Like most people, I usually like to start fresh at the beginning of the year. There’s something magical about beginnings. Beginning of a new year, a new month, a new week or even a new day. It feels like anything is possible in a new beginning.

As long as it’s not used as another excuse to postpone beginning.

The new year this year fell on a Wednesday and I had decided that I would be taking some downtime with my family during the holidays this year until we all had to go back to our external obligations (school and work). Since neither started until today, I had the conundrum of trying to figure out what to do with my monthly projects. I knew I wasn’t going to start until we’re back to work, but then it would be the 6th of the month. Does that mean I should skip January altogether? I know it sounds silly when I write it like this but so many of us do this in so many ways.

I’ll start Monday, I’ll start tomorrow. Or even when we really want a specific goal, we put conditions: I’d like to start my new company but I need to have a logo first. Or my website has to be professionally designed first.

No it does not.

There are very few cases where there are a slew of must-have prerequisites. No one day is actually any more “special” than the other. The best time to start anything is: right now. Always.

Always.

Just think of it this way, if you start now, by next year, you’ll be 359 days into it. That’s definitely better than 0 days. By now, you will either have failed and moved on to something else or had small setbacks and conquered them all or you’ll be a huge success. In my opinion, any of the three scenarios is better than doing nothing.

I feel like when we’re scared of things or when inertia is strong, we just pile up reasons as to why it’s not a good time to start right now. When I woke up this morning, I reminded myself that this is day one. I can choose to start today. And if I try but fail, well guess what? Tomorrow is day one, too.

So, I woke up this morning and drew my little birdie. This means I will only have 25 days of birdies instead of 31. But it also means I will have 25 more birdies at the end of January than I would have if I decided I could only begin at the start of each month.

So if you’re like me and you’re pondering when’s a good time to start, the time is now.

Like each year, after I thought about my word and my plans for 2014, I began to think more and more about what the word and the priorities meant. Since I tend to be self-reflective during this time of year, this is very long and mostly for my benefit (I like having a record of my plans and my thoughts) so feel free to skip. I won’t be offended.

By the way, this is influenced by Chris’s annual review article. I’ve read this before and have always liked the idea. I’m a technical person at heart and all these specific goals, measurable steps, etc. are right up my alley. Since I have my list of six priorities this year, I thought it would be a good exercise to see if I could come up with a few goals for each.

I will post about each of the projects I mention over the next week. I’ll then come back and link them here but I promise it’s all coming in the first week of the year.

One of my goals this year is to really slow down. I know this might not seem so from the list, but I am focusing on what I know will comfort my soul but no more so I can also rest and breathe more as I want to keep working on being more present and listening.

My other big focus this year is on learning. I’ve noticed that I go through different cycles and 2013 was a year of practicing for me but not a lot of learning. I want to feel free to experiment, to mess up, to copy others, to learn new things. I want to my own voice and to do that, I need to start with others’ voices, with what calls me. I want to create room for that this year. I also just want to learn new things. In every topic. I love learning, it makes me come alive.

So here we go:

Goals for Each Priority
Family
1. Have Nathaniel read one book to me each week (Project Nathaniel Reads to Mommy).
2. Take photo of full-family and write updates weekly (Project Weekly Diary).
3. Write weekly gratitudes and celebrations for me and the boys (The Savor Project)
4. Take online classes with David and focus on learning (Project Learning with David)
5. Spend an hour with each kid a week on mommy-me time. Just me and the one boy.
6. Volunteer in both David and Nathaniel’s schools
7. Schedule minimum bimonthly date nights with Jake
8. Capture and Tell our family stories (The Savor Project)
9. Visit my family and Jake’s family

Health
1. Continue walking/running daily, work your way back up to 5K a day
2. Find three strength exercises that I can do regularly
3. Work your way up to eating whole foods 80% of the time
4. Get minimum 7 hours of sleep every night and 8 on the weekends
5. Take weekly hikes with family

Serene
1. Read a book a week (Project A Book a Week)
2. Journal daily. (Project Today I Know, Project Remember This)
3. Spend time stitching (Project Stitching Circles)
4. Set weekly intentions around listening (Project Listen with Intent)
5. Experiment with meditation, yoga, breathing
6. Go camping
7. Take a walk with Nathaniel for 15 minutes a day (this could also be health or family)

Grace
1. Make and keep regular pedicure and hair appointments (every 6 weeks or so)
2. Find a volunteer opportunity for David and me.
3. Send one kind email to someone each week
4. Have and end-of-day ritual each night and a welcoming-the-day ritual each morning
5. Clean up closet and only keep what fits
6. Come up with a self-care routine (lotion, floss, etc.)

Engaged
1. Learn to do lettering (Project Listen with Intent)
2. Take at least 6 online classes that are not art
3. Teach Nathaniel to Read
4. Tell the longer stories when scrapping
5. Take classes with David all year long
6. Practice doodling, drawing (Project Today I Know)
7. Learn new art techniques (Project Remember This)
8. Experiment with new art mediums
9. Continue to coach clients and offer more options

Whole
1. Create a new Savor Project for 2014 (The Savor Project)
2. Go out to breakfast/lunch once a week with a good friend (or a potential good friend). If not possible, call/email a friend to reconnect.
3. Extend an invitation to someone new once a month
4. Speak up more and participate more
5. Attend all book clubs
6. Journal daily (Project Today I Know, Project Remember This)
7. Regularly attend all three book clubs
8. Drive on the freeway more regularly
9. Learn to ride a bike (it will happen one of these days!)

