Good resolutions, which at the beginning of the year seemed achievable - but then suddenly you’ve blinked and half a year has passed and you seem to be getting no where with any of them.

AND added to that there are like a million other things suddenly. Things which you didn’t account for, but are now all sitting, one on top of the other, on your head.

As sunshiny as you might normally be, one of these days, you’re going to feel like just pulling your hair out. Or, at the very least, giving up.

I certainly did. I’ve been almost avoiding looking at my goal list because I know how far I’m from achieving all of them.

Spiritually I’m not putting in enough time praying or reading scripture. I’ve not written anything for Glorify God since March and have been putting no energy into the site like I ought to be doing. The subscribers have increased, but no thanks to me.

Meanwhile, I’m still waaay behind in my Bible correspondence course. Over a year behind. Yeah, you heard me. And I’ve missed tennis the whole of last month due to travel plus the whole of this month because of something or the other that’s come up at practice time. Oh heck, let me just tell you the truth that I’ve been lazy.

However, there is hope!

If you’re like me and you’re feeling overwhelmed right now, try doing what I’ve done:

(01) Get enough sleep: You may think you’re helping achieve targets by burning the candle on both ends, but the truth is that an unhealthy body is an unproductive body. And if you sleep right, your productivity increases, your capacity to problem solve increases, your sunshine get backs!

(02) Get up early: As much as your body may fight you (mostly in my case it’s out of sheer laziness), make up your mind to get up early and stick to it. I put an alarm on my phone and place it far away from my bed so I’m forced to walk up to pick up the phone to turn the alarm off. I still have to fight the urge to go back to sleep, but remind myself that I need to pray before my day starts. Which brings me to point 3:

(03) Pray: Even non-believers are now endorsing meditating and prayer - how much more should we Christians, who believe in the true Living God, pray? I find prayer helps me start the day off right - by surrendering all my problems, worries, issues to God and letting His “peace which surpasses understanding” (Philippians 4:7) fill me.

(04) Make a plan for the day, which includes free time: This is because unforseen things are bound to come up.

(05) Revisit/rework your Long Term and Short Term Goals list: I so often get so caught up with finishing the things of the day, that I pay almost no attention to completing my long term goals. Instead, at the end of every day, see that you’re closer to both sets of goals.

Lastly,
(06) Know that you are not alone: No matter how hopeless your situation may feel like right now, know that there is always hope. Because nothing is impossible with God. And with Him, all things are possible! (Luke 1:37 & Mt 19:26)

And though the Sunshine Experiment isn’t quite what I envisioned it to be at the start of the year, it’s still pushing me towards achieving my goals.

So, without further ado, here’s a round up:

SPIRITUAL GOAL: To better my relationship with God by spending one hour in personal prayer at least 5 times a week & by daily scripture reading. To increase the readership of my “Glorify God Online Catholic Magazine” to a minimum of a 1000 people.

Must confess that I haven’t been having my prayer time as I should & my scripture reading, though good in the beginning of the year, has gone down too. Plan to remedy that & post on this by the end of next week. Keeping this as a priority now.

Glorify God however is doing better than ever. Have started a facebook group & as of date, have 80 members from all over the globe! Do spread the word (by inviting your Catholic & Christian friends to read).

MENTAL GOAL: To Complete My Bible Correspondence Course that I had started last year (and am now 10 months behind) by completing 2 papers per month this year.

Ok, sad state of affairs. Not only did I not do the 2 I had to last month (did only 1), but not even started on the 2 of this month. Which leaves me with a grand total of 3 to complete in 2 weeks. brrrr.

PHYSICAL GOAL: To develop an all round toned & healthy body by learning a new sport and by taking my daily vitamin supplements.

Ah! Finally some good news to report!! Started the Tennis classes I mentioned in my last post. So far, the Sunshine girl has learned to hit forehand & backhand strokes. The coach I have is brilliant and makes me do 5 laps before we start training - which though tiring in itself, is a great warm up. I suspect I’m looking better than ever (sure feeling it!)

