Drifting…

So I was listening to a podcast on my run this morning (one of my favorite things to do). This one was with Michael Hyatt and Michele Cushatt. They were promoting Michael’s new book… Living Forward. I haven’t read it … yet, but it’s about creating a life plan. I am thinking of life plan as kind of a road map that points you in the direction you want to go and is a frame of reference for when you get off track.

A month or so ago I wrote about setting goals and my attempts at getting stuff on paper so I can hold myself accountable. In that process I came up with some things that are important to me and are the framework that I build all my other goals around. It  came down to determining what the most important things in my life are. For me, in this order it’s God, Mr. Wonderful, Our Kids, Exercise and Writing. This is my base from which all other decisions and actions filter through before I plan or commit to anything.

Discovering this base for my life has been so freeing because it helps me to breathe. Before cancer I wasn’t breathing. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Only I didn’t realize it. I came too, in my zombie like chemo state and realized that I had drifted way off course.

Drifting, that’s how they described it on the podcast this morning. I had forgotten what was important to me and what I wanted my life to be about and was just riding one wave to the next with no real direction. I was accomplishing things and getting stuff done it’s just that in my ultimate plan for my life where I was headed and where I wanted to go were two different things. That concept of drifting hit me right in the chest, it was so freeing to hear that sometimes you just get off course. Sometimes you make bad choices and have to suffer the consequences of those choices but other times things happen to you ie. cancer, theft, natural disasters, death of loved ones… the list is endless. Sometimes you have to look up in the middle of the mess and say this situation is not my fault. I didn’t choose this, I could not have prevented it. The choice now is what am I going to do about it. You can wallow in self pity (which I have done a time or two) or you can take a deep breath, pray lots of prayers and move forward in faith that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.

I am learning that you have to be intentional with your life. You have to have a plan or life will just toss you around until the day you go to meet your maker. Obviously between the bad choices that we make and the stuff that happens to us that is beyond our control there are seasons of life when the plan feels obsolete and unrealistic but the plan is there so you can redirect yourself and have steady filters for which to process all of your life’s issues through.

I am such a work in progress. I keep thinking that I am gonna nail this at some point but alas this is so not the case. As you can see from up above my kids are one of my top priorities and my son received an award at school the other day that I knew about but didn’t write down and completely forgot about it when the day came. I was devastated when I realized what I had done and sad that he was pretty much the only one whose parents weren’t there. These are the types of things that I was trying to avoid with my new found framework. We celebrated with ice cream sundaes that evening and he is totally okay but my heart hurts that I blew it and being that with no estrogen in my body the emotions are harder than ever to control, I spent most of the rest of the day beating myself up over it. I hate letting people down, especially my kids but the reality is that no matter how much I want to be perfect and always get it right, it’s just not possible.

So I’m working at forgiving myself and being better at funneling through my framework. How about you? Do you have a plan or a framework for your life?

ps… I added in another mile! 7 and counting people! I’m goin for 8 this week, wish me luck!

oh yeah, a little side note about the pink camo hat and red jacket thing… I actually started the run with the white camo part facing out because that is way cuter. At about mile 3 I had a hot flash so I removed said hat. At mile 5.5 my ears got cold and the pink part was too sweaty to put back on my head so I reversed it. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Cute or not cute, I finished the run! (-: