self awareness
I have written before about a little book that I think has lots of tips in a small amount pages. Design Your Day, by Claire Diaz-Ortiz, is a great, quick read for organizing your life, rather than just your sock drawer! One of the tidbits that has stuck with me is the creation of one word or thought that is your mantra, your go-to when you feel like you are veering off track. So a couple of years ago I came up with the word “forward” to keep me moving in that direction. I still like that one and I still use it to “right the ship” when I feel like I am off course. But, my life has changed so much in the last few years since I am now well into my sixties and single, I thought it was time to come up with a new word that better defines how I want my life to go in the next year or two. Forward, I am not abandoning you and I want to keep moving that way, and I will always love you as my first word, but it is time to expand my repertoire of directional focus (that sounds like a self-help phrase doesn’t it?).
Goodbye Forward, Hello Goal
When my life was turned upside down and my marriage crumbled after more than thirty years, I constantly felt unstable, like I was walking on a waterbed of the seventies (don’t pretend you don’t remember). Every step was unstable and I was constantly wobbling and falling and having to catch my balance and try to stay upright. I spent a lot of time clinging to the edge. So “forward” gave me a direction and I could keep it in my sights. It helped me to put one foot in front of the other when I could barely move. Fast forward (pun intended) and I am perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet now and need to set the bar a little higher. I need to look ahead farther down the road.
Enter “Goal.” That is my word for 2018. I have given it a lot of thought and while I have moved forward quite nicely, I need more incentive to move to the next stage of life. I am now a fully functional single woman in her sixties, not the weepy sadsack that I was even one year ago. In my head, I am using goal as a verb, not as a thing but as an action. It is not something to achieve, but the act of achieving it. After all, it isn’t the achievement that is important but the getting there that makes it worthwhile, that creates inner growth and gives you that “job well done,” feeling. “Goal me,” is how I will think about it in my head. Kind of a “bring it on,” mentality.
What is Your Word?
During this holiday season, there are often times of sadness, especially if you are a woman who has had to start your life over after fifty, sixty or beyond. So start now, start right now thinking about a word that can help get you one step closer to where you want to be. You will know when you have the right one for you. It will stick in your head and you will revisit it over and over. Then get going. You don’t have to wait for 2018 to get started. However, let me say this: if your word turns out to be a bust, if it just doesn’t fit, guess what, pick another word. “Forward” was not the first word I landed on a year or two ago. I had others but as I put them into practice they just were not right. Be flexible with yourself. After all, it is yourself, your word, your motion.
What is the right word for you? What is the word that is sticking in your head for 2018? And, what will it mean for you in the coming year? I would love to hear from you, not just now, but all year long. I want to know how just one word helps you in your daily life. Believe it or not, one word can make a huge difference.
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Do you trust yourself? Do you trust your instincts? Do you listen to what your mind and your heart are telling you or, do you argue with that little voice in your head? Or even tell that voice to shut-up?
When I was a young woman I had good instincts and made good decisions. I think I knew myself well. But, that changed.
For the past three decades or more I stopped listening to myself. I stopped listening because I knew that little voice was right about my marriage, my husband, my career moves, about everything. Throughout my married life, I had to shut down my instincts because listening to them meant breaking up my children’s family (I guess that came from the motherly instinct to hold the family together). I can sit here and name a hundred times when I had to convince myself about one story while I knew the truth was another. Consequently, so many of my decisions were poor at best and disastrous on the bottom end. My personality was different. Some of the people I spent time with would not be a match today. I had no self-confidence, although no one who knew me would have believed that. And, I didn’t like myself for many of the last thirty years, not because I thought I was bad, just not me. In short, I was not myself because I wasn’t listening to my heart and my mind and following that path.
I need to put a disclaimer here for my children: every second that I spent with them and on them was my only real joy. That was real, that was authentic, that was the place where I listened to my instincts. They were and are my North Star.
Today, I am the happiest that I think I have been in a long time. Of course, I am disappointed that I am soon to be divorced, but I can only use that as a springboard for the new life I want to lead. Since the day I knew that my marriage was finally over, I have been listening to the voice in my head and the decisions I have made have all been the right ones. Everything just fell into place once I got myself back. My hair even started growing back (yes, I had lost a lot of hair and I didn’t start with much). I now listen to my heart and my head and they haven’t steered me wrong yet.
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