Juggling Rocks???

This New Year reminds me of trying to learn to juggle as a kid.  For my eleventh birthday my aunt and uncle gave me a Klutz book that had a book of instructions and three square bean bags. I tried for a bit, learned how to start with two squares and when I added the third square, I stopped trying.  It was hard and added a whole new level of frustration. I didn’t take to it naturally and I gave up. That’s about how it goes with most new things I want to learn.  I’m sure I’m not alone in quitting things that don’t come easily.

This New Year is feeling like learning to juggle all over again. I’m excited when I visualize improving in all areas of my “rocks” but then New Year’s Day came and putting the actual process of improving into action didn’t seem like as much fun as just dreaming about it.

As a review, what are rocks? Those are the big important aspects of your life that must come first in order to become the person you are meant to be.  They must be put in the “jar” (which is the 24 hours a day you are given) FIRST or the little trivial things of life “pebbles” and “sand” will quickly fill the jar leaving no room for the important things.  

So for New Year’s I wanted to focus on my rocks and improve in the different areas that are important to me. It’s probably against what experts suggest.  I know all the goal-setting rules of keeping things simple and focusing on only one thing in order to feel successful. But who am I to follow rules?  We’ve got a whole year ahead of us, I want to get better in a lot of areas.  Some things are a one time “to-do” like attending the Launch Conference for public speakers while some things are a daily goal like reading the Bible in a year.

Here are my rocks and my goals:

God-get closer to God (daily reading and journaling)

Health-eat for health and energy 

neck exercises to prevent migraines

Family-build a stronger marriage (date nights, read books)

save for family camp

have a clean home

Kids-spend focused time with each child

teach them to be more independent

Financial-save up fully funded emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses

Career-attend Launch conference

take Apple One-on-One classes for new computer

write more

Personal fulfillment- Audition for Unbeatable

So the first day of the year comes and I get up and spend time with God, make breakfast for the family, plan the meals for the week, make the grocery list, and set out to update and balance the checkbook.  The dang program I use for the checkbook keeps undoing my work.  After an hour of fighting with it, I’m ready to crawl back into bed and call it quits. I realize that there will be no time to exercise like I wanted and that no matter what, I will always HATE housework. It was like being a kid again and wanting to be good at juggling right away but instead dropping the dang bean bag squares over and over.

This time, I decided I wouldn’t give up. I’d get done what I could and celebrate what I DID accomplish.  Today was the second day and I got more done than I did yesterday.  I’ll keep trying and keep getting better with the daily goals and taking steps towards the long-term goals. If it means only working on two rocks for a while until I get the hang of it, then that's what I'll do.

I don’t plan on being great at all of this right away or even a month from now, but I DO plan on being a heck of a lot better by this time next year. It all starts with the small changes I make on a day-to-day basis.

What about you? What do you want to be better at by this time next year? What will you do tomorrow to get one step closer to your goal?

Don't give up!