Goal setting

I am hoping that one of these days I'm actually going to be able to take my own advice or I'm able to accomplish some of the goals I set for myself on here....  I keep writing about taking time for myself and not feeling guilty when I actually try.  This past Monday, I had the day off of work and I decided to have a "do whatever I want" day.  I got part way through the day (took myself to the movies, got lunch, wandered around, etc.) and then I started to think about all of the things I "should have" been doing instead; so rather than enjoying the things I did accomplish, I felt guilty for not getting those other things done.  Maybe, rather than focusing on those things, I need to look instead that I did take some time to myself and I didn't just make plans for myself and not follow through.

One of the things I think I need to go back to is something I attempted to work on a few years ago...  I need to learn to be the kind of friend to myself that I am to other people.  My personality is such that I am often a sounding board for others but when it comes to analyzing myself, I am definitely my own worst critic.  I think I need to learn how to step back and look at things more objectively when it comes to myself.

A friend of mine has suggested that maybe something that might help me is to make a list of the attributes I like in myself and a separate list of traits I might want to change.  From there, examine the list and decide if those things I would change are realistic or not.  If they're not realistic, cross them off the list and move on from them.  Just because they're not realistic, doesn't make me a failure because I can't achieve them, it actually could help keep me from feeling like a failure in advance.  I'm not sure if it'll work or not but I guess it's something that might be worth a shot.

Something else I know that I need to work on is letting go...  I need to let go of the parts of my past that haven't been favorable (even though they have brought me to the point in my life I currently find myself) and allow myself to move on.  I also need to learn to let go of things that I can't change.  Let go of the things at work, at dance, or wherever I may find myself that are not conducive to me being the best that I can be.

I need to work on deciding for myself what things matter and what things don't.  I tend to take everything to heart and, in doing so, I tend to beat myself up quite a bit.  That's not something that I want to continue doing.  I want to be able to sleep at night.  I want to feel like I can build myself up and not just build up those people I associate with.  I want to continue to be able to build those people up who matter in my life and I am starting to recognize that I can't do that if I'm either on the ground myself or if I find myself in a hole peaking out.

One of the goals I am going to set for myself to make a conscious effort to build myself up this week and if something goes wrong to just shake it off (as best I can) and not beat myself up over it.  We'll see how I do in the next week with that and I will report back next week.  I know that I am going to find myself in some high stress situations at work this week and I'm going to see how well I can "go with the flow" rather than feeling like I'm a salmon swimming upstream (maybe I just need to remind myself that I'm allergic to fish and that'll help...).  =)