New Year New Plan
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great time celebrating. We were in bed by 10 p.m., which is just how I like it, and we started the new year by completing the first leg of our PCS journey. We drove 6 hours to Memphis today. We’ll do three hours to Nashville tomorrow to see some friends. Then, we arrive at our brand-new house on Wednesday, just in time for our household goods to be delivered on Thursday (the timing works out like that when you spend three weeks living out of suitcases before moving).
Now that we have finally left, I am excited. All the bittersweetness of leaving Oklahoma has faded and been replaced by expectancy for the new location. I can’t think of a better time to start this journey than the new year. But along with the new year comes a new commitment to working on my dreams. And as with any plan, something falls off the rails the moment I make it.
To recap from the last post, I decided on four targeted areas of progress. I would spend 22 hours every week writing, planning, and studying. I would save $4,600 every month. I would run 40 insurance appointments every month. I would send out six inquiries every week. All of this sounds very reasonable and doable on any given week or month. Sure, there will be tricky things and periods of learning or relearning, but eventually, this plan will flow nicely. Or at least I would figure out the ways to tweak it for a smoother time.
I made this plan, and it all sounds well and good, but then I started thinking about what January actually looks like:
Jan 1-3: On the road
Jan 4: household goods delivered
Jan 5-???: Unpacking and setting up house
Jan 17-21: In-laws visit
Jan 22-26: My sister and her boyfriend visit
Jan 26-29: In Dallas for a conference
Here’s the problem with keeping all of this in my head: I was ready to write January off entirely. But now that I look at it written out, I have 14 solid days to work in the month. And that doesn’t include the time I can take to work while family is visiting. My in-laws want to see the baby more than anything else (which I understand entirely), and my sister will be working most of the time she is visiting.
Sure, I may not check off everything on my list. Running the appointments may be tricky since I planned to go to NC for my first time back in the field. I do have some paperwork to sort out with my license, like changing my legal name since I haven’t updated it since getting married and resigning contracts. These are all things that should just take a few days to sort out. I might not get the queries out this week since being on the road limits my research and prep time. But I can get my writing done. I can study through podcasts and audio while I drive. And I have 14 days to get something, anything done.
We are always going to run into problems with our plans. That’s the nature of planning. But the reality is the only thing that matters about a plan is what we put into action. We do what we can and then come back to the drawing board and regroup. I will likely run into times when I can’t accomplish everything on my list. Whether it’s a bad week or a month, I must prioritize the important things and accept that not everything will get done. But that doesn’t mean I throw the whole plan out, and it certainly doesn’t mean I throw out my dreams.
This post went a different route from what I originally planned. I wanted to talk about flexibility and commitment. I wanted to show how the two could be one and the same, even if they seem to be at odds with one another. I’ll probably do that on Wednesday. Today, what I’m realizing is that we need to be slow to panic. I was ready to do my best in January, but ultimately, I knew it would be a preparation month rather than one with results. But now that I’ve sat down and actually thought through everything, I know there is plenty of room for everything. It won’t be perfect, but that’s never what my dream demanded. It only asks that I show up the best way I can, and now I see plenty of room to do that. Remember, I am in the trenches with you, figuring this all out as we go. If I can do it, so can you.