There we go. As more creep up over the year, I will likely come here and add/alter as needed.

Schedule for Blog
I’ve also come up with a tentative schedule for my blog for 2014:

• Mondays : Listen with Intent
• Tuesdays : Remember This
• Wednesdays : A Book a Week + The Savor Project
• Thursdays : Stitching Circles
• Fridays : Today I Know
• Saturdays : Learning with David /Nathaniel Reads to Mommy
• Sundays : Weekly Diary

• Coaching
• What I Learned
• Productivity
• Listen
• Lessons from Ordinary Life

Thoughts to Cultivate

I decided this year’s thoughts to cultivate will be around my core desires. So here’s some of what’s on my mind.

1. Serene What helps me be most serene is taking time for myself. I plan to start the day and end the day alone. I will go back to getting up before the kids so I can take some time to journal (and maybe meditate). I will see if I can do some art (however small) in the mornings as I listen to Tara Brach. I will take a break in the middle of the day and walk with Nathaniel to get some fresh air and to step away for a bit. I will slow down and breathe more. When I feel worry and panic, I will take a moment, I will name it, I will let things get quieter and then act (and not react.) I will use the Four Questions. I will set intentions each week. I will end my days with a small routine to re-center myself. I will make sure to get enough sleep.

2. Grace I will carry myself with grace. I will take the time to be kind. I will practice ease and comfort. I will take the extra few minutes to wear things that make me feel good. I will take care of my body, my soul and my heart. I will slow down and move deliberately. I will get quieter. I will listen more talk less. I will thank. I will show my gratitude. I will practice self-kindness and care as well as extending it to others. I will volunteer. I will practice patience.

3. Engaged I will choose to engage. I will show up. I will step up. I will learn and grow and participate. I will choose curiosity again and again. I will choose to lean in. I will pay attention to what makes me come alive. I will practice art. I will practice both depth and breadth.

4. Whole I will practice self-compassion. I will choose kindness towards myself. I will celebrate achievements big and small. I will practice gratitude. I will show up to events and reach out to those I love. I will make room for new friends. I will choose to cultivate belonging. I will make the time and room for others.

And there we are. I am sure more will come up. But these are some of what’s on my mind.

Here’s to a wonderful 2014.

My word for 2014 came to me early in the year. I tend to keep a document open all year round and jot ideas as they show up. Here’s what I had for 2014:

words 2014
unique
magic
listen
kind
pause

Not very many, for me.

After writing the present, listen, kind post, I thought of picking all three, but I let go of it. I like having one word. I kept going back and forth because I wanted it to be “kind” but listen felt insistent. The more I resisted, the more it kept coming. So I relented.

Listen it is.

Listen.

I love the idea of listening. When I first thought of the word, I thought of it in context of others. I wanted to listen to my kids more, better. I wanted to listen to Jake wholly. I wanted to really listen. Really hear and not be multi-tasking or preparing my reply or wishing the speaker would hurry up and get to the point already. I loved how really listening meant slowing down. being present. I also thought it was kind. Honorable. The Right Thing to Do.

As I owned the word more and more, other layers showed up and now I see listen as three groups.

• Listen to myself: My body, my soul, my heart, my brain/thoughts, and my gut
• Listen to others: be open, stop and hear as opposed to preparing a reply, choosing to receive
• Listen to the universe: Pay attention and see the signs, listen to messages, listen to what the universe is whispering, the sounds of nature

The more I sit with it, the more I love the word listen. I love how quiet it is. How it’s outward focused. How it’s kind. How it’s serene.

I am taking the One Little Word class again this year but I am also doing a project that will help me keep my word and my intentions more front and center. And, I hope to dedicate one of my weekly thoughts posts to listening intentions as well. I really want to step into, own, and live my word this year.

Like in the past, I also made my Priority List for 2014. Just to remind the idea behind this is:

I was listening to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and one of the things the author mentions is managing our time and how we spend much of it doing what’s urgent instead of doing what’s important. As in, we’re often reacting instead of thinking ahead and calmly acting in the direction of our dreams and priorities.

So I decided it would beneficial for me to make a “Priority List”. A list of goals and people I want to prioritize during the year. This way, when an opportunity or request came my way, I could check my list and make sure it is aligned with my priorities before I accepted it. It’s easy to lose sight of things and take on projects that end up eating a lot of my time and not making me fulfilled. If I had my list to look at each time, I could keep what’s important at the forefront of my mind and make sure to prioritize it. Since I just did my core desire exercise, I decided to align my priorities that way this year to see how (if) it worked out for me I only added family and health to the core desire list:

Here’s my Priority List for 2014:

Family
Health
Serene
Grace
Engaged
Whole

Work is not on there but it really is. I just don’t share work here. As always, these priorities are fluid for me. They are all a part of me and I want to make sure I value them and dedicate time to each. I also want to make sure I turn down anything that doesn’t line up with one of these.

