The First Step

A while back, I read in a couple of different magazines and blogs about a 101 list. Basically you list 101 things you'd like to do in 1001 days. This is really the only guideline and you can categorize goals into topics or themes (fitness, faith, work, etc) and make them as broad or specific as you want (have a better attitude vs. visit family 6 times).

Being a "list person" and someone who likes to daydream, I thought this would be a fun activity. I had also started to feel very stagnant in my self development and I have been desperately wanting to re-spark the path of becoming a better version of myself. During the past few years as I started teaching, transitioned out of college, moved away from all my friends and family, entered an urban world, and more or less started "growing up", I got lost in my own mental clutter. Trying to balance a million expectations (internally and externally imposed) made me feel bogged down and at times, a little hopeless.

When my sister, Heidi, was visiting last month we were talking about activities we'd like to do in the future and basically just other hopes of self-improvement. I told her about the 101 list. She seemed interested and found a website that chronicled this project in more detail. Well, like so many other things in my life, this fell to the wayside as I became too busy and stressed to think about anything else more than just the present second.

Then Heidi started to create her list and shared it with me while she compiled it. It was so neat and gave me great food for thought. Because I was so busy and stressed, this provided a nice distraction. I also found that dreaming about the future was so much more enticing than the work in front of me :)

Therefore, I created my own list. I took me a while to reach 101 items because I could have easily listed 5,000! However, I wanted to do it right so I put a lot of effort into making sure each item was truly a goal that would help improve my life or make me feel better.

Now that my list is finalized, I am excited about the prospect of crossing each item off. Not only am I hopeful but I am PUMPED! As Lao Tzu once said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." My first step of creating a list is complete. On to the rest of the journey!