Category Archives: Success

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Happy New Year! 2018

^The picture above was at my personal trainer’s studio many years ago.

It’s a new year!  I am extremely happy to see the back end of 2017.  It wasn’t a horrible year, but it wasn’t a great one either.  I honestly can’t say that I achieve a single goal that I wanted in 2017.  As a matter of fact, I was very lax in everything last year.  I did nothing.  Well, I’m determined to make this year different.  I honestly want to take charge of my health and finances this year.  I’ve decided to tackle it month by month instead of making a goal for the year.  Well, I guess taking charge of my health and finances would be my goal for 2018, but I’m going to break it down in monthly goals.

My health is something that I need to get in control of.  Here is the honest truth..I’m diabetic and I have high blood pressure.  It’s not a good thing.  At all.  About 10 years ago, this started to rear its ugly head and I did my best to get out in front of it by hiring a personal trainer to help me with my fitness.  I was very involved in my nutrition by reading and researching everything I could online.  I counted calories, I stopped eating processed food.  I stopped drinking soda. I had pizza every once in a while (maybe once every other month).  I was ON IT!  And I was successful.  I dropped 50 lbs.  I lost many many inches and I felt good.  But, it was hard!  Anyone who tells you healthy living is easy is lying to you.  It was hard.  It was so hard only drinking water and taking more than 10 minutes looking over a menu when going out with friends to see what I could eat.  It came easier with time, but..still…it was hard.  At some point, I hit a plateau and that is honestly the most frustrating part of losing weight.  Plus I started to have financial problems because the recession was starting to hit….so I ended up losing momentum.

Well, here we are many years later and I’ve completely gotten off the wagon. I stopped working out.  I stopped paying attention to what I’m eating and here I am..taking pills for blood pressure and diabetes.  I don’t like it at all, so it has to change.  My goal for the month of January is to exercise five days a week.  I have a treadmill in my bedroom right next to the bed.  There is no excuse to not hop on it almost every single day for an evening walk.  So…there it is.  In writing.  Five days a week in the month of January.  I will add on to this goal in February.  Small steps is all I need.

Next is finances.  My finances spiraled out of control last year.  I did start to change things in the fall of last year, so I just want to continue that path.  I hate being in debt.  I hate credit cards.  I would love to pay cash for everything and have extra cash on hand for emergencies. I hope to never have to pick up a credit card again!  Again, when I bought my house over 10 years ago, I was completely debt free.  I had paid off every single credit card I had.  It was great.  I felt so accomplished.  I had set a goal and followed through.  I was proud of myself for doing it.  Today, I have about five credit cards, all with balances.  I’m ready to get rid of them all and that’s going to be my goal for 2018.  The month of January, I’m tackling the first card.  Lowe’s.  My goal is to pay this card completely off in January.  It’s about $160, but that’s money that I can free up to tackle the next card.  I also plan on putting about $200 in savings during January.  I plan on doing this by not dining out AT ALL during the month of January.  I will only eat what I have in the house.  I will be doing a strict monthly budget so that I can work to get both of these goals done and maybe even get a running jump on the February goal.

Well…here we go.  It’s all in writing. These are my goals for January.  2018 is a year for advancement.  Same old me…just a better version.

What will you be doing in 2018?

Talk to you all soon……..

 

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Whatever happened to….

Quotation-Morgan-Marouani-life-reality-dreams-ambition-Meetville-Quotes-199022I recently posted on Facebook that I kinda miss my 24 year old self.  It’s true.  I miss that girl.  She had so many dreams and was fearless about what was to come.  At 24, I made the decision to leave home and drive 800+ miles to live in Georgia.  I had such plans.  I was going to become successful!  Now, I did not have those dreams of singing, acting, etc.  I just wanted to become this great business woman that would provide me with the ability to take care of my mother.  That was my dream.  I wanted to be an entrepreneur.  Thinking back to it now, I realize why it did not happen.  I did not have a plan.  I had no clue what I wanted to do.  All I knew when I got here is that I needed a job to be able to pay bills and keep food on my table.  Not a bad goal.  After all, my mother didn’t raise someone show shirks responsibility.  I had to be level headed and needed to know how I was going to make it in this big city.

Unfortunately, due to that feeling of being responsible, I got caught up on the normality of a decent paying job and lost sight of my real goal that caused me to leave Wisconsin.   So, now I am asking myself “what happened to that 24 year old girl?”  I need to get a hold of her again and we need to talk so that we can get back on track with our dreams.

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Life Changes

How does a person go about making a life change? Let me do a quick flashback..

I remember a conversation that I had with my mother a long time ago. She was possibly the same age that I am not or a little older. She was telling me how she was frustrated and wished that she could do something different with her life. She was speaking about a new career. Now, my mother had a city job for as long as I could remember but she felt….unaccomplished? Or bored? I don’t know. I remember my response to her, “Well, why don’t you get a new job?” Now I think…oh from the mouths of babes. 🙂

Now I’m at the age that she was and seemingly at a similar crossroad. I realize now why she was so scared to make a change. She had a good job, she could provide for her family, and she knew what to expect every day. It is so stressful to make a life change when there are responsibilities involved. Now, I admit, my decision is a little easier for me since I don’t have children but still….changing a career or making a big move is hard. My biggest and toughest decision so far was going back to school! But anyway, I think about this story a lot because at the time, I didn’t understand. I had so many jobs by the time I was 23, that I just thought if you were tired of something, you just changed it. But I had my mom to rely on. If something didn’t work out for me, I could just go home.

Well, my mom passed away almost 10 years ago now, so making these decisions are so much harder. I can’t go home anymore. I have to live with the decisions that I make and hope for the best. I am continually questioning myself on everything. I am wondering if I am doing the right thing. How do I go about making a plan? What do I really want to do with the rest of my life? Am I having a mid-life crisis?

So here I am, on the road to some big life changes. It feels as if I’m just rolling with the punches and I had hoped I would not be doing that. I’m trying to be confident in my decisions, but I’m telling you….fear is getting the best of me. BUT….I’m still trotting on. I’m trying to face those negative and scary thoughts and just keep my goal in mind. I saw a glimpse of my dream last weekend. It was a beautiful boutique that I go in frequently, but is nearly exactly what I want. I hope I make it there.