February's Three Little Words

Well, it's February now, so I suppose its time to move my thoughts and plans for 2015 (as promised) out of my head and into the writing realm. I've been "prepping" this post in my head for weeks now, as I tend to do, and realized that the things holding me back are exactly what I want to overcome this year. My good friend and blogger, Natasha Red, challenged her readers to choose a word to define their hopes for 2015. She chose three words, so I'm taking that liberty too! My 2015 words for the year are:

Author and researcher Brene Brown says, "we live in a culture with a strong sense of scarcity." Living as Americans, this is hard to imagine, but from the moment we wake up, our focus is on what we don't have enough of. "I didn't get enough sleep." "I don't have enough time to eat breakfast." "I don't have anything to wear." "Have I done enough to please my boss today?" "Have I worked enough hours?" "Did I spend enough time with my spouse?" "Did I get enough exercise today?" The list never ends... If we are not careful, the time/money/days/opportunities will slip away, right in front of our eyes. I for one do not want that to happen. I want everything I do to have a purpose. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31) I want my work to be intentional. I want to be intentional about building relationships, developing and nurturing friendships, and strengthening my marriage. I want to make things happen, not let things happen to me.

This word - enough - is a mantra in itself that helped me a lot through the latter part of last year. It is a Biblical truth that I so often lie to myself about. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:14) I am more than enough, made in the image of God. I don't have to do anything to be good/successful/smart/beautiful enough. I just put a sign on the wall in my bedroom that reads, "let whatever you do today be enough." One small word, one huge impact on the way I talk to and love myself.

Another gift I received from Natasha Red was awareness of an incredible product I'm just now diving into, Lara Casey's Power Sheets. One of Lara's themes is, "progress, not perfection." Yes. When I set BIG goals, like I'm doing this year, I have to focus on so much more than the end product or the ultimate picture. Instead, I must look ten steps ahead (not ten miles) and make daily/weekly/monthly progress towards my goals. Progress is encouraging, it's nurturing, it drives me to keep moving towards good goals. Perfection is paralyzing, unattainable, and discouraging. "Progress, not perfection."

Moving forward this year, I plan on sharing, more specifically, my monthly breakdown of "goals with grace" for 2015. I want to create accountability as well as choose faith over fear by writing down what I'm working towards. For now, here are some overall goal themes I've set for 2015:

1. Let God's word be a lamp unto my steps. I'm striving to spend every day in the word, and read through the entire Bible this year. I'm following a chronological plan on my phone app to help keep me on track, but I'm also journaling along with my reading for thoughts, application, and questions.
2. Get back to the basics health wise. Eat more vegetables. Drink more water. Do more yoga. Integrate more essential oils into my life. Go to be earlier. Nothing complicated, just good old tried and true healthy living.
3. Use encouraging words. With myself. With others.
4. Put my marriage first. Weston and I have already started a fun new habit of scheduling a lunch appointment together once a week to make sure we are intentional about our time together.
5. Pursue the passions God has placed in my heart. I'm starting to set and stretch for some professional goals that align with the strengths, passions, and desires God has placed in my heart. To start, I am regularly praying for Him to give me opportunities to do so. Faith over fear.
6. Spend less, give more. In pursuit of a simpler life, I'm looking for opportunities to give the gifts God has entrusted us to steward away, while minimizing the worldly clutter in my own life.
7. Read more books that interest me. For the past 22 months I've had my reading pretty much laid out for me. And while many of my graduate school material was very interesting, I'm looking forward to keeping that learner habit going once the books stop being assigned.
8. Use our home to bring glory to the Lord. From the moment we decided to move, Weston and I both agreed that we would do so only under the intentional practice of opening our home to serve others and build fellowship. We're off to a great start, and we plan to have many more parties and dinners here with family and friends each month.
9. Blog well and blog more often. Each time I meet you here, I am fed. I hope that sometimes, I feed you. God has given me a gift and a thirst to share my words, and I'm going to do it more often and more purposefully this year.
10. Find a work rhythm. Working from home with a flexible schedule is still very new and different to me. From designing a better work space to learning to better block my time and schedule, I want to get into an efficient and effective work groove.

2015 is going to be a BIG year. It's the year I'll graduate with my masters degree (9 more weeks, but who's counting!). It's a year I am putting goals out there, BIG goals, and taking daily steps toward achieving them. It's the year I move past daily to-dos and into the land of BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals). It's a year for growing physically, growing spiritually, and growing personally. It's a year to walk closer to God, pursue His will passionately, and push aside my own fears for faith. 

What are your words for 2015?

The Dreaded 10 Year Question

Last week in my MOL 601 (Strategic Planning) class, the professor announced that we'd be heading out for ice cream and to have a discussion. This isn't uncommon, and is actually a treat. That is, until he announced the topic of discussion. "I want you to think about where you want to be in 10 years. Think about what strengths you have to get you there, and what obstacles might get in the way." Sheer. Panic. I am an open book. Literally, ask me anything. Just don't ask me that. This might be tied with, "so what do you want to do with your Masters?" as my least favorite question. I was paralyzed, and for a split second, weighed the cost of just skipping out on the ice cream and disappearing altogether!

