December Sieres: Set Yourself Up For A Successful 2018
I’m so excited!
While everyone is posting about Christmas, (which is fun, fine, and dandy) I’ve decided to dedicate this month to prepping for a successful 2018! Yes my Christmas spirit is alive and well, but I don’t want to feel blindsided once 2018 hits and I have no plan. That’s no good! So . . . . I’m hoping you’ll join me and get set to crush some major goals come the new year!
Our personal results from last years goal setting: a year in retrospect
2017 was a year of great change for our little family. We crushed some major goals. It still feels unreal. I killed some business objectives, and together Travis and I accomplished some wonderful life goals. Like truly, this year has forever altered our future. We went into 2017 with the mantra, “We will do this year different.”
Whenever something tried to derail our progress, (it happened a lot early on in 2017) Travis and I would sit down and go okay, this is how we would have handled it in the past, but how are going to go about it now? We saw a financial advisor, sold Travis’s truck and took out a smaller loan for a car. Next we evaluated our bills because it was our goal to move in the next few years and things had to get tight so we could start paying stuff off. We made a ton of mistakes, but I truly believe God rewards a heart that’s willing. And believe you me, we were willing.
Another great revelation of 2017 for me personally was huge. Are you ready? It was: balance & the ability to let go.
All About Balance
These two seemingly small things, balance and letting go, added up to a huge shift in how I now run my business and life. I kept reading over and over that you had to put your head down and work work work to accomplish your goals. That if you took this time and pretty much didn’t have a life, later on you’d be able to have an amazing life.
So that’s what I attempted to do. I placed family, friends, everything on the back burner so I could start this hugely successful business so someday, later on, I’d be able to have a life. To me everything was an inconvenience if it deterred me from my work. Pretty soon I felt like my life was a inconvenience and that if everyone could just handle themselves for a bit I’d be able to do what I needed to do to be successful. But, what I finally realized was that life was passing me by little by little and that these things I was calling inconveniences were really pivotal points in life that I’d never get back.
My kids aren’t inconveniences, my husband isn’t one either. They are my treasures. I’m ashamed to admit for a brief time I didn’t see them that way. And it still crushes me. I’m not saying I didn’t still love them with all my heart, but they took a backseat. I was told that was how it had to be, and that was wrong. So wrong. I’m okay now with slower growth, less work but making sure that what I do is quality, and spending every precious moment I can with those I love. That was HUGE for me. Balance. What’s the point of a thriving business if everything else is falling apart? Perspective right?
Letting go
I also had a few lessons in letting go. For a long time, letting go felt like failure. If I quit something I told myself it was because I was weak, ineffective, inadequate. Man, the guilt trips we give ourselves right? This is why everyone is always saying the biggest battles we will face are against the person looking back at us from the mirror. Why we always see the bad first I’ll never know.
When I really started to dig into the reasons why I wanted to quit specific things, it was because what I started out doing didn’t end up gratifying my soul like I’d hoped. I could continue doing it, but it caused me anxiety, made me on edge, and wasn’t improving the quality of my life or that of my family’s. Instead it was making us all on edge. That wasn’t okay. And again I got the guilt trips from others. Don’t quit! Just keep going until you make it work. You are focusing on the wrong things. Change your perspective and keep going.
Enough!!!!
I know what’s best for me. And what I was trying to accomplish wasn’t worth the strain it was placing on me.
The freedom I felt after letting go was beautiful. It’s like I had a belt cinched so tight for months and I was turning blue trying to constantly catch my breath. Once I said enough, the belt was released and for the first time in a long time I could truly take a deep breath. A chest expanding, back bending, full on inhale. I felt happy again. I hadn’t even realized I wasn’t before.
I’m a firm believe that you can learn something from everything. Even though I quit a few things, what I learned from those experiences fueled what I did next. It helped me to know more what it was I truly wanted to do, and how to go about it.
Talk about a year of growth and revelations!
Set YOUrself up for a successful 2018
Last year was a blast, and I’m hoping this year will be even better! You are formally invited to join my free Facebook Successful 2018 group!
How the group is going to go down:
We’ll be following the 12 Week Year. Buy it, borrow it from a friend, check it out from your local library. I don’t care how you get it, just have it by January 1st. I like to buy my books so I can highlight the crap out of them, but you can also grab a binder to write in and take notes on for cheap.
I’ll be giving chapter assignments daily and each day I’ll go live and talk about the previous chapters and how to apply that to your life/business and give some examples from personal experience. We’ll talk about our goals, share a bit, and make vision boards. It’s going to be a blast.
Every wednesday this month I’ll be doing posts related to starting the year off on the right foot. Like what planners I use and why, how to overcome doubt, and more. I truly hope you join! Also, feel free to add friends and friends of friends to our Facebook Goal Group. It’s going to be a blast!
Get ready to crush some major goals this next year. It’s going to be a blast doing it with a bunch of friends!
Great post Eryn! Thank you for the raw truth that we all experience, but don’t want to tell. Excited for the new year. 2018 here we come. : )
Perspective and attitude truly set the tone for me, I find just adjusting one or the other (and sometimes both!) situations can be turned around.
I love what you say about letting go and allowing ourselves to choose what is best for ourselves without guilt. 🙂
It’s all such a journey! <3
Yay! for an (almost) new year! I love “letting go”…I’m not always good at it, but it is something I am working on. Thanks for sharing this post…considering your FB group.
Yes please join! There’s really nothing you “have to do” in it, it’s all at your own pace what you choose to do. I’m just hoping getting us all together will help create focus and direction for the new year and we can learn from each other!
I’m looking forward to joining you on this journey. I also struggle sometimes to find the right balance. I just want to get on with things fast but it’s good to slow down and concentrate on quality rather than quantity. Well said.
Exactly! Quality trumps everything else! I learned that the hard way! So glad your joining!
This sounds like a great resource for fantastic 2018!!
I sure think it will be! xoxo