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 I don’t know about you, but setting intentions and following through…

Easier to say it than stick to it!

I set my intention on January 1^st.
To write every day for 30 days.
The first step towards a bigger goal.

Day 1 – easy.
Day 5 – getting into the swing of it.

Day 15 – no real interruptions, doing okay.
Day 22 – routine strides out the door, and I sit watching each hour head in the same direction, hot on its heels.

5pm and the mental minimizing begins…

“Don’t be so rigid!”
“Writing for 29 out of 30 days is good enough.”
“It’s been a long day, you’re tired, it’s okay.”

7pm.
9pm.
Still no words.

10:30pm stands up and announces herself.
I’m too tired to fight.
I open up my laptop, set an alarm, and write.

What happened next was eye opening…

With that one decision I quietly honored myself.
There was no brass band, no congratulations! banner, or popping champagne cork.

What’s eye-opening is what didn’t happen.

I didn’t lie in bed that night running stories in an attempt to convince myself that missing one day didn’t matter.
I didn’t feel like I’d let myself down.
And the next day – when I looked at the green post-it on my wall with a check mark over Day 22, I felt peace.

A peaceful heart and a peaceful mind were my reward for writing at 10:30pm.

***

We love to pretend it’s money or time, our kids or something we lack.
But what stands between us and the things that’ll make us come alive is usually deeper.

I learned very early on to not voice certain truths.
To overcome some of this I’ve faced, felt and transformed some painfully internalized shame, guilt, and patriarchal conditioning.
Reached out to unloved parts of myself, and ended the cycle by choosing to love them.

Over the years, I’d start writing and soon stop.
Fear sat close by in a judge’s chair convincing me: I don’t have anything original to say, I don’t know where to start, I’ll destroy XX if I say that, No-one will relate…
Time waved wistfully as she floated by, and my heart hurt.
Fear was winning.

Until now.
Until day 22.

The effect each decision has on us is rarely loud.
Many of us are used to starting things, and stopping for lots of different reasons.

But there are things our heart and soul genuinely want and need.

Each time we give up on those, we lose touch with important parts of ourselves.
The effect is a slow burn.
A gradual internal separation from our energy, essence, and potential.
And we need all this for confidence, bravery, clarity and belief in ourselves!

***

What do you want this year?
What would having that do for you?
How would it help you reclaim important parts of yourself?

I bet there’s something you’re in a stop-start relationship with, that keeps nagging at you because it loves you – and you love it.

Choose that.

And then decide what the first step towards it is.

All the best things we want feel scary, and involve letting something go.
Personally, I don’t like fear running any area of my life.
And I imagine you don’t either.
So let’s brave this fire of fear together, and breath life back into the lost parts of our essential nature; so we can get about living the life that our imagination knows belongs to us.