So April is almost over, and that means that we will be heading towards the fourth full moon of the year on Monday. It seems taht time dragged by this time last year, but is speeding by this year. I’m not sure if it’s due to having a competent federal administration (at least at the executive level) and/or getting the pandemic slowly under control. But before I can look ahead to the next full moon, I need to look back at the goals that I set for the Libra full moon and reflect on how I did with each of them.

While it wasn’t a ‘goal’ per-say, I did managed to get a picture of the moon with my camera and longer lens (not the greatest, but not bad for the first time either):

So now back to the goals that I set for the Libra full moon? They included:

Working on my focal points (idea from the book ‘The Renaissance Soul: How to make your passions your life–a creative and practical guide’ by Margaret Lobensteine). Either ‘focus’ them more (making them more specific) or at least have my ‘whys’ added to them.

Create the ‘April brain-dump’ page; basically try to get all ideas and thoughts for the month of April onto paper. Giving me some direction for the month, plus allowing me to see what posts/pages I would like to create.

Continue working through various personal and professional development courses. Probably wouldn’t hurt to develop at least a rough draft of a personal/professional development plan.

So how did I do with each of them?

In terms of working on my focal points, while I didn’t make them any more specific, I did add my current ‘whys’ to each of them.

While I decided to keep the focal points semi-vague, I added in my ‘strengths’, core values, and my current ‘whys’ for each fo the five focal points. Keeping the focal points slightly vague was an attempt to try and keep my inner critic/imposter syndrome in check. I had spent a couple of weeks staring at the focal points and trying to make them more specific, but then I remembered this passage from ‘How to be everything: A guide for those who (still) don’t know what they want to be when they grow up’ by Emile Wapnick:

“When you lose interest in something, you must always consider the possibility that you’ve gotten what you came for; you have completed your mission. […] That’s why you lose interest: not because you’re flawed or lazy or unable to focus but because you’re finished”.

I felt like this passage could almost sum up the past twenty years of my life, and I wish I had spent more time in my 20s trying to figure out my life, instead of just going with the flow. Going with the flow can either lead you in the right direction–or carry you so far off your path, you have no choice by to start foraging a new one. Truthfully, I find myself in the second category–having to forage a new path to try to connect back to my ‘original’ path that I deviated from decades ago.

I created my ‘April brain-dump’ page almost as soon as I finished writing the Libra Full Moon post. In terms of making use of it–only a few things have actually been crossed-off/highlighted. I think this was due in part to the weather slowly warming up–I like to spend time outdoors when it is nice, and the other part were the more subtle ways of my inner critic/imposter syndrome pulling me back into my comfort zone.

While I have noticed different ways that I ‘self-sabotage’ myself at times, and with even having ideas on how to deal with those issues–I still fell into those habits this past month. I spent way too much time either surfing social media and/or amazon, plus reading various fiction books (I was pretty much binge reading the Fatal series by Marie Force to get ready for State of Affairs that came out on the 20th).

I’m going to actually try and make use of the one ‘time-management’ app that I downloaded earlier this year (it is called Self Control), and see if I can get more things accomplished in May than I did in April. As I sit here writing this post, I realize that I probably should have been making use of the app for a couple of months–but I allowed my inner critic/imposter syndrome to keep me from activating it with their best ‘lie’: ‘what if there is another webinar or whatever being announced, if you have the site ‘inactive’ you’ll miss hearing about it’. Well–I’m going to take that risk that I will miss out on hearing about something right away.

In terms of working through any personal or professional development course–yeah, that didn’t happen this month. Again it was a combination of the weather getting nicer (therefore wanting to be outside more), and having managed to work myself in a decent anxiety attack with trying to develop a personal/professional development plan (therefore having then ‘shut down’ for most of the month).

I’ve realized that I’m still struggling with trying to define any type of long term goal (basically where do I see myself in ‘X’ years), both professionally and personally–which makes trying to create any type of long-term plan difficult. While I can keep most things vague–I realize that I should try to make a semi-focused long term goal of say 5 years (which is something that I’m slowly working on), and also realize/embrace is the fact that the goal can (and probably will) slowly start changing as I really start figuring out what I really do enjoy doing on a daily basis.

So while I only had three goals set for the Libra full moon, I managed to meet (at least in part) two of the three goals. I added my ‘whys’ to my focal points, and did a ‘brain-dump’ of ideas for the month. I also realized that I tend to start having ‘problems’ getting more things done once the weather starts getting nice and I want to be outdoors more than I want to be indoors. This means that I will need need to try to get all the computer work done in the morning/evenings, or set up an ‘outdoor’ space for working. I will also start making use of the ‘self-control’ app to keep me from scrolling through various sites all day instead of working. Though as I look at what I’ve managed to accomplish (and what I had hoped to accomplish) this month (and year) to date–I realize, that I can ‘start’ the year over at any time. So that is what I will be trying to do: I will use this last week of April to reflect and plan for a ‘new year’ and May will become the new starting point.

This is allowing me to keep with the following quotes: ‘Progress over Perfection’ and ‘You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last chapter’. Progress, no matter how small will add up over time, and will carry one forward–the biggest hurdle is just getting started.