Happy August!
It's officially my birthday month!! YAY! It's also the 5-year anniversary of my departure from Boulder, which kinda marks the delineation between my "old" life and my current one.
I had a really great time hanging with a new friend last night, telling her the story of how I got from there to here and all the messy and fun and romantic and dramatic and depressing and scary and sad and hilarious moments in between. It's really been a road.
But this new friend and I, we have a lot in common. We came from similar backgrounds and are in similar places now and have similar aspirations for the future. So swapping stories and ideas and dreams and ideas was really fun and left us both feeling re-energized and excited to forge ahead with our plans both small and large. Before we parted ways, I told my friend an important part of my story...
It was perhaps the roughest chapter for me - an era I've referenced a lot as of late. I had traveled Europe and landed in NYC and gotten a job only to HATE it and wonder what the hell I was doing and how was I gonna create this dream life of mine and it all seemed completely absurd and impossible and like I better just get my shit together real quick. I wasn't finding time for yoga or any of the wellness stuff I had deemed important and I just couldn't seem to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
In comes my good friend from Colorado, Dre. Dre had also just moved and was going through a tough transition time as well. We both had these little targets we wanted to hit but weren't hitting them, so she suggested that we email each other every Sunday night with our goals & intentions for the week, and our report on the previous week. And so we did.
These check-ins were a huge part of what pulled me out of the hole. We would of course read them and send encouragement and support back to one another, but more than anything it was helpful just to do the check-in for myself. To see the weeks fly by and the same intentions coming up over and over, you begin to figure out the roadblocks and find a way around them, if for no other reason than to have something new to report back the following week.
I got back to my meditation practice. I made more space for me. I worked on having a better attitude. I applied to other jobs. I explored other avenues. I made time for writing. And little by little, my life began to change. When we started our check-ins it was April and I was at a job I hated and never exercised or practiced yoga or meditated or anything I was hoping to have time for. Our check-ins fell off 3 months later, when I flew to Spain to do yoga teacher training, and the rest is kinda history.
And so, I suggested to my new friend that we do something similar. Not weekly email check-ins, per se, but text reminders. Little encouragements. Questions to keep eachother on track. Because we can plan and plan and plan and plan (we all know I LOVE to plan) but all the planning in the world won't get us to the actual doing. I have found, both in scenarios like this one and in coaching programs I've enrolled in, that accountability is KEY. I've been in group coaching programs where you can fly under the radar, and I did just that - I stopped doing the work and stopped getting on the calls and despite my hefty investment in the program, I didn't finish it. But then when I have a one-on-one coach, I've completed every assignment, because I have to answer to someone at the end of the week, and it just doesn't feel good to hear yourself make excuses, especially when the person you're really letting down is yourself.
So, what are your intentions for the week? Do you have a friend you can reach out to and ask for help to keep you on track with your goals? If nothing else, become your own accountabili-buddy by writing your intentions down at the start of every week, and checking back in at the end. It's a practice I'm gonna start back up again myself. And hey, it's a great use of our little Facebook group, which I haven't been hanging out in in quite some time - meet me in there and share your intentions?
xo,
m.
p.s. the next Lazy Wellness Retreat is in the works and I'm thinking a THREE-DAY-WEEKEND this time. Fall. Foliage. Freedom. Get on the list to be the first to know!
