Quick reminder! The Solo Practice Guide giveaway on Twitter ends December 10! Get your entries in by then! See my pinned tweet on how to enter.

Some weeks, I log onto WordPress and I know exactly what I want to share with you. Other weeks, I stare at a blank blog post begging me to “start writing” and I got nothing.

This week is somewhere in between. Ideas are swirling without settling long enough for me to see them clearly, so I’m just going to trust the flow of my creative process and see where we end up! Care to wander with me?

First, I suppose I could share that the cold I caught over the Thanksgiving holiday retreated in time for me to have my dance lesson this past Wednesday. It had been two weeks, again, since my last one. I don’t like this two-week trend that’s been happening over the last few months. But at the same time, time and money have been short over the last few months so it worked out for the best in a way. I’m making plans to return to twice-a-week lessons in January, which I think will be necessary if I’m going to feel ready to compete at CalOpen in February. So send positive vibes and don’t forget to get your Christmas shopping done!

Speaking of next year, I spent six hours yesterday with my fellow MoPros (nickname for the awesome impact-makers in the entrepreneur coaching group I’m part of) working on the vision and strategy for our businesses in 2020. I am excited about the opportunities 2020 will bring! The journey won’t be all daffodils and unicorns, but I’m clear that this is the direction I’m meant to travel.

I wrote before about my lofty competition goals for 2020. Most of my goals could be considered “lofty,” and I always have moments when I wonder what the hell I was thinking. I’ll feel like a failure for not hitting a goal, even if it was set outside of reasonable expectations. I’ll feel defeated before I even begin when I realize how much it’s going to take to reach that far-off destination.

I wasn’t designed to take the easy road though. I embrace struggle, even when I’m throwing up my hands and crying, “it shouldn’t be this hard!” Mind you, this isn’t a characteristic I suggest modeling. I have caught myself self-sabotaging when things seemed to be going my way, because it felt too easy. What I forget is the road can start to feel easier because I’m getting stronger. 

Along with getting stronger, I’m getting less concerned with being perfect and more focused on just doing the thing. My competition goal is lofty and I definitely won’t reach it if I don’t act. Planning is essential with goals, so you stay on track. But what good are plans if you never act on them? The trick is sometimes you need to execute those plans imperfectly, or before you have every piece of the plan figured out.

When I decided I wanted to do five competitions in 2020, I figured out an estimated budget for all five. Do I have the estimated total in my bank account right now? Nope. Do I know exactly how I’m going to get that estimated total? Nope. Do I know the first few steps to take toward getting that money? Yes.

If you were on the floor at a competition and right before the music started, you realized you couldn’t recall the last steps in your routine, would you refuse to start dancing? Of course not. You’d take your partner’s hand and dance the beginning of your routine. You’d figure out how to compensate for your memory gap as you dance. Sometimes it doesn’t matter because the music ends before you get there, or you have to modify your routine anyway to account for traffic on the floor.

I don’t know how I’m going to reach my 2020 competition goal in the end, but I know the first few steps. So I start dancing according to plan, build on the plan as I go, and prepare to use my floor craft as necessary.