Tag: Goals

A Recipe for Life

Think of your favorite recipe. Maybe it’s for chocolate chip cookies, zucchini bread, or a delicious pasta or salad. The recipe calls for certain ingredients and not only that, but a specific measurement of ingredients and sometimes in a very specific order. All of the ingredients together turn into whatever you are desiring to eat!

The ingredients can be tweaked and modified, and you can still reach the desired outcome in several ways. There are even many different recipes to make the same type of food. There are numerous ways to get to the end result. What if I told you that life can be the same?

A Little Bit 

Life is composed of many different aspects. We have a desired goal or dream and an idea of how to get there, but oftentimes, we get there in the most unexpected ways. Sometimes we may not reach our desires at all, or they may be partially met.

Many of us have a desired life path. We want certain things out of life and perhaps even in a certain order. Often, the desired outcome doesn’t always turn out the way that we wanted it to. Just as with cooking, we can add a little bit of this and a little bit of that trying to create a masterpiece, but it can turn out to be something that we did not want or even expect.

Many Tries

Just as there are many ways to make chocolate chip cookies, there are many ways to reach our desires in life, or at the very least try. Sometimes we may have to make sacrifices and let go of certain dreams, but there are ones that are within our reach, we just have to have the mind and heart to get us there.

The recipe for life is not concise, nor is it one size fits all. The recipe for life needs to be tried, tested, modified, and redone over and over again. Sometimes life will be sweet and other times salty. There will be periods of time when the ingredients that we mix together won’t work out well and we must try again…maybe even for a third or fourth time.

Reminder

Thankfully, life can oftentimes give us many tries to perfect the recipe. We can keep trying and trying again until we have what we sought to find. There are many ways to try and approach what we want out of life. 

I’d like to think that there is no wrong path. Sure, we may end up where we don’t belong, or where we don’t want to be, but I truly believe that in the end we always end up where we are meant to be.

There isn’t one path, but many. They may all lead us somewhere different, but in the end, we hope that we will be happy once we reach the final destination.

Do you have a recipe that needs tweaking? A little modification can go a long way!

Advertisement

I Looked for True Love

When we were young, we had thoughts of how our lives would pan out. Maybe we dreamed of college, a job, marriage, and a family. Possibly we wanted to travel the world and start our own business.

Whatever our goals and plans were, we probably didn’t see foresee that some of our plans wouldn’t happen or would happen in ways that we never expected.

My Dream

As a young girl, I dreamed of getting married and starting a family. Being a mom was all that I had ever wanted, and I am incredibly thankful to be one today. Finding true love was another one. This is where I pause.

I have always been pretty unlucky in love. I have found myself in the oddest and most uncomfortable situations and met some very ungenuine people. I have my faults too and I am working on them, I truly feel that it takes two to make a relationship work.

My biggest fault is that I don’t fully communicate my thoughts and feelings. I would rather save someone’s feelings, but in the end, it only makes things much worse.

The Old Saying

They say that you find love when you aren’t looking. They say that love will find you at the right time. I believe both of these to be true. No matter the stress and impatient feelings, I know that timing is everything and I believe that what is meant to be will always find its way.

When I was a few years younger than I am now, I would constantly look for love. Where was my soulmate? Where was the person that was created to be with me? Why is he so hard to find? Thoughts of how unlucky I was in love never left my mind.

I looked for love everywhere. I looked at Church, in the grocery store, walking through the neighborhood, and at the gym, I even turned to online dating. I met some people here and there, but it never moved past the first few dates or so. We just weren’t a match and I had to be okay with that. Many times, I was looking for something more than the other person was. I wanted a serious relationship; I wasn’t looking for anything casual.

A Realization 

One day it hit me why some of my relationships didn’t work out, why “the one” hasn’t shown himself to me. One day it hit me why love didn’t find me no matter how hard I tried. There was one simple yet complicated answer. I had to love myself first.

