GOALS, PLAN, ACTION & REALITY

I am enough

GOALS, PLAN, ACTION & REALITY

Writing things down really helps me. I have always been a serial note and list maker… Like the amount of notes I have on my phone is ridiculous! Also the random quotes, words, basically anything that I hear that has some kind of meaning to me... I write down in one of many notebooks. I'm also a serial planner. I plan the dinners we're going to have a week in advance, I start planning Christmas in August and if I go on holiday then I also make a day to day plan! Control freak, I know! But it works for me and the way I work. There is something about making lists and ticking off tasks when you have completed them! It's just So. Darn. Satisfying!  

I took this concept and instead of just doing lists for everyday life etc.. I started making them for my personal goals. I first started it when I had really bad anxiety after my first surgery. I was so scared to go out alone, without my boyfriend or my parents. I was constantly scared that someone was going to bump into me and cause me serious amounts of pain... having surgery on your spine isn't visible... it's not like a broken leg or broken arm that you'd have a pot on that everyone can see and sign. I could walk around with my scar out but that could get a little cold in the winter! 

There is one time that stands out very clearly to me. It was when I was shopping in Harrogate with my sister and Mum. We were in Primark, (for any of you that have never been to Primark, it sells cheap clothes and is usually jam packed, full of people) just browsing the women’s section and all of a sudden my sister and Mum disappeared. I couldn't see them anywhere. As I frantically starting looking for them, my heart beat was getting faster and faster and it felt like everyone was looking at me. It was horrible. I started crying and then even more people started looking at me. I felt sick, I was scared and I just wanted to escape. I left the store and walked as fast as I could back to the car, crying the whole way. 

Looking back now I shouldn't have let things get that far but you can't always be in control of your emotions and feelings, right? Anyway, I made changes. I started to make lists about what I was scared of, how the fears made me feel and the severity of each fear. I then started making sublists of what I feared (see I told you I was a serial list maker). It started with going outside by myself, going for a short walk by myself, going into a store by myself, to ordering or buying something by myself. It was super tough at first and I wouldn't be able to do certain things... but if I couldn't do them I would come back, write more lists, and reflect on how it made me feel and how I would approach it differently next time. So for example "Going to a store by myself", instead of going to a big supermarket I would change it and go to a corner shop, and then progressively increase it over time. 

Goal: Going to a store by myself

Plan: Go into small stores for a small amount of time. Reflect on how this makes me feel and why?

Action: Concentrate on my breathing when in the store. Slowly progress to bigger stores

Reality: Being able to go to the store and buy something by myself

It took me a while but I eventually got over my anxieties. They still come back from time to time but I now know how to deal with them so they don't affect me as much. And now I use that same technique in my every day life. 

Goal: Self Love

Plan: Understand what Self Love really is

Action: Accept that I have good things and bad things about myself, as does everybody. 

             Immerse myself with people that inspire me.

             Accept that I make mistakes but I get back up and try again

             Forgive myself

Reality: Self Love

That's a shortened version of just some of the steps that I took to get to where I am today but I hope you get the general idea.  In my next blog post I will be going into more detail into that specific goal that I set myself - 'self love'. If its something you think you would like to work on, maybe we can work on it together?

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LP x