There is a Season

I'm a planner.  I like to set goals and map out how I can get there.  I can make any plan look good on paper.  My 2010 New Year's Resolutions are awesome.  And they are still posted on my refrigerator because although they were great goals, I haven't accomplished many of them.

Life is really about making plans and being flexible enough to adjust as other things come your way.  That is what this summer has been.

My summer plans:

• Read a lot and do reviews for my book blog.  
• Add boot camp to the two times a week I was already at the gym so I'd get a good cardio and strength training workout at least 3 times a week.  
• Gradually build up my endurance so that by the end of the summer I could walk to the gym, do my circuit training or boot camp and walk home.  
• Daily tai chi and qigong to help prepare for the classes I will be a teaching assistant for in the fall.  
• Revise lesson plans, studio documents, and website for my voice studio.  
• Update my song catalog.
• Explore new musical theatre repertoire.
• Do most of the work for my NCTM.  (National music teacher certification program offered through MTNA.)
• Deep clean my house and keep up with regular cleaning. 
• Cut out dairy, chocolate, and sugar (all of which I know cause more pain, depression, inflammation, etc.) 
• Blog a lot on all 3 blogs.  

What I've really done towards those goals:

• Almost completed reading one book about teaching.  Read a few other books, but haven't really done any book reviews yet.  
• Cut back at the gym because I couldn't pay for boot camp or personal training. 
• Dealt with Fibromyalgia flare ups.  If I'm in pain at half a mile, it doesn't really matter if I have the physical endurance to go longer.  This kind of pain is not good to push through.  I definitely won't be achieving my walk to the gym goal.  
• I'm not even close to the daily tai chi practice that was my goal, but I did do 4 tai chi depth classes, teacher certification for seated tai chi and fall prevention, and a 1 day Shibashi workshop.
• I'm actually doing well with the goal to revise lesson plans, studio documents, and website for my voice studio.  It's not all done, but I am on target to be there by the time school starts.  
• Song catalog updates are slower than I planned.  This got bumped to the bottom of the priority list.  
• I have explored a little more musical theatre rep.  Again, not as much as I wanted, but not a total fail.  
• I had to drop the NCTM classes because I couldn't pay for them or the application.  I thought I would do more on my own, but other things got in the way.  
• Total fail on the cleaning stuff.  Again, other things got in the way or if I did actually have time, I didn't have energy.  
• Grief asked for chocolate ice cream (among other things.)  I could only cope with so much at once.  I'm doing better.  Today is day 3 sugar free.  I'm not cutting out all the dairy yet.  
• I've done some blogging, but it's been a hard summer for writing.  

What I wasn't planning on but spent more time and energy on instead:

• Grieving.  
• Stressing over money.  
• Exploring options to bring in more money.  I have some great plans for the future.  We'll see what actually gets done.  
• Digging, exploring, examining, and reflecting on what I believe and why.
• Planning for a big part I have in an upcoming fundraiser.
• I got involved in a new scripture study group in a new (to me) FB group.  
• Salad everyday (or almost every day.)  I can't get enough.  

I just have to keep reminding myself that I can't do everything right now. And as much as I plan, I have to also be flexible enough to deal with what life throws at me.  "To everything there is a season."  Unfortunately, I don't always get a lot of say in which season I'm in.  

Summer isn't over yet.  I'm interested to see what actually happens in these next few weeks.  

13 Baby Steps for 2013

If you were in my house today, you could go into my kitchen and see New Year's Resolutions posted on my fridge.  I put them there so I could remember them and focus on them.  Sadly, it's the list from 2010.  The good news is that I am making progress on those goals.  I'm just moving very slowly.  I'm leaving it up for this year too because I think that I need reminders of many of those same things.  You can see the list here.  

This year is all about baby steps--setting small goals that move me towards where I want to be, and being happy with those baby steps.  That's not easy.  I'm smart, talented, determined, and impatient.  I want to be good right now.  But years of living with fibromyalgia have taught me that I don't really get to decide what I can do each day.  Sometimes my body decides for me and it is all I can do to go to work and go to a drive-through window to get something for dinner.  

