Failing forward. That is how I would describe this last month.
I had these grand plans of being AWESOME last month. Well….I completely succeeded! Ha…you thought I was going to say I failed there, didn’t ya. Nah. I’m always awesome…In a completely humble way, of course.
But here’s the thing…I definitely did NOT do all the things. I definitely failed to accomplish all the things. Somehow I thought it would be a great idea to set a huge emotional and transformational goal for myself during the last month of an intense summer hustle training I was doing for our Young Living business. But you know what…that’s okay. I learned a lot about myself this past month, and that is what I’m most happy about.
Joy, guys…joy is SO obtainable. Let me first say that my Joy completely comes from God. He is where I find it. When I am empty, He fills me up with it. With that said, I am very aware that we, as humans, are also given a choice…we can take hold of that joy, or we can walk away from it. What I learned over this past month is how often we choose to turn away from joy, instead of embracing it. Isn’t that crazy? Every time I felt the doldrums coming…those dark shadows that beckon to all us, calling us to plummet, to dive down into the depths and make our beds there…I had to make a conscious decision to not go to those dark places. And guess what?! That’s the biggest lesson I learned. 1) Joy is a choice. 2) I can make that choice.
Did you get that? We can choose NOT to plummet! We can choose to change our response. Isn’t that awesome?! I mean, we can choose to find the joy in each situation. Even the darkest ones. We can we can form new neural pathways and find a new way to respond to difficult circumstances. And when I say difficult circumstances, I mean even the smallest, most ridiculous ones…bumping your head on the bathroom sink…spilling your bowl of cereal with milk all over the kitchen floor…having someone flip you off in traffic, when you’re not even the one that cut them off. And of course, we have choices in even the biggest of sorrows, too. My point is…as you can read here over and over again…we have a choice. You have a choice.
Yes, it is sometimes WAY easier to give into the dark side (just ask Luke). But when you gather your strength up (and yes…you have the strength!), and decide to fight for joy instead, you world will begin to change.
Now with ALLLLLLL that said, I have to be completely honest. During the last two days of my 30 Days of Happy, I succumbed to the dark side. I totally did. No big thing happened. No great, life-changing event occurred. Yeah, maybe hormones played a role, but let me tell you…even hormones don’t control us. We have the ability to overcome those crazy, roller coaster ride emotions. Sadly, I let them overcome me instead. It was dark, guys. Real dark. I’m kind of embarrassed to say how much I let my emotions control me. But you know what, there is grace. There is grace in the darkness. That is another thing I was reminded of. I hate that I let my dark emotions get the best of me, but I’m SO thankful I didn’t have to stay there. And I’m SO thankful that I choose to forgive myself for succumbing to that crap.
This stuff takes practice, guys. Seriously…practice. Every time something comes your way that beckons you to the depths of despair (shout out to Anne of G.G.!), practice joy. And when you don’t get it right every time, forgive yourself. That’s what I’m doing now.
So below you’ll see all of my original goals. Yeah…you’ll see how I fared in the bold, plum words. But I’ll take this last month as a win. Because every time we work hard at something…every time we set goals for ourselves…and we fail…well…we fail forward.
I hope that encourages you. I hope you see that if you take risks, and go for it, and even if you crash and burn, you are moving forward. If we spend our lives not taking risks, because we are afraid of failure, we’ll never get anywhere. So let’s all fail forward together. Because as we fail forward, we are also bound to find to success in all that mess.
I’m going to continue pursuing joy…practicing joy…maintaining joy. How about you?
- I will wake up every morning and write down what I am grateful for. I did this for about a week. But I did say what I was grateful for when we drove places in our car. That still counts.
- I will envision all the things that I long to see unfold in my life…the things that are already burning deep within my heart. And I will believe in them…even when I don’t feel like I can believe in them. I did a pretty good job of this.
- I will exercise at least three times a week, because let’s just face it…Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. And happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t. Okay, I stole that last part from Elle Woods. But she speaks truth. I want to exercise because it’s good for me, and it makes me feel good. And I’m all about the well-rounded health approach. Exercise is a part of that! I want to keep this promise to myself. Oh man, I wish…I did NOT succeed in this. It was once…maybe twice…a week.
- With every obstacle, hurt feeling, and down moment, I will look for the positive…not to be fake, but to change the way I think about the hard things in life. I consider this to be a super successful one! This was my favorite part of my 30 Days of Happy.
- I will use my essential oils and supplements every day, because if you don’t know it by now, there is legit, scientific research out there about how essential oils can support emotions (check out google scholar or Pub Med…it may just blow your mind). Yup…did this one all day, every day.
- I will spend more time with my kids, playing with them or reading to them. They need a Mamma who will play more with them! I’ve been pretty busy for most of their lives. I don’t want to be too busy for them. Honestly, I wanted SO much more time with my kids.
- Unless I have evening workshops, I will stop working at 3pm every day. I need to set some time rules for myself, or I just keep working. Yeah…no. I did terrible at this one. I started this journey during the last month of an intense summer hustle training for my business. I’m in resting mode now, so I think I can get a little better at this. Note to self…start the day earlier.
- I won’t get on my phone after 10pm unless there’s an emergency, because we all know these smart phones of ours can cause some serious stress. Fail, fail, fail. Legit…fail. Oh, Lord Jesus…help my addiction!
- I will spend an hour a day reading something. I love to read, and sometimes I let the day get away from me, and I don’t read at all. Over the last three years, books have played a crucial role in changing my thinking about so many things…I have been profoundly challenged in so many ways, and the changes I’ve walked through have been beautiful. I read more than usual, but I did NOT meet this goal either.
- If I fail at being positive or joyful, I won’t beat myself up. And I won’t believe the lie that I have to start all over again. I will simply forgive myself when I am unkind to my joyful heart, pick myself back up again, and keep moving forward. I did pretty well here. If I didn’t, I would have been miserable, because as you can see, I did NOT do that great at hitting most of the above goals.
- This one’s a bonus number…love on others. Love on others a LOT. When the giving hurts, give more (thanks, Mama T, for that reminder!). Love, love, love. I poured out my heart…a LOT. And there’s no greater joy for me.
