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| The excitement of staying up late on Christmas Day to Skype with his cousin 9 hours behind us, show each other their new Playmobil collections and make silly faces. |
We thus enjoyed a quiet New Year's Eve with a break from socializing. Evenings as a couple have become all too rare so we're trying to pack a lot of them in this week, with time for reading, reflection on last year and aligning ourselves for the year to come. Someone may be so unused to relaxing in the evening that he was snoring softly on the couch by 10 p.m. So I had space to journal and choose my one word for 2014.
It snuck up on me.
Discipline.
Not glamorous. Doesn't even sound fun or grace-filled but oh, so needed.
A few nights ago I couldn't sleep, my mind was racing with all of the to-dos in preparation for our family's continental shift coming up only 7 (!) months from now. Not being able to sleep when given the opportunity has been rare since our 2nd baby was born -- I remember this so-much-to-do-might-as-well-get-up-and-do-it feeling from the last time we moved house, when I was 8 months pregnant with Annabelle. So I got up and started to get a few tasks done, wrote lists, and ended up setting up some new routines for myself for 2014. I didn't set out to do this but after I had done it, I realized that having more reliable rhythms for our family's day, when we get housework done, plan and shop for and cook meals, would probably bring a lot more peace into all of our lives and productivity into mine. I am not naturally a highly structured person. I read somewhere that introverts usually work in fits of inspiration and productivity and that is me to a T. I prefer to just take things as they come, sleep when it suits me...but with 2 young kids and a Ph.D. that is begging to be finished in 2014, I need a new strategy.
As I sat down to reflect on NYE the word discipline came to my mind quite quickly. As I read over my journal from the past year I saw how much this has been a desire of mine, a felt need in my life. We have big dreams, big goals, big vision and I think I'm at the place where I need more systems in place to achieve them, the discipline to stick to routines. Getting up early. Getting in the Word. Making the daily, not-glamorous decisions that will take us day by day towards the big goals.
In the past two years I had focused on a few other areas of my life, like budgeting and finances (thank you Dave Ramsey baby steps!), which have given us a lot of freedom. I've realize that I can't focus on forming too many new habits at once, so I am grateful for what has been achieved already (and there will be no Whole30s on my radar for awhile).
Welcome 2014. Discipline, let's do this (and I've given my husband permission to throw water on me if I refuse to get out of bed when the 6 a.m. alarm rings.)
Linked up to #oneword365