I spent many years looking for someone to make me whole and complete me. I looked high and low for someone who I could spend my life with. Someone who would genuinely love me for who I am, faults and all. That person doesn’t exist, it is up to me to feel whole and complete. A partner can only add to the base that is already there. In my case, there wasn’t much of a base.

I knew that I had to make some changes. I had to love myself so that I could fully give myself to someone else. I just started working on this several months ago. I haven’t made as much progress as I had hoped, but slowly I am trying to change that. I speak positive affirmations as I look in the mirror, I try to forgive myself and not be so hard on myself.

I am doing the best that I can. I am human, I have faults and I will never be anywhere close to perfect, but I still deserve to love myself to the fullest. It’s a hard task, but it’s very important to me. I hope that one day, loving myself first will create a foundation that true love can build on.

The Path of Redirection

Can you recall a time when you wanted something so badly, but it never happened? A time when you wanted A, but you got B? Maybe you were upset and mad at the world for a while and wondering why me?

For the most part, we generally have a direction that we want to go in life. We have a path that we want to take, dreams, goals, and aspirations.

Life will take us on many journeys and they won’t always be the ones that we expect or hope for. While this sounds like a negative outcome, it can end up being the most beautiful thing ever.

A Different Path

The path of redirection may be what we least expect or hope for as we navigate through life. We have this vision for our lives, and we anticipate most of it happening to us as we strive and work hard every day to create the lives that we want.

Being taken off of the path that we were originally on can be discouraging, frustrating, and can leave us questioning so much about ourselves and our lives.

Fate

We all have our own beliefs about life. I believe that we all have a destiny, a designed path that we are to be on. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason and somehow, we all end up right where we should be when the time is right.

Our path is unique to us. Traveling down the path of redirection can put us farther away from where we want to be. What we may not realize is that this redirection may lead us to our desires despite it feeling like a huge curveball.

Life Experiences 

There have been so many times in my life when I’ve been redirected. I remember feeling frustrated and lost. I couldn’t understand why I was being taken so far away from what I wanted.

As time moved forward, things started slowly falling into place. Many of the times the desired outcome was reached even if it was the complete opposite way of how I expected it to be. Many of the redirections in my life became some of my biggest blessings!

The Puzzle of Life

Have you ever noticed that our experiences in life fit together like a puzzle? Everything connects to something else as we march on.

Each piece fits together so perfectly. Each piece is important as it becomes a part of the larger picture.

The next time that you find yourself being redirected, hold onto hope that it might be for the best and that the biggest blessing might be just around the corner!

2023 and Still Me

We have just welcomed a brand-new year! When I was younger, I used to think that the New Year was a fresh start, a new beginning. It felt like magic, a new year hit, and all of a sudden, I had a blank slate, and I was a new person.

I anticipated the new year and all that it helped me feel. It was almost like life started over again and I had 12 amazing months ahead of me. The world was mine and I felt unstoppable.

Reality Set In

Fast forward to today and the new year is still wonderful, but it does not hold any extra power or magically change my life in any way. There is no reset button. It’s 2023 and I am still me.

Some of you may know that I am on a journey to live more authentically. I have a very difficult time expressing certain parts of myself and the way that I feel. My biggest fear is rejection, this leads me to only show certain sides of myself to others. Being more authentic is and still will be a major goal of mine this year.

I Hold the Power

It is up to me to hold myself accountable for this goal. It is up to me to start expressing myself in ways that align with how I am feeling. No date on the calendar is going to magically change this for me, I have to change this!

I must say that I am doing much better in reaching my goal, I can share and be a lot more open than I once was, but I have a very long road ahead of me. I have a road to self-discovery, and higher self-esteem, I have a road to allowing myself to feel what I am feeling and then put it to good use instead of letting it consume me. Perhaps my biggest setback is my inability to truly love myself as sad as this sounds.

My Wish

For 2023, I want to come out as a stronger woman, one who truly loves herself and can be herself 100% of the time. A woman who is not afraid to live and isn’t worried about what others think. This is my wish for me.

