faith in myself and in the universe.
And I will prioritize the important.
And there we are.
Here’s to an amazing 2013: The year I will be present, in the present and remember the present it all is.
2012 was my year to savor. My goal for the year was to slow down, be grateful, mindful, and joyful. I hoped to pay attention and notice all the moments of joy and amazing abundance in my life.
When I look back now, I see that I did savor so many of our moments Even though some of this year was extra-tough for me, I still did a large amount of amazing things that were aligned with my goal to savor and especially when I think about where I am at this moment, I am filled with overflowing gratitude for my life and all the love I am surrounded by. I loved this word so much, I know it will stay with me forever.
Here are some specific goals I had in mind for this year and how they worked out:
Family
1. Read to David daily with a focus on longer, more involved books. (We will incorporate these into David’s Book of Good Memories)
This project didn’t take off as well as I would have liked. Mostly cause our mornings are quite rushed now and as Nathaniel is getting older (but not old enough to follow yet) he’s less willing to sit quietly while I read. I might turn this into a nighttime activity with just David and me for 2013.
2. Take photo of full-family and write updates weekly (Project Weekly Diary).
This project went well and we didn’t skip one single week in 2012. I definitely plan to continue it for 2013. I am loving getting to have so many photos with my family.
3. Write a weekly diary of us and daily gratitudes for me and David (Project Weekly Diary) and the gratitudes are on the left column of the blog.
I did the weekly diary but not the gratitudes. Somewhere along the line, I dropped this practice and I really miss it. I am determined to bring it back for 2013 and have a plan.
4. Continue our family night where we all play games or watch movies together (Scheduled for Sunday nights)
We sort of fell off the wagon for this one, too. We did spend a lot of time together and went out to dinner, etc. But not playing together. I do hope to rectify this in 2013, as well.
5. Create letter-focused spreads and art with Nathaniel each week (Project Letters with Nathaniel)
This one, we did. Both Nathaniel and I really enjoyed it very much.
6. Create at least one crafty spread a week with David about things that made him happy that week (Project David’s Book of Good Memories.)
I am not sure why, but David resisted this project a lot. We still managed to fill up a whole book and now he really loves looking at it, so in the end, it was a success.
7. Volunteer in both David and Nathaniel’s schools at least twice each semester. (I know this doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s the minimum I hope to do.)
In honesty, I am not sure if I did this. I definitely spent some time in both classes but not nearly as much as I would have liked.
8. Schedule minimum bimonthly date nights with Jake
We were pretty inconsistent with these. We skipped a bunch and then did a bunch in a row. All in all, We didn’t have 24 but we probably had more than a dozen.
Health (Project Healthy For Life)
1. Continue running daily, work your way up to 5K a day
Some good news and some bad news here. I ran every single day in 2012. I did manage to make it to 5K a day and did that for a while. But then I sort of fell off and went back down to 1-2miles a day. I am working my way up but it’s been hard.
2. Find a trainer so I can add basic weight-training and strength exercises weekly
Well…I found one and was actually doing exercises every day when some bad life events got in the way and so I now have exercises and need to go back to consistently doing them first.
3. Track the food I eat each day. (not fun!)
yes, well, this never happened.
4. Continue using the fitbit daily with a goal of 10,000 steps a day
This was working like a charm until my fitbit broke in the fall. Since it was its third time dying, i just gave up on it and don’t use one anymore.
5. Get minimum 7hours of sleep every night and 8 on the weekends
I am pretty good about this one. Even though I likely sleep fitfully, I do sleep at least 7 hours each night.
6. Eat at least one serving of vegetables and protein daily
Well I’ve been ok on protein thanks to the amy’s bean burritos but not so great on veggies. My diet is a mess all over the place to be honest. I don’t eat badly (well maybe except the chocolate) but I really don’t eat well either.
7. Start a meditation practice
I did a lot of work on this one. I took a 6-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course that literally changed my life. It was amazing. I also discovered Tara Brach and listened to her podcasts daily. I meditated pretty regularly until the fall and am determined to bring it back into my life. I also took a Science of Mindfulness class which was excellent. Meditation changed my life and I cannot say enough good things about it.
