Monday Morning Motivation: You're New Year Starts NOW.

Can you believe there are only 9 more weeks to 2018.  NINE.  It seem like nothing, but really it's about the same length as summer break, which by mid-July has seemed to draaaag on.   I'm not sure about you, but if I'm not careful, sometimes I can take this last quarter and just coast to a hard stop on December 31st.  By hard stop, I mean an actual HARD stop.  January shows up, and since I've coasted a season away, instead of running into the new year with momentum for previous successes, I'm just barely thinking about what I want to accomplish for the year.  Then I write it down, make some adjustments and suddenly it's February and I'm still hardly up and going, because it takes a Herculean effort to get going once you've stopped.

Do you do this too?  

I began to notice this a few years ago, where I'd put off doing what I knew I needed to do and even wanted to do, just because it's October.  'Oh well,' I'd tell myself, 'I'll start that in January.'  I'd want to get back into that gym habit and instead of tackling it, I'd push it off until the first of the year.  I'd have a chore chart or project I'd want to start at home and guess what?  I'd push that off to the first of the year too.  As I did that with more than a handful of things, you can imagine how daunting January began to feel.  Business idea, fitness, family...it all got pushed to January, while I 'enjoyed' the 3 months of holidays.  

But come January, I realized I was full or regret and disappointment.  I didn't enjoy those 3 months nearly as much as I could of, if I'd stuck to my normal routines of tackling projects and ideas and goals as they come.  

Even worse than all that, I've even stopped mid-habit doing the things I've done ALL YEAR because, well now that it's almost the end of the year, I deserve a break.  So instead of setting that early morning alarm, I don't just turn it off and go back to sleep, I begin to stop setting it all together! Allowing everything to just sit, telling myself I'll get back to it in January.  It's funny how we convince ourselves this is a good idea.  Let me assure you from personal experience, it's not a good idea.  

January shows up real quick and smacks you square in the face.  Only then did I realize how hard it is to get back into those good habits.  I've, not only, lost all momentum but even worse, have even taken a few steps back!

Our whole lives we've been convinced that January is the time to start going to the gym, tackling that project or pursuing that dream.  

January is fine and all, but what's wrong with right now?

My first year back to real estate I, unknowingly, made one of the best decisions: I set my fiscal year to end in September.  My thought process was that anything that was 'under contract' in September would close by the end of the year and it'd give me a more accurate calendar year count.  It was genius.  Because guess what happens when your year 'ends' in September?  You suddenly start treating October like it's January.  New goals, ideas, and dreams get written down (if you're not writing these things down, start immediately!!) and the pursuit of them begins!  

In that moment, I realized that perhaps if it worked in my career, it would also be effective in my home & personal life.  

So this year, I took the same liberty I had in my business and adjusted my 'year end.'  At home, I set my year end to Aug 31st.  So instead of setting goals in January, I set them in September -- it doesn't match my kids school calendar perfectly, but it's close enough.  With school under way, it was the perfect time to implement some new routines and habits within the home...and also personally.  I've been wanting to read more intentionally so I made it a point to organize a small book club, then I re-mapped my morning routine, and I've liked that so much, I'm re-mapping a few other routines.  

January hasn't come yet, but this year, I'm bound and determined not to feel the weight of the world on my shoulders as I try to begin every new thing I've thought all year long...because I'm already doing those things.  Instead, I hope it blows on in and I'm able to catch it at my back because I've already got my sails secured in the direction I want to head.