goals

Like a Weight was Lifted

/ Regina Walker / 3 Comments

I went to bed last night feeling a little bit unsure. It was harder than I imagined bidding the feed store farewell. I knew it was the right decision but it can be hard to let go of ideas, hopes, and dreams for something – especially something that I envisioned being part of my life for the next 30, 40, 50 years.

Then I slept. Sleep is refreshing. I think it is some important to remember that how we are feeling when we are tired and depleted is not an accurate picture of a situation.

I woke up earlier than usual, refreshed, ready, and making plans for our family, our home, our farm, and our journey forward. I feel the creative brewing and the drive to write once again.

I was measuring my success against someone else’s and in the comparison game, I always come up short. But this morning I see it around me, the success we’ve had, the joy we’ve experienced, all of the growth individually and as a family. I am ready for what’s to come.

The Mister and I are spending our morning deciding what direction to take the farm, what our farm goals are, and then comes business planning for his business. We have our work cut out for us this weekend setting goals and creating a path and plan to achieve those goals.

Have you set goals for this year? I would love to hear what they are!

Until next time,
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Chasing Ideas

/ Regina Walker / 4 Comments

I’m a dreamer, I always have been. I have ideas and I flit after them, and chase them until the spark is gone. I quickly find a new spark, and chase away until the light dims.

This sounds whimsical and fun if I write it in the right light, but truthfully, I leave a lot of things undone.

Some of my most recent ideas:

Shoe Buddies (shoe deodorizers) – I was going to sew 20 of these a day and make a nice trickle income for our family. I was going to get my kids involved in the production, and let them earn some commission for their work. I was going to sell them in person and online and wherever anyone had stinky shoes. Reality: I completed one order and never made another shoe buddy. But I have a shelf full of the stuff to make gobs of them

Selling on Amazon – I started reading about selling on Amazon, flipping clearance items and making a steady income. I bought the labels, the scrapers, the stickers, the bags, the thermal label printer, signed up, paid a month of Amazon’s FBA seller service. Reality: I never even shipped in a single clearance item purchased, and ended up returning all of the things I bought so they weren’t lying around to be wasted.

Digital Design/Marketing Company – I bought a domain, I created a logo, I was going to make logos and help people navigate the world of social media. I was going to help small businesses reach the next level, grow, and gain visibility among their target clientele. Reality: I wrote a couple of cute blogs, dabbled with my social media page, and stopped there. (Digital markets are tough, and time-consuming!)

Photography – I mean, I have the camera, right? I did it before, right? Reality: I didn’t even dust it off.

College – I’ve forever dreamed of going back to school, of furthering my education, of holding a degree. But the truth is, I started raising kids at a young age and I didn’t want to miss the best years of their life because I was so wrapped up in school. I was going to take the leap this year, online classes offer quite a bit of flexibility, but I’ve changed my mind again.

Sometimes all of these sparks that have burned out feel like failures to someone who is dreaming big, waiting for the right idea to turn in to a flame, pushing, chasing, running after sparks that don’t seem to last. Sometimes they don’t last because I don’t put the consistent long-term effort in that would turn them in to something more than just a fleeting idea.

Sometimes these sparks die because the truth is, I’m a wife and a mom, and we have a little farm, and my time is limited. So limited.

Our lives have changed a lot in the last couple of months and as such, it was time for me to go back to work, but being stubborn like I am, I didn’t want the kids to go to daycare. So I took a night job. I told myself all the reasons this would be the best solution for us ever, I told myself how it would be nice to get out of the house every day, without the kids. I told myself the adult interaction, the customer service atmosphere, the paperwork, and trips up stairs and down again would all be fun.

I turned it in to a spark.

And I caught this spark. I landed my night job, I work graveyards. And you know what? The hours of sleep I got at night were precious. This isn’t as easy as I made it in my head. It’s incredibly hard to recover from working all night in time to do much the next day before it’s time for work again.

I’m not giving up this time. I’m not giving up that easy. I need this job, it’s part of my written plan and I’m putting action to it.

Writing down a dream turns it into a goal.

Giving a goal steps turns it into a plan.

Putting action to the plan makes it a reality.

The reality is, we are starting a new endeavor this week that has captured my full attention, and I am beyond excited. The reality is, these long nights will pay off in the long run. The reality is, sometimes we have to do really hard things, really consistently, for a time, to create a better future for ourselves and our families.

What hard thing do you need to do consistently, for a period of time, to help launch you forward in life?

With Love,

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It’s That Time of Year

/ Regina Walker / Leave a comment

2017 is winding down, coming to its end – an end that has reached us much faster than I anticipated. This year truly has flown by – each passing year seems to go a bit faster.

With 2018 right around the corner, I am thinking about the changes I want to make in my life, how to be better next year than I have been this year, and of course, trying to plan a resolution (or ten). (I don’t really recommend ten resolutions, it’s hard enough to keep up with one.)

I pick a word each year to develop a character trait in my life. As 2016 was coming to a close and I was pondering much like I am now, I couldn’t decide on a word. I kept thinking of words that I wanted to assign to other people (namely my husband) but I couldn’t think of the “right” word for me. I was almost going to just settle on one – likely something that started with an “a” to begin an alphabetical character journey.

Despite the wax build up in my ears and my hard head, God kept nudging me, urging me to toward a word. When I finally grasped it, and subsequently, several verses that really made it ring true, I was overjoyed.

Steadfast.

That word holds a deeper, richer meaning at the close of 2017 than it did at the beginning. I did not think I know the extent to which I would learn to lean on Him to keep me rooted through so many trials. I didn’t know how many times it would feel like everything was unraveling and one of the verses He gave me would be in front of me again, reminding me to be steadfast.

Don’t quit.

Don’t cower.

Don’t quit.

Don’t cower.

Don’t quit.

Don’t cower.

Over, and over, and over. God knew what this year would bring and He knew I would need to be focused on Him, and determined to be steadfast. I would need real staying power in parenting, marriage, business. I didn’t apply it to writing the way I could have, but I saw time and again how God was using my word to shape me.

My writing is, yet again, my focus as a year comes to an end. It seems it often is – because I know I will deeply regret having not written if I find myself closing the book that is my life, as opposed to the chapter that is 2017. (Not that I see that book closing anytime soon.)

I’ve started asking what my word should be for 2018. I think it needs to be something like consistent. Something to follow-up staying the course, but with some action to it – doing something. Not procrastinating.

Is there a word for not procrastinating?