Art
1. Sketch minimum four times a week (Project Weekly Sketching)
done. I did a lot lot lot of sketching in 2012.
2. Art journal weekly using hand-lettering at least half the time (Project Weekly Art Journal)
this, too, i did a lot of and all of them used hand-lettering.
3. Take at least three art classes
I took a lot of classes in 2012. I listed some of them here. I actually took even more than that list.
4. Experiment with at least three mediums
hmm.. I used the Tombow watercolor markers for the first time. I used a little bit of the gelatos. But that’s mostly it. I’d like to do more experimentation in 2013 if I can.
5. Try sketching using different sizes. (Really big+really small)
not so much.
6. Focus on and hone one specific sketch style. (or two or three!)
this one, I think I did. At least one style for sketching and one for art journaling.
7. Experiment with collage once a week (Project Journey into Collage)
also did this one.
Storytelling
1. Continue to create for my design teams (Maya Road, My Mind’s Eye, Write.Click.Scrapbook)
I said good-bye to WCS sometime during 2012 but I did my commitments to all three.
2. Create at least four pages (2-spreads) in my book (The Savor Project)
done
3. Design a class around different ways of storytelling
I didn’t design any classes in 2012. I have several small ideas but I am not feeling motivated to do them for some reason. Interestingly, it looks like Ali’s going to teach a “ways of storytelling” class in 2013 and I am sure she’ll do an awesome job of it.
4. Aim to do 1-2 guest design spots or classes (that I teach) this year
I did teach one class for Debbie Hodge and one for Gossamer Blue and I have a guest spot coming up early in 2013. I also was on Paperclipping Roundtable a few times, does that count?
Reading
1. Read a book a week (Project A Book a Week)
Oh yes, and more. I think I read about 90 books this year. A lot of them are young adult and such quick reads, but still…
2. Read daily to David (longer, more involved books) (Project Reading with David)
covered this one above.
3. Regularly attend both book clubs
I did go to one book club regularly but the other one was a miss for at least half the year. Partly cause of my crazy times and partly cause they picked books I really didn’t like.
Self-Reflection
1. Write at least three long thought/idea oriented blog posts a week
I had some holes in this but I tried to do a lot more of these this year and really enjoyed them.
2. Journal five days a week
Journaling didn’t happen. Can’t decide if I want to resume this one or not.
3. Take at least two self-reflection-focused classes this year (already signed up for Body Restoration)
See above link of classes. I did at least three of these this year.
4. Do the exercises in A Minute for Me, daily
Interestingly, I didn’t do any of these. Not sure why.
Learning
1. Take two classes locally
I took MBSR and The Science of Willpower and The Science of Mindfulness.
2. Take four online classes this year
Done
3. Learn to drive on the freeway
not done 🙁 I did go on both freeways this year so it’s not a total fail but still nowhere close to where I’d like to have been by now.
4. Learn to ride a bike
no progress here.
5. Learn to collage
Up for debate. But I did do a page each week.
Community (This is a particularly hard one for me.)
1. Go out to breakfast/lunch once a week
Not sure I was so regular but I did meet with friends more than usual.
2. Invite guests over for dinner at least once a month
We did so-so on this one. Probably ten this year.
3. Extend an invitation to someone new once a week
hmm.. probably not. But A few new ones nonetheless.
4. Leave comments on blogs I read once a week
bleh. didn’t even do well finding new blogs to read.
5. Respond to comments on my blog + return emails within 48 hours
yes, ok, i really sucked on this one!
I also took four out of the five classes I needed to get my coaching certification and I signed up for the certification process (starting in February) and started seeing clients. A big dream and a large commitment for both 2012 and 2013.
And there we go. 2012 was a year of big ups and big downs. I am quite grateful to get to close it on such a positive note and I still love and adore my word, savor, and decided to keep my ring so I can still remember to cherish and savor my moments and bask in the joy and gratitude of the overflowing gifts in my life.
