January Gone

The new year is fully underway, with January gone and February already nearly a week old! It's that time when the freshness of the year wears off, when excitement for goals wanes, and endurance must take over--do you feel that?

So often when I start a goal, I end up at a different place than where I first aimed. It's not that I fail utterly, it's more that the goal evolves, perhaps because of an improved perspective. That doesn't look great on a spreadsheet, status update, or clever planner page, but I like that I can recalculate my route whenever I need to.

In the last generation, the tide of self-help advice has rolled toward not announcing your goals, because telling them, and then having people congratulate or offer support feels to the brain like satisfaction, and then the motivation to do the actual work goes down.


It seems that saying the goal can feeling like doing it. I know this happens to me. I mistake my intentions for reality all. the. time. and it messes me up.

I have started some things this year.  Already,  some efforts have shown progress. Some haven't. I'm not yet ready to give up on any of my ideas--I just need to give them some love and time. If you rip a seed out of the ground to see if the roots have started, well, that's not good.

I'm going to let my little seeds do their thing and maybe, if the results are good, I'll share the whole story. If not, I can always try again, and without the temptation to feel shamed by the mistaken notion that I'm letting people down. I only have myself to let down, and I'm getting much better at not doing that. I'm much more likely, here at the middle of my life, to feel like I'm doing my best according to the metrics I've created for myself. I believe that's how my Heavenly Father sees me, and since I'm trying to follow His example, I need to see myself that way.

How's your 2017 so far?