I can tell you right now my mom is not going to like this post’s headline. She always gives me grief when I use profanity online. I think she is afraid it makes me look “coarse” or unladylike or something. Sorry, Mom, but I gotsta keep it real. Love you!
Enough about my mom, though. It’s 2011 — WOOT! — and I’m really getting my sh*t together. Last year I went through a lot of change and stress. Got my writing and social media business off the ground. Sold my old house, bought a new one. Raised a 3-turned-4-year-old and an infant-turned-toddler. (Still raising them, of course.) All worthwhile pursuits, to be sure. But the upheaval also led to me gaining weight, suffering from relationship issues, feeling overwhelmed with clutter and responsibilities, and losing my mind on more than one occasion.
Fortunately, I always seem to get my mind back after such episodes. And maybe it’s because my new house is finally in decent shape, my business is growing a nice little clip, and my kids can both walk, entertain and feed themselves (sorta) now — but I’m ready to deal with the wall of crap surrounding me. I’ve already started tackling it, as a matter of fact. Check it:
Susan’s Getting Her Sh*t Together To-Do List
- Lose 100 pounds. Longtime WMAG readers may recall I made serious headway toward being skinny a couple of years ago. Well, I had a bit of a setback. But so far, I’m 7.5% of the way to my new goal. Thanks, personal trainer Amanda and SparkPeople for the extra help.
- Launch a for-realz, business-plan-and-everything social media business. I’ve been operating just fine by getting work from people I know and doing what comes along, but it’s time to step things up. I have big ideas and want to turn them into reality this year. Also, making fat cash wouldn’t be so bad, either.
- Get key relationships in check. I am an avoider of conflict. This is just my nature. I hate yelling, crying, causing others pain, or being in pain myself. But all great loves and friendships experience issues and conflicts from time to time, and benefit from open, honest communication — even when you don’t wanna and you suck at it. So I’m actively trying to address old issues and deal with new ones as they arise.
- Make my house my castle. I’ve pretty much already done this, but it’s an ongoing process. I have almost entirely decluttered the entire house, top to bottom. It’s organized so that I can keep it that way. I followed the advice of Peter Walsh, Oprah’s organizational guru, of keeping a Goodwill box in the hall closet and making regular runs to donate unwanted stuff. I have fab cleaning ladies who make my house sparkle and shine every other week. And I am trying to rope the rest of the fam into helping me keep things nice. Baby James does his best to foil these efforts, but he is 18 months old, after all.
- Figure out how I want to spend my time, and then do that. I’ve been reading this awesome book called 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam. The idea is, we all think we’re super-busy and crunched for time, so we make lots of excuses for why we have to do this and we can’t do that, even if we really want to. But if you take a good, hard look at how you actually spend your time, you’ll discover you have plenty of time to do what you really want. You just have to prioritize and thoughtfully choose how you spend your 168 hours (which is the number of hours in a week).
So there you go. Call them New Year’s resolutions, life goals, or lofty dreams. I am actively pursuing each of them, making them happen, and damn glad to be doing it. Yay, me!