Today I found myself feeling like I was dragging my butt around wishing my life away... ; wish I didn’t have to get up, wish I didn’t have to go to work, wish this work day was over, wish I was in the tractor with my husband... Get it together already!!! Stop wishing your life away and start making goals and things to look forward too!
Right after Christmas I created my first bucket list. Just by reading this list I could find inspiration and motivation I never knew I had, and it put me in an amazing mood! Thinking of all the great things I set out to experience and enjoy! To look forward to and most importantly things that would help me get out of a rut on a day like today.
I have broke my list down into a 2012 goals, 5 & 10 year goals, & the life promises I always want to keep.
Today, looking at the list, I realized the goals I have already started to accomplish and the lifetime promise ones I have started to bring into my daily life. #15 I have started gathering my favorite recipes and also for the first time, started trying new ones out of the cook books I have collected over the past 2 years. The book my mom made for me is broke into pages because I use it so often, time to start adding pages to the pile! #25 I rode my horse to the feedlot and back bareback and don’t know if I’ve ever been sorer! Felt good! But holy! The 3 km ride with probably about 1 km of loping really makes you use muscle you didn’t know you had! #28 I am getting closer to this goal. Recently have taken my first boudoir photographs and some engagement pictures! I figure at least I am getting asked to continue taking picture for people from others I have taken. #35 I am learning to just go with the flow, if something changes to adapt to the change. My husband has even noticed I am becoming a girl he doesn’t know what we’re doing next! I don’t think he likes it, haha. #37 My whole family has booked plane tickets to Wolfe Island for this summer! My husband Garnet and my sister-in-law Kim will finally get to see “Fancy Island” where my parents grew up! #40-42 these three follow fairly close to each other I think, and I feel no threat or jealously to people, no judgement either which makes me sing and make decisions that make me happy. #43 I have made this just a reaction to when I hear my fat little wiener dog running to the door to see Garnet and Kipty after a long days work!
The one I am most proud of is #39. This is such a lost thing in today’s world. Only if you win an award, win a buckle, money or a title do people think it’s time to say, “Congratulations you worked so hard for that!” Everything in between deserves those words too. From the very first attempt and getting bucked off, to dusting yourself off and trying again deserves the rewarding feeling of a job well done. Being a mom who has 2 kids for 2 weeks alone while dads off working. That deserves a huge hug, and words saying “you are an amazing mom.” I wish everyone would do this, I know when you win big a few close friends and family say congratulations, you did it! Which you might have thought the world would finally give you that pat on the back you’ve been waiting for, but other than the people that have been with you along the whole way, no one sees the stepping stones you had to take to get there.
As an impromptu question at a High School Rodeo years ago I was asked, “if you could teach children one thing, what would it be?” a few people had answers like how to rope and ride, how to bake, how to drive a tractor. My answer was, “I would teach children to have confidence in themselves. To be brave and challenge themselves as I believe that is a true stepping stone to success.” Confidence and encouragement can be one of the best gifts a person can receive.
My life consists of a western lifestyle and I always think I need have 20 things on the go, but then I’m not focusing one being great at one thing when I’m busy being just ok at 10! Time to regroup and focus on my goals and motivation.
“Courage is being scared to death... but saddling up anyway.” – John Wayne
My bucket list is not things I must do before I die but things I look too when I feel in a rut with life, things I that will challenge me to do and be better in life!
2012 Goals 5 year goals 10 years Lifetime promises
1. Make blankets for each of my babies before they are born
2. Sew all the rips in tears in my husband’s shirts and jeans
3. Wear red lip stick more often
4. Compete in a working cow-horse competition
5. Raise kids who are kind and polite and know God
6. Train a stock dog
7. Knit a neck tube
8. Buy a home
9. Buy cattle and have a cow/calf operation
10. Buy land with my name on the title
11. Become a great roper
12. Collect old western items (saddles, bridles)
13. Get my class 3 (possibly class 1)
14. Teach my niece & nephew how to ride a horse
15. Become an exceptional cook and baker
16. Doctor all our cattle on horse back
17. Be brave enough to smile and say hi to strangers on the street
18. Wear a bikini and feel confident about it
19. Clean & fix up all our saddles and make sure they are safe
20. Repay my parents for everything they do for me
21. Love unconditionally and let small things go
22. Halter brake a calf
23. Go to New York and only wear heels, dresses and red lip stick the whole time
24. Qualify for a finals in barrel racing with a horse I trained my self
25. Ride bareback more often than I do with a saddle
26. Train a ranch horse that I plan to have forever
27. Live somewhere that I can see the mountains from my kitchen
28. Take pictures for money and be recommend from someone else
29. Take a train ride through the mountains
30. Train my horses to listen and feel my body so I can ride with no saddle or bridle
31. Cook a turkey with the help of my mom
32. Be a 4-H leader
33. Take time and visit people that impacted who I am today from my childhood years
34. Forgive my grandpa and spend a day visiting him
35. Be spontaneous
36. Help my dad organize and sell everything out of his junk pile
37. Take Garnet and his grandparents to Wolfe Island in the summer
38. Always have a real Christmas tree that we get from the bush
39. Praise people for everyday accomplishments that come with everyday life
40. Find inner peace
41. Sing as loud as I can to my favourite song
42. Not worry about disappointing someone if it makes me happy
43. Meet my husband at the door every time he comes home
44. Drive to my grandmas in BC with the windows down the whole way
45. Experience the feeling of turning the 3rd barrel and the crowd goes wild
46. Go with Katie to Texas
47. Become food efficient – not let anything go bad in the fridge
"Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams, Live the Life you have Always Imagined." -Henry David Thoreau