So since I'm continuing my 2010 resolutions, instead of new resolutions, I have 13 Baby Steps that I will take this year.  Ideally these would be daily things, but part of working with baby steps is understanding that they may not be steady and consistent, but they are moving, and that it what is important.  The amount of time spent on these doesn't matter either.  

1.  Do one thing each day towards keeping the house cleaner.  This can be as small as putting my dishes in the dishwasher.  

2.  Check the mail more often.  

3.  Smile at someone for no reason at least once a day.  

4.  Read.

5.  Sing.  

6.  Listen.  

7.  Play.  

8.  Write.  

9.  Meditate.  

10.  Breathe.  With intent.  

11.  Move.  

12.  Connect.  

13.  Feel joy.  

Simple.  Small.  Purposeful.  I may not accomplish anything grand this year, but I hope to spend more time in self-care, more time nurturing the things that bring peace to my life, and more time sharing that with others.  

By the way, 13 is my lucky number so you can expect to see lots of 13 themed posts this year.  

Resolutions and Goals

At this time of year, nearly every magazine, paper, and blog has something about New Year's Resolutions and over the years, I've probably read hundreds of articles about how to set goals and resolutions and actually achieve them. Sometimes the information was helpful and sometimes it wasn't. Like singing and dieting, there is a lot of information out there, but each of us as individuals must experiment and find what works for our own circumstances. Over the past few years, I've learned a lot about what works for me. If anything here works for you, feel free to steal it. Also feel free to totally ignore what doesn't work.

First, your goal or resolution must be something that you really want to do or achieve, not something you "should" do. If you don't have a real desire for it, it will be come one of those resolutions that you forget about by the end of January.

Second, your goal or resolution should be realistic. If you use words like "every" and "never", you are setting yourself up for failure. Yes, it's good to work toward that, but if you decide to exercise every day and then miss one day in February, you've blown the resolution for the whole year.

Third, when writing goals or resolutions, you need to take into consideration things that are beyond your control. You may seriously want the lead in the musical, and have the talent to get it, but you are not in charge of casting. The director may have a different look or sound in mind. A much better goal would be to work on your singing, dancing, and acting skills and give the best audition that you are capable of.

Fourth, goals and resolutions are more easily accomplished when broken down into baby steps. Make a list of things that you need to do in order to accomplish your goal and then work on those one at a time. You are less likely to get overwhelmed or frustrated this way, and celebrating those little steps gives you the encouragement to keep going.

Fifth, post your list of resolutions or goals where you can see if every day. This helps keep you on target. In 2008, my resolutions were on the fridge door, and I've never had a more productive year (as far as resolutions go anyway).

Sixth, if at any point during the year you realize that a resolution needs to be adjusted, make the changes. Don't just keep working towards something you don't want or that is unrealistic considering your current life situation.

I didn't do so well on my 2009 resolutions, so here are some revised ones for 2010.

My 2010 Resolutions

I resolve to be more realistic about what I can accomplish.

Personal care and enrichment
1. Make writing a priority for each day. Journal, novels, stories, blogs, and voice book all count.
2. Read things that challenge me and help me grow intellectually and spiritually. Think about what I read. Highlight, take notes, and write in the margins.
3. Keep on top of laundry, ironing, de-cluttering, cleaning, or managing finances. It's OK to just do a little bit of a job. A little is better than nothing.
4. Do something every day that makes me feel good. This is one of those where I think I can make an exception to the "every" rule.
5. Continue to improve my eating habits.
6. Continue to improve my exercise habits. (Aim for 12 days at gym every month.)

Money
1. Make smarter choices about my money.
2. Eat out less.
3. Increase savings deposits and look into CDs or other investment/savings options.

Work
1. When accepting new students, think first about how much stress it will add, and then about how much I need the money.
2. No new students after 5PM.
3. Continue working to find ways to push students without pushing them over the edge.

Some people might look at this and think that I'm not pushing myself very hard. It's true. I spent too many years pushing too hard, and sometimes for things that I didn't even want. By setting goals and resolutions like this, I give myself a little room to breathe and a lot less stress. Because this is totally doable, I don't waste time and energy beating myself up for failures. I can actually do quite a bit with these kinds of goals by just reminding myself of them frequently.

