The Beginning

For a while I have felt like all I do is complain about my boring monotonous life. Basically doing the same boring things day after day after day. I was in a rut that was just getting deeper and deeper.

In an effort to change, I decided to take a hiatus from reading romance novels (I enjoy them too much to permanently stop) and start reading books about people who changed their lives. I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed and while it was a good read, it didn’t inspire me much beyond maybe someday I would like to hike the PCT. I started The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, but didn’t get past the first month. I read almost half of The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World with the Dali Lama and Desmund Tutu, but that wasn’t inspiring to me either. On a fluke, I came across The 52 Weeks by Karen Amster-Young and Pam Godwin. Even though the book wasn’t anything earth shattering, it resonated with me and started me thinking maybe I could change and improve my life one week at a time.

I don’t have a life where I could just pick up and move across the country or world or take months off from work. While those options sound wonderful and exciting and would definitely create change, I am not in a place in my life where I could take those drastic measures. Nor, am I sure I would even want to, if I could. However, I am capable of making small changes on a weekly basis. One week at a time is manageable, less daunting and brings me hope.

I decided I wanted to make healthy changes, learn new things, work on overcoming fears and even add some fun to my life. I am always saying “I would like to….”, but never do. Now is the time to do.

Of course, as I was thinking about this the self-doubts immediately began to creep in – I’ll never come up with any ideas, I’ll start off strong and lose momentum, I won’t want to spend the money, I’ll chicken out, Even if I do this nothing will change.

So I let it go for few days. Then one day, I decided to see how many different ideas I could come up with that I would like to learn, to change/work on about myself or do. I immediately came up with twenty and over the course of the week I had over thirty. After reading my list, I decided I could do this and started thinking about when I should start – now or in January. Then I realized I already had three weeks of activities planned. Apparently, my one week at a time was starting now.

After my first week and talking to a friend about what I was doing and trying to accomplish, it came up that I should blog about my experience.

Now, sharing about myself is way, way, way outside of my comfort zone. I am a very private introvert and this idea had me quaking in my boots. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that this would be a perfect thing to add to my list. I would be stepping way outside of my comfort zone on a continual basis as this would not be a one and done activity.

I can actually say writing this post was much easier than I anticipated. However, creating the actual blog was an entirely different story. I had a pit in my stomach the size of a grapefruit and almost talked myself out of doing this a dozen times. Self-doubt was running wild in my head – You know nothing about blogging, I can’t do this, I have no clue what I am doing, You really think you can write?, No one is going to read this, You’re wasting your time and money, Everyone is going to think your stupid. Then, I came across a quote by Neale Donald Walsch “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone” which for me reinforced what I am trying to do and I persevered.

I could have easily given up and chickened out. No one would have been the wiser, but I would have known. I would have broken a promise to myself. This is about me, improving myself and overcoming my fears. If I start giving into my fears now, I will never accomplish what I set out to do – change my life, one week at a time.

Until next week,

Harper

 PS: I can’t tell you how rewarding it felt to keep this promise to myself and create this blog. Even if, no one else reads this, I feel like it is already a success. Here’s to many more successful blog posts.