Per­son­al­ly, Jan­u­ary was­n’t cat­a­stroph­ic, but it was­n’t great, either. There are some pro­duc­tive steps I took toward my over­all goals. I did two things last month that I had been putting off for a very long time, which is good. The not-so-great: I hit and missed, sev­er­al times.

So what now? Do I keep swing­ing? Will I be smarter the sec­ond, third, fourth or fifth time around? The answer is a firm, Yes.
All humans are fal­li­ble; we make mis­takes. We fall and we get back up. That’s what we do.

Know that you need to lose some­times before you can win. We’ve all had our con­fi­dence dent­ed at one time or anoth­er.
What I have found that helps is keep­ing a list of all my accom­plish­ments at arms-length, no mat­ter how big or small they are and mak­ing sure I cel­e­brate them.

So what are your inten­tions for this month? The same recy­cled goals can become ran­cid. Change them up; let them embar­rass you a bit.

Once you know what you want (for this month only), devel­op a guide that is both slow and clear. Have only one small task to do each day. Muster the courage to focus on one goal at a time and fight every urge to move ahead of sched­ule.
If your’e any­thing like me, this will take a lot of effort. If you decide to ignore this warn­ing, it’s very like­ly that you will have one more goal unfin­ished to add to the “dream” grave­yard.

Think of the sto­ry of tor­toise and the hare. The slow­er you start some­thing, the faster you’ll fin­ish. It is one of life’s great­est mys­ter­ies!

So take one small tiny step toward the sexy beast, but make sure you do so every sin­gle day until you reach your goal and then you can rejoice and start up a new one.

“If you hear a voice with­in you say, ‘you can­not paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” Vin­cent van Gogh

Wish­ing you all a pro­duc­tive, healthy, pros­per­ous and joy­ous month filled with love, pas­sion, and hope.

Xoxo,

Irís Med­i­na-Elston