Goals

Driven By Fear

List making As of 9am September 21, 2018, we had been residents of Cape Coral Florida for all of 19 hours.

I was hurrying us along. I had a list a mile long,

  • Get Driver’s License
  • Get Vehicles tagged
  • Get Permit
  • Get post office box
  • Go to bank x2
  • Go to Lowes
  • Go to Costco
  • Go to Bookstore
  • Go to Sprint
  • Go to Thrift store
  • Get Lunch

Well not really a mile long, but you get the picture.

As you can see it was a hefty list. My excuse is that I am a Type A person. I was ready to hit the list and get it done.

All of a sudden my husband looked at me and made a statement that stopped me in my tracks.

“Your step-father is not going to tell you; you can’t do something on your list.”

This statement has haunted me all day long.

I realized there is a fine line between getting things accomplished in a timely manner, and working yourself though a list because of FEAR.

When I was growing up I learned a pattern of living that said, you can have all the goals, lists, etc in the world; you may be walking out the door and have all the permissions in the world to leave to accomplish your list, and without warning or reason, be told you can’t go anywhere. Just because.

That simple statement has had me in a thought all day.

This was just another aha moment for me.

“What are my motives?”

If you would ask people, they would say I was driven. Today I realized I have been driven, but the underlying factor was fear of being told I could not do it.  So I would hurry up and finish it so “he” could not take it away.

Today I choose to be driven, because I want to be the best of who God called me to be and not in fear that God will change His mind and tell me I can’t do it, just because.

 

 

 

 

photo from Unsplash. inbossmode.com

Lessons from the Chimneys

Chimneys

Chimneys

This past week I had the opportunity to hike to the top of the Chimneys, this almost 2 mile hike to an altitude of just over 4600 ft. was a hike I will not soon forget. I guess I didn’t know what to expect, except I was headed to the top of that!

So I layered up because it was chilly, grabbed my camera and a bottle of water.

 

 

The rivers were beautiful. P1050744

 

Icy riverThe snow and ice was amazing.

I was traveling along not really thinking about it, then we hit these steps. P1050776

As I was climbing these steps, all I could think was, it would be much easier to climb if these steps weren’t here.

 

 

So lesson one I learned: sometimes when trying to reach a goal, you may encounter someone who wants to help and has your best interest in mind, but their help may make it harder to achieve your goal.

Hiking along, I am getting tired and I really want to quit, but I really want to finish; and my amazing husband starts asking me if I want to turn around and go back. He even starts asking how’s my face (previous injury from 2011), are you ok? We can stop if we need to.

Lesson two: I realized how many times I quit too early because I am tired and then someone I respect, admire etc… again with my best interest in mind, adds to my self talk that I need to quit.

I stand my ground and start arguing with myself. NO!!!! I am going to finish! I am NOT going to quit.

P1050802We come to this sign that states we haven’t even gone a mile. My inner arguing starts again. “No one will ever know”, ” you did your best”; and I start talking to myself, “I will know, and I want to finish this hike and cross it off my bucket list.”

So we continue on. Slowly and even more slowly, after 2 hours we are at the top. 20151124_140730

This entire hike ended up being, not just a “bucket list” item, but a telling tale of how many times I have had a goal, and allowed my self talk to emerge to the point of “sabotaging my goals.”

Lesson three: I will start to take my goals very serious and accomplish them, maybe slowly and even more slowly….but this hike made me realize that I DO want to reach the top for myself so I can compare my “pictures” to theirs, instead of saying “oh how beautiful, I wish I could have seen it for myself.”

With 2016 just around the corner what are your goals?  And when the sabotaging self talk starts, what defense do you have in place to counteract the negativeness?

Giving myself permission NOT to be Competitive against myself

Have you ever been to or watched a bidding war? And the person who really wanted to win starts bidding against themselves?

I feel that since January 2011, I have been bidding against myself and didn’t know it; I just knew that the PTSD was not going to win. I had to overcome it and be healed.

Sometimes God does not take away the “thorn” and you (I), have to be OK with that.

My new normal started in 2011, but today 2015, four and three-quarter years after the attack I am still bidding against myself.

I still use that dysfunctional coping skill I learned so well growing up; “act as if nothing happened”, and just keep doing things the way you have always done them.

I read the book “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann the other night. In the book a statement was made: “what you focus on, is what you get”.

I realized that I have been focusing so much on “overcoming” the PTSD that I continue being competitive with myself instead of taking the words Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10. You will find them here, this is from the Message (a paraphrase version)

Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

So my question to you is: what’s your thorn that you are trying desperate to be healed from and maybe God is saying “if you continue to focus on being healed, you won’t focus on Me and what I want to do with you”.

Remember today is a new day, no matter how bad yesterday was, no matter how bad your past….the only thing under consideration is your very next step….so make it count.

 

**** secondary***** I have attached a goal sheet. Less than 3% of people actually obtain their goals and the number 1 reason is because they are not written down. So here is a goal sheet for you to use. It’ll be interesting to see when we get to the end of the week how well you stayed on task and actually accomplished the goals.

Goals sheet participant Goals sheet participant