Messy Monday: Goal Setting, Sharing Burdens, and Looking Ahead

This week's Messy Monday will hopefully encourage you as we come into the holidays and begin a new year. You matter to me. That is why I write. Your heart, mind, body, needs are worth investing in. Other's have done it for me, so I write for you.

Goal Setting: I have experienced goal setting with no goals met, some goals met, and all goals met. I have learned over the years a few handy tips I will share with you:

• The 1-3-5 format has been the single most helpful strategy I have ever used. If you want a copy let me know. I learned to use it from my coach and long time dear friend Terry Gurno. 
• Set FUN goals, things that will stretch you in different ways. For example, my last remaining goal for 2018 is to buy a pair of fantastic red shoes. I am not a shoe-a-holic at all and deliberately choosing to buy shoes because I have always wanted a pair, happens to be a stretch for me. 
• Don't wait until January of the new year to set goals. NOW is the best time to not only set them, but achieve them. 

If you want help, I can help you. Most people I know that achieve their goals work hard to do it, have people alongside them helping them reminding them their uniquely crafted purpose can be accomplished by no one else, and every goal set and met makes this happen. 

Sharing Burdens: The messiness of life can make a person feel overwhelmed and overcome by feelings of inadequacy, failure, and insignificance. This can be remedied by sharing your burdens in these ways: 

• Leaning into your faith. Wherever you are in your faith journey, lean in. If your faith is in God, lean there and pray, if it is in yourself, family or friends, lean there, regardless, you can't do it alone. 
• Trusted friends who can handle you speaking out your struggle without judgement and remind you of your value.
• Collaborate with trusted resources. For us, in this season of life (sons in elementary, middle and high school), we work with school administrations, teachers, counselors, youth pastors, and others who have navigated this season ahead of us. 

Don't hold your burdens close to your chest like a hand in poker. Bluffing your way through life or knowing you hold all the cards everyone else needs is equally unhelpful to you and those around you. 

Looking ahead: The rules of horseback riding - Eyes up, shoulders back, heels down. Where you look is where you'll go. My best friend and I went riding together all the time. She rode her quarter horse and I rode her little black Welsh pony named Licorice. That little thing dumped me more than once. Sometimes it was because I was looking down, hunched over, or had my legs bunched up. Sometimes I ended up looking down as I headed face first into the street/dirt/shrubs. Life feels like that, even if you don't have far to fall. 

One of the most powerful things I learned during my years in the saddle was what happens to my body when I look forward. My core holds me upright and centered, while the rest of me settles, softens, and becomes fluid with the movements of the horse. I haven't been in the saddle in years and I still remember that feeling. I use that awareness when dealing with hard things from being in labor, writing, parenting, doing a triathlon, etc. 

Using My VOICE

I am coming in to the home stretch of the Five Minute Free Writes for the month of October. Honestly, this has been a good stretch for me mostly because it has forced me to write every day and try to strip down a topic I could write a thousand words on down to what I can type up in 5 minutes. Today's prompt is VOICE.

My VOICE prefers to be used for hope, speaking life, and blessing the people around me. It doesn't always get used for that, but it is definitely my preference and something I work hard to be consistent at.

A few days ago I posted a blog about kids cussing. One I agreed with - about how cussing isn't the ultimate bad words. You can read it here if you are curious (there is cussing in it, so be warned). I had a few friends respond about how cussing isn't good for anyone ever, how it shows a lack of imagination and disrespect. I don't disagree but I also do not intend to spend any time making sure my kids don't cuss.

We believe in teaching our sons how to use their VOICE to stand up for the hurting, speak up for the disrespected and declare the positive perspective. We spend our time focusing on who we want them to become, how we want them to speak and helping them discover their own VOICE in the context of the world today. Spending time on what we "don't" want them to do or become makes the focus on the "not to-s" not the "you are-s"

We have taught them they are Mighty Men called by God to speak life and blessing. This kind of rules out cussing as a regular option by default. They don't always do it. Neither do we. But, for our family, speaking life into our sons is about the you are ______, you can _______, not don't _______.

Messy Monday:Teeth Marks, Home Decor, and Rewards

This is my third Messy Monday post and it is likely to be just barely still Monday when I finish it. It's been a heck of a week. Not bad or good depending on your definition of those terms, but for sure MESSY!

Teeth Marks:  I grew up in Southern California on a hillside with tons of field mice. One year my Barbie case housed my Barbie, her accessories, and a large family of mice. We didn't find out until after the smell and the holes revealed their invasion of Barbie's space.

When I found this, in our garage, I had a flashback to my childhood Barbie case/nest. I'm not going to lie, I gagged a little.

