For my readers in the United States, Happy Independence Day! For those elsewhere, Happy Monday! To all, welcome to today’s blog. More importantly, welcome to the official second half of 2022. We’ve made it this far. It’s time to assess where we are by doing {read more}
June’s Addition of Affirmations, centered around the summer season in the northern hemisphere. This affirmation track evokes the feelings of the end of the school year, firefly sightings, the warm breeze. Evenings around a fire. And other summery scenes which allow us to enjoy the season!
Please note today’s post is the first to include a bit of ‘story time’ with background on how I arrived on the self improvement journey. <3
Made it to day 14 of the new year! A bit of research on www.statista.com indicated the top 2 most common resolutions surround the topic of health: exercise and eating healthier. Interestingly, resolutions around family time popped up like never before according to forbes.com.
Making resolutions can be fun and hopeful, especially in the first few days of a new year when things feel fresh and we have 12 full beautiful months ahead! Think back on your own resolution-making. Can you pin-point specific years where you accomplished your goals and saw progress within the year of which they were set?
So far on BrightEyedSmiles, we have not discussed resolution setting, instead we focused on goal setting. The two are similar but not the same.
Resolutions are typically broad, something like ‘workout more’ or ‘save more money.’ An increasingly number of people are setting resolutions which is positive as long as they are more than passing thoughts.
My recommendation is to turn resolutions into specific goals with outcomes attached. Eat healthier becomes ‘cook at home 3 times a week, removing cheese from my diet’. Connect with family becomes ‘call my favorite cousin once a week, respond to texts within a day, make plans to social distant see sibling’.
Making a statement using the goal and it’s purpose results in an even stronger resolution! An example is: Cook 3 times a week and remove cheese so that I save money and my skin clears up.
That being said, let’s do a mid-month check-in with ourselves to see how we are feeling about the steps we have taken thus far to setup 2021 for success!
Hoping you have been following along the blog and perhaps your goals are set. Vision boards are in plan sight, and some soul searching is partially complete? Maybe you have even used the intention setting post this week!
Even if you have only just thought of your resolutions or only have your Word of the Year 2021 selected, it is still a good time to check-in on progress!
Word of the Year: Does it still fit for your 2021 dreams (be real with yourself!)
Focus Areas: Do you want to subtract or add anything?
Goals: Have you made progress, are you on track toward accomplishing your January goals? Do any adjustments need to be made? Can you schedule anything today to get them moving?
Timing: Is there anything you accomplished sooner than expected and want to rearrange your list?
Connect: I would love to hear how your year is going and what progress you have made!
Previously (and potentially surprisingly to this audience), my big life-changing decisions were most quickly implemented after some sort of eye opening event. Instead of the much easier route of disciplined goal setting. These events include but are not limited to: broken bones, a less than desirable working environment and a health scare. (I’m fine now don’t worry).
Each of these events ‘woke’ me up in a sense and, after getting through the initial shock, allowed me to become empowered. Each event changed my perspective and resulted in behavior changes. Positively impacting my physical body, honoring myself and actively expressing gratitude for what I am able to do.
Gradually through sometimes, small or subtle changes I was seeing drastic improvements. I figured out what type of position would work best for my personality and skill set and found a job that fit it – resulting in being truly happy everyday in my career. I learned and implemented the nutrition and feeding schedule which works best for me and my body. And after a handful of broken bones (yes we will have a story time sometime…) I started honoring my body and thanking it for what I am ABLE to do.
Not wanting to have to experience something bad for something good to come out, came deliberate and intentional study of self-improvement techniques. Knowing my ability to hyper-focus can become destructive, I tried to be gentle with myself in the first year of this process. Typically when I do change things, I go big, making decisions quickly and jumping all in (usually a burn the ship type moment: no looking back!).
I was going to add something here about how I didn’t go big but once I started thinking about the start of my serious commitment to the self-improvement journey it turns out I went big (ha!). Within 6 months of looking myself in the mirror and committing to better I: quit my job, started a business, got my puppies, started a new job, changed my eating habits and bought a house. Everything worked out in the end – as I believe it always must, however I would not recommend making such large changes so quickly!
The events that lit the fire occurred over a decade ago! The commitment to myself followed and the proactive self-improvement journey continues today (right this moment!)
Setting goals in advance that are personal to me, following up on them and adjusting to a way that fits me and seeing the results is pure bliss!
The best part about waking up is… wait wait wait that was a squirrel moment (and I’m guessing that little advert tune is stuck in your head now too!) Anyway – the best part about waking up each morning is knowing I am prepared for the day and looking forward to the fun (but safe) magical moments that have the opportunity to come about because of the space I plan for myself.
Here is to warm fires, inspirational people, focused minds and magical moments!
Intention setting provides a deliberate aim going into any day, meeting, phone call and especially workouts! As we go into a new week: the second full week of 2021, let’s keep the momentum of goal creation and dreaming big going! Throughout life you may have {read more}