Happy spring.
Back in January, we talked about being brave before being good, meaning we need to trust that if we take steps toward our goals, no matter how scared we are, success and achievement will eventually come.
Perhaps you read that blog and thought OK, I’m ready to go after it. Maybe you told others your plans, learned the Bullet Journal method and began laying the groundwork for something BIG.
I know I did. I set three goals for myself and my business this year. I wanted to increase my speaking engagements by 40 percent, launch group-coaching cohorts and write a book proposal.
Now that April is here and the first quarter of 2019 is behind us, I think it’s a good time to check in on our progress, to take a moment to reflect on the steps we’ve taken or to recalibrate and show ourselves some grace if we’ve encountered setbacks or have yet to get going. Here’s some food for thought.
If you’ve made big strides
Take time to celebrate. We’re all guilty of pushing that goal post farther and farther away, believing that if we don’t, we might lose momentum. But if we don’t pause to acknowledge a job well done, we rob ourselves of a feel-good experience—one that reinforces the behaviors that got us here in the first place. Book a massage, buy yourself some flowers, go for a walk without your phone. Do something to thank yourself for putting in the work.
If you’ve tried and failed
Remember it’s not all or nothing. Achievement is the result of a million tiny steps. It’s incremental. Consider how a book is written—one word at a time. There are many edits and rewrites. Training for a marathon requires hours and hours of logged runs; some of them bad, and some of them good. If you hit a roadblock, recognize it as part of the process—not the end result. Try again.
If you haven’t gotten started
Make space. Go back and read this blog about carving out time and energy so that transformation can happen. When we’re not intentional about making time to better ourselves, we can’t be surprised when nothing changes. Try setting aside five minutes a day this week to journal, update your resume, research online classes—something that will get your wheels turning. Next week, make it 10 minutes.
For my part, I’ve booked a speaking engagement each month through September (including a dream gig at Nike!). I launched my first group-coaching program in February and am already plotting my next. (Stay tuned.) And I attended a writer’s workshop so I can learn more about the book proposal process. It’s taken a lot of work to get here, but I’m glad I did it.
Let’s head into Q2 with a renewed focus.
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