Welcoming February!

We are still masters of our fate.

We are still captains of our souls.

This morning as I was going about my Monday morning routine of doing laundry and folding and putting away what seemed like a mountain of clothes, I tried to make the very best use of my time, as most women do, by multi-tasking.  I watched/listened to a video by Stephan James at Project Life Mastery entitled Goal Setting Workshop - The 100 Day Challenge. See Stephan's video here I took notes while I listened and surprisingly stayed on track with my laundry goals. (This is Tuesday, by the way.) 

Why do I mention that?  I mentioned that because I am off target for my goal of doing laundry on Mondays.  Why am I off target? Because other obligations came up.  Good obligations, meaningful obligations, but offsetting obligations none the less.  I say this, because in the past, if I failed at some goal, my normal response/reaction would be to get lazy and let it slide.  I would likely allow it to creep over into many other areas of my life. I would unknowingly lose confidence in myself and my ability to achieve, and in my darkest moments I would feel my life was meaningless and allow myself to wallow in self-pity and become depressed. My life has been a rollercoaster of big dreams and big ideas, little successes but seemingly many more deserted dreams and many failures.  Don't get me wrong, my life is overall VERY HAPPY, but I have always felt that, paraphrasing Dr.Wayne Dyer, "I had music within me that I was letting die."  I had more potential than I was using on a daily basis.

And to think all of those roller coasters could have started from a few undone loads of laundry, or a few days/weeks/months of not working out, or one bag of barbeque Krunchers after a stressful day of work at the Psychiatric Unit at Christian NE Hospital, knowing that I had been procrastinating on doing assignments that were due for my classes at SIUE.

If you let your goals slide for 1 day, it's not so bad, but it can have a cumulative effect if you allow it to happen for a week or a month or a year.  Although I know that I have achieved many things throughout my life, I still feel as though I have let my big goals and understanding the real importance of my goals and the mastering of how to set and achieve my goals, slip through my fingers for the past 33 years. (Some of you might not have known or guessed I was that old!  Thank You!) So at 50 years old, I am not giving up on mastering my fate and directing my soul toward bigger and better days and fostering in me the increasing ability to give to and to serve others in meaningful and enriching ways.

Today I am continuing to work on my Goals for 2018.  Yes, I have some but I don't feel that they are SMART enough.  See how to set SMART Goals here I have made sure to have written goals for the past five years.  These goals that I had set to the best of my ability definitely helped me get to where I am today.  They have helped keep me on track and propel me (and my husband, much to his chagrin at times) forward. Of course we still have a ways to go, but truly, we always will if we continue to challenge ourselves to grow and dream and create. That is the JOURNEY!  That is LIFE!  What a very happy prospect there is in that!

I sincerely THANK YOU all who have read this far!  I know your time is precious and I do so appreciate you being here.  To you I commit to post my 2018 SMART Goals on February 14, 2018, an idea I got from a recent Forbes article.  

Now I bid you adieu. I must go put the whites in the dryer and get back to learning how to edit on my Paint Shop Pro 9x photo editing program.  I am still working on getting some images ready to post to fill you in on the travel status of my Pastoral Cow. I will plan on posting that tomorrow (Wednesday).  And then you'll want to stay tuned for The Other Obligations.  It could be very exciting!

So adios, adieu, au revoir and peace out...till next time, Wishing  you happiness always,

Ronda