I had this post written all about what my goals were for 2016. I’m not a fan of resolutions, rather SMART goals, ones that I know exactly when I am going to achieve them. I had them all planned out and thought that I knew exactly what was going to happen and when.
You know sometimes the best laid plans often go awry.
I got some bad news recently. Everyone is okay, but it’s not my place to share. However, it does affect me and my family. I took some time off of blogging because I was feeling unmotivated and school was starting. I remember thinking this past week, “Man, I really need something to kick my butt to take what I have scheduled this year seriously.” And then this news popped up.
I had everything planned in my new blog planner, which I curated and had spiral bound. I was organized, I had everything laid out. I knew when each launch was, I had each partnership laid out… Everything was perfect. I had set 2016 up to be the best year yet, with no surprises.
But life doesn’t work that way. Life is full of surprises. And it’s moments like these that I remember that God often laughs at the plans of men. Of course, I still have all my goals set out. The main thing that has changed is the timeline.
What’s the point of this?
I share all of this with you because I know I am not the only one that makes up a plan and expects it to stay the exact same. When I started college, I thought I was going to go to Blinn for a year and then transfer to Texas A&M. That was the plan. But three years later, I was still at Blinn, finally finishing my Associates’ Degree. UNT was not a part of my plan. In fact, when I visited, my thoughts were, “Heck no, I’m not coming here.” Yet here I am a year out from graduating from UNT with my degree in social work.
If there’s anything I’ve learned repeatedly over the past almost 6 years of college, it’s that my plans usually always end up changing. They say God laughs at the plans of man, well, it must be Comedy Central up there. I’ve spent hours crafting plans only to have them changed in an instant. I’m thankful that He is the one who holds my future because it means that there are greater plans out there.
The point of this is not to tell you all that planning is stupid. It’s the exact opposite. Planning keeps us organized, gives us hope and shows us that we can do more if we aspire to do so.
“When you understand and remember that there is a possibility for plans to change, it takes a level of stress off of you that you don’t realize is there until it’s too late.”
When I received the news that I did, I was devastated. Why? Because I hadn’t even considered it to be a possibility that everything would be flipped upside down. It wasn’t even a blip on my radar. I went into 2016 thinking that it was going to be a breeze, that nothing was going to go wrong, and that there would be nothing to worry about.
I started thinking about a number of different factors that this news had affected, what adjustments I needed to make, and what I could or couldn’t do. I called my old roommate and cried because for the first time in a long time, I had the rug pulled out from under me. (She’s always been the less dramatic, more mature of the two of us.) I didn’t even consider that life changes overnight. I had so much invested into things not diverting from my plan that I didn’t even realize it.
The main thing that’s changed for me this year blog-wise? Well, I have some projects with both TEE and TCG that I am launching. I had planned on launching them later on, but with these new factors, I have a new fire in me to get them done on an even quicker timeline than I expected.
Does that make life easy? No. Fun? Definitely not. But having the rug ripped out from under you is what makes life, life.
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