Dear April...

A reflection

• Read through Sociology book

• Order/make wedding invites

• Get new library card

• Finish punch needle canvas

Those were the four goals I set for myself this April—spoiler alert I didn’t complete one of them.

These goals may seem small but that’s exactly the point. I need to build my foundation and that starts with building better habits. One bad habit I have that I’m working on is not completing things. It either gets too hard and I give up or I completely forget about it and am too lazy to pick it back up. That’s what happened with the punch needle canvas I purchased late last year. I worked on it once then put it aside, glancing at it every so often but never picking it back up. That was the last goal I completed, on the very last day of the month. I’ve never done punch needle before and my finished product isn’t perfect but it’s pretty good for a first timer. I can’t wait to hang it on my wall and while I was working on it I realized how much I liked doing punch needle. I felt a difference working on the punch needle canvas for an hour versus mindlessly scrolling on my phone for an hour.

The goals on this list were things I’d been putting off. I’ve been saying I needed to get a new library card for months, I say it and then don’t act on it—no more of that. The library card was the first goal I completed from the list and it took less than five minutes. The only goal I didn’t complete was the Sociology book and you know what, I’m okay with that. It was a big ask to read through a 600 page textbook in a month, especially when I have so many other things going on. I realized that in order to achieve that goal I was rushing it, that doesn’t help me. I’ve been wanting to learn Sociology for a while now, it’s a subject I’ve always been interested in and I realized if I rushed through it I wouldn’t truly retain it. I’m the one that set this goal, I’m the one that set this timeline—I can easily change it to better fit the goals needs. Why stress myself out? Why give myself unneeded pressure?

I decided to start setting monthly goals for myself in hopes of building better habits. I’ve been on this self-bettering journey these last few months, taking different approaches to see what works for me and what doesn’t because there’s no “one size fits all” method for achieving your goals, everyone works differently. I made sure to make these easy, low pressure so that I could actually achieve them instead of setting big goals and overwhelming myself.

Before this I was setting unrealistic expectations of myself, essentially setting myself up for failure. I’d set goals like write one page everyday, have a story completed by the end of the week, post on SubStack every Sunday, and while these goals may not seem big to most—for me it was unrealistic. What was I doing wrong? I was focusing too much on the big picture when what I really need to do is go brick by brick.

I listened to the episode My Process For Achieving Goals: How to Change Your Life in 5 Simple Steps from The Mel Robbins Podcast and it unlocked something in me, woke me up. For starters I needed to ask myself what my main goal was and more importantly, why? I’m going to be keeping my overall goal private because that’s just for me but what I will say is that once I figured out the why I realized what I needed to do. I know, it sounds so simple and you might be thinking, shouldn’t I have figured out the why before? Regardless, I realized I was going about my goals the wrong way. I was too focused on the outcome when I should have really been focused on the foundation.

I need to start smaller. Instead of saying I need to write one page everyday, I’ll just write everyday—even if it’s just one sentence. Putting such specific requirements doesn’t work for me, I need some fluidity. It’s the same for my SubStack. I was putting so much pressure on myself to write a specific way about specific topics. Why was I putting that type of restriction on myself when I haven’t found my voice yet? I have no idea what my style of writing is yet, all I know is that I want to write. Not everything I post has to be this profound, deep thinking entry—I just need to write and post. That’s it, it’s that simple.

I’m looking forward to May and my new set of goals. I’m looking forward to feeding my new habits, keeping some old ones and building my path brick by brick.

p.s. - join me on Instagram @jesss_blankpage to keep up with my May goals and everything in between <3

Thank you for being here :)