All tagged life goals

Looking Ahead to the New Year and My Word of the Year

Looking Ahead to the New Year and My Word of the Year

Jody Yarborough
Life

I love the new year. It is a time for a fresh start, a new beginning, letting go of last year’s bad ju-ju— insert your own cliche here. I am not a person who is big with making resolutions or significant sweeping promises to declare that “this year things are going to be different.” I am far too much of a pragmatist for that. In many ways, I feel that time is somewhat of a social construct to create order, rituals, and routines in our daily life. Step away from the calendar far enough, and you see that life ebbs and flows on its own timetable, and, speaking for myself, I tend to embrace the seasons of life, not just one particular day.

After all, did you really feel any different on December 31 than you did on January 1? I know I didn’t.

It's About Mindset, Not Positive Thinking

It's About Mindset, Not Positive Thinking

Jody Yarborough
Everything Else

So I wrote a few weeks ago about joining a Success Team. One of the things that Barbara Sher, founder of the Success Team model, would say when leading her groups was: "You aren't going to "positive attitude" your way through anything." O-Particularly a big goal or project, because they span too much time to expect that you will feel the same way for that long, positive or not. It is just not how human behavior works.

How liberating this is to hear! That I don't have to "be positive" as a precondition to achieving my goals, no matter what they are. Like right now, I am not particularly having the best day. I woke up with my eye being unhappy with me, the house is a mess, and I don't particularly feel like writing right now. But I committed myself to finish this blog post today. I think all too often, people get hung up on the idea that they have to have a certain mood, especially a good mood, to do the damn thing. When really, you just simply have to do the damn thing!

This is just one example of reframing-- confronting a problem or a challenge from a different perspective. There can be a.lot of power in strategically reframing how you think about something. Sometimes we humans are our own worst enemy. We over-analyze, second-guess, struggle with imposter syndrome, and self-esteem issues. These are just a few roadblocks that we put on our paths of progress.

Joining a Barbara Sher Success Team

Joining a Barbara Sher Success Team

Jody Yarborough
Life

There are times in your life that are inflection points. Sometimes you live through them and you don’t realize they were inflection points until reflecting on the past. Sometimes you know when you are in them. You just feel it. I'm in one right now. And I wanted to share about it.

But first, a little backstory.

Four or five years ago, I came upon a book called Wishcraft by Barbara Sher. I am sure Amazon recommended it to me because I have a habit of collecting self-improvement books like my husband collects flashlights. Sad to say, though, that Wishcraft went by the wayside of 99% of the other self-improvement books I have bought over the years: half-read, unread, or donated without even cracking the spine. I did try reading Wishcraft, but for some reason, it just didn't resonate with me at the time. I donated it to Goodwill and didn't think about it again.

Using SmugMug to Store and Share My Photos

Using SmugMug to Store and Share My Photos

Jody Yarborough
My Organizing Journey

I’ve tried to remember when I was growing up, how many pictures were on display in my home. What I recall is that we didn’t have that many. Not compared to what I saw in other people’s houses, or the fictional homes that I would see on TV. It felt like the few photos we did have on display were put there more by obligation than desire. My mom (who has passed away) would have been the one responsible for such things, and I never thought to ask her about

Ideas for Long Term Project Goal Management

Ideas for Long Term Project Goal Management

Jody Yarborough
Life

Do you have a 5-year plan? I don’t. I find planning for 5 years from now a little daunting to think about. But as I’ve gotten older, time seems to pass by incredibly fast. Somehow when I entered into my mid-30s and early 40s, the months started to speed by and the years blurred together. This has motivated me to re-think my need for some long term goal planning structure, and address my challenges with it. And hopefully, to set my self up for some success.

The first thing to I had to think about is how I wanted to record my goals: on paper, or on the computer. I’ll be honest, I have a mix of both.

I’ve created some spreadsheets and calendars that I save on my computer, and only refer to occasionally. But for my day-to-day and month-a-glance planning I use a spiral paper daily planner. And lists. I have lots of lists. I’ve tried various online apps, even the very popular ones like Evernote and Trello, and for me, they just ended up being more work to manage than they were worth.

Sometimes It's About Just Showing Up

Sometimes It's About Just Showing Up

Jody Yarborough
Life

Sometimes you just gotta get up and show up. Even when it's early and you don't want to, and you wish you had a magic wand you could wave that would make the whole world just stop spinning. Such is how I felt around 8 a.m. Saturday morning. You see, a couple of weeks ago, as the organizer for a South Bay girl's Meet-up group, I scheduled a fun outing for some local ladies to go to the DeAnza Flea Market. It seemed like a great idea then! But at 8 a.m. Saturday, when I would have rather slept in, enjoying a quiet house, and nuzzling husband, I instead had to get up.