I am so deeply lucky.
And, with that, good-bye 2012. Thank you for your lessons and gifts.
If you’re getting emails from me by subscription, you might have just gotten 52 new ones from me cause I was trying to remove a category. I apologize profusely and it will never happen again. I am so deeply sorry for the annoyance.
Yesterday I had this moment where I had a glimpse of a path I lost. I got an email from a colleague I worked with a few years ago. At the time, we were at the same level in the company and now he’s quite a few levels above me. Just seeing his name and title triggered a whole slew of emotions.
I thought about how I chose to slow down my career and work from home and how I changed job groups to be able to achieve that. And, not just that, but how I gave up potential promotions, raises, power, etc, etc. along the process. The name was a reminder of life I never got to live. The career success I walked away from.
When I drive to school to pickup Nathaniel from school, I have a similar flash of another unlived life. I see all the moms who aren’t working at all and can spend all their time with their kids. I see them take their kids to fun classes or play dates after school. I see them meet each other and socialize. I see the life of a truly stay-at-home mom and yearn for that life I didn’t get to have.
And the same happens when I am around my coaching classmates who are starting their businesses. Or artists who sell their art and pursue it fulltime. People who teach.
I think of all the paths I didn’t walk down. All the lives I didn’t get to live. The direct reminder of the choices I made (or didn’t make) that caused me to be here and not there.
This isn’t about regret. I don’t regret the paths I took. I know that I spent time thinking about my steps and the directions I chose. But when I saw his name, it was just a tangible reminder of what I walked away from. If I had stayed at work, I might not have been able to stay home and hug my kids but I could provide so much more for them. I would be more powerful and maybe they’d be proud of that. I just found my mind wondering and aching a bit. Where the path I didn’t take felt like a loss.
Instead of chastising myself or even reminding myself that there was a reason I made the choice I made, I let myself mourn. I gave myself permission to be sad and really let that soak in. And then I imagined having taken that path. Let’s say I was this powerful, recognized employee now. How did that feel (I tried to imagine since I can’t really know for sure.) and then I remembered the last time I was close to that feeling and how it wasn’t anything special. How it didn’t really fulfill me. Others respected and looked up to me maybe. But I didn’t like it. I didn’t feel special. I didn’t feel fulfilled.
Which was the reason I chose this path to begin with.
I just needed the reminder. There’s a reason I am not working the full career path anymore. There’s also a reason I am not fully at home. Or a full-time coach or artist or anything else. I am very purposeful about what I do and don’t do. I work hard at living my life by design.
But even with that, sometimes it’s ok to mourn the lives I didn’t get to live. It’s ok to feel sad. It’s ok to doubt. It’s ok to imagine trying it on and making sure it still feels like the path I chose not to take. We change over time and it’s valuable to make sure the decisions we made are still consistent with our goals now.
So I let myself soak it all in and then I felt a huge rush of gratitude for where I am. For all I get to have. For all I get to do. Maybe I don’t have the ultimate version of any of those lives but I get to have a bit of all and I get to experience the joy of each.
And, for now, that’ll do.
That’ll do just fine.
Even though I’ve written about this before, One of the things I’ve been trying to remind myself lately is that life is not all or nothing. When I have a goal, I don’t have to look at it as met or unmet.
For example, I’ve been making an effort to eat healthier. I work at home and I don’t cook. What I eat has never been a big priority for me. Some days, it will be 2pm before I’ve had any real food (besides tea) and as soon as I realize I haven’t eaten, I will be famished and make some unwise choices. More significantly, I realized that I tend to have the “all or nothing” mentality. If I don’t have a salad to eat, I’ll just eat something unhealthy. I think “if I can’t do it perfectly right, I might as well just do it wrong.” Like if I don’t have “good” vegetables, eating corn is just as bad as eating chocolate.
Which is clearly not the case.