If you know me, you may be scratching your head, wondering why a goal-setting, achiever like me was making such a big deal out of a frequently asked question. Let's start with the paralysis that comes from fearing if I say a plan, out loud, and then don't achieve it, it will be viewed as failure (primarily by me). Without a spelled out plan, I can succeed as I go along, because I (or anyone else) won't have specific, measurable objectives for myself and my own life. Now don't worry, I'm not wandering completely lost through life, I'm just better at defining what's on my to-do list for the next week. I can taste and feel those things. To-do lists are good. Lists with items that won't get checked off for a decade, not as good.

I was ruminating over this with a friend/mentor earlier this week, and she shared a perspective I could appreciate. She asked me, "ten years ago, where were you, and would you ever have imagined you'd be where you are now?" Ten years ago I had a different last name. I was just beginning my senior

year of high school. 17 years old and on top of the world. My highest priorities were cheerleading, show choir, youth group, and dance. I was taking Honors Physics (yuck), French 5 (tres chic), AP this, AP that, Political Activism (working on Bush's campaign much to my father's chagrin), and tirelessly working to preserve 10+ years of a 4.0 (which also, at the time, seemed like the most important thing in my world). I was gearing up to miss an insane amount of school (all excused) for school trips from debate tournaments to Youth in Government to my first trip to NYC with my marketing class. I was intently focused on maintaining an imagined perfect balance of academic excellence, extracurricular involvement, and community service entrenchment to make me the most desired college applicant around. Academic lab (study hall) was spent giggling around a table in my mom's classroom, making lists with friends of the qualities we hoped to find in our future spouses. I'd venture to say that things like "tall, dark, handsome, rich, and doctor" topped the list (priorities folks). Weekends were spent in friends' basements or at Kay Bova (Steak and Shake for those of you non-St.Louisians) where I consumed copious amounts of gluten and dairy and never gained a pound. I was counting the months until a spring break cruise to Mexico. With starry eyes, I was dating the first boy who'd ever told me he loved me, and assumed that I was feeling all love had to offer. Though I didn't know it, in just five short months, I'd say my last goodbye (this side of heaven) to the greatest teacher I'd ever had. One who was so influential in my life, I took for granted that I'd eventually look out at my wedding and see him in the row with my family. The dining room table of my parents' house was littered with college applications, college brochures, college essays, and financial information for the FAFSA. None of them were for Drury because, "my sister went there and we're nothing alike, plus it's smaller than my high school!" The official plan was to live in the honors dorm at the University of Missouri, where I was pre-admitted to the J-School, and major in Public Relations. (The real plan in my head was to be a Rockette.) I'd chosen Public Relations because I thought I could do anything with it, which was a good strategy for me, as in the span of a week I'd change my mind for career plans a dozen times. I'd wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, a lawyer, a business woman, a doctor with a law degree, a doctor with an MBA (you can see my love of school runs deep). I thought I'd live in St. Louis forever, or if not the Lou, Chicago, New York, or another big city (where, naturally, my life would bear a striking resemblance to Carrie Bradshaw's in Sex in the City).

Christian author/blogger, Donald Miller, penned a post this week that caught my eye in light of my forward, or lack thereof, thinking. In his post, I'm Glad I'm Not the Same Guy who Wrote Blue Like Jazz, Miller responds to critics who "miss" the author he was a decade ago when he released his first bestseller. What he also reveals, is that he was quite a different guy 10 years ago (think 150 pounds heavier, no wife, no money). "People are designed to grow, and if they don't, it's because something's wrong." Miller refreshingly highlights that our creator God designed us to grow and develop, and to learn about Him, love, and ourselves a little more each day. Consequently, he questions why any of us would want to stay the same. I don't want to stay the same. Do you?

Photo Credit: Margot Lied

I may not know what I want my job title to be in 10 years, or even if I'll want to have a job outside our home while (God-willing) raising our kiddos. But I know this, in 10 years, I want to be a better, stronger version of myself. I want to have learned more, bought less, built deeper relationships, loved more, and showed the love of The Lord to more people. Whether I'm a writer, or a speaker, or a consultant, or a mother, or a combination of those and other titles, I want to know, share, and give more to others than I can/do today. In the next 10 years, I plan to read a lot of books, listen to a lot of sermons and TED Talks, try tons of new recipes, write many blog posts, travel to dozens of countries, eat a lot of real food, and burn a few hundred calories (let's hope that's weekly, or I'll have a Donald Miller story on my hands)! It doesn't matter what house (or city) I'll be living in, but I hope to be (God-willing alongside Weston) entertaining friends and family in multitudes at a full dinner table every night, with house guests on most weekends.

It is okay to get better. In fact, I think it's God's will for each one of us. It's okay to desire, dream, even announce in blog "stone" that I will, in fact, be a better version of myself in 10 years, and you can hold me to that. So, where do you see yourself in 10 years?