Thinking About Life Goals

In my last post, I talked about my desire to get to doing things. One of the reasons for that is to get past the “planning and preparation” stages that I so often eagerly jump into but just as often don’t progress beyond. Now, the reason for that is partly because I’m just that way and planning things is enough for me… I like to do that kind of thing! But the main reason why is because I get so caught up in my head, overthinking things or waiting until things or I myself am “the most ready” for whatever.

This causes inaction. Or at the very least just a lot of planning and talk but very little follow-through. Which is quite annoying for me, and I’m sure for those involved in my daily life.

Which is why I’m having a difficult time right now!

The Problem

How would I deal with this? By reading all of Marie Kondo’s books and using the MariKondo method for tidying my things and my apartment.

My “restart plan” essentially outlined what my current major goal is: To do more with each of my days by stop letting clutter get in my way.

My progress so far? Not as… progressed as I would like.

To be fair, Marie said in one of the books that the process can take a long time, sometimes even 6 months. While I don’t think I’ll be working on the tidying part of things for that long, I know that figuring out how to live my life in balance with my things and space will be an ever-changing pursuit as I learn and grow through life.

BUT while I’m going through the process of tidying, cleaning, organizing, and whatnot… I feel like I’m doing the whole, “I’m doing the thing! I’m doing the thing!! I’m going to engage with life again, BUT FIRST I just need to tidy things up and get ready. Then I can start with things again!” thing again. Yanno?

And while there’s a certain amount of time I’m going to have to devote to tidying before I can start to engage with new things, I can’t get stuck here for too long. I can’t afford to keep prepping for what I want and not actually go for the things that I want.

What To Do

Instead of focusing exclusively on getting by with daily life, work, and tidying while sort of “kicking the can” for the real things that I want to focus on down the road, I need to set some other goals for myself. I need to look at myself in a hypothetical future, picture what I’d like to see that look like, then use that to figure out what I’d like to do with my life.

I never really did have a solid, “I wanna do this big epic specific job when I grow up” over my growing up years. Well, I did say that many times, but the career options kept changing with my interests. And I’ve done so many different things over the years that I don’t really have one thing that’s been more important to me than anything else. Well, for the most part.

So, with that in mind, and while still devoting plenty of time to my mental and physical well-being, I’m going to be giving this topic some serious thought over the next several days. It’s an interesting question, the answer to which I’m quite interested to see. What do I want to do when I grow up?

Matthew’s Restart Plan

My last post was two years ago (almost exactly). I’ve written a few draft posts in the intervening time, but haven’t completed any of them or felt comfortable what I ended up writing. So let’s ignore the time gap and jump back into things!

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic is seemingly “over-ish”, you’re probably seeing a bunch of ‘restart plans’ out there as I have seen. They outline how we’ll all work together to get back to ‘normal’ or try to figure out how to do the things that we haven’t been able to do for the past two years.

In the early days of 2020, I was excited to finally start doing things again, especially after an excruciatingly painful previous year. My health was beginning to bounce back with my new treatments, my then-boyfriend was finally coming back for a month to visit and talk about plans for the future, I was moving back in with some of my family, and a few other positive things.

I was also looking forward to reconnecting with people that I hadn’t been able to keep in touch with while dealing with all of my physical, mental, and spiritual health problems. So you can imagine my disappointment, discouragement, and outright dismay after thing after thing started to go wrong after that.

Anyway, flash forward to now!

Since that time, I feel like I’ve been putting pretty much everything on hold; More than ever before, actually. To some degree that was required, as we all had to do our part in the pandemic response. But also, in my situation, things weren’t so great for the past two years… and I was essentially in survival mode.

It’s time to move beyond that! I’ve put in a lot of work to deal with my anxiety, depression, OCD, ADD, OMG, CPTSD, CFS, and other (seemingly unending) ongoing problems.

