Step 3 - the life you've always wanted

Look back at last week's list - anything jump out at you? Sometimes taking a few days break can really make a difference in your feelings about something.

Okay, pick one item and do it this week! Write it on your calendar, block time out, whatever you need to do, just do it.

By this time next week you'll be one step closer!

Next step toward the life you want

So, now that we've thought a bit about what we would do, let's take some steps toward getting there!

I'm a list maker, so I always like to start off with a list. Take a look back at the first question I posed:

What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail?

If you haven't already, write down your "answer." It may be a list of jobs you think you'd enjoy, it may be a new sport or hobby you'd like to try, it might be a way of raising your family, or living day to day. Doesn't really matter as long as it's what is important to you.

Got your list? Pick out one or two items and re-write them each on their own page. Now, take some time and brainstorm things you could do today or this week to get started on your journey.

Here's an example:

Learn to play the guitar

1. Research local classes
2. Look online for workbooks
3. Talk to friends to see if any of them play

These are all easy steps that could be taken immediately that would eventually bring you to your end goal. Plus it's so much easier to say "today I'm going to research some local guitar classes," than to just say "I'm going to learn to play the guitar."

No need to actually take action yet, just make your list of action items and think about them overnight. If you are really fired up, go ahead and start doing a bit of work. If not, wait until next week and we'll get back to them.

Week 2 & 3 of September Goals

Well, I struggled last week with meeting my goals - not really sure what happened, and I don't like to make excuses, so instead of beating myself up about it (which defeats the point!), I just moved them to Week 3. No biggie - I'm really only doing this to focus on what's important to me and to keep myself moving in the directions I want to move. Thanks to letting myself off the hook, I've made good progress:

Family/ friends - implement weekly family night done - it's Thursdays!
Health - increasing exercise - done! signed up for three weekly classes
Personal - create a master to do list - always ongoing, but the list is in my notebook
Work - travel article - complete and submitted to associated content
Home - clean up my herb garden and porch - in process, I'll post about what I've done there tomorrow

So, pretty successful overall!

September Goals

Since today is September first, seemed like a good day to outline the project I mentioned yesterday. The areas of my life I'd like to concentrate on are:

Family/friends
Health
Personal
Work
Home

I think 5 is manageable - especially if I only have one concentration area in each a week. I spent a lot of time thinking about those five areas yesterday to determine where I wanted to start. I have so many ideas for each of them! I decided that in order to keep myself from getting overwhelmed, I'd simply keep a running list of changes/ ideas in my journal. That way, I wouldn't forget them, and each month/ week I can refer to the list to see what feels right.

I have a draft for all of September, but I think I'm just going to start with week 1 - that way if I need to expand an area for a second week or feel like a change in my "proposed" following week is appropriate I won't feel pressured to not make the change.

Week one will be a sort of planning week for some of the categories - for others there will be action items. Tune back in later in the week to see specifically what I have planned!

So much to do, so little time . . .

The other day I was talking on the front porch with my husband and neighbors and I mentioned that I was upset at how less energetic I had been feeling. They all were surprised (except for my husband) as they thought I was one of the most energetic people they knew. I guess in retrospect I can handle and do a lot, but there is definitely a slow down . . . and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe instead of thinking about all the things I'd like to do, I should be concentrating on what I'm doing now and accept that I can't do everything but instead should do a few things "better." Make sense?

I have a ton of ideas in my head . . . projects I'd like to start, "improvements" on my home, myself and my family life . . . changes in our eating, health, living . . . the list goes on and on. It's hard to decide where to start - what is most important?

To help myself focus, I've decided to make a list of my top priorities and then determine ways I can work on/with them each week. Hopefully this will keep me from attempting everything at once and create some meaningful changes versus just a bunch of new short lived trials.

Since I love a good project . . . here we go . . .

Too much change?

Update on last night: we spent $10.35! Our dinner bill was $4.35, and we tipped the server $6.00 - both my DH and I feel that if the restaurant is giving us something free, the server shouldn't be penalized, so we always leave a great tip. We ended up skipping Coldstone's because Red Robin brought out 2 sundae's for my DD and DH's birthday. That gives us another trip for ice cream next week!

Now, for today's topic . . .

Do you ever feel like you are constantly trying to improve or change your life? I get so many great ideas from books, blogs, websites, etc. of all the different things I could do to be more organized, more fit, healthier, etc. It's tempting to try them all, and I usually do . . . for a day or so, then on to the next big thing. In the end, I get stressed by all the "programs" or projects I'm trying to complete at once, and I'm not sure anything really changes.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and have decided to try an experiment. For the rest of this year, instead of trying to do many things at once, each month I'm going to concentrate on one aspect of my life that I'd like to improve or make changes to. Not that I'm going to neglect all the other aspects that month, but my focus will be on that one area. Today, I sat down at Starbuck's (a rare treat these days!) and made a list of the areas I'd like to work on. Then I looked at the calendar - took into consideration events, vacations, etc. and matched up each topic to a month. Here's what I came up with:

May - healthier diet
June - consistent exercise program
July - extra fun with the kids (day trips, museums, crafts, projects I've wanted to try, etc.)
August - organize my scrapbooking and office
September - organize and deep clean the house
October - travel writing, mystery shopping, other "money making opportunities"
November - "me" time
December - Christmas
January - budget, saving money, plan for 2009

Hopefully this blog will keep me accountable and I can share some of the successes and failures of this experiment! I'll post more tomorrow on my thoughts and plans for May.

Now off to clean the other half of my bookshelf - my anti-procrastinating project of the day!