TURN THIS YEAR AROUND
I just returned home from a show and decided I really need to write since it is July 1 (it’s now 12:19 a.m.) and, as my husband Richard and I discussed yesterday afternoon, this represents the fact that the year is half over. Have I accomplished anything I set out do???? The answer is no, but there is still a chance to “turn this year around” and that’s why I’m creating this blog series. The purpose is to make some kind of public proclamation to move forward with the goals I set on January 1. I say goals because I really do mean GOALS, not resolutions. Resolutions don’t work, everybody knows that - but goals are another story. So in order to “turn this year around” I have a number of tasks to undertake. The first task is to actually find my goals (identify), review them, seem if they’re still relevant (evaluate) and if necessary, create new ones (change). Then I need to figure out what is keeping me from moving forward with those I set and reset any that need to be modified. After that, it’s just breaking these goals down into smaller projects and tasks (strategy).
Without even reviewing anything, I can already admit that one of the biggest reasons I’m not completing my goals is because I don’t regularly review them. I know this is something I need to do EVERY DAY because, well, out of sight out of mind. A few years ago I read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and this was one of the biggest pieces of advice. Paraphrased, it goes like this: create a written statement of how much wealth you want to create and your means of achieving it and read this statement every day. I definitely have not been doing that. Most likely because I’m not doing this, I’m also allowing myself to become distracted. It feels like forever since I completed an actual project and I don’t want to be one of those people who flits about from one thing to the next.
I also lack routine. As an artist, there is this part of me that is so completely scatterbrained and I use the excuse that I thrive on variety and I feel dead if things become too mundane, but this approach to life hasn’t exactly resulted in great results, so perhaps it’s time to create a different plan.
Lastly, I’m just a messy person. I have too much stuff and feel a strange compulsion to use things up rather than just getting rid of them or letting them sit right where they are. For years, I’ve attempted to use up everything I have - by that I mean, go without buying a new pen or notebook until everything is used up and read every book I own before purchasing a new one or taking one out of the library but it hasn’t worked, so I want to figure out a way to let the compulsion go. The compulsion is the major reason I start a new project before finishing an old one.
It’s late. I’m exhausted. My 96 year old grandmother died this week and I have been doing a lot of reflection on her life and the lessons she passed along to me. I hope to use these lessons in the next six months to grow and really make something of my ambitions that will make me proud and would have made her happy to know her influence resulted in something good. The wake is tomorrow and I know it will be emotional, so I’d best get some rest….
A note to end on:
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” - John F. Kennedy
(read this tonight in Brendon Burchard’s The Motivation Manifesto)
Being a nonconformist means not doing what everyone else does and for me right now, this means the mundane things that most people do that keeps them from their true dreams - things like watching television, eating bad food, spending too much time on social media (guilty as charged), and resisting exercise when I know it has such a positive impact both physically and mentally.
This quote also makes me think of a Bible verse I read the other night: “. . . make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perserverance; and to perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.” (2 Peter 5-7 NIV). That’s a tall order, but I know it’s entirely possible with the right plan!