It's not that 2010 was a bad year ... it just was, if you know what I mean. Come December, I felt like I had been sideswiped by a moving truck ... Christmas came out of no where, and I was probably the most unprepared for it that I've ever been. Forget about no time - I didn't even know what weekend it was most weeks!
Anyway ... it's over, all we have to do is put the boxes of Christmas stuff back in the attic and life will be back to normal ... which brings us to 2011.
As I'm sure many of you have seen in blog-land, Ali Edwards had started this little phenomenon called One Little Word. Thinking about my life, the year to come and what my plans for it are ... coming up with one little word that epitomizes this for me. I've "done" this for the past couple of years ... thinking long and hard about a word and it's meaning for me and my intentions ... then, I forget about it until I start seeing it come up around December.
This year though, I'm trying again. Call this word self-inspired ... but my 2011 word is:
mənt
–noun 1. the act of committing. 2.the state of being committed. 3. the act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself. 4. a pledge or promise; obligation: We have made a commitment to pay our bills on time. 5. engagement; involvement: They have a sincere commitment to religion.
(Definitions 6 - 12 weren't all that applicable, so I nixed them ... who needs talk of being committed to an institution so early in the year anyway?)
Here's a couple of reasons why I chose it ... I'm usually the go-to girl for everything and everyone. I stress (I call it stress, but really it's just some small fretting) about what I'm going to make for dinner - not for me ... but for my husband, who let's be honest here, couldn't really care if it was hot dogs with french fries or a roasted chicken with all the trimmings (meaning he's just thankful I cook our meals and loves whatever I put in front of him). I make sure I call my mom (remember ... we live in a 2 family house together) to find out if she needs something from the store if I'm going because (gasp!) what if I actually came home and she needed a box of cereal because in 2 days she was going to be out? (You see where I'm going here, right?) Like a good percentage of women all around the world, I worry about and prioritize everyone and everything but me. There are so many things that I have said I wanted to do, make or go to that just don't happen. Granted, there are times that I just don't *feel* like going to do said things, but there are also times where I think that it's more important to go run errands, clean or do something that someone has asked me to because my just somehow isn't as important. I change my plans before the hat is even dropped if it'll make someone else's life easier.
I also know that for myself I try to take on way too many things. It's just part of my personality. I look at things and think "oh, I could make that!" and then they get filed away in my emails (all 2,000 of them somehow sitting in my in-box ... thank God for g-mail!) and forgotten about until I find myself searching for something else.
This year, I'm going to stop doing that. I'm going to commit to doing the things that I want. To finishing projects that I say "oh, I'll do that Saturday" and then I'm somehow doing something else that is no where near what I wanted to be doing and the project is still undone 6 months later. I'm not going to feel guilty about saying "No" and I'm going to give into some of my guilty pleasures ... like curling up on the couch and finishing a book in a day - just because that's what I wanted to do. I'm committing myself to being a better manager of my time; of letting go of the DVR (hubby, if you're reading this ... it'll be okay ... I promise ... I won't abandon all our shows) and moving myself into my craft room to CREATE. I'm so happy when I accomplish these things - and I don't know why I don't carve out the time to do it more often.
How am I doing all of this? With baby steps ... and I think organization. This morning I pulled out a binder, some page protectors, a lined pad and some dividers and made myself a Project Binder. I'm tired of having all these papers around or emails linking myself to projects that once archived away, I hardly ever look at again. I think seeing these ideas will prompt me to act on them more. At least, that's my hope. It'll also be a fun way for me to kind of keep track of all that I can accomplish. As to the guilt ... I know that I'm the only one that puts this on myself ... and the only cure for that is to stop doing it to myself. No one's standards or expectations are as high as the ones that I put upon myself, so I just need to learn to loosen up a little and let myself enjoy the days and moments as they come.
What about you? What is your "One Little Word" and how are you going to go about living it?
~ B
Mine is health, and I've made an art journal to keep me on track. You can see it on my blog today.
ReplyDeleteRinda