Hey, y’all! April has started which means we’re officially in the second quarter of the year. To be honest, 2019 has not been going the way I thought and my first quarter didn’t pan out the way I would’ve hoped. I had goals for the first quarter with blogging and my newsletter and I didn’t blog at all during the first quarter.
I also had personal goals to start a new full-time job, have more in my savings, and make more strides to pay off some of my debt. Unfortunately, none of these things have occurred and it has really put me in a place where I’m doubting and being too hard on myself. I want to change all of that and in order to do so, I need to change the way I think and approach this new season that I’m in. Today, I’ve decided to share three encouraging statements that I’m reminding myself of this quarter to reduce the pressure that I put on myself.
LET GO OF THE PLANS/THOUGHTS/IMAGES OF HOW YOUR LIFE SHOULD BE
I know this statement is very hard to accept but it’s one that I have seen play out in my life over and over again. Every time I make plans or try to live up to the image that I’ve created in my head, something never happens that way I think or a small portion of the plan doesn’t happen. Woody Allen said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” What I have to constantly remind myself to do is to let go of the image that I have for myself and trust that everything will work out like it’s supposed to.
It has also been helpful for me to continue to strengthen my faith in this difficult time and trust that God is in control of everything. I’m taking this time to truly focus on what his plans are for me and help him lead me into the direction that I should make, which also puts my faith into action.
YOUR WORDS HAVE MEANING
This is something that I struggle with so much. I have a tendency to talk down and get really hard on myself when things don’t work out the way I had hoped (imagine how hard I’ve been on myself these last three months!). I have been trying to work on the words that I speak over myself when life gets me down. I’ve been working on changing my words from negative to facilitate more positive vibes. Instead of me saying, “I’m really dumb for doing XX” or “I’m so stupid for thinking XX”, I’ve been working on flipping it to, “I may have forgotten to XX but I’m smart enough to figure it out.”
STOP COMPARING YOUR JOURNEY WITH OTHE PEOPLE’S JOURNEY
This. Right. Here. Instagram has not been helpful in this aspect. I am constantly seeing images and the edited and pretty version of everyone’s journey. I sometimes get caught up in comparison where I am with someone’s edited version of their life. This has made me feel even worse about where I am with my 2019 goals. I have to remind myself that my journey is not the same as everyone else’s and I don’t know the struggles that they’ve had to overcome on their journey.
BONUS – THE YEAR ISN’T OVER YET
When I start to feel like I’m going down the rabbit hole of “I haven’t achieved any of my goals from the last three months”, I remind myself that the year isn’t over. There is a lot that can happen in 9 months. I may have had some setbacks but I can still achieve my goals. Reminding and saying these things always helps me change my perspective of how much time I still have to accomplish my goals.
As you can see, I am nowhere near perfect, nor am I striving to be. I, too, am working on myself to be a little more patient and to learn to embrace the journey. I’m hopeful that I’ll achieve my goals set for the second quarter but I’m not going to get too hard on myself if life happens because I still have time. Hopefully, these words encouraged you if you are feeling down about your current situation.
If you’ve had a setback this last quarter, how are you encouraging yourself to keep going?