SOCIAL / EMOTIONAL GOAL: (I’m still undecided on this one, will note down by the end of the week. I wanted to get this post up so that I could start working on the areas in which I have set the goals & also so that you would have time to think before you noted down your goals.)

Finally, realised I haven’t even set a social/emotional goal! How can one achieve anything if one doesn’t have a concrete plan to work towards? I ask you, what are you doing too? Have you decided on any goals? Are you keeping them?

Experiment Sign ups: 5!! Yeah (I was hoping for at least one other person, so 5’s great!). Do put up your goals asap, so we can go ahead with the rest of the experiment.

Meanwhile our facebook group has grown to 75 people (as of this moment) - and that’s not counting the feeds or regular hits here - so lots of people following the experiment!

Finally, an update on my goals - I Still haven’t come up with a Social/Emotional goal for the year. Want it to be something special, so wavering a bit between options I have in my mind. Will decide & put up before the month end for sure.

Happy to announce I’ve made progress with my Physical Goal - decided to get Tennis Lessons (have always wanted to learn, been following the sport since I was a little child).  So, should be starting on those soon.

More on the rest soon.

Since this experiment is going to work on the principle of all of us being Accountable to one another once we have recorded our goals here, I’m putting down my goals for 2009 in these 4 areas here.

NAME: Melody Laila

SPIRITUAL GOAL: To better my relationship with God by spending one hour in personal prayer at least 5 times a week & by daily scripture reading.

To increase the readership of my “Glorify God Online Catholic Magazine” to a minimum of a 1000 people.

MENTAL GOAL: To Complete My Bible Correspondence Course that I had started last year (and am now 10 months behind) by completing 2 papers per month this year.

(Though the subject matter of my goal is spiritually based, it’s still an educative course which requires study & submission of papers, so I’ve place it in this category)

PHYSICAL GOAL: To develop an all round toned & healthy body by learning a new sport and by taking my daily vitamin supplements.

SOCIAL / EMOTIONAL GOAL: (I’m still undecided on this one, will note down by the end of the week. I wanted to get this post up so that I could start working on the areas in which I have set the goals & also so that you would have time to think before you noted down your goals.)

Your part now, is to sit down seriously, evaluate what it is YOU want to achieve for yourself this year in each of these four areas. Remember - just one or at the very most two goals.

Then, leave a comment with your goals in the same format (you may copy paste the format below into the comment field & just fill in). If you like, feel free to add any details / explanations that you’d like for us to understand you by like I have down in brackets near your goal.

NAME:

SPIRITUAL GOAL:

MENTAL GOAL:

PHYSICAL GOAL:

SOCIAL / EMOTIONAL GOAL:

Remember! Once you note it down here, it’s as good as commitment you’ve made to the rest of those who’re part of the experiment to seriously work on your goals.

You may add this url to your feeds (or subscribe free via email - top left corner) so that you are regularly updated on the experiment. You also have to regularly keep us updated (via comments on upcoming posts) of your progress or struggles with your goals.

A good way of setting goals would be to use the SMART system (make them: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant, and Time Bound.)

Be  Specific, Measurable, Attainable & Realistic as you’re setting these goals.

We are more likely to succeed when we set goals the SMART way, rather than just being general.

For example, a general goal would be something like: I will lose weight.

To make sure the goal is Specific & Measurable, answer these two questions:
what performance measure &
what specific action do I plan to undertake to achieve this goal?

“I will (goal + performance measure) BY (specific actions).”

So hence, a specific goal for weight loss would perhaps be something like this:

“I will lose 10 kilos in six months by running on a treadmill for an hour, four days a week.”

In order to make sure your goal is Attainable & Realistic, you may have to check with some others.

