In exactly 90 days, I will turn 50 years old! The age that I’ve always thought of as officially being OLD! The age that most people think you’ve lived half your life. The age of “over the hill” and “black balloons” (and believe me, if any of my friends decide to surprise me in this way there will be tears!!). But here’s the thing, the closer I get to this magic number of 50, the younger I feel mentally. My body may be aging, complete with arthritis and wrinkles and gray/silver hair that requires coloring more often, but I feel like a much younger and healthier version of this person I imagined I would be at 50, some ten years ago. When I was 40 and thinking about 50, all I saw was an older version of myself. I am NOT that person today! I have changed so much of my mindset and my unhealthy habits in the past ten years. I owe a lot of the changes that I have made to the girls here at the Sisterhood. Without the support I found in late 2008 and early 2009, I don’t I would have made these positive changes.
I am healthier and more fit at almost 50 than I was at 40. I am happier with my life than I was at 30 or 40. I am more content to live life at its fullest now, without reservations of “what if this person or that person doesn’t like what I’m doing?”. I have so much more confidence in myself and my outlook on life is so much more positive than it was earlier in my life.
But….(there’s almost always a BUT, right?), I have set some goals for myself. Goals that I want to accomplish before this milestone birthday. I realized the other day that the date is quickly sneaking up on me, and I am DETERMINED (my word of the year) that I need to help myself along if I want to actually reach these goals in the next three months. In my almost 50 years of living, I have come to the conclusion that I need to break things down a bit if I’m going to actually reach my goals, so I’m putting these out there for the world to see. (Read: ACCOUNTABILITY!)
Goals to reach before my 50th birthday:
- Train for my 5th Susan G. Komen 3-Day.…and not just on the weekends with my friends! That means doing my midweek training walks and CROSS TRAINING, i.e. weights!! I’m still working on convincing myself that I like doing weight training. I’m getting better at it but old habits are hard to break! I do know that the year I followed the complete training plan for the 3-Day, I was in so much better physical condition when it came time for the walk. The year (last year) that I did NOT follow the plan, I struggled with the actual walk! This year I will be trained properly! This means that I will have to “suck it up” and put my inhibitions aside and do different kinds of weight and cross training than I am accustomed to doing.
- I want to continue getting my eating aligned with what my body is requiring me to eat. In January, I followed the Whole30 plan and that helped discover my gluten issues. I am now gluten free and can definitely feel a difference if I accidentally consume some gluten in my diet. It’s hard sometimes, but I feel so much better and I am worth the challenge. I am having some other dietary struggles that I am in the process of figuring out, so I want to spend these next 90 days getting some more answers on those issues.
- I want to continue working on moving outside of my comfort zone. I never realized how much of a creature of habit I was until the past couple of years. I have moved outside of my comfort zone in a couple of areas (like by being a writer here and being a team captain for the Shrinking Jeans 3-Day team), but I have a couple more areas that have become a hindrance to my goals. My biggest push in this area that I am working on over the next 90 days, is to stop being so fearful; fearful of the “what-ifs”. Working out of my comfort zone will help me work past these fears.
- I want to improve my self-confidence and self-esteem. I want to have the confidence in myself that others see in me. I want to be able to look in the mirror and really BE happy with what I see, not just SAY I am happy with what I see because I know that it’s the right response. I want to be able to walk into a room or a new area and have people KNOW that I am confident in my self.
- I want to truly be present when I am dealing with my family. I spend so much time with my husband (who works at home) and younger son (who is homeschooled by me), and there are far too many days when I am truly not paying attention to what they have to say. I don’t want my son to grow up thinking his mom didn’t care about what he had to say. And I don’t want my husband to think I don’t care about what he has to say, either. This will require that I set aside time to give them my full attention. It will also require me to FOCUS on what is going on around me.
I know that 90 days isn’t a long time and before I know it, the end of July will be here. This means I need to constantly push myself to reach these goals. I am truly determined to be an even better person in my 50s than I have been in my 40s. Working on these goals each day will help me accomplish what I want for the next 90 days (and beyond)!
Do you break down goals before a big event? I would love to hear your big goals for the next 90 days!!
xoxoxo,
Ann
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