Damn, can the days whiz by quickly as bad habits turn into a whole lifestyle, a whole life.

Plans we put out of our minds for just a minute while we run to the grocery store become dreams we haven’t seriously considered in years. We get so lost in our thoughts and worries, our chores and obligations, that we lose sight of who we really want to be.

I could come up with 50 goals I’d like to accomplish in my lifetime, but on New Year’s Day 2010, I focused on the priorities I wanted to have no matter how crazy or chaotic my days were. I came up with three actions I wanted to do every day and I used a day-book to record my progress.

Connect

The first goal was a no-brainer. How many nights did I tuck my then 11-year-old daughter into bed thinking, “I wish I would have done something fun with K today” or “Did I really have to yell at her for that?” What if I had to take note of my daily connection with my daughter and report on it? I know I am an adequate parent, and that obsessing over my mothering flaws tends to make things worse, but what if I had a small but meaningful objective that I had to meet every day – cranky days and crazy, busy days included? Goal Number One: Lovingly & Meaningfully Connect with K Every Day.

Create

The second goal focused on the dreams that had been collecting dust for the past few years. You see, in 2006 I adopted a 7-year-old girl. It was a tough few years – lots of trauma and grief to work through and daily – sometimes hourly – rages. Prior to the adoption, I was a writer and performer in my spare time from work. Now there was no spare time and for the first time in my life I had no creative outlet. I stopped writing, attending performances, reading anything creatively inspiring, or watching any films that were not rated G. Goal Number Two: Do Something Creatively Inspiring Every Day.

Move

The third goal addressed middle-age frumpiness. I gained over 40 pounds after I became a mother. Stress was taking its toll on my body and I found myself having to upgrade my clothing size every year. I knew that in order to be achievable, my health goal had to be small and gentle. Goal Number Three: Move my body in some way every day.

So how did it go?

Pretty great! (For about 3 years, anyway, until tragedy shifted our household into panic mode for a long while. I’ll tell you about that in a future post.)  

My first achievement was being mindful of these three areas. I started each week by writing:

Connect ________   Create________   Move________

onto each day of a day planner. Then every night, I would write a few words on each line. For example:

Connect – Played Frisbee

Create – Wrote blog post

Move – Frisbee!

Or:

Connect – Nice talk in bed

Create – Journaled

Move – Walked dog

It was VERY satisfying to complete each line, and once the day planner was ingrained as a habit it influenced my daily choices.

K: Want to play Just Dance on the Wii with me?

My first thought, “Not really!” My second thought, “Connect and Move. Okay.”

When I had a bad day, I drew a frowny face next to the goal I missed. When I had a string of frowny faces, I took action. In fact, our now family famous cross-country road trips were inspired by an abundance of frowns in the Connect category.

Great things happened in the years I kept those day planners. My relationship with my daughter blossomed. I started a blog which quickly got thousands of hits and led to writing many essays and being published in an online journal. I lost about 20 pounds.

Focusing my life on what truly mattered to me also deepened my spiritual life in ways that I will describe in future posts.

What’s most important to you? Are these crucial values influencing your daily choices?