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After PitchWars – 2019
When I start projects, there isn’t usually a time limit. I like to take the the journey, enjoy the process. My finished novel is no different. I’ve spent around ten years perfecting this novel. I’ve raised children, altering my perspective on the […]
The 2018 Wrap-up, a few months later…
“Anything worth chasing must have a real chance of disappearing.” Libby Webber The year-end crept up on me, and I wrote this post in December in order to reflect on the past year and set impossible goals for the year to come. […]
“Anything worth chasing must have a real chance of disappearing.”
Libby Webber
The year-end crept up on me, and I wrote this post in December in order to reflect on the past year and set impossible goals for the year to come. It is now April, and I’m wondering where the last few months have jetted to.
2018 was a magnificent year. I completed several major long-term goals:
- Became a Gracie Certified JiuJitsu Instructor.
- Became a Gracie Women Empowered Certified Instructor.
- Earned my Masters of Science in Information and Library Sciences From Drexel.
It feels like a short list for me, but those goals were two years in the making. A good deal of the sweat, tears, and mental breakdowns happened in 2017, and then the true test of my confidence and courage brought them to completion all the way through the end of 2018.
In terms of lessons, I learned a few big ones:
- Anything worth chasing must have a real chance of disappearing.
- Some goals do have an expiration date.
- Priorities. Priorities. Priorities.
- Knowing that Grad School would be finished soon forced me to focus all my energy on it. I had to make the hard choices of here my engird went.
- Some goals do have an expiration date: This is a semi-true statement. I could have extended my Master’s degree to take fewer classes and therefore dedicate my time to jiujitsu. But financially, my funding for school was running out-and grad school is expensive. I began jiujitsu 3 years ago, and the progress I see is astounding. I realized I could come back to jiujitsu with more vigor in 2019, but Grad school needed to be complete, and I needed good grades to keep my funding. My chance to finish grad school without debt was an opportunity to complete a major life-goal which trumped everything.
Priorities are essential to thriving in chaos, which I’ve come to learn I do quite will. The thriving…not so much the priority setting.
Making yourself a priority may seem selfish and counter productive when chasing several goals. However, I promise you, your mental health and those around you will thank you for taking the needed time to not think at all.
My self-care included:
- Writing when the muses visited–even with a paper due. I knew my brain and soul were begging for a break from coding or cataloging when I could bang out 5k words for a manuscript, but not a 500 word essay.
- Long hot showers. To be honest, I would sometimes listen to my online lectures while in these long hot showers, but the mono-tone voices were less boring when I could shave my legs at the same time.
- Saying “No”. This is a huge one, and part of what drew me to the Gracie Jiujitsu Women Empowered curriculum I now teach. Set boundaries, and tell people no. No I cannot stay for an extra class. No I cannot read you another bedtime story. No, I don’t really want to go out, even though I know you want me to say yes. The power of saying NO to others, and YES to the muses, the long hot showers, the mindless few hours on Netflix–alone with ice cream and pretending there aren’t deadlines creeping in will empower you to be able to chase those goals even harder.
2018 was an amazing year, and I know we’re 4 months into 2019, but it’s looking pretty promising as well. I know myself enough to know blogging is not my strong suit, but the occasional update will be posted as the year move on.
Find your Inspiration.
-Libby
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Go with the FLO
Hurricane Florence swept into our lives last week, chasing us home to CT. The whole experience could have been catastrophic, with two kids and the cat, and two stressed adults, unsure what we were leaving behind (did we forget anything??) and what […]
Hurricane Florence swept into our lives last week, chasing us home to CT. The whole experience could have been catastrophic, with two kids and the cat, and two stressed adults, unsure what we were leaving behind (did we forget anything??) and what we might come back to—A leaky roof? A flooded house? A looted house? As Florence was upgraded to a nearly Cat 5, we decided the safest place for our children was anywhere but there. We did a quick house prep, packed what we could reasonable fit into a our car, and headed home.
What I’ve learned retreating from Hurricane Florence:
1. Somethings are irreplaceable, but nothing is more irreplaceable than our sanity.
Bring the pictures? Leave them on the wall? What about the filing cabinet of important papers? I’m am insanely grateful to live in a time where there is pretty much a guarantee of finding a digital copy of every photo I have hanging in my house. As for the documents, we grabbed the most important and packed the rest in coolers and put them on high ground.
If it were up to my hubby the guns and passports were ready and he was good to go. I’m sure he will be grateful I grabbed a copy of our lease should we need to for damages and whatnot. And the bag full of snacks he ate during that 14 hour car ride would have been missing as well.
2. Go with the FLO.
Making the decision to leave was hard, but I’m glad we left. So many cool things have happened since we got home. I got to visit with family who were also visiting from out of state. We got to have mini vacation with my kids. AND I was able to be at my niece’s very first tattoo appointment—where she got a matching tattoo to mine. She is the coolest kid ever. Just make the decision and GO.
3. Humor makes the world go round.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many memes directed to a natural disaster. I live by the thought if you can’t laugh about it—figure out how to*. Laughter and humor are not only coping mechanisms, but can bring people together.
*Disclaimer I understand there are times when laughter and humor are not appropriate, this is a general thought I live by,, and there are always exceptions.
4. Home is where the cat is happy.
Being a military family, we move quiet often. In 2013, we relocated to Okinawa, Japan. A beautiful place I look forward to returning to one day. We had the cat set to go—but the military had to change our flight last minute, and my 1st child (cat), Kozo, could not fly with us. My amazing sister took him in, the plan was to send him once we got settled. But she fell in love and didn’t want the cat to travel across the world alone and took him in for the 3 years we were gone. We returned home, happily reunited with the cat and we all move to NC. When we arrived back at my sisters last week, Kozo could not be happier. He jumped out of the kennel, slapped the dog on the face (they’re old friends) and went searching for where his food used to be. He’s not a social cat, but he’s been in his happy zone since we’ve been here. My cat knows where the heart of this family is, and it’s here at my sister’s house.
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