It’s never too late-The Intention Plan (pt 2)

In my last post, I reviewed my 2009 and spoke of hope for the future in 2010. Hope without a plan for action is well, pretty hopeless so I’m making what I call Jamie’s Intention Plan for 2010. I may not accomplish all of these, but even if I don’t accomplish all my intentions, I know I will accomplish something. I’m setting lofty standards because I know that the higher I reach, the farther I will go.

I gave up making resolutions a long time ago, and this year I don’t even feel like making goals. It all seems counterproductive when so much is changing in my life because of my job situation. Having a moving target makes it hard to set hard and fast goals.

That’s why this year, I’m working on intentions. Yes, I know the proverbial path to hell is pathed with good intentions, but this process is a little different. I first heard of this process from a Twitter friend named @scrappinmichele. She talks about it here, on her blog Scraps of a Geek Life. In her Intentions Series of 2010, Michele provides four steps:

1. Write out your 2010 intentions
2. Pick one word to summarize your intentions
3. Create a visual of your word and intentions
4. Create your plan of action for 2010

So here we go!

For 2010, I intend to:

1. Lose 36 pounds. I’m choosing to not share why I choose that specific number (no, I didn’t gain that much), but it’s the amount I would like to lose. Within this goal, I also want to start eating a more balanced diet that is appropriate for a gastric bypass patient but also addresses the new-found needs within the health issues I’ve battled the last year or two.

2. Read more, view less. I want to get back into reading books and I don’t mean listening to books on tape or reading stuff online. I want to read more traditional books and spend less time on the Internet. This may sound like two intentions, but really they go hand-in-hand. If I spend less time online, I will have more time to read!

3. Manage my time better to fit in all the activities I need to do. I have a tendency to get excited about something and spend all my time doing it until I realize it’s taken over an inappropriate amount of my time and thought processes. As strange as this sounds, when I was laid off I got too involved in volunteer activities and quickly found I wasn’t spending enough time with my husband. Volunteering is still a good thing, but I also need to make sure I’m spending quality AND quantity time with my husband. Our schedules may therefore dictate what I do and do not have time for, but I can still support the volunteer efforts in my community in other ways. I also want to make sure I find time to attend church at least several times a month. We find it difficult with our schedule to attend on Sunday mornings, so we go on Saturday nights. But I often find myself scheduling too much and not making it on Saturdays either.

When I look at my three intentions for 2010, I have several thoughts. Yes, the first one is, can I actually accomplish all that? No, really, can I? The next thought is, what’s the common word throughout all of them? I don’t use the same word in any of them, but to me there’s a common theme.

That theme is management. In my weight-loss goal, I know I need to manage my eating better including my protein, etc. My last two intentions are somewhat related in that they both deal with how I spend my time. I wanted to be intentional about the book reading, however, so I pulled that out as a separate category. It’s all about managing how I spend my time, but also managing what forms of media and knowledge gathering are allowed to enter my mind. The last goal is clear with the management theme as I want to have a better balance in my schedule and must find ways to accomplish that.

So how is Jamie going to do all this? I agree with breaking down big plans into smaller pieces but for me, the danger is not moving forward out of discouragement if I fail to accomplish a small piece of the plan. So I just have to not do that! A big thing that I think will help me is my work in the program Celebrate Recovery. It’s taught me that my life is completely unmanageable without God’s help. I can’t try to figure out how to do something on my own, screw it up, then come with my tail tucked to God for help. It works SO much better if I ask for His help on the front end!

So, here’s the action plan I intend to put into place:

1. Lose 36 pounds:

• Start using Fitday.com regularly to not only track my food, but to recognize my choices, patterns, etc.
• Lose 16 pounds by the end of June by making the choices I know will help that be a reality.
• Aggressively search for a new protein powder that fits my dietary needs but does not make me ill.

2. Read more, view less

• Make time for reading at least a few pages before going to sleep each night.
• Establish a goal of reading one new book every two months (believe me, this is an improvement from my habits lately!)
• Get away from the Internet when I’m just bored and read instead. This includes checking the Web so frequently on my phone and “doodling” online when I don’t feel like doing anything else. Read a book instead.

3. Manage my time better.

• Establish set times on the weekend to spend with my husband. Lately, this has been Sundays because it best fits with both our schedules, but that has precluded me from some of my former volunteer activities.
• Find ways to still help the community that do not interfere with family time but also don’t distract me from starting my own business. This can include sharing about volunteer opportunities.
• Make a plan for attending church at least twice a month. Schedule it and set an alarm to remind me to leave the house. Pick a service and stick with it. No more of this “well if I miss this one, I can go to the next one.” That leads to missing all 5 services throughout the weekend! Also don’t make my husband’s attendance a reason for me to go or not go. My relationship with God is between God and ME and it’s my job to nourish it.

Whew! That’s a lot. But it’s doable. So what are YOUR intentions for 2010?