Above everything, I want to stay true to my gut. I’ve made the mistake of doing something that will look good and make others think well of me before and it was a lot of heartache for me and so I want to listen to myself more and trust my gut and know that if I turn down something that feels wrong, other opportunities will still come my way and I will know when the right one is there. So I will have faith in myself and in the universe. Using the core desires list should really come in handy here.

And I will prioritize the important.

And there we are.

Here’s to 2014, the year of listening!

Last week, I posted about some of my thoughts for 2014 and my three lists, and then Zewa commented with a link to a video about the new Desire Map by Danielle Laporte and she asked me what feelings I was trying to achieve with my goals.

Even though I’d heard about Danielle’s class before, something compelled me to go ahead and watch the video. And then, the strong urge continued until I finished the whole book and half the workbook. It’s like I couldn’t stop until I had my core desires.

So, thanks, Zewa, you made me lose a day and a half of my life 🙂

But, joking aside. This is one of my favorite things about the holiday season. I find that I am even more reflective than usual and I take the time to think, sit with it, and ponder deeply. I take the time to read the whole book in one sitting. I immerse myself in things. And that’s exactly what I did with The Desire Map.

Even though Danielle’s writing (and thoughts) have been hit or miss for me, this book was right on. It came exactly at the right time and was what I needed and wanted to hear.

If you haven’t heard about it, visit Danielle’s site or checkout the video Zewa linked to in this post. The short summary of the idea is that, instead of setting goals and todos for yourself, you identify your core desires. The way you want to feel. And then you set goals that make you feel that way.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

It did to me.

I spent a bunch of time writing down all the words that came to me. Here’s what my initial list looked like:
present
calm
peaceful
centered
generous
whole + full
spacious
comfortable
engaged
graceful
grateful
joyous
belonging
abundant
free
energized
fit
capable
curious
independent
alive
free of worry, stress, of disappointing others
light
deserving
worthy
inspiring, inspired
awed
inspired
full+empty
lived
fulfilled
purposeful

I then followed some of her instructions to help identify my core desires. I spent some solid time with the dictionary and thesaurus and then I finally ended up with my list of four;

• Serene
• Grace
• Engaged
• Whole

These are my core desires. Even though I am open to the possibility that they might change or shift, they feel really right at the moment. I then expanded them a bit more to be clear on what they mean to me and how they encapsulated some of the other words on my list:

• Serene: Calm, centered, peaceful, quiet, present, spacious, peaceful
• Grace: kind, ease, fluidity, generous, fit, capable, abundant, light
• Engaged: interested, curious, alive, growing, participating, living, awed, purposeful
• Whole: free, worthy, belonging, deserving, capable, independent, full

Of course, they may not mean the same thing to you but this is how they resonate with me.

I wanted to put joy on my list. Cause, after all, who doesn’t want joy? But the thing is, I think what I yearn for the most is contentment. Inner and outer peace. These four things give me that. Joy is nice to have but, for me, it’s really in honor of serenity.

Interestingly, these line up quite closely with my core values, too. The words we came up with for my values are different but the feelings are the same. I have:

• Unconditional Love – this is serene and whole
• Learning – this is engaged
• Peace – serene
• Service – Grace
• Gratitude – serene, whole

Maybe it’s not such a coincidence, I value these things because they make me feel the way I want to feel. Makes perfect sense to me.

After I was done, I thought it would be interesting to go back to my lists and revisit things I want to do with these desires in mind and here’s what came up for me:

1. Of the list of things I want to learn, all the art ones and courses, classes etc are in honor of being engaged. They make me feel engaged. Doing art also makes me feel serene. Learning is exhilarating for me, it keeps me fully engaged.
2. The items on eating and my nails and exercising are to help me feel grace and whole. When I feel stronger and healthier, I feel more independent when I paint my nails or get my hair done, I feel little moments of grace. These are not core to my being but they do help. They also require that I slow down and focus on self-care which increases the feeling of whole-ness.
3. Self-kindness is in honor of serene and whole. When I am kinder to myself, I feel calm and centered. I feel worthy.
4. On the items of doing more of, most of these honor serene. Reading makes me feel calm and centered. Journaling also makes me feel whole. Doing things with my family makes me feel whole and so does capturing those moments. Hiking, eating well, date nights, hugging, loud music (interestingly) helps with serenity. Anything outdoors is for serene. Self-care is for whole and grace.
5. And finally the list of things that fulfill me, volunteering is for grace (actually I feel all four when I volunteer).  When I read the list again and again, I notice that all of these on the list are to honor all four of my desires. Some lean more one way but all of them touch all four of my desires. Way to go.

So there we are. I really liked this exercise and plan to keep my core desires front and center. One of the things I did for myself for 2014 was to buy a ring that said: kind, present, listen. I think if I do those three things, I will honor every one of my core desires.

Thank you, Zewa, as I hope you can tell, your comment made a large tangible impact on my life.