Checking Myself

It’s January 20, 2019 and I’m not sure if I’m alone on this or not but… 
Are you kidding me? Where has this month gone?

Being as the time is going to fly like this, it seems prudent to revisit my “3 Words” <—that’s a link in case you want to check out my original 3 Words for 2019 post.

I realize that sometimes we set intentions or goals, maybe even resolutions, but come February or March we’ve moved on, because life. I think doing an end-of-month review of my 3 Words might be a really solid way to keep them in the forefront of my mind. And bonus, by writing about my 3 words with some frequency I create little footprints that I can look back upon and acknowledge that some progress was made instead of trying to make myself feel badly for not doing enough.

I know my progress has not been huge and my first instinct is to feel disappointed in myself. As with all things, I can choose how I’m going to feel about where I’m at, and instead of feeling badly for not doing more I’m going to feel good about making any progress at all.

Let’s take a look:

Organize.

I think Ken has made more visible progress on this than I have, and I don’t even think he picked words of intention for the year. BUT I did make some small strides forward.

• The File Cabinet

I’m a pro at starting small. :)
I cleaned out and organized 3 folders in my file cabinet. Sure, I would rather wait until I bring the label maker home from the office to finish (excuses), but I started and those three folders make me smile. I can’t wait for the other 200 or so to be just as caught-up. If I can do only 3 folders a month, this “organize” thing could take a while, but then… maybe if I’m actually doing 3 folders a month, this becomes a tiny fixture of routine in my life and the “overwhelm” part never happens again. Let’s see how this unfolds this year.

• Finances

I got my finances all organized. I’ve never been terribly unorganized financially, but I like getting my taxes done asap, so those are ready for my accountant. I love making financial spreadsheets, it’s sort of a weird fascination I’ve had since I learned how to use Excel way back in the day, so I’ve also plotted out my financial status and objectives for the year.

• My Medicine Cabinet

I have a pretty large medicine cabinet/mirror dealy in my bathroom over my sink. It wasn’t a mess, but it had stuff like gummy nail polish and way-outdated “deluxe samples” of face creams and whatnot. I emptied the whole cabinet, cleaned each shelf and put back only what I use. It’s a small thing but it makes me breathe easier. When I open this cabinet now, I actually smile.

• The Office

We moved out of our small office and into our bigger office. I had no idea how much stuff we had until I saw it all piled in the middle of the floor of our once super spotless new space. We picked up a few more Ikea shelves and started the epic organization project, but we’ve a long way to go on this one. Baby steps!

• Writing

I’m writing! The goal is every Sunday of 2019. If more happens, awesome. So far, there’s not been more and I’m OK with that for now. It feels really good to be doing any at all! The more I do it, the more organized I start to feel.

I would love to say I did a whole bunch of other stuff but this was as far as focused organizational tasks have gone thus far. 

As I write, I’m remembering how helpful it is to breaking items out like this in writing. This was normal for me once upon a time, feels good to strike back up again!

Expand.

I closed out a few things and said “no” to a few other things in the first couple of weeks this month. I also said “yes” to a few things. I’m slowly reaching out to find the edges of this space I’ve carved out. This intention I’ve set for myself to expand is a bit tricky because I feel like I’m learning and trying to figure out exactly what I mean by it as I go. February could be shaping up as a month of making lists. Probably should’ve started that in January. We still have some days left in January… 

Anyway, this one will be interesting to experience and I will continue documenting how it all plays out. Maybe by the end of the year we’ll have something nifty to get excited about and a whole lot of learning under our belt! Maybe we’ll just have a bunch of lists.

Presence.

I’ve had a couple great written exchanges with people I’ve not talked to in years. I’ve worked on little things like leaving my phone in the other room, or just putting it down more often. Zia and I have an ongoing battle of who’s better at Clue.
There are a few people on my list to reach out to sooner than later. 

I feel like I have a lot of growth to do in this area, yet at the same time, I feel like I have some very awesome, meaningful, and mindful relationships. I don’t want to move too quickly on expanding my circle until I know that every person that I view as being in my circle knows they are, and feels they are. I have a lot of work to do on that.

…

Reaching the end of my recap and looking back on it, it feels more significant to me than it felt when I started this post. Even though my progress was relatively small, it was small in several places and THAT is progress.

Did you set intentions or goals for 2019? How are things going for you?

My 3 Words for 2019

A few years back my friend Daniel Steinberg introduced me to Chris Brogan’s “3 Words Process” while we were experimenting with our own TinyChallenges podcast.

I sat down to write yesterday because writing (again) is one of the things I want to do for myself in the coming year. I decided that one day out of every week in 2019 (Sundays) I would use my currently-dedicated gym time to write, that way there would be no excuse about not having time - the time was carved out two-and-a-half years ago and healthily maintained as gym time. I didn't foresee a swap-out of one thing for another being the challenge it was. It totally was, though. I did NOT want to get out of bed yesterday.

Once I peeled myself out of bed I decided to write about 2018. I bored myself with my own words and thoughts after about 20 minutes and quickly distracted myself by checking-in on work. 3 hours later I was still working on work things that could've waited. I guess I'm a bit out of practice.

While I'm discouraged that writing didn't feel wonderful and freeing and like the only thing ever that I want to do for the rest of my life, as it used to... this, like many things, will take me some time to rebuild a recurring practice around and I choose to be OK with that. 

I thought about my three words for a long time. At first, I had eight words and it was tough for me to focus on them long enough to prioritize them. I decided that today I will make time. So here's where I've landed (in no particular order). 
...
Organize.
Since the launch and viral chaos of Picture This Clothing in August of 2016, almost everything else took a back seat. At first, the company completely took over our home. Eventually, we subleased a small space near our manufacturer, then in 2018, we took on a lease of our own and it's an amazing space! 

My home, however, has never fully recovered. My mind has never fully recovered. This year I will get a handle on the many bits that feel like a straight-up 10,000 lb glitter explosion. 

Expand.
In prior years it was a goal to make more space in my life. I believe I have done that to quite a solid degree since I started that journey in 2013. Creating space, in my own definition, was about hugging-in and focusing only on what is important. Clearing out the noise. Saying "no" more so that there is space to breathe, feel, and exist with pointed intention. Now it's time to expand mindfully within the space I have carved out. I made the mistake last year of expanding too quickly beyond the space. While that had some benefits, it also had some enormous negative consequences. Hopefully, this has been a well-learned lesson that bears no repeating. 

Presence.
Relationships require cultivating, care, attention, and presence. I want to improve my presence in the relationships I most value. Life is too short not to put more focus here.
...

While I've never been much of a "resolutions" kind-a-girl, I'm a huge advocate for goals and writing things down - for me writing is the clarity of vision that defines doing versus not doing. :) 

Happy 2019, friends!

Jaimee

A very quick recap of 2018:

• With the exception of slowing down over Christmas break, I continued my streak of going to the gym at least 4 times per week. I’ll hit the 3-year mark of this routine in May of 2019.

• Got an incredible office space and established our own manufacturing shop (we print, cut, sew, thread-clip, label, pack, and ship every single piece in-house) for Picture This Clothing free of any bank-loans or outside investment.

• Invited to Shark Tank. Went and failed miserably. It will never air but was a great experience.

• Experimented a ton (and had lots of fun) with videos for Picture This Clothing.

• As far as I know, my kids and Ken don’t hate me and I think they’re all amazing.

• Started speaking at conferences again.