January 4, 2014 My 500 Words

I'm wondering if I will be as excited on January 16 as I have been the last four days writing here every day.  New Year Resolutions have flooded social media.  Writing every day for the month of January is the single "resolution" I made at the beginning of this new year.  As I have aged I have become familiar with myself and my quirks, idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies.  And I have found a measure of peace in admitting I have those aforementioned  quirks, idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies.

In years past I have compiled a list of important, world changing, go for all the money goals.  I have notebooks full of notes taken at innumerable goal setting classes taught by some of the wealthiest women in the country.  As recently as this past July, I convincingly voiced my determination to be in a management position in my direct sales business by December.  Every month since July has come and gone and needless to say I am no closer to my goal.

I  have been humbled and embarrassed by that outcome. There were people involved in the goal that I respect and care deeply for. The despair forced me to set myself down and take a microscopic look at my heart and the reason I was continuing to set the same goal over and over...then proceed to not do the work I knew it would take to reach it.  Somewhere I  heard the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.  I was definitely fitting that description and I was making myself insane!

What I came to realize was I had been pursuing an end result that had nothing to do with the desires of my heart, but was tangled up in my people pleasing behaviors. I came to the freeing conclusion that this goal was no longer valid for my life and my future.  Oh, how the burden rolled off of my shoulders!  I made the decision I would continue to pursue the good of my business and my customers in a way that brought peace and contentment to my life.  I am no longer willing to push myself into the painful desert of burn out for a path that I do not want to be traveling on. 

Are there areas of my life that need discipline and attention?  Absolutely!  But, I have made the commitment to myself to determine what works for me and not copy what has been successful for someone else. I have lost count of the diet books and matching cookbooks I have purchased.  The exercise programs, the gym memberships, the workout clothes, the new athletic shoes...my list goes on and on.  The chosen diet plan wouldn't produce the results I wanted fast enough so I would abandon it to repeat the process with the next wonder diet, only to have that one fail and go back to the first one.  There's a hint of that insanity definition again.

I have become so frustrated with goal setting, always chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. I found myself so focused on the future and the lie that when ______happens I woud finally be happy, that I was missing the life that was being lived right underneath my nose.  I was not attuned to my heart and the passions I truly wanted to pursue and fill my life with.

Which puts me right back to my opening sentence.  How will I be on January 16 when I set down at my computer to write my 500 words for the day?  I'm completely okay with saying I don't know how I will feel.  Will it be easy or hard?  I don't know.  The one thing I do know is this....I am writing because I want to. I chose this because it has been patiently waiting at the back of my mind and heart for a very long time.  This is my New Year's gift to myself.  Not a resolution....a gift.