At the beginning of each month, you will find me at my kitchen breakfast bar with my planner and goals sheets reviewing how things went the last month and revising my goals for the next month. I look back at my quarterly goals to see if I am on track and check in on my yearly goals as well. Sometimes revisions get made as things evolve and change. If the beginning of the month is also the beginning of the new quarter, I am evaluating the past three months and making plans for the next three. Each month I am also picking a new theme for the month. It should be tied to my yearly theme and to the goals that I am working on as well as to where I am in my life.
This month’s theme is “Faith is having the audacity to Believe in the Not-Yet-Seen.”
This theme speaks to me about the future, the dreams I have, the life I am envisioning. It is telling me that while I don’t have all of the answers, I can still make progress and keep working in the direction that I want to go.
Faith is trusting. Faith is believing in something you cannot see.
Audacity. Boldness. Bravery. Assertiveness.
Believe is a word that is close to my heart. Believe is the word that Cole Buchholz used to use with his sports teams that he coached as he worked to inspire them to believe in themselves, in each other, and in something larger than himself. Cole was my Dad’s girlfriend, now wife’s, son who passed away unexpectedly in 2014 at the age of 24. Believe is putting all of your trust into something you cannot see. Santa Claus. Angels. Gravity.
Not-Yet-Seen is the best part. This is the future, the adventure, the dream. Just because it doesn’t exist yet doesn’t mean that it won’t at some point. Maybe we have a vision of what the Not-Yet-Seen is. Maybe we aren’t sure what it could be, but we know it’s going to be great.
Putting all of this together speaks to me. At this point in my self-employed journey, I am having to make some decisions. I am having to figure out my next move. I am Remembering Why I Started. All of those reasons that pushed me out of my comfort zone and into a life that is so much better than where I was. You see, some parts of the Not-Yet-Seen have become a reality. I’m not driving to an office. I can work outside or from a coffee shop or from the lake. I am having lunch with my daughter and helping with things I couldn’t before like baling hay or sorting dance costumes in the middle of the week. I am running more, and it has gotten easier. I don’t feel the weight, the heaviness, pushing on me. The anxiety is less (well, kind of). I am more at peace that I was before. Those are all things that I wanted, and I could see them and taste them, but I didn’t know if I could make them happen.
I have to keep my eyes forward and put my trust and faith into boldly Believing that there is more out there for me even if I can’t put my finger on it yet or even visualize it. It’s going to happen. It will all work out.
Go be bold.
Believing from The Edge,
Julia
