re-evaluation...the necessary evil of growth

I was going to start this by saying, "Good evening," but I realized as I was typing this that you might be reading this at any point and therefore making my salutation mute. Whatever time of day you read this, Reader, I hope you're having a great day! We are here again because holy Moses we are in the third month of the year already! How!?!?!? I don't know if I'll ever stop being shocked at how quickly time passes. Seeing as I made you an unwilling participant in my journey towards bettering myself, it is my rightly duty to update you on the past month. 
February started at a hot pace! I stayed busy, I was tracking my goals. I was doing all the things...well mostly. I was tracking my goals for the first two weeks of the month with every intention of continuing to track them for the entire month, but then one day turned into two...then a week...then we were done with the month.
Now reader, please don't be too harsh in your judgement of me, I have already mentally beat myself up for this, but instead of looking at the negatives, I'm trying to take this as an experience of growth. Whenever there is a conflict or an issue with something, you take a step back and re-evaluate things to determine what went wrong, what is working, what's not working. Ultimately you want to know how to improve and what things you can do to help you produce the best outcome. The last two weeks of the month, I have spent time doing this and what I found is surprising and yet not shocking to me.
My reflections started with why I despised tracking my daily goals and sharing it on the social media platform I had agreed to, to keep me accountable. Part of the reason I found this task so draining is because I hated having to share something every day. Another thing I disliked about the situation is that on the days that I wouldn't make all of my goals, I would feel like such a failure and feel like I was letting down all the people I've been trying to share my journey with. It was a type of negative reinforcement that didn't motivate me, but instead made me disenchanted with the experience. 
Once I realized this, I also took into consideration the fact that I have an adventurous spirit. I often say yes to spontaneous, spur of the moment plans and this would adversely affect my ability to achieve my daily or weekly goals. While I was consciously making the decision to not make my goals on those days, it just started to build a resentment towards them. I no longer wanted to work on them because I felt like they were improving me. They became a monotonous task that I no longer looked forward to. 
Having lost my motivation, my memory of why I started, and the amounting feelings of failure, I stopped tracking those goals all together. The past two weeks, I haven't even made marks on my board and it just sits in my house useless and untouched. This is not to say that I'm not still dedicated to improving myself, I just need to find another way to approach it that will actually keep me motivated and focused on the real reason I decided I want to do all of this in the first place. Becoming my best self. 
Moving forward, what I've decided to do is to continue to work on the goals that I have identified, but to be a little more lenient with them. This may mean adjusting the frequency in which I try to achieve them or it could just mean celebrating what I do get done, knowing in the back of my mind the things that I wish to accomplish each day. I will still try to track my progress on the identified social media page, however, instead of including a checklist with open boxes I'll just be sharing the great things that I was able to accomplish for the day. 
By reframing my mindset in this way, I feel that I am accounting for my carefree spirit while keeping myself focused on overall growth. I am catering to my accomplishments instead of zoning in on my short comings. I allow for spontaneity without compromising the day or the week. 
Do I know if this will work? Nope! That's what goal setting is all about right? Trial and error and steps forward overcoming the steps back. As long as we remain resilient and true to ourselves and what we need, we can't go wrong right? One of the beautiful things about life that I've always appreciated is one's ability to start fresh.
Take advantage of the fresh hour, the fresh day, the fresh week. All of the above! We only have one life and we can only hope to continually grow and work towards being that best version of ourselves in the moment. 
Thank you for your time today reader. I wish you luck in your own goal endeavors and hope that you too take time to re-evaluate. May you move forward with the best plan for you possible!
As always, try to be the reason someone smile today. :)
Until next time!

​Jordan