In about three weeks I will be turning 27. This year my birthday comes with a little more ease. It seems to be that how I feel about my birthday is usually an extension of how I am feeling about my life in general. Your birthday is a year marker for your life. You can’t help but to look back and think, did I accomplish everything I had hoped to by this age? Did I accomplish everything in this past year that I promised myself I would?
Well this year I am taking a new approach. I have made a list of things that I hoped I would have accomplished by my next birthday and I am trying to check each item off as quickly as possible, before twenty seven sneaks up on me. So, I created a calendar and on this calendar are deadlines. They are my own personal deadlines for accomplishments. I must achieve x by x date. Is this necessary? Maybe not for most people, but for someone who is a procrastinator like I am, it is. If I didn’t see these dates on the calendar, I wouldn’t feel committed.
One of the items on my list was to get back in to running, and entering a race. While I have been running all year, I hadn’t taken the final plunge to sign up until my deadline, which was yesterday. I signed up for a six mile race. This is nothing too over the top, but I am actually excited about competing. I am excited that I will actually do it, instead of thinking about doing it or idly considering the possibility of doing it.
I need this momentum. I need this measurable. I need to feel like I am accomplishing something, growing, further developing myself in some way. I feel most satisfied when there is something that I can cross off of my wish list because it means that I am really living. I am taking advantage of my days, and of my years.
-m2
“how do you measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life?”
1 Comment
August 26, 2009 at 7:58 pm
This post speaks wise words to the many procrastinators out there. I believe by making a calendar filled with dates you are more likely to achieve the many things you wish to, rather than having to look back saying, “oh I wish I would have entered that race.” I hope you are able to stick to your schedule.
-jc