Happy Sunday purples!
It’s another beautiful day on the Gold Coast! I hope it is just as beautiful wherever you are today! This is my first blog for the year and the first one in a while. I had an unintentional break from a few things at the end of last year, which is a nice way of saying I slacked off! Sometimes we need to do that though and that is partly what my blog is about today.
I had a massive year last year! I set myself some massive goals and while I achieved some of them, there are some that I didn’t achieve. So by the time I got to December, I had 2 choices. I could either go hell for leather in a mad dash to the finish line to try and achieve them…….or not. I could take my foot off the pedal for a few weeks, have some time out, enjoy the holiday season and rest and recharge in preparation for hitting the ground running in the new year. I chose the latter approach. Now don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the mad dash approach is always wrong…..sometimes that is exactly how I have achieved some of my goals in the past…..I am one of the world’s biggest procrastinators so it has unfortunately come with the territory a lot in my life! However this time, I didn’t feel that it was right for me to do that. I got to a point where I sat down and looked at what goals I hadn’t achieved and really thought about whether it was possible and/or beneficial to try and finish them in such a short period of time. I also thought about why I hadn’t achieved them yet. I realized a few things in the process. Firstly, if I was being realistic, I wasn’t going to be able to finish the projects in the time that I had left. I would certainly get closer to achieving them, but I wouldn’t get them done by the end of the year which is the time frame that I had set. I also realized that with one of them, the finished product probably wouldn’t be as good if I was under pressure to get it done, as it would be if I took more time and thought about it a lot more.
Another conclusion that I came to, and probably the most important one, is why I hadn’t already achieved those goals. I had a whole year, and they were definitely realistically achievable over that time frame. It’s not because I couldn’t be bothered putting in the effort or that they weren’t really, really important to me. Or that I ran out of time. They are actually some of the goals that are THE most important to me and I have been trying to achieve them for a while. It’s because I am scared. I am scared of what will happen after I actually do achieve those goals. Part of me knows that only wonderful things will come from achieving them, but there is still that part of me that say’s “but what if…..?!”. So many of us let fear hold us back from doing things. It’s a hard thing to get past, but get past it we can. I decided on New Year’s Eve 2016 that I was going to do my very best to not let fear hold me back from things anymore and so that very night I did something I had never done before because I was always too scared to in the past and I had the best night! I have even started to make a habit of it and did another thing just this morning that I haven’t done before because I was scared. That wasn’t so much fun, but nothing bad happened and I am still alive to tell the tale!
So let’s make this year different! Let’s make a decision to do things despite our fears this year, whatever they may be. What is the worst thing that can happen? It might be one of the best things you have ever done and even if it’s not, you will be so proud of yourself for doing it and not letting fear hold you back. Get out of your comfort zone and know that every single time you do it, it gets easier. Lastly, if you’re like me and you didn’t achieve all that you wanted to achieve last year, don’t stress about it. I bet you are closer than you were at the start of last year, or maybe you also have some fears to deal with as I do. We’re going to work on that aren’t we?! Pat yourself on the back for achieving what you have, reset your goals and keep working on them. As long as we don’t give up and keep plugging away at them, we WILL get there in the end. Here’s to a brand new year, one that I know will be even more awesome than normal where we achieve more of our goals and conquer our fears, whatever they may be. Happy New Year everyone and have a great week!
Shari
Xoxo