Welcome to week five of continuing to #livethequest. Yesterday’s prompt is a checkpoint for the progress we made during the first month of 2015.
What indicators of growth can you celebrate? #growth
Look back on your first month. What small indicators can you identify that you have changed something positively in Month 1 or that you are moving in the direction you need? For instance, are you acting differently? Are you thinking differently? Are you speaking about yourself as a business artist and your best work differently?
If Jeffrey had asked this question one day earlier I’m not sure I would have known how to answer it, but something shifted for me between the first and second days of February, shedding light on progress made but unseen. Which is only fitting, because February 2, a celebration called Imbolc by the Celts (also known as St. Brigid’s Day and Candlemas) marks the midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, and with it, the return of the light to the world.
And that’s how it felt. Like a veil was lifted and what had been clouded was now clear. Or at least clearer. Clear enough to see where progress has been made.
- A clearer space and mind–After a month of struggling with clutter I am finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, in my space, in my daily life, and in projects I have been struggling with–like my #oneproject which finally has a theme, a Quest vision quilt.
- Routines that support more than just getting my dishes washed and laundry done–I have begun to integrate small habits that support my larger priorities into my daily routines, things like turning off my computer at 9:30pm so I can get to sleep earlier, and reading poetry every morning to help inspire my own words.
- Commitments to daily making–On January 18th I started my second 365 project (my first was in 2010/11) and on January 26th I joined a small circle of friends posting one sentence a day from something we’ve written that same day.
- New unfurling seeds of bravery–Perhaps it is all my recent exposure to posts and stories and books urging us not to wait until a project is perfect before we deliver, but yesterday morning I thought to myself, “why wait until I have a solid plan for starting my online art and literary journal? Why not just put out a call for submissions and a short guidelines page and see what happens?” I still need to do a little more research, but once I get answers to a couple of important questions, I’m going to get it done. Let’s say, by February 23rd.
Making commitments to something scary on the fly in front of the world? It’s either really stupid or really brave. But either way, for the girl who took six years to start a blog she’d been dreaming of even longer, that’s growth.