A Post of Goals

Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.- Denis Waitley

It is a tradition every year that started with a dear friend several years ago. It is a process. First, I must think about what I want in the next year – what my personal and professional goals will be moving forward. Things wanting to be done or accomplished. Then I get several magazines, a board, stickers and pretty things. Everything I want in the upcoming year, is put on the “Goal Board.”

For several days my house is nothing but piles of magazine cuttings – pictures, quotes and other miscellaneous things. Stacks of magazine, articles scissors, stickers, glue and letters litter the floor. I move the pieces around, trying to find the best place for them on the board. And I always get glue in my hair…for several days. And as soon as I get everything arranged just the way I want them – the cats jump on everything before I have a chance to glue it all down.

So why bother with is at all? Studies have shown that there are many benefits to setting goals. Here are just a few of them:

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. – Henry David Thoreau

Clear focus and vision: When you really think about what you want for the next year (or week, or month or whatever), you get very clear on what you want – and what you don’t. Too often you can have many things on your mind and goals can help you take all of those ideas, apply perspective and priority, then galvanize you into commitment and action.

More motivation and greater enthusiasm: Passion replaces complacency, because we have something to work toward. We are not just drifting; we are on a path and know where we are headed. Goals help us focus on who we are becoming, not just settle for who and what we are today. When we set goals for ourselves, challenge ourselves to do more and be better each time, we grow as people. Setting goals can help to release our creative energies so we can focus on how to achieve them. You start to look for ways to make it happen. We take chances, maybe even a risk or two, because we are motivated.

What keeps me going is goals. – Muhammad Ali

Sense of control: There are so many things that cannot be controlled in life, that it can sometimes get a bit overwhelming. Having goals allows us have control over our lives, whether professional, personally or both. You are programming your brain, and putting your goals in an order to make sure your they become reality. And, how can you not feel in control of your life when you do this? when you feel in control of your life, your self-esteem is also likely to increase.

If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals. – Lou Holtz

Lowers stress: At first this may seem counter intuitive, but it’s not. Setting goals lowers stress by motivating us to live with more passion and enthusiasm. We are fully engaged in our lives; we stop procrastinating and start looking forward to crossing items off that list. And it feels good when we overcome an obstacle that might stand in our way. It also gives us hope.. of a better life, better job, being a better person… Setting and accomplishing goals makes us happier and more fulfilled; thus, lowering stress.

Life takes on meaning when you become motivated, set goals and charge after them in an unstoppable manner. – Les Brown

Setting goals is good for you, and it can be fun – especially if we get our friends and family involved. They can help motivate us and celebrate our victories. This year my goals board will include running, doing Pilates, getting serious about photography, traveling more, saving money and playing my piano again. Join me, won’t you?

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals. – Stephen Covey

Donate and Save a Life!

Soul Saver Rescue, takes the animals no one else will take, gives them medical care, fosters them rehabilitated them and finds homes for them. PLEASE donate, and help the people who save these animals. Soul Saver Rescue, is a 501c non-profit and all donates are tax deductible. PayPal is soulsaverrescue@gmail.com. Please donate now. 🙂

Soul Saver Rescue Dogs

Penny needs a foster or a home! She is the perfect pet for a family, good with dogs, cats and children. Bring her home for the holidays or donate to her care. Contact Soul Saver Rescue.

Penny @ Soul Saver Rescue

40 Years is Not Long Enough

40 years is not enough time to spend with your Mama.

I walked in the room, and she looked so tiny and small. She didn’t look sick at all, in fact she looked beautiful, almost angelic. Her eyes lit up when she saw my mother and me, and she smiled.  We both hugged her and she immediately started telling my mother how she needed to quit smoking. But Patsy was too weak to talk, so she wrote out notes and made motions. She seemed amused most of the time as we tried to figure out what she was saying, as if we were playing charades.

Bossy as ever, I thought and smiled.

Then she tells me that I smell of cigarettes too, since my mother and I rode in the same car. She writes down how she remembered getting after me for standing with my head in the freezer for several minutes one summer that is was particularly hot. We all laughed, as I had not thought of that memory for years.

There are certain people in your life who have a profound effect on you. There are those who are family by choice, who you love just as much as if they were blood. Patsy is one of those people for me. She is my best friend’s mother growing up. She is my second mother. And there are so many memories as the years have gone by; 28 years to be exact.

I met Patsy when I was just 12 years old and was the mother of the first girl I met in my new school in 7^th grade. Her daughter and I became fast friends, having sleep-overs, passing notes in class, talking about boys, planning our lives at that tender young age And Patsy was always there, always keeping a loving but stern and watchful eye over us, making sure we stayed out of trouble. And we did, most of the time.

And somehow, just like my Mom, she knew where we were and what we were doing, all of the time. If we sneezed, she knew. It made it very difficult to misbehave in our small town, so we just gave up trying. That alone kept me out of more trouble than I like to admit.

She raised 4 children – 3 boys and 1 girl, on her own. She ran a business – a plant nursery that never seemed to close. She is a hard worker, honest in business, loyal to a fault and very much from Tennessee.  I love hearing her speak, as her thick accent rolls out. She laughs easily and always has some advice to give this wayward woman.

And even when her daughter and I would have a falling out, as young girls often do, she and I would always speak. She still looked after me.

And when it was time for me to move out of my parents house…I moved across town to a little house she owned, where her daughter and I lived as friends and roommates. She charged us $100 per person to live in that house (oh, how I wish rent was that low now!) She was there with us every day, as the house was on the same property as her business.

She made sure we ate right, studied for school and were generally well behaved. She made sure that we didn’t let any of our friends drive our cars, since we were not the ones who paid the insurance. She would let us know when that house was just too messy for any of her girls. And no boys spending the night, as she would want to know why they were there on her property if she didn’t know them. It also helped that she and my mother were very good friends too.

And then I talked to my old friend from so long ago. Her mother, my 2^nd Mom, is dying. Of cancer, and it is too far for any treatment. And what treatments might work, her mother has refused. She is ready to go. And it broke my heart to hear the news.

And so it is, and I am thankful that this wonderful woman has been my second mother, a steadfast friend to my mother, someone who I could always talk to and who echoed my family’s values. And I love her with all of my heart. I will miss her, but am so very glad for the time with her, to say good bye and let her know how much she means to be. And I thank God for her being in my life.