Ponderings on A Weekly Focus and Goal Making

I have a friend who's pretty brilliant. I look up to her in a lot of ways. Her name is Tanney, and she has a blog called Our Fairy Tale that she maintains much better than I maintain this here blog of mine. There are two blogs that I actually read, hers and my friend Michele's, because I love them and I miss them.

And you know what? For a while, I tried to be like other bloggers. I tried to do the different link-ups and different daily designations of topics, like Tasty Tuesdays and what not. I tried to fit in with the blogging world. And then I got bored and stopped. I'm not that kind of blogger. I'm the kind of person who just likes to sit down and write a note to my friends and family, or to myself, add some dumb pictures I created on the fly, and then call it good. And that works for me.

BUT my friend Tanney has a link-up that I actually think is a good idea. It makes sense. She calls it the Weekly Focus. You know what I think? I think that a lot of people make yearly goals, and then forget to make plans to attain those ideals. I think that people neglect the fact that it is the everyday and weekly adjustments that make the most considerable difference in the outcomes of our actions. Having a weekly focus is a great way to gear your attentions on a specific area in which you aim to gain greater control and achievement. 

So I shall participate in this link-up. I doubt that anyone will really read this post, since it has none of my nonsensical pictorials or hair brained witticisms, but that is absolutely fine. I have thoughts and ponderings on this subject, and as a true student of my subject, I'm going to write about them.

If you hadn't noticed from some previous posts, pregnancy and I do not always get along like good chums. Sometimes we don't even get along as well as the snot-nosed geek and the snot-everything-elsed bully on the school playground. One of the biggest problems is hormones, mood swings, that part of you that rises up and fights with the other part of you for no other purpose than to make you confused and irately irrational. This just makes me more upset, since I'm not the kind of girl who was granted monthly practice with these evils during my formative years. Nope. Hormone-induced idiocy to this extent is new, horrid, and blatantly stupid. 

I made a goal that I would stop being ridiculous about my hormone swings. Actually, I called Mama in a fit of tears and begged her to tell me what to do. She suggested that I learn to differentiate between myself and the hormones, because getting upset at myself when there was not always a lot I could do was just pointless and aggravating to the situation. As usual, Mama was right. And that's when I made the goal to stop being ridiculous about how I reacted to hormonal swings.

But that's a tall order, isn't it?

So what was I supposed to do? Just stop it? That wouldn't work. That wouldn't work at all. If that were an option, I think more pregnant women before me would have opted for that one. You can't really effectively work for a goal if there isn't a way to have applicable, practical, and viable steps of achievement along the road to the ultimate finish. Rather than declaring brashly that I am no longer going to be ridiculous about the most ridiculous part of pregnancy, I must rather detail blatantly the steps that I will take when I come into a situation that would test this goal of mine.

For example, please consider the following:

1. I become overly emotional regarding the selection of a dinner item. I am disheartened that no dinner selection is made, that Andrew isn't more specific in what he wants to eat, that I am now very hungry, that I have no reason to be so emotionally upset over this decision process and I am anyway, and that all of this is pathetically lacking in any kind of result, especially results that would lead to us eating dinner any time soon.

2. What do I do? I have a goal to be non-ridiculous about my hormones influencing my reactions and actions and feelings. But HOW do I make that an application right now, when it actually matters?

3. I have to recognize that the hormones aren't necessarily me, and that I should stop getting more upset at myself. If I'm trying to fight a battle against irrationality, my rational side getting beaten up by my rational side itself is not going to help anyone.

4. I should take a step back from the situation. Is there an underlying cause for this? Well, when I get hungry, I'm not known for my charm and easy-going nature. Could my hormones be aggrandizing this typical reaction of mine to megalithic proportions? It could be that having a quick snack could help me to be more realistic about what is happening.

5. I should do something about the actual problem. We need dinner? Well, shoot. Let's have something for dinner. Even if it's cereal as a placeholder till we can find a real supper, that's still something for now. Stopping looking for grand, miraculous ways out, and do something small and simple while you can.

6. Maybe tonight is a crisis because nothing was done to prepare for this moment earlier. I can avoid future repetitions of this problem by making sure that dinner articles are prepared earlier. Meat to be thawed can be stuck in the fridge to defrost, menus can be made so that there are no decisions to be made nightly, shopping can be done so that ingredients are available to use. 

Do you see what I mean? There has to be a method in which to apply your goal to your actual real life. Your life isn't a hypothesis, so don't make goals like it is one. Make goals that are livable by having steps you can actually do on the way to becoming that goal.

And those are my ponderings on weekly focuses, which will help you to break down your bigger goal into manageable portions, and goal making. If nothing else, my head is clearer. That tends to happen when I write things down. I'm a writer. What can I say?

So, have any thoughts on the subject? Want to see what my friend Tanney has to say on it? You can read her blog post at that link right there. Happy thinkings!