goals

Getting There, Not Being Here

We all want to get to where we’re going, even if we don’t know where that is. We seem to want to get there even faster when we do know where we want to go and have been working to get there. We can get so focused on the finish line that we miss all of the days and moments in between, and may miss all those milestones we pass along the way that we should be acknowledging, celebrating and appreciating as we travel the journey to where we are meant to be.

I used to be guilty of this. I was so focused on what I wanted to accomplish that I had blinders on and would focus so much that I couldn’t see anything else, and was closed off to anything else other than where I wanted to get to. The trouble with living like that is that we are living the future, we’re not present and taking in life around us as we go. We can miss a lot when live this way, I know I did, and there could be many signs around us every day that we may actually be on the wrong path, but if we’re only open to seeing the the end result we want to see, we’ll never see those signs, good, or bad, and we’ll keep barreling along, perhaps in the wrong direction. For me, I also was so focused on the destination I wanted to get to because I was trying to force it into being by sheer willpower, and I used that drive to get to where I wanted to go to escape from what was really going on in my life. I thought, if I focused so much on where I wanted to go I wouldn’t have time to see where I actually was, and that the place I was at may actually prohibit me from ever reaching the goals and my dreams. That’s one vicious circle. It wasn’t until I made a commitment to live rigorously honest, and to stay present that I could really, truthfully, live in a way that honored where I currently was and what I was working towards at the same time. It also meant I needed to be flexible. To be open to new ideas and avenues and be willing to amend my plan because there might be something else out there that I hadn’t thought about or even knew about. Since walking this path my goals have shifted somewhat. There are things that remain the same, but because I’ve been open to new ideas and have said yes to things, so many more avenues have been revealed to me and have changed what gives me the most happiness. I wouldn’t have discovered any of those things if I had remained only focused on what I thought was going to make me happy or what I wanted to accomplish. Life will show you the way, if you are open to receiving it’s message.

Take time to look around each day and see what else may be out there, behind what you think you know already is. When you walk through life willing to take in new ideas and new goals you will be directed to where you are meant to be. There is so much more out there than what we can imagine in our minds, we only know what we’ve experienced so far, we don’t know what else is possible beyond that. Let others share their journey with you, be open to what may be out there, and work towards finding your best self, once you’re doing that, you are ready to reach those goals of your dreams. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Are you open to new ideas or do you stay fixated on where you think you want to go? If you’re not open to new ideas, what stops you? If you are open, how has your openness lead you to a place you never would have gotten to if you had continually said no? What have you accomplished that you hadn’t planned on, but because you were open find a new destination or goal to focus on you found another place for yourself? What have you taken a chance on and just said yes? What have you said no to that may have held you back? How can you still find your way to the place you may have meant to be when you said no? Allow yourself to enjoy the journey, there here and now, instead of just focused on where you want to be, because you’re never going to get somewhere by ignoring where you are right now.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! If you cannot do great things, do things in a great way.

New blog goes up Sunday, until then…SLAY on!

State Of Slay Expectation

The Set-Up For The Let-Down

Before walking this path I very often would set myself up for a let-down. I would allow myself to have these grandiose thoughts or expectations, that life just couldn’t live up to, and certainly my efforts couldn’t produce, and then fall into a depression when my fairy-tale ideas of how things should be fell short. I would repeatedly do this, falling deeper and deeper into my darkness each time my expectations weren’t matched by my reality. But, there was an even darker force at work than just disappointment. Part my sickness was that if I failed, or if the result wasn’t what I had imagined, it allowed me to continue telling the narrative that I wasn’t good enough and didn’t deserve good things. As much as my ego would say I did deserve the best, my head would tell me, when I didn’t get it, that I didn’t get it because I don’t deserve the best. And that was only part of my insanity, and I constantly set myself up to be let-down.

A lot of where this thinking and behavior came from was self-centered fear. I was afraid of losing what I already had, or afraid of not getting what I wanted, or should say, demanded, because if it didn’t look and feel exactly the way I had envisioned it, it was never good enough. I was living daily with unsatisfied demands, which led to a place of continuous irritability and frustration. I didn’t know, consciously, what I was doing to myself, or even that I was being controlled by my disease, I just continued  in the loop of expecting too much and not getting enough.

