How Important Are Your Dreams…to YOU?

Welcome to this weeks installment of the year-long study “iChoose2 Love my Life” by the iBloomteam. Should you care to read all the posts in this series, click {HERE}.

So, here I am. sitting at the laptop in the eldest child’s college empty room and wondering…AGAIN…if I am ever, EVER going to figure out what the heck I am supposed to be doing with this life of mine. Surely there is an answer out there…somewhere?

The last few times I attempted to write, the words were unbelievably forced. I could not believe I could have produced such drivel.

Cartoon by Hugh at gapingvoid.com

I am pretty sure it has to do with my body’s inability to properly produce hormones (that oophorectomy last winter, you know) and my traumatic childhood. Aren’t hormones and bad childhood memories the answer to everyone’s issues?

The thing is, I have reconciled with my childhood and it wasn’t as bad as I used to think it was and the hormone issue? Well, I suppose I can use that as the excuse for everything from writer’s block to this humongous pimple that arrived on my cheek during last weeks “flu epidemic”. Either way I cut it, wallowing is surely not the answer.

How do YOU discipline yourself and set your own deadlines? Inquiring minds want to know.

I have a hard time taking action without a deadline. Even in college, when I pulled all-nighters, those were the best grades I received. I would often finish my daughters Easter dress Saturday night, and this year was the first holiday season where all the cooking/baking that could be done early was, in fact, done early. I know my motivation for that was because the kids were going to be home from college for a short time and I did not want to be running around but rather I wanted to be visiting! That goes to show me that…

I can impose deadlines on myself; but they become just that: SELF imposed and therefore adjustable at will. No one will die if I neglect a sewing project. The world will go on if I forget to respond to my dear blogging friends {though I hope they would miss me a little}. I simply do not take my creative goals seriously.

Maybe that’s not it. Maybe it is more that I do not value these creative dreams of mine enough. I bend my ear to hear the whispers of inadequacy and this causes me to question each potential “next step”. I become overly critical. I fall into the comparison trap. I. Get. Stuck.

This attitude has not allowed for productive days. I feel cemented in the planning stages of EVERYTHING.

Planning/researching this site is mad fun, but what good is a blog with nothing to read? I have a notebook {and now PINTEREST boards} chock full of so many ideas, if I constructed even half of them, I would need to buy my own craft store and be as skilled as Martha Stewart. But again…I am stuck because I have not been able to balance planning with doing. And then there is fear of failure–but THAT is another post entirely!

Setting goals is easy; reaching goals is not. One takes paper and pen; the other takes ACTION. <click

I have recently completed a fantastic, little book, The No-Brainer Blog by Hayley Morgan, creator of The Tiny Twig. While it is chock full of practical application {some of which I actually HAVE taken action on-behind the scenes}, the thought that screamed at me from the pages was as follows:

“…scale way back on what content [you are] consuming…only read the cream of the crop and what inspires [you] to live or write better…Create first, then consume. If you consume first, you’ll be affected and nothing you put out will feel original or in your own voice.”
~Hayley Morgan~

We are a world almost obsessed with consuming less–as far as tangible things like paper, gasoline, plastic, etc.  But what about intellectual consumption? On the one hand, knowledge is power, right? It is very important to be a life-long learner. But if that knowledge just “sits there” without making opportunity for practical application that results in a “better life”, then what’s the point?

I have been very blessed to be part of two new “endeavors” {new to me anyway!}. Both of which have prompted my “take-action” quandary!

One is a small “mastermind group” in which a few other bloggers join together to encourage one another with varying challenges and accountability. I am hoping that by announcing to those dear friends my deadlines, they will help hold me accountable and encourage me to take my goals seriously and act upon them!

The second is the beginning of a year long book study I posted about {HERE}.

The first week of iChoose2 began with “I CHOOSE TO LOVE MY LIFE”.Though the questions were not “long”, they are quite thought provoking…I NEW they would be!

As I worked through this chapter, I was reminded that there are so many things going “right” in my world these days. I felt “guilty” at my balking about “not knowing what to do next” because I KNOW the only thing stopping ME, is ME! I need to get with the program, trust He will give me that VISION I am asking for and simply apply this saying I had read somewhere once :0):

Let the new year begin. My goals for this week are to concentrate on CREATING more than CONSUMING. To complete at least 1 project I have in my “to-do” pile, to be a better blogger by actually blogging <3, and to use the Pomodoro Technique {life in 25 minute increments–the book is FREE} to help keep me working within self-imposed deadlines!

My dreams are important…and so are yours!

How about you? Where would you like to be one year from now? Working backwards from that goal, what one step can you TAKE this week to help reach that goal?

Joining forces with the following today! Consider stopping by and maybe even participating: