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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mandy Wichert. I’m still on the lookout for the most graceful way to store legos and I believe if you aren’t learning you aren’t living!
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What I Learned Yesterday:
You know how there are those moments etched in time, where everything feels clear and patent? This was one of them for me. I was sitting in Marin’s room, lit softly by a lamp as butterfly shaped shadows danced around me. I was cuddled in a sage green microfiber rocking chair, with both of my children on my lap, rocking and reading a book before bedtime. Clint came in to grab Jonas and tuck him into his bed, so I gave him goodnight kisses, and was left snuggling with Marin, before getting her tucked in as well. I smelled the sweet top of her head, and rested my cheek softly against hers, admiring her long eyelashes and rosy cheeks and lips as I gently tucked her dark brown hair back behind her delicate ears. I whispered a little prayer of thankfulness and wept, feeling so grateful for the family I had been given and so fortunate to have been entrusted to be these children’s mother.
So much had happened already in their young lives and we had already started making so many wonderful memories. It was early January, 2012, and I remember looking back at the year we’d that had just wrapped to an end looking at my wonderful husband, my beautiful children, my friends, family, end of graduate school and beginning of a new career, and my life felt full and rich. I was content and happy and excited about the future ahead of me personally and for that of my family. I had been uneasy with deciding to call our family “complete” as that felt so definite, and I knew doing so would mean that we would be a family of four unless we determined at a later date to adopt. Clint and I had been discussing whether we were finished having children or not and hadn’t come to a firm decision yet, but we had been discussing the possibility. At that moment though, I finally began to welcome the feeling that we might actually be ready for that next step.
We began evaluating our plans for our future and Clint and I started making some lofty plans for some major changes we wanted to make in our lives. He had just finished reading The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss and Getting Things Done by David Allen, and he was extremely motivated to set some goals and stick with them for the new year. His motivation and inspiration rubbed off on me and I was on board for making some plans for our future together. Clint had also purchased books to help us in our forecasting called Pick Four “Zig Ziglar’s Legendary Goals Program, Updated and Simplifed” Curated by Seth Godin. This book encouraged us to take an inventory of our work-life balance and to select four goals; one long-term and three more short-term to plan for and self-report on for twelve weeks. We were supposed to plan not only for the goals but for the possible pitfalls that we may encounter and then we were to write a narrative of our plan for reaching these goals and for overcoming any obstacles along the way.
Each week we were to re-write the goal and report the steps we had taken to achieve that goal for the week. According to Zig Ziglar’s methodology for reaching goals, there are seven steps that should be taken to set and achieve a goal. In his book, See You at the Top, Zig Ziglar lays these out these seven steps: 1.State the goal, 2. Set a deadline, 3. Identify the obstacles, 4. Identify the allies (People, groups and organizations that can assist you meet your goals) , 5. List the benefits of achieving the goal, 6. List the skills you need to acquire to achieve the goal, 7. Develop a plan. Further his methodology encourages taking small steps, being consistent in your efforts, and rallying group support. These all sounded like great ways to reach some of our goals, both personally and together.
I remember Clint diving into his goal planner right away. During all of his reading he had several goals percolating, both close and far-fetched and it was fun getting to go through them with him and see him make plans. I had a little more difficulty with mine. My book sat nearly empty for a few days. I gradually started filling out the “dreams” section, but realized that I did not even know myself all that well after all of the changes in my life; marriage, college graduation, moving full-time career, career change, graduate school, children. Beyond that, writing my goals down made them seem so concrete, and I didn’t want to write something down and then fail. Have you ever encountered that? Somehow if I only half-committed to the goal the failure wasn’t as pronounced, but I didn’t want a record of my failure facing me every day in book form. I also hadn’t been as primed for the activity, having not read any of the books Clint had yet, but I reluctantly put pencil to paper and wrote down my goals.
On January 2nd we worked on our books together and tried to determine how we could assist one-another in making some of our goals into realities. It was not easy. We were so limited on time, and many of our goals would have required the other one of us to completely set aside our plans for months at a time to ensure the other the time to successfully complete their goals. We learned that this was a give and take exercise, so we had to set some ground rules. I don’t remember specifically what we wrote down, but I do remember that Clint and I wanted our family to become more proficient in Spanish, and we wanted to work on our physical health and nutrition. Because we were setting personal goals for ourselves within the context of our marriage, we realized we had to be considerate of each other’s personal time, the time we reserved for one-another, and the time we set-aside to share with our children and extended family. Any goal we set had to be confined to the space we had set aside for ourselves, or we had to work together to determine which goals were being focused on first as a team, to allow for additional time as needed toward meeting specific personal goals. We made great progress and had a good plan in place for tackling our goals systematically over the course of the coming year.
My body normally acted like clockwork, and something was a little off. So, I scheduled an appointment at the doctor’s office six days later. I remember returning home to find Clint diligently filling out his goal planner. I scrawled a little note in mine, quickly revising my goals, and quietly passed him my book. Goal number one had been crossed out and in it’s place, I had written “have a healthy happy baby”. It took him a minute, but soon we were both laughing and exclaiming about the “best laid plans of mice and men”.
So What Did I Learn?
I learned that setting goals is a healthy practice that will encourage you to have dreams, help you realize your obstacles and help you work toward reaching your dreams. On a broader note, I recently attended a Bible Study Fellowship seminar, where our speaker held a bottle of water up. She laid it on its side and on the inside of the bottle a small bubble formed. She compared the bottle of water to space and time as we know it, and our lives were the bubble. We were able to move within the confines of the bubble, within the confines of time. We could either move forwards or backwards, but we couldn’t escape the confines of our bottle. We could clearly see the water in front of and behind the bubble which was our history and our future, but we were still confined to the water bottle. She then said God is not confined by space and time. God exists outside the bottle and can enter into it and surround it and be at any point of it at any time and see the entirety of it at all times. He could both interact with it and view it from an entirely different perspective than we could, not limited by our confined view and perception. She also used this illustration to show us that God had control of our situation, and how we only have an illusion of control. We can take steps to do things and action on our part is required to make things happen, but her point was that God ultimately will achieve his goals despite us for his glory. I hope I’m not butchering her poignant and beautiful description. I got a lot out of it, and was reminded of this instance when we clearly felt the illusion of control.
Clint and I laughed at how quickly the plans we had made for our upcoming year had been adjusted by a God that knew our plans better than we did. We viewed the comedy of the timing of the situation, and how we with our limited insight into the future had been quickly put into our places. We also marveled at the beauty of the timing and how God allowed us in on this precious information before we had gone too far down our goal setting paths and not allowed us to feel the disappointment of failure or the resentment of goals left unaccomplished. Instead, we were given a sweet gift, and a reassurance that no, our family was not yet complete. Later that year, we welcomed Renna home and I am so thankful that God knew that our lives were able to become even more rich and more full than I could have even imagined in 2012. I am also able to rest a little easier knowing that I am not in control. This doesn’t free me from planning and goal-setting, but it does allow me to see it with less rigidity and fear.
I can not possibly know what my future holds, but I have an awesome creator and I trust Him knowing that His plans are bigger. Clint and I still plan to make some new goals for this year, but we won’t be discouraged if they are modified along the way. In fact, Clint recently retrieved another blank copy of the same goal book we started filling out together in 2012. We may even fill it out! What are your plans as we begin this new year? I’d love to hear your stories about resolutions and goals made, as well as what you encountered on your journey. Call in and leave your feedback for our Friday Forum!
I’m Mandy Wichert, and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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