Finish the first half strong!!!

It's June!

JUNE people!!!

And you know what? I'm not complaining.

January through May hold a lot of bad memories for me and few fun events so I just get through them.  Once the first half of the year is over, the fun begins.  Celebrating 4th of July at my sister's house, fun trips with the kids, Back to School shopping, Apple Month, Pumpkin Month, Turkey Month, and Christmas!!!! 

For me, the first half of the year is like that steep climb at the start of a roller coaster.  It's laborious being pulled up the track by the chain jerking rhythmically up up up. Thump, thump, thump. It's what you have to get through to get to the fun part of the ride.

There's one month left of the first half of 2013 and I plan on crossing the half-way point with grace and strength.  How are the 2013 goals going?

ROCK CHECK by the end of June:

God-I'll be half way through the Bible reading plan at Bible: 365

Family-We will be back from our week of Family Camp!

The husband and I have had more dates this year than the last few combined

Self-fulfillment-I'll be heading into rehearsals for The Wiz, prepared because I've been taking voice lessons

Kids-One-on-one time with each kid is carefully scheduled during the summer

Career-Public Speaking Conference is booked for September

Financial-Emergency fund will be complete

Still working on:

Health-will I ever want fruits and veggies over junk? Exercise because I LIKE it?

Writing-I'm going to be realistic. The kids are going to be out of school soon. Writing will continue to slow down.  Maybe I should schedule some computer classes in the evening to ensure some "me time."

Family-Clean Home, maybe not ever on this side of heaven.  We all have a thorn in our side and I think this is mine.

I hope you know the journey to complete my goals this year has not been a smooth/clean process. It's often two steps forward and one step back.  I hesitate to share all the set backs because I want to somehow still have credibility with my audience.  Who wants to hear advice about time management from someone who struggles with it on a daily basis? Yet I don't want to come across as if I’m saying, "If you just decide to change, you can change."

I have to constantly refocus my priorities and my time to reflect my priorities.  While I work on certain aspects of my goals, other things get put on hold.  I'm never perfectly juggling all seven rocks at one time. But, and here is the lesson, I never give up and you shouldn't either.

WHAT GOALS DID YOU HAVE AT THE BEGINNING OF 2013? HOW ARE YOU DOING WITH THEM? DO YOU NEED TO ADJUST SOME? DO YOU HAVE A PLAN?

For example, I've had friends say they'd like to do the read the the Bible in a year thing but they could never catch up.  So I invite them to start where we are now. It's not like the Bible is in chronological order any way. Start with us in Psalms and move forward going back to Genesis at the beginning of 2014.  I wanted to start voice lessons before auditions but only had one session under my belt when auditions came.  I'm glad I started anyway because now I'll have over two months of lessons under my belt when we start rehearsals.  My writing has slowed down and there are days I wonder if I'm cut out for blogging or if anyone is even reading these, but even if I publish one post a week, it's better than quitting. Remember, it's always the right time to be your best, so get started or restarted!

Today, I had the privilege of sitting with my friend who set "taking care of herself"as her goal for 2013 as she celebrated losing 30 pounds.  I'm so proud of her.  She's been working on this all year and it was a perfect way to pause and look back at how far she has come.  Most importantly, she hasn't given up.  Good weeks, bad weeks, she kept her focus on taking care of herself.

There have been times when I've been so far behind on  my reading, I've thought about just giving up. There are times I get so frustrated with goals I've set that I think maybe they weren't realistic.  Some times I forget why I'm working towards the goals, thinking that if someone else isn't noticing then it's not worth it.  When my feedback about my writing is focused on my grammatical errors, I want to stop writing and hide in my shell.

But when I go back and look at my goals, they are so deeply a part of me that all of the outside nonsense fades away and I find within myself the desire to keep moving forward.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? WHAT IS GOING TO KEEP YOU GOING THROUGH THIS HALF WAY POINT? SHARE WITH US THE PROGRESS YOU HAVE MADE SO FAR.