With each new day that the sun rises and sets, what an incredible opportunity we have. Seriously, we don’t realize what a generous gift it is to have a new day to make new choices, with new opportunities. We have the opportunity to live out our deepest values and to pour into the people that matter most to us.
Yet in reality, it sounds like most of us spend our days running around, responding to crisis, putting out fires, and either ignoring, or at best forgetting, to get back with the people that matter to us. Why does someone at work or a loud acquaintance get the best pieces of us every day?
My first job after I finished my MSW, I was so pumped to start working at an elementary school as a social worker. And let me just tell you my plans for saving the world. I was going to basically change society. Grand plans! However, a few months into my job I looked from the hustle and bustle and wondered, what have I been doing all these months?! How as it been 6 months already?! Where am I even headed?! Every day I’m answering emails and running therapy sessions, and calling parents, but for what goal? I couldn’t believe how easily it was to get distracted and just live in a whirlwind of intention-less activity. I looked around me and realized everyone I worked with complained about their life and their job. It was like time froze for a moment while I looked around. I had this sudden fear that I was looking at my near future and I remember thinking, I gotta get out of here.
It wasn’t that job that was the problem though. It was me not having clarity on how I wanted to live and who I wanted to become. Who was supposed to teach me that? Everything was vague so nothing was being accomplished. I was incredibly lucky at that time and had an opportunity fall into my lap that ended up teaching me life lessons that has forever changed my life.
Most of you know I was blessed to have someone share the Mary Kay business with me and it put me in an environment where I was surrounded with incredibly grounded, successful, entrepreneurial women that taught me time management, prioritizing, and modeled for me what living an intentional life looked like. And it rubbed off on me. And this time, a few months into this job, I looked up and knew exactly where I was, where I was headed, and how I was at least attempting to get there.
Most people don’t have someone or something to teach them how to figure out what’s important and how to keep those things a priority. That is my heart behind this new planner adventure. I’ve taken what I’ve learned and worked to create a tool that could pass that knowledge onto someone else.
This is one page that helps you review your goals monthly so that when you're making your to-do list shortly after, your list reflects what's important to you.
One more thought about how we spend our day.
There’s a verse I’ve been reflecting on, 2 Corinthians 4:6. My last name is Light so I’m drawn to every quote and verse that references light. It says, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
You guys! You have a light inside you, shining! And the light is in darkness so it can shine brighter. Every day you have an opportunity, a new chance to be the face of Christ and to live out your deepest values. The day is dark for most people, more light is needed. But if you’re too busy to even think about that, because you have so much going on, IT’S NOT GOING TO JUST HAPPEN. It takes intention, it takes some time to think about how you’re going to spend your time and who you’re going to spend your time with. And it’s so worth it.
I made the Sol Planner to help you stay clear, to help you make super SIMPLE, intentional choices with the time we have every day. Tomorrow the sun will rise again. Where will you be headed?
