It is yet another new month! Is 2015 flying by for anyone else? I feel like I was just impressed about the fact that we were into February, and now March is here! That means that I have been aiming myself at my new years goals for a solid two months now, and boy has it been rocky.
January was pretty much a bust, to be honest. I made a million goals, and by the end of the first 31 days of the year, I was broken and tired of myself. January was a flop. February was much better! The only goal that I really didn't get down was my read three chapters a day. I am still debating on whether I should cut that down, keep it entirely or cut it all the way out. But reading is important, so I think I will keep it in.
Here are my concrete, measurable goals:
1. Two blog post's a week. I think that should be more than manageable. I also want to write at least six short stories this year. That's a half of a story per month. There is no set length, so I can go as long or short as I want.
3. Three chapters a day. And it must be one book at a time. Not counting the Bible, of course.
5. Expect three pictures per month. Yep- three. That feels scary, but if it matters to me, I can take at least three pictures that I like enough to post each month. I owe it to myself to not chicken out of this one, so there it is. Three a month. Done.
8. I really like to do stretches on my yoga mat in the morning, and I use to make at lest fifteen minutes of time for it every day. I'm going to go back to that. A few minutes of yoga every day. That's final. Any person is capable of that. No chickening out, Candace! No chickening out! Also in the realm of taking care of my temple, I am committing to fifteen minutes of cardio at least five days a week. This is not hard to find time for. It's just the execution that I have problems with. Again. No chickening out, Candace.
9. I am committing to at least fifteen minutes of solid prayer time. It's as simple as that.
(I know it's small, but it's a recap. You can see the original post here in it's normal size.)
Really quickly, 1, 5, 8, and 9 went smoothly. I have gotten a pretty good rhythm for those things, and I think that they were by far the most important things on my list. Three...*sigh* oh, three. I still did not figure out what my best way of fitting in three chapters of a book per day in my routine is. This may sound incredibly pathetic to those of you who are avid bookworms out there, but I am still not giving up. Things that are important take time, and this is still a habit that I don't want to give up on! So number three, March is your month!
And that's the end of my recap. Rather than going deep into my life and something that I have repeated at least two times now, I wanted to make this post something that would be less about myself and more about everyone. I did still want to keep to my promise to keep my failures and success open to the public, but I am sure it feels weird to read about me me me at the beginning of every month (it feels odd to me). So let's do something different on month three, shall we?
After devoting two solid months to whipping myself into this shape that I had imagined, it occurs to me that goals are not only good because you challenge yourself to work on and pursue becoming a more rounded person, but you also learn a lot about what you thought was important and what is important. Personally, I learned that it is important to me to be on this blog writing, but it it also important to me to keep up with my body and it's physical needs for fitness. I thought that I would be okay concentrating on everything else and supplementing my lack of exercising with stretching every morning, but as it turns out, I am not. But that's okay, because the habits I have built are not for nothing, and there is no reason that I cannot start up some sort of workout routine!
Sometimes we fixate on the person that we want to be or the things that we potentially want to do so much that when we actually do get around to making the changes, it's clear that reality differs completely from what was written on paper. When we find ourselves in the midst of what we thought would be the best thing for us and realize that it is still not the best case scenario, we don't have to give up and say that it was all for nothing. Sometimes that is how the devil will try to spin it in order to make us feel like we have somehow lost. But we are more than conquerors, and we don't need to look at the need to take another direction as a sign that the time spent was wasted.
Change can be difficult and it can make you question the direction that you had been going all along, but lean into God in times of confusion. In the end, no matter how we feel after achieving or obtaining a goal that we have set for ourselves, what really matters is being with God. God will always be the most important thing. He is the true source of our strength, joy, and peace, not the goals that we make. It may take trial and error to figure out how to prioritize the different goals in life, but as long as we are rooted in God, the journey will be worth it.
Maybe it's time to dust off the list of resolutions and see what was worth pursuing and what should be dropped or added! I know I'll be doing some of that this month. Have you had any goals made back in January that you realize needed tweaking? Let me know!
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