I don’t know why exactly, but I’ve been having this sense of– I don’t know exactly what word to use… renewal! A sense of renewal has been in the air, and I’ve been itching to act on it. Which brings me to one of the specifics of my “restart” plan!

What I mean by my “restart plan” should be fairly obvious by now, but I’d like to clarify it here as I’m using this post as a way to straighten out my thoughts and as one of the ways to document the journey for myself/others. Basically, I’m restarting my life after years of being sick (with my Crohn’s and related) and feeling disconnected from everything and everyone. I’m tired of watching things happen around me as I try to cope and survive instead of engaging and being involved. Having things happen with me or because of me, and not for the usual ‘health-related’ reasons.

So to that end, I’ve decided that my first step should be to transform my habitat to start transforming the way I live day-to-day! And I’ve decided to employ the KonMari Method of tidying to teach myself a completely new way to approach how I think about my things and my living space.

Through the process I’m hoping to reevaluate my life and figure out what priorities I truly would like to honour as I move forward. I’d also like to learn more about my past through the things I have decided to hold onto, then let go of those things with a grateful and kind mindset to make way for the present and the future.

This is the beginning of a new chapter. And I’m ALL IN.

Weekly, not daily!

I’m gonna start blogging again. However, instead of writing a new post every single day, I’ll be posting once a week. Unless I feel like there’s more to say, but my weekly minimum post count shall be one.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been clicking through my blog and rediscovering some aspects of my recent history that have helped me to gain a greater sense of place and progress. Some of the posts have also reminded me for what I used to hope and strive. It’s a good exercise, and exactly the point of my *formerly* daily blog.

I hope that by resuming my blog, I’ll exercise my creative mind and aspire to put fingers to plastic in my never ending pursuit of doing stuff. Also, I hope to be more accountable to myself and continue documenting what I’m thinking for future Matthew to reflect upon.

Until next post! 😸

Getting back on track

I used to set goals for myself on a weekly basis, especially during and immediately after my big illness. I keep trying to get back to those habits and systems that helped me to feel healthy and be productive, but it’s tough.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been following Kelli Taylor’s blog (Kelli from Blimey Cow). Each Monday she posts a new set of goals for the week along with a follow-up report card from the previous week’s goals. Since I’ve been having such a hard time sticking to my systems and such, I’m gonna borrow this idea for myself. (Hope that’s okay, Kelli!) Just another system to help keep me on track.

1. No technology after 10:00 pm.

In an effort to get myself prepared for and into bed (to actually sleep) sooner, I’ve decided to bring back an old goal that I used to keep on a regular basis. So unless there’s some actual good reason, I’m not going to use any technology after 10:00 pm. The only exceptions being my CD player for some sleepy-time Odyssey or music, and Game of Thrones watching parties on the weekend. 🙂

2. Walk the dogs daily.

I used to take the muppies for walks on a regular basis. This past weekend, I was dog/house sitting and took this other dog for walks each day. During one of those walks, I thought to myself, “Why don’t I take my dogs for walks anymore? I love taking walks with them.” And so, this has become my second goal for this week. Not only will the dogs really enjoy the time outside, it will keep me moving. Which is something I need more of, especially with a lack of motivation and cold temperatures.

3. Keep a positive attitude.

As most of my friends know, I’m super positive. But I’m including this as a goal because as I get started with these other goals, I need to remember to stay positive. I might fail with some things, but I’ll get there eventually. Though I’m purposely keeping these goals fairly simple.

Anywho, there you have it. I’ll follow-up next Monday with a report on how I did.

Okay, it’s been long enough…

I keep thinking about this blog.

Especially recently.

I keep wishing that I could post regularly on it.

And then I realize that I can. I just have to follow some simple advice from our great friend Shia LaBeouf. 😉

For me, this past year has been about jumping in and just doing whatever. If I really want something, I have to start making decisions to work towards that thing. Don’t worry to much about getting it right the first time, just do it!

And so I start. Here is the first step towards my lofty blogging goals!