I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!
Today’s assignment was meant to take an honest assessment of my life. For each of seven areas (lifestyle, work, education, finances, health, family, and relationships) I wrote down what I like and what I dislike about each piece. The only way to identify where you’re going is to start with where you are.
More than what I actually wrote for each area – i.e., I dislike the workload that comes along with my Masters program – I learned more from the amount of things I wrote for each area. Here are a few things that jumped out at me.
Lifestyle: I had by far the least amount of things to write here. Either like or dislike. I could think of one thing I like and two I dislike. Rosetta described lifestyle as “satisfaction with where you live/living environment, how you spend your leisure time these days.” Um – leisure time? What’s that? And while I like our apartment, I’m not in love with the neighborhood we live in… it’s in a convenient location in relation to all my commitments… but why are my commitments driving all other aspects of my life? I wasn’t happy to see that I don’t have much to put in lifestyle… when I really value being able to take time for myself…
Work: Just this past weekend, I was complaining that work was stressful and that my next job should have less stress. But my like to dislike ratio for work? It’s 6:2. So when I’m feeling overwhelmed or stressed, it will be good for me to remember there are several things I love about my job – I have great colleagues, wonderful professional development opportunities, and I’m making a difference.
Health: Woh boy. I thought this was going to be a huge focus on the dislike and hardly any like, as I have a pretty serious health condition, something I’ve been struggling with lately. I was surprised to see that while I had a long dislike list, my like list was almost as long. Similarly to work, I have so much to be thankful for with my health – I have recently lost weight to get into my healthy range, I have an answer to my questions around my health, and I can be more proactive in treating it and learning about it.
I guess overall I identified that there are some areas that are great (work, health) and some that need work (lifestyle – my surprise category). I hope that in this next month I can use this information to help shape my future.
-N.C.