With a new month, comes new opportunities! I didn’t start my new year off the way I would have wanted to due to catching the flu…but, now I realize that IT’S OK! Things don’t always go the way we plan. Being a perfectionist, I tend to beat myself up when things don’t go according to my plans. I didn’t start the New Year with any resolutions but I did have important tasks and goals that I wanted to accomplish in January in order to “start the year off right”. Well, that didn’t happen. I spent the first two weeks of 2018 either in bed or on my couch. If you know me at all, this is very unusual behavior. It felt foreign but, I literally could not move. The flu hit me like a ton of bricks. After I recovered, I realized that I only had a couple of weeks to accomplish all the tasks I had assigned myself for the month. Enter panic mode! Thoughts began pouring in…well, more like self-criticism: That little voice inside my head said things like, “How could you be sick for so long? You’re always letting yourself down. How are you ever going to catch up now?” That mean girl voice haunted me for about a day until…
I was vocalizing to someone close to me what my inner bully kept repeating inside of my head. Their answer was simple and it made me put things into perspective: “It’s just a number. It’s just a date. January 1st? Why does it really matter which day you start?” They were right! Why was January 16th any different than January 1st? After all, the Chinese New Year is February 16th and Rosh Hashanah isn’t even for like another eight and a half months. So, why was I so worried about getting a late start? Who says I’m late? Beating myself up wasn’t getting me anywhere either. In fact, it had brought me to a complete halt. I couldn’t think straight of what I needed to do because I was so consumed thinking about why I had let myself down. I realized that there are situations that are completely out of my control, like catching the flu. I decided that day that I would just start. That’s really what matters the most anyways, right? That we start moving in the right direction…towards our goals.
In December, I had ordered a goal planner for 2018 and hadn’t even peaked inside. One of my tasks for the New Year was to go through it and fill it out. I did that, not on January 1st as I would’ve hoped, but on January 16th. And, I was perfectly fine with it. This was my first time ever seeing the Powersheets that I had heard so much about from other organizers. I feel in love instantly with them. The whole process was eye opening. As I answered a series of questions in the first section, I felt like I got to really know myself and what I really wanted. This isn’t your normal “new year, new me” goal setting. There is some serious soul searching that is uncovered as you fill in the blanks. It was odd and somewhat painful to write down my fears, doubts and past struggles. Wasn’t this supposed to be positive? It’s a goal planner after all, right? Soon I would discover that there was a purpose to all of it. Only by writing down the obstacles that had hindered me from achieving my goals in the past, would I be able to figure out how to overcome them and succeed. Page by page, the Powersheets helped me cultivate a plan that I could follow that would ultimately bring me closer to my goals. I learned through the process that it’s not about doing things perfectly all the time. That’s just plain exhausting! Trust me. (Been there. Done that. Not going back.) It’s about making progress, little by little, towards the things that really matter. Every day is an opportunity for us to move forward. Each new month brings not only new opportunities but, it also gives us a chance to reflect on our past actions. To learn what worked and what didn’t the month before. Thinking back on January, I learned that it’s never too late to begin…anything, whatever it might be. Whether it’s getting organized, starting an exercise routine, or filling out your goal planner…just start. Today! Even if it is February 1st. And, if that mean girl voice starts up again inside your head, tell her to hush up. “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”