If I weren’t on a streak, I could totally see myself doing the same thing for exercise. Like if I can’t run for 3 miles, I might as well not bother at all. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. A 1-mile run is still considerably better than no run. And when you add them up, a week of daily 1-mile runs have a strong cumulative effect, especially compared to a week of no runs at all. In one scenario, I ran 7 miles in that week and in the other, I ran zero.
How are seven and zero interchangeable?
But this is how we tend to think: If I can’t do it right, I might as well not do it at all.
Or, “I already messed up, what’s the point?” Eating one chocolate is not the same as eating the whole box. Life doesn’t operate on the black and while extremes. Nor do your goals. When you’re mean to someone, it’s not too late. You have a million opportunities to apologize. When you break one goal, you can restart the next day. This is one of the reasons it’s helpful to let go of the day at the end of each day. If you learn to forgive yourself and let go of your guilt, you get to have another chance tomorrow morning. All you need is some self-compassion.
So, my plan for this holiday season is to remember the value of self-compassion and baby steps. If I learn to forgive myself, I know I am more likely to succeed the next day. And if I can remember that every step counts and there are a lot of smaller things I can to reach my goal (or even to not walk further away from my goal) I know that I am more likely to move forward.
As we go into the craziness and calm and inertia of the holiday season, I feel the need to remind myself that every day I do something towards my goals, however small, is another day I am that much closer to them. It’s not black or white. It’s not all or nothing. It’s all about the millions of tiny, small steps. It’s all about the gray.
It all counts.
As promised on Monday, here are my three lists for 2013 so far. They are not in any order and they are still work in progress. I will likely update them in the next two weeks as I brainstorm more and figure out some patterns.
What do I want to learn?
- How to write nicely, I want to improve my handwriting
- How to draw people (a goal for a long time now)
- Art supplies I want to learn better: neocolors, oils
- Strength exercises that are simple but powerful
- Simple but healthy meals for all times of day (Learning what eating well looks like for me.)
- Self-compassion
- Setting up my etsy shop and a system for scanning and selling
- Driving on the freeway
- Learning to ride a bike
What do I want to do more of?
- Drawing
- Art journaling
- Meditation
- Reading books
- Writing thoughts posts on my blog
- Taking photos of my kids and photos of nature
- Being in the pictures with my family
- Quality time with my kids – doing what they want
- Exercise
- Seeing/emailing/spending time with friends
- Date nights
What fulfills me (or honors a value I have)?
- Gratitude
- Time with my family
- Being present
- Taking time for myself
- Learning
- Writing down my thoughts/feelings and learning from them
- Coaching
- Being there for people I love
- Savoring, reliving memories in real-time
- Mindfulness
How about you? What’s on your list?
As I was talking to my coach last week, I was telling her about a recurring behavior I’ve noticed in myself that drove me crazy. I complained about how disappointed I was in myself for being unable to stop it. After we talked for a while, just as I was about to get off the phone, she mentioned this idea of Choice Points and how sometimes we can take a moment and choose to do something differently. She didn’t talk about it at length, but I got it. At least I now have my own interpretation of it.
It’s about how life is a collection choices we make. Each time something happens, consciously or subconsciously, we make a choice about what to do next. And whether we realize it or not, we have the option to make a different choice. Which will likely result in a different outcome. The trick is realizing at that split second, you do actually have choice and you don’t have to react immediately and you don’t have to react in the same way you always have.
This is something Tara Brach talks about during her podcasts, too. The moment of choice. The split second that otherwise goes unnoticed. The sliver of time between action and reaction. Sometimes it’s not even a tiny amount of time but it’s stopping your thoughts long enough to realize there’s a moment of choice here. I had one of those last week. I have been worried about getting Nathaniel’s baby furniture out of his room for five months. He was still sleeping in his crib and I wasn’t sure if he would be ok moving to the big boy bed. The pieces in his room were huge and hard for me and Jake to move. We couldn’t donate them for several logistical reasons and I just kept worrying about finding the right solution. I worried about how we would get the furniture out of there, how we would move the queen sized bed to David’s room, etc. etc. Last week, I was lying in bed, worrying about all this once again when the answer dawned on me.