Battling anxiety daily, I find this disturbing. Who knows when those nasty critters will invade?

Seriously though, freaking about what COULD happen before it does or doesn't is just a ridiculous waste of time and energy (see below for another example of ridiculousness), or that's what my counselor Bob says...

Home Decor: I love having a table with decorations on it for the current season (looking at this picture it looks like a sea anemone has taken up residence-but it's a beautiful handmade wooden bowl with fake mums).

I am currently re-working my business model and clarifying what I do for people when I meet with them. This re-working is happening in my head, electronically, in spiral notebooks and now all over my dining room table. I love Donald Miller's StoryBrand system, but like everything else I do, it's MESSY.

Is anyone else out there decorating for an emergency? If anyone in our house or visiting needs to run out the door, we are prepared for just about anything. The cleats, boots, sneakers and goggles are all within easy reach. Up until a week ago there was a gift bag full of tampons and a recycled bag full of corning ware. We've decided to start scaling back on our emergency supplies, I mean decorations...

Reward: #1 (Unintentional ridiculous time waster)

One of our favorite foods is Hatch Chiles grown in New Mexico. According to Pinterest, anyone can roast, steam/cool, peel, seed, and eat them. I bought some thinking I could do that! The smell of roasting them was super yummy and I felt excited and motivated to bust out some awesome flavors! Then, I cover them and let them steam as they cool. YIKES! 

Not only are they ugly looking floppy things but, if you don't have gloves and have to use plastic bags on your hands to remove skin, seeds, stems, and the veiny stuff inside, they are a total pain the butt! I did it, but honestly, they are on a plate in the back of the fridge in a baggie because I have no idea if they turned out like anything good or not. Reward of tasty roasted chilies squished and shredded like the skin of the peppers! This was a slimy, messy, annoying experience. I don't recommend it, unless you have gloves and are extremely motivated.  

Reward #2
My reward this week for surviving our man-cubs teen years was an apple fritter and a couple episodes of Jane the Virgin (the reason for my affection for this show is for another time). But, the reason for the apple fritter, I will explain.

Once you have escaped the toddler years and your cubs become school age, you can peacefully nibble on the donut of your choice without begging, pleading, crying, wailing and reminders you have to S-H-A-R-E. I did buy my cubs their own donut but they always wanted some of mine. Now, I buy the donut after they are deposited at school. I buy one. To eat with my HOT coffee. It is a rare delight worth indulging from time to time.

Being an overweight woman, buying a donut comes with a GIANT bucket size serving of shame. This is nonsense, but still embedded in my being. This will be another blog at some point. I wanted to mention it in case you feel it too.

Reward #3 

Finishing books. Man-cubs in bed. My Love sleeping/snoring beside me. Grab one from the stack of started-not-yet-finished and get it done! But this one. It bit me at the end. The challenge he threw down torqued me more than any books I've read or listened to in a while. A different kind of bucket list. I won't ruin his do-something-with-what-you've-learned punchline but, damnit. I can't stop thinking about it. I finished the book, but he "STARTed SOMETHING" in me that I have to finish now. Sigh. I'll write about that too. Meanwhile, get your own copy. 

Most of my Messy Monday points this week were about the tension I feel about unanswered stuff:

Will the mice come in the house? 

Will this new business model help me help more people? 

Will anyone in my family need to run from the house grabbing cleats and googles at the same time? 

Will I ever stop believing Pinterest has my best interests in mind?

Will the shame of buying a donut ever go away?

Will I have the guts to follow through on the challenge at the end of this book?

This week's blog is about messy stuff, not relationships. But, in my experience, learning how not to freak out at the messy stuff, helps you practice for not freaking out as badly when relationships get messy. 

Taking TIME to ask...

My friends are writing for 5 minutes this week on the word TIME.

Cher sang, "If I could turn back TIME..."

Jim Croche sang "If I could put TIME in a bottle..." 

I believe more TIME is wasted hoping there is enough, looking back to how it could have been spent differently, enjoyed more, longing for what was.

What if you KNEW you were spending your TIME efficiently and effectively every day?

One of the disciplines I am putting in place in my life is to ask God how He wants me to spend my day. Maybe it sounds a little hyper-spiritual but, it's what I do to minimize the feeling of "missing" something important. 

I have a map, a plan I work with but each day I want to be sure I am stewarding my TIME well. I want to go to bed each night knowing I spent the day focused on the best not just the good, better, or nothing things. 

I figure the Author of TIME may be the best one to check in with before I put feet to the floor on my plans.

What do you do to manage your time?