Incremental Progress

I'm not much of a New Year's resolution kind of a girl. As much as I love new beginnings to start fresh with brand new habits, a Monday is pretty much all I require. From my observation, it seems like all those vows of health, happiness and prosperity are pretty much forgotten about by Superbowl, anyway. However, never one to be bound by the chains of my existing beliefs, this year I went New Year's resolution hog-wild. I've made tremendous progress, with both my life and health, in the back-half of 2013. But is my inherent type-A ever satisfied? Of course not! I want more!

Discipline, setting limits, and keeping my own rules, are three very hard concepts for me to employ. The intention is always there, but reality seems to be the bigger victor in choosing how my time is spent. Mainly, feeling like complete crap all the time, because I live with chronic illness, wipes away every good aspiration and determination aimed at improving my life. It's a viscous cycle I was stuck in for many years. Looking back at the end of 2013 made me realize how much progress all my bellyaching, self-criticism, and refusal to buckle under insane pressure, actually generated. 
   
So on January 1st I sat down and wrote out my grand plan to implement yet one more crucial step in getting my life back. And I mean I scheduled it. From 8AM to 7PM, 5 days a week, every hour was dedicated to a specific activity. My house was gonna be clean, dogs groomed, laundry, cooking, dishes and juicing accomplished with ease. And the hours I penciled in to write, oh, it was glorious! I felt fabulous, wonderful, ready to conquer the world! Now that I have a road map, maybe I can actually get there! 

In the back of my mind I knew how ridiculous expecting all this discipline, limit setting, and keeping my own rules, to just appear from thin air, actually was. However, it wasn't until Friday morning, after I set my alarm for 9AM, and pushed snooze for an hour and a half, that I realized what I wrote out is nothing more than the goal. Like, maybe by the end of 2014 I can be operating at a more efficient rate than I am now. Incremental progress, I proclaimed! The only way I have improved my life to date is to never expect perfection. It's the heat seeking missile bent on destroying the path to change. Ahhh, I feel much better now, having shed the pressure of immediate attainability. Because honestly, hasn't everything always been accomplished with nothing more than baby steps?

Thanks for joining,
Leah    

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