I realized I had a completely different option available to me. I could call a company to move all the furniture out, donate it on my behalf, and move the beds around for me. It would cost a little money but it would be done perfectly and super-fast. The next morning, I called them up, set up the appointment and two days later, all of my problems were solved in 34 minutes. They came, they fixed, and they left.
All because I was able to change the way I looked at the problem. All because I slowed down and realized I had options. I could make different choices.
This made me think about one of my favorite scenes in Dead Poet’s Society where the teacher makes the kids stand at the table and look at the room from that perspective and shows them how important it is to be able to have different points of view.
To me, the ability to change my point of view came from the moment of choice. Realizing that I had the option to make a different choice.
Now that I saw one, I see them all over the place. I am paying attention and it’s showing up everywhere. That, to me, is the key to life.
Paying attention so I can see the moments of choice.
This time of year tends to be full of reflection and planning for me. I try to think about what I learned and how I want to plan my year to live more fully. I’ve learned a few years ago that having year-long projects focused around my personal goals works for me. It gives me a framework to work with and I still feel creative freedom.
So one of the things I pay attention to as I plan my year long projects is my list of “things I want to learn” or “things I want to get better at.”
In 2011, I knew I wanted to get better at drawing so I committed to sketching daily. And to make sure I followed through, I also committed to weekly blog posts where I shared my sketches. I created a similar structure for art journaling. And in the two years I’ve been working on these skills, I’ve progressed immensely and found my own little voice in both of these. I went from never knowing how to art journal to being published in the best art journaling magazine.
All because I set the structure for myself.
The other list I look at when I am trying to decide my yearly projects is the list of “things I want to do more of.” For example, in 2010, I wanted to spend more time with my son and I created “crafting with David” where we created an art project each week. In 2011, I read a book a week to David. In 2012, I created a “Book of Good Memories” with him. This year, I also did Letters with Nathaniel. All of these are creative ways to spend more time with my son while doing something I would love to share with him. I know I want to spend more time with my kids so I create these projects as an excuse to take the time. (This is not to say I don’t spend ‘free’ time with them, it’s just an extra special thing we get to do.)
In 2010, I started exercising for the first time, so in 2011, I created a project “Healthy for Life” so I could track the progress of getting and staying in shape. Making healthier choices. I wanted to do more of it so I created a year-long project for myself. Same with books. I’ve had “A Book A Week” for three years now and I’ve read over 150 books thanks to my project. In 2010, I realized I wanted more photos with my kids where I was actually in the photo. Out of that wish came the “Us Right Now” project (which then morphed into Weekly Diary.) I now have over 100 photos of me with my kids and husband.
So most of my projects are born out of the “what do i want to learn” and “what do i want to do more of” lists.
But, there’s one more important list that I am trying to make sure to honor next year: “what matters most to me” and “what fulfills me the most.” Two years ago, I did the Weekly Gratitude project and it was really profound for me. I learned the value of gratitude. So much so that it’s become one of my core values. This year, I did the Savor Project and it allowed me to enjoy and savor my life as it happened. When I think of my projects for 2013, I’ve been thinking about what fulfills me and gives me the most joy. If I can create a project around something that fulfills me, I get to experience the joy of that on a regular basis. If I can create a project using my values, then I get to honor them regularly. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all the coaching classes I’ve taken and the client calls I’ve had, it’s that the trick to life is to align your life with your values and spend time doing what fulfills you. That’s it.
That’s all it takes.
So, as I spend time contemplating the upcoming year, I am making my three lists and taking a good look at what comes up, so that I can create frameworks around them and make 2013 a wonderful year.
Here are the three lists:
1. What do I want to learn/get better at?
2. What do I want to do more of?
3. What value do I want to honor and what fulfills me?
What about your list? What goes on your three lists? If you’re willing to play along, I’ll share my lists on Wednesday and maybe you can post yours too?
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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