Review and Resolutions

Rules are made to be broken… and apparently Resolutions are too. Not for me and hopefully not for you either. Growth, goals, personal development and achievements are good for my body, mind, soul and spirit and the new year gives me a fresh start. I always get excited for a new year and spend hours constructing the goals I’ll shoot for. I don’t often make them all, but I do always go further with written down goals than I would without a focus.
This year I’ve done things a little differently. Everything I write down on my goals list will, MUST, answer “yes” to one of the two following questions:

Will this settle me down?
Will this give me/help me focus?

In managing my ADHD I’ve learned to use systems, structures and routines to help me be the boss of myself instead of bumbling aimlessly like one of those wind-up mice that bounce off walls without purpose. One of the best tricks I learned was to program myself to ask questions that will help me be more functional. Case in point: I have difficulty managing time. It’s a great idea, but in my laissez-faire synaptic response system, timeliness doesn’t always happen. BUT, in situations where I have to be somewhere at a specific time I can purposely pre-plan and analyze how long it will take to prepare and get where I’m going. This establishes a “ready-set-go time.” Once “go time” has been established everything that I do within “ready-set time” must answer “yes” to the question: Will this get me out the door on time? If the answer is no… no matter how compelling, momentous, meaningful, etc. the thing I’m doing is, I MUST STOP! I must only do the things to get me out the door by go-time.

What does that have to do with my resolutions and goals this year? Everything! I’ve spent the better part of the last two years in either, shock, mourning, denial or self-soothing activity.

I’ve lost focus.

I’m not proud of it and I’m not content to let it continue any longer. With the new year, I have planned a new theme for my life. The theme is: Settle down and focus! And to that end, all of my goals will be aimed.

When I set goals, I use a SMART approach that addresses seven aspects of growth/development for my body, mind, soul and spirit. The SMART approach (http://topachievement.com/smart.html) encourages you to set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. The seven areas I focus on are: Family, Community, Career, Finances, Spirituality, Physical & Intellectual development. I tend to have a habit of making 5-10 goals in each area. This year, I think it behooves my plan to Settle Down and Focus to limit myself to a maximum of 3 goals in each area.

Before I present this year’s goals, let me reflect first on how I fared with 2016’s goals. By my count I had 38 goals divided between the 7 different areas. Of the 38 I completely missed the mark on 15. Of the 23 remaining goals I consider to have completely succeeded at meeting 9 of those goals and at least furthered my knowledge/development/character on the remaining 14 goals. Some will look at the fact that I failed at 15 of the goals I set for myself, but I’m focusing on the 23 targets I aimed for and hit the target and sometimes got me a bulls-eye. It thrills me to see my success, improvement and development. I’m excited to do it again!

This year’s goals are as follows:

Spirituality:
Memorize Psalm 119 (Aleph-Lamedh) with 100% accuracy
Read Bible through in the year with a specific focus on sex/sexuality/singleness
Plug in to church Bible Study

Family:
Connect with kids weekly
See Gramma 2/mo
Have grand-kids over one night/mo

Community:
Report CASA hours weekly & see kids
Have a guest 2/mo
No more than 2 extra-ordinary functions/mo

Career:
1 chapter/day until all old books are on Wattpad & published/1 blog post/week/1 old book published (ebook & print)/mo
Finish & Publish Gia’s series & Big Y / Re-start 11 Lives & publish the first by November
Write fresh Church-girls series

Physical:
No food cheats Mon-Thursday
Pack lunch for work
Focus on physique – tone as much of my tummy as I can – boudoir shoot in October!!!

Intellectual:
Read a book/mo
Learn Goodreads – post, interact, use book groups
Memorize Declaration of Independence

Financial:
Pay off card debt
Start retirement
Tithe again