Goals, Baby Steps, and Accountability

With my alphabet soup of issues, disorders, and syndromes, it is very easy for me to get overwhelmed with all of my responsibilities with work, church, home, health, etc. The good news is that I'm usually pretty good about faking it around other people and still accomplishing what I have to, so most people don't know about the personal freaking out that is going on. Several months ago, I made a list of all the things that doctors, therapists, teachers, church leaders etc. said that I need to be doing every day and when I added up the time it was more than 24 hours. I can't do it all, but I can do more and gradually stretch myself toward those goals. I have found a plan that works for me, that allows me to feel like I'm accomplishing things and moving forward without feeling guilt--change that--without feeling as much guilt about the things I don't do.

Here's my plan:
On my fridge I have a list of 15 things that need to happen every day. Some are individual items and some are categories. For example, journaling and blogging count as the same item. I can't count it twice just because I blogged and wrote in my paper and pen journal. I started with a goal to do at least 3 items on the list everyday. I've gradually increased it to 7 items, but there are days that I do many more than that. Occasionally I even get the whole list. The important part is that I only have to do 7. Yes, there are days that it doesn't happen, but for the most part 7 is easy now, so I might be moving up to 8 soon.

The other great part is that I don't have to go all out with most of these. I can check off "doing the laundry" if I fold a few towels. The important part here is that I do some part of these items. Sometimes my scripture reading is one verse and sometimes that one verse leads to research on a topic and I take an hour to study. With all of these categories, doing a little usually gets me going and I can get more done than if I think about how big the task is and how long it will take to do it completely and perfectly.

So that's goals and baby steps. Now on to accountability. If I feel like I have to report to someone on something they want me to do, I end up resenting it. If I report on something that I want and am motivated to do, it keeps me on task. I recently started a practice journal on my other blog www.jmrvoicenotes.com. I want my students to practice more and at least make contact with their music every day. Since I want to do that too, I decided to blog about my practice so the students could check up on me and see if I'm doing what I said I would. Being accountable to friends is one thing, but being accountable to your students really puts the pressure on, in a good way. So far, I've done something everyday, and like the checklist on my fridge, the little things often lead to bigger things.

Based on the success of the practice journal model, I'm going to make myself accountable for something else on this blog--exercise. You wouldn't know it from looking at me, but I actually love to exercise. The problem is that by the time I take care of everything else, I often don't have the energy to get to the gym, let alone work out. So, I'm going with baby steps again. I get credit for exercising if I do any of these things: stretch, cardio at the gym, weights at the gym or home, physical therapy exercises, hallway laps between lessons, or dancing. Yes, I dance for exercise. No, you will never see it. I have the heart of a dancer, but even when I was really skinny, my body is just not proportioned well for dancing. I also have coordination issues. But, I love it, it's fun, and if the shades are closed I can do anything I want.

So my friends, there it is. The exercise journal might be kind of boring, so feel free to just notice that I did it and then skip it. However, if you see several paragraphs, you might want to check it out. I might have had a brilliant insight.

Covenants

Stephanie at diapersanddivinity.com (sorry, don't know how to make that a link yet) has a General Conference Book Club where she chooses a talk from Conference and then over the week, she and her readers share their thoughts, feelings, insights, etc. This is my comment in reponse to this week's talk.

(This is in reponse to a post by Becoming LDS.) I too thought about what covenants I had made. I like Elder Ballard's idea of the periodic review. Thanks for the link to the chart.
I get really overwhelmed when I think about covenants and how all-encompassing they are. Although I can understand intellectually how obeying commandments and keeping covenants actually frees us, I freak out over how much there is to do. (That's pretty common in my life.) I decided to apply something I've been doing in the rest of my life to my covenant keeping: mini-goals. Actually micro-mini goals. On my fridge is a list of about 12 things that HAVE TO happen every day. I consider it a good day if I get 4 of those done. By setting the bar low, I'm not so overwhelmed and I get more done that if I try to do all 12. Yesterday I hit 8 and felt great about it. (By the way, I don't think I've ever actually done all 12 in one day. And you know what? The world didn't come to an end.)

So I chose three things this week from my baptisimal covenants to think about more and try to do more. Am I doing everything I have covenanted to do? No, but I'm doing more than I was yesterday and I'm headed the right direction. As these 3 things get easier, I can add others. "Line upon line."