“Failing to plan, is planning to fail.” I had to Google who said that. Apparently it was Benjamin Franklin who said it, but I was in the military when I heard it. That seems like a lifetime ago. I barely remember that girl. That girl would never have believed that I could get to this point… probably because she already saw herself as fat back then.
I love lists and planning. I always have. I’ve never been great at executing my plans, but I always did a whole lot better than with no plan at all. I used to plan out my days and spent a lot of time imaging how the future would be. For the last, probably 5-6 years, I’ve just been letting life happen to me. Every now and then I’ll plan my days and meals out. When I do that, I tend to do really well with accomplishing things and eating on plan. It’s such a simple thing, to take 15-30 minutes to go through the process.
I want to live my life intentionally. I have always believed in the power of thoughts and manifesting things in my life. Somewhere along the way, I stopped actively trying to pursue goals. I don’t know if it was motherhood, or becoming an RN, or maybe a combination of the two. My whole life, all I ever wanted was to be a wife and mom. I always thought I’d be a working mom as well.
When I got my first nursing job, I was thrilled and grateful. I thought that was the big times- making good money, in a “real” career. I think I was good at it. My patients liked me, and I got along well with my coworkers. I have always loved customer service and wanted to make my patients feel well cared for.
At the same time, I was always terrified. It is a lot of responsibility and peoples lives are literally in the nurse’s hands. Hospitals are chronically short-staffed, so the patient to nurse ratio is often higher than ideal. I was scared I’d miss something and have a bad outcome, or God forbid, give the wrong medication or doing something incorrectly and cause harm. People don’t fit into checklists and it’s difficult to plan how the day will go, because there are so many variables.
This is the 3rd week that I have been off of work. I had over 17,000 steps today, according to my Fitbit. Today was my most productive day so far. I hit the ground running at 8 a.m. and didn’t stop until 8:45 p.m. when my husband came home. I am so out of shape that my body physically hurts, but I feel like I accomplished a ton.
My day was sporadic though, and likely could have been streamlined to be even more productive, had I planned ahead. I also ate my way through the day, with a tidbit here and a tidbit there. I drank a lot of soda. Last year, I stoped drinking soda around this time and lasted for about 6 months. I want to do that again… But keep it going, and not start drinking it again. When I drink too much soda, among many things that makes it bad for me, I also don’t drink water. When I’m not drinking soda, I am really good about drinking plenty of water.
It is late now, and I need to get some sleep to have the energy to be productive again tomorrow. My goal is to make my plan for the day first thing in the morning… then hit the ground running again. I know a lot of moms who can relate to the never ending laundry pile… I’m really close to having that under control. If I could just get into the habit of doing a load everyday- which is easy to do with a family of 5- then I could stay on top of t!
Here’s to planning for a better tomorrow.
The Difference A Year Can Make 