Time for a restart

By Abby Crawford

And so it has begun. A new year. A new you. A fresh start. A chance to determine a path to those shiny goals, a chance to map and track your daily progress, a chance to be the person you were always meant to be. Are you excited? Are you feeling it? Are you ready? Well … neither am I.

I think I might actually be in a little bit of shock that January has already passed by. I mean seriously, how did that happen? And I am definitely still feeling slightly angry that my time away was less like a holiday and more like a game where I pretended I was on holiday by taking an hour on the beach here and there, whilst my clients pretended they hadn’t read my auto-response “I’m taking a week off on holidays” and continued to call and email at alarming regularity.

Of course, it also didn’t help that I actually had weddings scheduled into my “break time” and therefore HAD to take calls and organise things, but the point is I was still trying to make it feel like I was part of the Christmas/New Year festivities.

No one in my family really liked my idea of postponing it until June when I had fewer weddings, and I have to admit a bikini in June doesn’t really have the same appeal as in summer and I am pretty adamant that hanging around in a bikini with a glass of champers by the ocean is the ultimate in relaxing.

So I tried to combine it all, a working relaxing hectic holiday over the busiest holiday period and hectic work period. I guess, on reflection of my plan, it went as well as could be expected.

And so now, I find myself in February, with work propelling along at breakneck speed and the demands of every-day growing into a thunderous voice. Systems already seem overloaded (on account of the “when I’m on holidays I’ll review and implement NEW systems” failure), and steering this ship only seems to have a point if you know where you’re going.

And I’m not sure where I’m trying to go. Because I didn’t get a chance to goal set, I didn’t get a chance to consider my life, my options, my choices and chances – I just got through the holidays and the year went off with a bang before I was ready.

So I’m taking time back. That’s right, I’m having a restart. I might have missed the new year’s goals, but I think I’ll start with Happy New Month goals.

You see, the one thing I do know, is that if I don’t change things, each year will just be a repeat. If I don’t take control of my time, I won’t be able to see the path to take and life will just carry me along on the back of what I let happen.

And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to start one more year feeling resentful of time lost, stressed by time running away, or fearful of time left. I want to start each year – and in fact each day – joyous with the choices I have made in how I have LIVED, time and time again.

What a woman wants is to have her time over when she’s feeling out of control, but what a woman needs to realise is that making time for herself is actually the smartest plan she could have.

So, this year, I encourage you – and I challenge myself – to be accountable for how we spend our time. Because the one thing I do know, is that spending time with family and friends, with those you love, is a lot better than time running out for your chance to do so.

I’m setting some new goals this month– for my work life to afford me the time I need to make my personal goals happen. Now that I know that’s what I want, I’ll give myself another month to figure out how. After all, I have each month to set the next step of my goals!!

May we all have an adventurous, successful and soulful year. I look forward to sharing it with you.

With much love,

Abby