This also bled into my friendships and relationships. My expectations of everyone in my life was perfection, unless I was in the need to feel superior, then it was OK if they fell short because I could swoop in and tell them how they were doing it wrong, or how I would have done it. I didn’t give anyone any leeway to make mistakes, work at their own pace, or discover things on their own…sometimes I can still fall back into these behaviors, but it’s not any of my business what anyone else is doing, and how they’re doing it, so why get myself all frustrated and irritated with someone else’s decisions? Again, it plays into setting myself up for a let-down. As long as I kept myself in that cycle I was never going to get any better, and I was never going to see what I was actually doing, and what was happening actually was my doing.

Part of my journey to get well was to look at things for what they are. To have goals, hopes and dreams, yes, but not blow them up to such inflated heights that no person or thing could ever match it. I had to live within realistic terms, and, even if those didn’t play out the way I had hoped, to accept that they played out the way they were supposed to if I had done everything I could to make it happen. Sometimes, I had to learn, I wasn’t mean to have whatever it was I wanted, because I meant to have something else, or be somewhere else. Acceptance was the key to this new way of life.

We set ourselves up to fail if we always set our expectations to impossible heights. Always reach for the top, but make sure the top you see is attainable for you in that moment, and if it’s not, see what is within reach, and maybe by reaching that top, there is an even higher top waiting for you from that place. Live in the now, and keep your expectations in check as you grow and excel from the place you are right now. Life is a journey, there are no short-cuts, what lies in front of us is where we must go to get where, ultimately, we are meant to be, so suit up, show up, and never give up, there’s reason for everything, trust that journey as you continue to reach for attainable goals for you today! SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you set yourself up to fail? Why do you think you do this? Are your expectations so high that no one could ever reach them, even yourself? Why do you think you set them so high? How do you feel when you, or someone else, doesn’t reach your expectations? How do you think you can change this? Why do you think you should, or need, to change this? What realistic goal can you set for yourself and achieve this week? Take a look at your expectations SLAYER, and see if you are setting yourself up for disappointment when you can set yourself up for success by setting your sights on goals that are within your reach.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go, they only determine where you start.

New blog goes up Friday, until then…SLAY on!

State Of Slay Dont Compare

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Let no one discourage you. You don’t need a fan club to achieve your goals. Be your own motivation.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Ships

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! Fear can be a healthy motivator is we choose it to be.

SLAY on!

state-of-slay healthy fear

Healthy Fear

Until stepping onto this path my life was ruled by fear. Fear ran my life and was the basis of all my decisions. I would never have admitted that, or even identified it as such, but that was the truth. I was in fear of missing out, I was in fear of not getting what I wanted, I was in fear of loosing what I had, I was in fear of not being good enough, I was just in a constant state of fear. In my journey of recovery I’ve managed to lose most of my fear. That has come with living my life in a rigorously honest way and having found my way to self-love love and acceptance. When I’m living in that place, and connecting to a power greater than myself, I am very rarely in fear, but, some types of fear can be healthy.

Healthy fear motivates us, it stops us from procrastinating, or may shorten the length of time we procrastinate, it can help us take the right action, even if there is an easier one that may not be right, it can help us in many ways to do what we need to do when we need to do it. We can use healthy fear to our advantage if it gets us to where we need to be and where we should be.

For me, I have a fear of not being prepared. So I can use my healthy fear around that to make sure I’ve done my homework. Whether that’s in my career or a meeting with the bank or a lawyer, my healthy fear causes me to research, to ask the questions I need to ask, and get the information I need to to feel safe and educated in that area. I have also turned a great fear, a fear that kept me distant from people, or isolated, and turn that into healthy fear by asking the right questions when I meet someone new, whether in business or personally, because I have issues with trust, I know I need to take the initiative to find out about that person or people and once I feel like I know the kind of person or people they are, and what they’re intentions are, I have used my fear in a healthy way, and, once I know the facts, I am safe. Fear for me has always been around feeling safe, so I use my healthy fear today to find that safety, as best I can, in asking questions and doing my homework. And that goes for anything in my life, if I have a fear of something I can choose to turn that fear into healthy fear by taking some action around it and not let paralyze me, or keep me away from people. I have the ability to make change happen and stamp out that fear, or reduce it greatly. I am no long manipulated by it, I address it, tackle it head on and use it to my advantage. Now, that’s not to say sometimes my old foe, fear, doesn’t pop up and stop me in my tracks, it does, but I now can work through that fear, get to the source or root of that fear and begin to work through it, many times that fear is from my past, and not actually a threat in my present life, so it’s recognizing that and getting to work on letting it go.

