Mindful Monday: Following Through

image credit: christie zimmer

I have a confession to make. I struggle with following through on my goals. (THE HORROR.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and had a really interesting conversation with my therapist last week that got me wondering about qualities we possess that can be both beneficial and detrimental to our psyche. For example, my resourcefulness and Love (yes, with a capital “l”) of research. I don’t think this blog would be celebrating its 10th birthday without the large amount of research I do to keep the content fresh and (hopefully) engaging. The capsule wardrobe, cleaning up my beauty and skincare, and Mindful Monday posts are a few recent examples. A lot goes into those posts – weeks of reading, studying, crowd-sourcing, etc, and I very much enjoy the entire process. I love taking a huge bite into a subject and figuring out how to make that translate to those of you who might not have the desire (or time) to do the work yourselves. It doesn’t feel like a job to me. (Well, 80% of the time.)

So, YAY for resourcefulness! Makes for interesting blog posts! Except, that, well, NO.

You see, the desire to know everything you possibly can about everything isn’t always beneficial. In fact, it can be downright paralyzing. It’s like what I wrote about in the capsule wardrobe post – too much knowledge and too many choices can actually backfire in your face, leading you to spin around aimlessly without actually doing anything. Walking into a crammed-full closet and declaring, “I have nothing to wear” is the exact same concept at play as purchasing a supplement or researching a new diet or deciding on a school or buying a new phone/car/home/insurance policy. SO MANY CHOICES. (Damn you, interwebs!) I witnessed this firsthand when I was diagnosed with Lyme – I saw so many different specialists and read the books and visited the websites and talked to others dealing with the disease…and ended up starting (and eventually stopping) so many different courses of treatment. That time in my life was when I wrote a lot of of last year’s Mindful Monday posts – I was trying to cut through all the mental and spiritual clutter, quiet the noise, and listen to my own intuition. It’s definitely a lifelong learning curve.

Now, I am learning to walk the fine line between my desire to eat All! Of! The! Information! alive and actually implement some of it.

How do you begin? Well, the above graphic has some fantastic points. For starters, the biggest issue for me is to STOP HAVING SO MANY GOALS AT ONCE. I know, I know. But goals are good! Be proactive! Do the work! Yes, all of that, but when you are drowning in goals and ideas and information, you aren’t going to achieve any of them. Give yourself a break – pick one or two measurable goals and go from there. Be gentle with yourselves – this isn’t a race, and it’s completely normal to move slowly and experience setbacks.

This is what I’ve come up with for 2015. I am going to work on two goals/ideas.

The two things I am focusing on this year are my quarterly capsule wardrobes (which, hello, larger concept – lots of research and planning involved), and the second, which I am unnaturally excited about, is a small, ultra-measurable goal that will thrill me beyond belief to complete. Like happy dances for days.

What is it?

To absolutely NOT buy a single book on my Kindle until I have finished the ones I already own. (Or at least attempt to get through them – if one is horrible, I can’t promise anything, people.)

My name is Sarah and I am an Impulsive Kindle Book Purchaser.

I consider this goal “small” due to the fact that I don’t need to research anything. I don’t need to bury myself in resources as to how to achieve said goal. I just need to read the books. That I bought. At some point because I wanted to read them.

How novel! (No pun intended.)

A very attainable goal, yet a much larger concept is at play. It’s giving me the chance to prove to myself that I can follow through, and I’m being smart about it. I didn’t choose some super involved, pie-in-the-sky dream that could send me spinning. It’s simple and straightforward…isn’t that what we all need at times?

A damn fine goal if I do say so myself. Do feel me following through already or what?

You want to know what the books are, don’t you? Okay, let’s do this.

1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
2. Lessons From Madame Chic
3. The Year of Magical Thinking
4. All The Light We Cannot See
5. The Yamas & Niyamas
6. The Conscious Parent
7. Bringing Home The Dharma
8. Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself
9. The Book of Secrets
10. The Story of a Happy Marriage
11. Divergent
12. The Goldfinch (I CAN NOT GET THROUGH THIS BOOK. Everyone seems to adore it, though. What’s the deal?)
13. The Giver
14. Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning
15. What We Talk About When We Talk About God
16. The Last Letter From Your Lover

Okay, guys. I’m not buying any more books until these are all finished. #followingthroughlikeaboss

(But tell me what you’re reading. I swear I won’t buy it. Trust me! Consider it a challenge of my willpower!)

What are your thoughts on following through on goals? Do you get overwhelmed like yours truly? Have you considered setting a smaller goal for yourself in hopes to see it through to completion?