As I was dreaming about my new blog and plans for grandeur, I couldn’t help but imagine the future. I thought how fun it would be to have a blog, that was as popular as Carrie’s column was, on Sex and the City. Then I realized, Hollywood ruined me. My favorite hobby as a child was watching movies, TV, and reading. Mostly cause I never had anywhere to go and what was happening in the make-believe worlds was always way better than my own life. There were always exotic places, cool love interests, and an exciting story from beginning to end. My life just wasn’t that exciting. It wasn’t till later in life I realized none of those things just happen. All the stories are scripted, imagined, and false. If you want those things to happen in real life, you have to make them happen.
I wanted a story good enough for Hollywood, and I was going to make it happen. First, I wrote down my hopes and dreams. I finally wrote my bucket list of what I wanted to accomplish before I died. Then, I realized, I needed to figure out how to make those dreams happen. No one was going to just give me what I wanted. It hadn’t happened yet, and my life was going nowhere waiting for it to happen. I wasn’t going to meet someone, like in some crazy romantic comedy. There wasn’t going to be a storybook romance with a storybook life. I wasn’t going to just become rich, or have my bills paid by some mysterious donor. Someone wasn’t going to just give me everything I wanted in life. I wouldn’t wake up one day and look in the mirror, and magically look like a supermodel with a perfect fit and toned body. I needed to make those things happen. Let’s be honest, if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s probably never going to happen. Common sense says if what you are trying isn’t working you have to try something new.
After I figured out what I wanted, I prioritized what mattered most. Then, I made a plan of how I was going to get there. I have always had big dreams, with tons of things I have wanted in life. I had been living the life I wanted and not the life I could afford. I did that with my finances and even my diet. Those were the two things I needed to focus on first, before my dream European vacation. I created a plan and I’m actively following it. Not sure how successful it will be, it’s a work in progress. I’m well aware of what I need to do, it’s just a matter of doing it. I know it will be a while before I see progress and I can’t give up. I have to be hyper-aware of what’s happening and evaluate my progress daily, monthly and yearly. My goals are huge! It is easier to measure success yearly because there are many challenges along the way. Only time will tell if I created the best plan for me,
After taking a long hard look at my life, I figured out what really mattered to me and had some plans in place to achieve my goals. I developed a plan for my diet. I followed my plan, more often than not, and stuck with it. I lost 60 pounds and won a bet with my husband. I have more to lose so I feel like I didn’t achieve my final goal. However, I’m lighter now than I was when I got married 15 years ago. I actually don’t even know how much I weighed in High School, but I am not far from putting on those jeans from high school again. I have successfully kept off the weight for almost 2 years. I don’t have much more to lose and mostly just need to tone. Why doesn’t that feel like a success story? Why does everything have to be perfect? Why don’t we celebrate the hurdles we’ve overcome and the goals we’ve met?
We push for our kids to get participation trophies but honestly, we are the ones that need them. Children need to learn failure so they work hard and push through. Kids have support from friends, parents, and teachers. When you become an adult, you do not have that. If you do not learn how to deal with failure, it’s much harder to deal with as an adult. Expectations are higher as an adult and anything that isn’t perfect is considered a failure. Don’t believe me? Go to a Paint Night, there is so much criticism, not from others but ourselves. Adults have unreasonable expectations for themselves. Also, no one notices anything until we share our success and then it is almost considered bragging. We only see the successful weight-loss stories, when they’ve achieved their goal. I lost 60 pounds in 6 months because I finally committed to getting it done. There’s never talk about the starts or stops along the way or the journey you are still on. You have to complete the journey to share it with the world. Who wants to hear about your attempts at success? Who’s going to learn from that? Everyone! We should get an acknowledgment once in a while that someone noticed. There is no better feeling than when someone notices something about you, your hair that you spent an extra 15 minutes on, or the outfit you put together that makes you feel like you can take on the world. “You look great!” Anyone saying that goes a long way to making us feel great, it’s our participation trophy for getting out of bed. You just got your participation message. We receive lanyards for events we attend, it’s our participation award for going someplace instead of staying in bed.
We must take our affirmations and awards where we can get them because there is no trophy or score in life. We have no idea how we are doing, or where we are going. No one is ever going to tell us, because life isn’t scripted. We need to make whatever we want to happen, happen. I know that the next plan I have to make happen is redoing, and recommitting to my writing plan. No one is going to write for me. A big publisher is not going to publish my books unwritten and pay me to stay home. Writing is the most important thing I want to work on right now. I think I have been doing really well with my other plans of action, and if I stick with them they should fix themselves. The groundwork has been laid, the framework has been built and I know what I need to do. With writing, I definitely can’t put that on autopilot because it’s going to be a lot of work. Work that I have to do everyday and consistently. It does sound like the only career choice that will help me achieve my ultimate goal of happiness. Writing is going to meet my needs and fall in line with my dreams because in the end, what’s left in life if we don’t have a dream? I may not end up with a Hollywood story of grandeour. I will