“Start as you mean to go on.”
She was saying it in reference to parenting, basically meaning you should approach each task with the end result in mind, and act in a way that will get you there. It’s total common sense, but sometimes the things that are most logical, or obvious, are still the hardest to actually carry out.
I consider myself a goal oriented and strategic person, but still I find myself at times wading through life as if I don’t have a plan. And sometimes....I don’t. I have a vision of the end goal- how I want my life to look in the not-too distant future, but I’m not always the best about setting out (or executing) a path to get me there. For example- I’d love to have dinner every night as a family. But do I meal plan, and grocery shop, and strive to get out of work on time, and resist the urge to just pick up pizza? Not always. And I’d love to feel fit, and strong, and maintain my flexibility throughout this pregnancy. But do I make working out a top priority? Ummmmm, no.
I can see the road from point A to point B, but it can be hard to get my feet moving in that direction. It’s seems so non-sensical. Especially to such a black and white logic lover like myself. I shouldn’t expect my life, my job, my marriage, or my family to magically turn out a certain way, without intentional steps towards that end. But sometimes life seems to go so quickly that days, weeks, or months pass with us just mindlessly moving, verses purposefully striving.
This year I didn't make resolutions. I didn't have a great reason not to. But I think I was a bit overwhelmed with the idea of all that's on my plate right now, so the idea of making a list of more must do's just wasn't appealing. But a concept I thought sounded intriguing, is rather than making resolutions, writing out a vision of my future life. Picturing what I want our life to look like in three, six, twelve months would help make some of my more abstract goals take shape. Once I see where I really want to be, it'll be a lot harder to ignore the fact that I need to design a path to get there, versus just coasting and hoping for the best.
So I'm still forming my direction...but I'm starting...and I plan to go on.
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Love this. And love this series you and Meg started! "Direction" really had me thinking. Can't wait for next month's word!
ReplyDeleteThanks! So glad to have you join our journey!
DeleteI love, love, love the idea of a vision for what you want your life to be like. It's perfect,allowing room for necessary growth, but also room for grace, which resolutions seem to lack. Once you "fail" at a resolution it feels like you can''t as easily just keep trying. Plus, the circumstances of our lives change so much from year to year (or even month to month) that what is acceptable for January may be different for June. Love this. Great post on direction, Courtney.
ReplyDeleteSo funny...I just wrote a comment SO much like this on Meg's blog. I hadn't even realized until after I wrote this, and read her entry, that we were both looking for ways to do the resolution thing, without the failure part. I know you have a lot of goals for 2013, hopefully keeping the big picture vision in mind will help you achieve them!
DeleteI haven't even read past the first line as I'm sitting here with my jaw dropped that we used the exact same phrase in our post about direction: start as you mean to go on? (seriously?). Of course I said a whole mess of more words than you, but still.... how in the world... whoa.
ReplyDeleteso so weird. Honestly this is the third time this week that you've proved we're sharing at least a portion of a brain. (related story...I seem to be getting dumber recently. I was blaming pregnancy, but maybe you've just borrowed too much of my brain power? Turns out I didn't have that much to spare! Make me a crunchwrap and we'll call it even....)
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