Victory Over Defeats

Goals. We all have them. I, personally, have several goals and have had several goals that are on and off again. I have a problem with sticking to my goals. When the going gets tough, I stop going. (Guess I'm not tough. ;P )

Recently, though, I have been encouraged to "crush my goals". As of yesterday, I have kept to my goal of drinking at least 9 cups of water for 9 days now! But this hasn't come easy. I gave up my coffee Sunday morning for a 3 cup bottle of water. Yesterday, I didn't manage to finish my first 3 cups until about 4 pm. Not a big deal, but that meant I had to drink 6 cups of water between I got home at 5:30 pm and when I went to sleep. It was one of those days that I would have thrown in the towel in the past. I wouldn't have seen a good way to get all the water in, and I would have given up before I even finished the first 3 cups.

This has happened to me a lot. If I miss a day of something, I tend to get discouraged and throw in the towel. I know I should get back on the wagon or the horse or whatever, but I get so down on myself that I just give up.

I let defeat defeat me.

I realized today, that I can have victory over defeat. Instead of letting myself be defeated by missing whatever goal I set for myself, I can get back up, start again, and claim my victory.

I have been so encouraged by a group of people who have decided to crush their goals and encourage others as they strive to do the same. I am grateful for them and their support. I encourage you to find someone or a group of people to do the same for you.

When you miss your goal, stand back up and know that you can reclaim your victory. Defeat doesn't have to defeat you. Even if you miss several days.

It's never too late to get back up and claim your victory over defeat.

Follow Your Passion

Finding your passion can be hard. As much as I want to say that I was always told to follow my passion as a kid, that wasn't the case. I'm an artsy person so I liked singing and acting and photography and painting. When I was in high school and trying to figure out a career I would be interested in pursuing, it became hard to nail down. I thought about all of the things I was interested in, but the message I seemed to be getting was "Those career paths aren't going to make you any money. Pick something else."

I recently passed by the local seasonal garden shop and I wondered how they decided that's what they wanted to do. It got me thinking about my sister in law when she was in high school. Where she grew up, she had a chance to go to a vocational school for her junior and senior year. When she thought about what she would pursue there, she contemplated being a gardener. I remember so clearly that her family, much like my own, steered her away from that passion questioning what she would do with that kind of degree. In the end, she followed her passion in baking and she became a chef. I am very proud of her decision to be a chef as she seems to really love it.

This all leads to the question of how does one find and actually pursue their passion? I still haven't really found that one thing that I love. I still love writing and I love painting and I love singing, and I like taking pictures. Still I don't see a career in any of those things for me. (I still love my job as the Office Manager at Riverside. I wouldn't change it for the world.)

Part of me wonders what my life would have turned out like if I had been encouraged to follow any of my passions despite how much that career would make me. Would I have pursued more roles in the plays at school? Would I have tried for a music major or a theater major? Would I have pursued a communications major when I found that I really enjoyed my speech class? Would the difference in classed made me enjoy college more and made me stay? What would I be doing with my life now? Would I have found my niche? Would I have found the thing that really makes me think, "THIS! This is where I belong and what I was always meant to do!" Would I still struggle with "creative stir craziness"?

In no way am I discontent with my life now. I know God lead me here and here is where I am meant to be. And as I said before, I LOVE my job. I don't know of any other job I would want. (Other than one day being a mother, of course.) I just wonder sometimes.

I hope that you will follow your passion no matter what it is or where it leads. I hope that you will find your strengths and lean on them, see where they take you. I hope that you will not let the fear of needing a career that makes a lot of money take you away from pursuing what you love. God will always provide what you need when you need it. Don't be afraid to pursue your passion.

Find what you love and, most of the time, your job won't seem like work.

Never stop dreaming,

Elisabeth

Creative Stir Crazy

Have you ever been at home so long that you feel this insatiable need to go anywhere else? Like you can't get out of the house soon enough. Like you've been cooped up for too long and you need to RUN or you'll just go crazy! It's what we call being Stir Crazy.

I am beginning to feel that way, but it's not about getting out of my house, it's creative. I feel like I'm in a creative rut and I can't get out of it. It's like I have all this creativity, but no outlet. I think about writing, but I don't know what to write and I'm stuck at a point in my story that I don't know how to get the main character to point B. I think about painting, but I don't know what to paint and even if I did, when on EARTH would I have the time?! (Seriously. We have something happening every single Saturday this month. I might just puke.) And anything that would be creative but costs money is NOT an option because we are trying to save every last penny (except a few for Christmas Gifts) to be able to buy a car since mine decided to quit. (We had to sell it.. It's really sad.. RIP 2007 Pontiac G6 GT Turbo V6 Hardtop Convertible, beloved first car.)

I'm exhausted.

It's a never ending cycle of insanity that leads me further down a sinking pit. My brain is foggy, my emotions are unreliable, and I'm feeling more anti-social by the minute. I have mixed feelings of wanting to slam my head on the desk and wanting to just curl up in a ball in my bed and go to sleep forever. It's like there is a person with their hands in the air, eye twitching, running around and screaming like mad man.

My brain is a dark place right now. (Thus the going to sleep so I don't have feel or think about it. #numbing) It's terrible. I know.

So yeah. There's my dark, self-deprecating post for the year.

I know I can't be the only one who is feeling this way or has felt this way at some point, so if you have any suggestions about how to get out of this insane cycle, feel free the leave it in the comments. I read every comment, I promise.

Anyhoo, I'm out. Peace.