My True Love

Tis the season for love and laughter, cuddles by a warm fire, and hot chocolate. Tis the season where you buy loved-ones presents and send out Christmas cards to people you do not always talk to throughout the year. Tis the season of being together. Tis the season of magical lights that glow in the night, mistletoes hanging, and white snow is welcomed for a little while because it helps with setting the wintery wonderland mood.

Although winter is not my favorite season, Christmas is a fun holiday and it isn’t even because of the presents. I’ve come to the terms that the romantic in me loves this season. There are so many coupley things to do that just seem more romantic than during the other seasons. Why? I am not 100% sure, but I know Hallmark has something to do with it. People are always falling in love on their shows during this time of year.

So why then am I writing a blog post about “my true love” and romantic things when I am single? That’s an excellent question. Allow me to shed some light on the subject.

Recently I watched a TED talk called “the person you really need to marry.” (I’ll put the link at the bottom.) I found the title very capturing because out of 4 children, I am the only one who does not have a significant other. I was hoping this video would give me an insight on who my significant other should be. To my surprise, the video caught me quite off guard. The video had nothing to do with finding another person to be the love of my life. The video was about making myself the love of my life.

It amazed me when I thought about all the nice things I would do for other people and never do for myself. The way in the past, I would bend over backwards for my significant other, but I would rarely give myself a second chance when I would mess up. The way I would beat myself up thinking I was not good enough if my significant other didn’t want to spend time with me when there were times I didn’t even want to spend time with myself and thought nothing of it.

To simplify my rant, I didn’t love myself, but I am starting to learn how to. I am figuring out the things I love and treating myself to good things. I try to reinforce positive feelings towards myself. I am also beginning to care less what other people think and feel towards me. Granted, I’ll never be completely cured of caring what others think, but I am getting better at calling myself out on it.

There are times I would love to have another person in my life to do all the fun couple like things with, but the cold hard truth is, I am not ready to have someone in my life. I’m not even sure I’ll ever be. I want to be able to fully love myself before I can even imagine someone else loving me. No one else will be able to love me the way I need to be loved if I can’t even love myself the way I need to.

So here is to all my single friends out there. Take this opportunity alone and fall in love with yourself. It will be so much easier to love other people when you can fully embrace who you are and love it. If you’re in a relationship, do not forget to love yourself. Your significant other is not supposed to provide all the love in the world for you. You have to hold your own sometimes.

Here’s the link: TED talk she does a much better job explaining this than I do. Enjoy!

Let’s Make a Goal

A few weeks ago, I attended one of my Women’s Leadership Series meetings. We talked about creating our brand name, but the part that stood out to me the most was when we talked about goals. The guest speaker had us create a T-chart that had our personal goals on one side and professional goals on the other. A lot of the other women in the room found it easier to create their professional goals rather than their personal goals. It kind of bewildered me for a moment because for me, I enjoyed writing down my personal goals more than writing my professional ones.

I had never done that before. I had never written down my personal goals before. I don’t even think I have ever even written a New Year’s resolution before. It was powerful to see them on paper. They went from ideas in my head to tangible words on paper. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. My goals are not just silly ideas, but they are attainable. I can actually get them done.

Now you’re probably hoping that I share these goals with you on this post, but I am not going to. I was taught in my Organizational Behavior class last year that if you share your goals, you are less likely to do them. Weird, but scientifically proven. It has to do with getting praise for having the goals that make people less likely to do them. I promise, though, once I have accomplished some of my goals, I’ll let you know what they are.

So, I titled this post “Let’s Make a Goal” for a reason. I want you to make a goal for yourself. My professor shared with my class this semester a quote from Lewis Carroll, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Sounded exciting to me, but going aimlessly can get frustrating sometimes. This is why the corny metaphor of using life as a journey and the goal as your destination exists.

When you make goals for yourself, you give yourself a purpose. Once you have a purpose, you can create a plan to fulfill that purpose. Now I do not believe that everyone only has one purpose, so you should not have only one goal. I know that I have several. If you have a purpose and plan to fulfill that plan, you have something to look forward to every day. Are you one step closer to your goal? If not, it is not the end of the world and if you are, you can give yourself a reason to celebrate. How you get to your goal is the fun and creative part, but reaching your goal is the exciting part. While reaching for one goal, you could be completing other goals on your way.

There is no limit to how many goals you can have, just make sure you are not making unrealistic ones. There are so many incredible things you can do. Do not give yourself unattainable goals. These goals are not meant to stress you out or burden you. They are just to make life more interesting. You probably fulfill goals every day without even realizing it because you never wrote them down.

One goal that I have is to write more blog posts. Granted, I have never been good at being faithful to my blog, but I like thinking that the little things I learn can help someone else.

So please, give me feedback, share my posts if they help you or you know people they might help. Feel free to share your accomplished goals with me or how my blog posts have helped you.  If I am too vague on ideas, ask me to expand on my thoughts. Let’s grow and learn together.