My wish for you is that you are filled with great health, hope, love, and happiness. My wish for you is that all of your dreams come true and that you realize what an asset you are here on this Earth!

This is my wish for you and me in 2023.

What is Your Current Goal in Life?

All of us are working on some aspect of ourselves or our lives. We want happiness, stability, and a sense of belonging.

We may often take a look and evaluate our lives and where we want to be. We may notice aspects of ourselves that are working for us and parts that need to change.

Throughout our lives, our goals may change depending on what season we are in. We may jump from wanting to visit the gym every day, to wanting to advance ourselves in our careers, to desiring marriage and children. Whatever goal you are trying to reach, most likely the result that you are searching for is happiness.

My Current Goal

I would like to share with you a goal that I am currently working on. It has been quite a struggle, but I am determined to reach it because I know that it will greatly impact my life.

Growing up, I was never one to share what was on my mind, or in my heart. I was friendly with others, but also shy, especially in my teenage years. I kept to myself a lot and was very reserved. I didn’t want to open up to anyone. I was always afraid of rejection, or worried about what others would think of me.

Fast-forward to the adult that I am today and unfortunately many of those same qualities remain because I have never taken the time to try to fix them until now. My fears of rejection led me to not live authentically. It led me to live a life of superficial relationships and communication that was nothing more than small talk.

I Craved More

I knew something was missing in my life. Despite my shy nature growing up, I felt that there had to be something more, I knew something was lacking. I was a girl that hardly made eye contact because I lacked confidence. I was friendly with other people, but it never went beyond small talk because I was so afraid to open up and be myself. The vulnerability was a scary feeling.

As I became older, I realized that I craved a lot more from life and my relationships. I craved eye contact, I craved deep conversation, and I wanted to be close to others and be able to talk freely and openly.

My Goals

I want to live more authentically. I want to be able to openly and directly communicate with other people. I desire to fully love myself. I truly want to be able to communicate with others without needing to sugarcoat or communicating indirectly.

If someone has hurt me in some way, most of the time I have a hard time letting them know because I don’t want to cause any issues. Little do I realize, not sharing my true feelings and openly communicating my needs and wants only backfires.

I want to live freely and not worry about what other people think. I want to be able to openly communicate what is on my mind without fear that I will be rejected or that it will start some terrible argument. I want to be able to express myself confidently.

I know this goal may sound silly to some because most people do not have trouble being who they are and saying what is on their minds. Somewhere down the line, I chose to walk around hiding my innermost feelings even though they begged me for an escape. Somewhere down the line, I lost who I was. I made a promise to myself that I will speak only kind words and love towards myself and that I will always openly share what is in my heart.

How My Goal is Going

I have done fairly well in implementing my goal. I keep having to remind myself to keep communication open and sometimes I still catch myself filtering my thoughts, but I am working very hard to reach my goal of living an authentic life. There’s no more allowing my voice to not be heard because I am afraid of the aftermath, there is no more walking around with a smile on my face pretending that everything is okay to avoid getting on someone’s bad side. I am true to myself.

I am no longer letting my fear of rejection or losing someone that I love be what stops me from being true to myself. I have learned one too many times that lack of communication will most likely end in a failed relationship. Unspoken words lead to grudges, which leads to distance between two people. True and stable relationships will be able to weather the storms in life. I have learned the value of communication.

Question for You

As with many life changes, implementing a goal to alter yourself or your life is not an easy task. It’s human nature to be creatures of habit and to want to stick to a life of comfort and things that are known to us. We crave stability and familiarity even though this does not help us grow.

If you would like to share, what is your current goal in life? What steps are you taking to reach your goal? Life is all about learning to find what works for you and what makes you happy. Life is all about discovering ourselves and trying to pass the greatest test that we will ever be faced with. Whatever you are desiring and working on, I wish you all the best as you try to reach your goal!