Fear will always try to keep us in it’s grips, but we have the power to turn our fears around and have it work for us to achieve the goals we want to achieve or to live the life we have imagined for ourselves. It’s all there for the taking, if we choose to take it, and make our fear work for us, letting go of what doesn’t. I recently made the choice to walk through some major fear in my life that was tied to my past, but affecting my life today and my future, and because I set out to let that fear go, because it was no longer valid, something really wonderful is happening in my life because I was able to leave that fear in the past. It’s up to you SLAYER, do you want to be a prisoner to your fear, or leave it behind and go after your dreams? SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you let fear take over when making decisions or taking action? Does fear stop you from taking action? What has fear gotten in the way of in your past? Do you regret that? What can you do today to let go of that fear? How can you change that fear into healthy fear? What other healthy fears do you have in your life? What can you change into healthy fear? Fear can only rule our lives if we let it, it is up to us to live in our truth, to let go of the past, to investigate and find out the answers we need in order to move on and leave fear behind. You can do it SLAYER, I know you can.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you

Believing In Yourself May Be One Of The Most Daring Things You Can Do

Believing in myself wasn’t something that came easy for me. I spent most of myself doubting my abilities, talent and worth. I may have started the day, or even a task or goal, with all the intention in the world of believing I could do it, and not just do it, excel at it, only to let the voices in my head talk me down and tell me I wasn’t good enough to get it done. And then would begin the vicious circle of beating myself up for not doing something to my ability or being to afraid to let myself shine as I knew I could. I would then slip into a depression believing I would never get what I want or achieve my goals because I was too afraid to reach for them or I wasn’t good enough to get it. It would take days, weeks, sometimes months to work up the courage to get back out there and try again, and sometimes I would find the success I was looking for, but even when I did I would label it as luck, not really believing I deserved it and would then worry it would be taken away. That fear, that disbelief in myself only grew stronger as I got older, and my disease grew along with me, it was harder to overcome, even paralyzing at times where I would freeze not able to do anything because of the overwhelming fear of failure.

When I made the decision to seek out help, when I found the courage to admit I was in trouble and was willing to make changes in my life to live a healthier and happier life, I did hear those same voices telling me it wouldn’t work, or I would fail, but this time it wasn’t just something I wanted, this was my life that was on the line, and walking through that fear of failure was necessary for my own survival, so I just started to walk.

I learned as I began my journey on uncharted waters to trust myself, to trust that I was being guided to where I was meant to be, and that there was a reason why things were happening in my life, good, bad or otherwise. Looking back, yes, I had let many opportunities pass me by, and even though those missed opportunities frustrated me, or made me angry for letting them go, they helped me learn acceptance, no matter how I felt, I couldn’t change the past, so I had to take what I could learn from it and let it go. And, remembering how I felt about those missed opportunities, I would not let myself miss those opportunities from now on so I didn’t have to feel like that again. That was something I had control over, doing the best I could and then letting the results go, because if I had done my best, that’s all I could have done, and can ever do, the rest isn’t up to me, and once I did that I was able to find love in myself, even in who I had been because she didn’t know better, I was able to start believing in my own self-worth. That seemed impossible when I started this journey, but it slowly came as I continued to forgive myself for my past and began making loving decisions for myself each day.

When we don’t believe in ourselves we make it almost impossible for us to succeed. We need to believe. We need to believe we are worth it, we are capable of it, and we need to believe we deserve the good we seek out. That may seem like a tall order, but it can be done, you’re reading the words of a believer right now, one that used to not believe so much she got in her own way most of the time. Find the love within yourself to believe, find the forgiveness to let go of mistakes from the past, and find the life you truly deserve, dare yourself to believe. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you believe in yourself? If not, why not? Does this come from actions or decisions in your past? Does this come from what you’ve been told by others? How do you stand in your own way? Why do you do this? Why do you think it’s OK? Give an example of something you didn’t accomplish or get because you didn’t believe in yourself. How did you feel after? You have the power to change that SLAYER. You are capable of anything you decide to do, you just have to believe you can and set out to do it. Anything is possible if you think you can. Start by learning to love who you are, and honoring that person, learning to trust what you want and look for opportunities to go get it. You can have those things you dream about, with some work, and, a belief that you can.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you

Slay Say

Good morning SLAYER! When you stop doing nothing and just start to do something, it starts to change everything.

New blog goes up Tuesday, until then…SLAY on!

State Of Slay Steps

Slay Slay

Good morning SLAYER! You are enough and you have enough to get started, even if you only have a maybe in your heart, maybe is enough. Start now.

SLAY on!

State Of Slay Enough