For example, with weight loss again, you may have to check with a personal trainer or a dietician to see what goal, performance measure & specific action will be best for you. Also, you should check your own past records to know how much you can push yourself.

Two years ago, I set out to read 24 authors I hadn’t read before in a year. I didn’t achieve the goal, simply because given all the other things I was doing, it was very unrealistic for me to finish two books a month (and to make matters worse, I choose Shantaram as one of my books Loved it, but it took a month in itself!).

By default, we’ve already ascertained the last part (Time): we have until the 31st Dec 2009 to achieve the goals we’ll set here. You can however, set some of your goal for a shorter time period if you like (like say 2 months or 6 months).

Here at the Sunshine 2009 experiment, we are working on 4 core areas; Spiritual, Mental, Physical & Social/Emotional, what we’ll all be doing is setting just ONE or at the maximum TWO goals per area.

It may take you some time to figure all this out, but that’s good, you want to think about this & do it seriously. Once you have done this, proceed to the step: noting down your goals here for the rest of us in the experiment to see.

Here’s what I’m proposing:

(01)That whoever comes across this blog & wants to join of his/her own accord, will agree to have a Holistic Lifestyle this 2009, for the express purpose of putting the sunshine back in our individual and collective lives.

(02) By Holistic, I mean specifically paying attention to 4 core aspects of our lives: Spiritual, Mental, Social/Emotional & Physical (based on Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits & which we’ll personalize as we go along).

(03) We shall break the week up, into 4 parts: Spiritual Sunday (which is the Christian day of rest & of focussing on God, so it works!), Mental Monday (where we’ll focus on mental renewal), Workout Wednesday (which will deal with Physical Renewal) and finally Social & Emotional Saturday (which seems apt since we tend to do lots of social things on the weekend).

(04) The Sunshine Girl’s part of the experiment will consist of posting personal matter those four days relevant to those 4 areas we’re working on.

(05) Your part, should you choose to join the experiment, would be to:

a) Leave a Comment at the “About Page”, simply saying that you’re joining! This will help us know how many are working the experiment along with us, plus make you accountable to do all that you intend doing.
b) Work on each of these areas in your life. As we go along, the Sunshine girl will be giving you tips as well as sharing her own walk.
c) You would then comment on your progress & on anything you find relevant, or leave your own tips, which in turn will help all the others who’ll join our experiment.

Even if it’s just a handful of us who’ll work on our lives together, being part of this “experiment” here, basically means that you’re accountable to someone for working on all these areas in your life.

I trust, that by the end of 2009, we’ll all have evolved into better human beings than we are now, and that we’ll have not only brought more sunshine into our lives, but into the lives of all those we are in contact with as well!

Here’s wishing you all a Sunshine 2009!

~ Melody Laila (aka, the Sunshine Girl)

Comments for this post only on the About Page please, thx!

1. Pray.

2. Go to bed on time.

3. Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed.

4. Say No to projects that won’t fit into your time schedule, or that will compromise your mental health.

5. Delegate tasks to capable others.

6. Simplify and unclutter your life.

The truth is, there are some things that even make the sunshine girl mad!!! The terrible traffic in Mumbai city is one such pet peeve.

However, having identified my pet peeve, I have gone about trying to make things work for me & this is what I’ve come about it. May some of these will work for you, or maybe you’ll have to come up with your own lists - however, if you do have a pet peeve, it’s good that you sit and figure out ways to deal with it rather than complain about it / get upset by it all the time.

So, presenting to you: 5 Sunshine Thoughs to beat those Traffic Blues!

(01) Figure out when traffic is at it’s worst in the city. And then of course, try to avoid driving during that time. I’ve found out it means getting up earlier and starting my day at a much earlier hour than I would have normally - but the extra hours sleep is not valued when I am stuck in ridiculous traffic! So my new motto is: Early to sleep & early to rise, makes Mell enjoy her drive!

(02) Make sure you car is fully loaded with whatever you need for your drive the previous night! For me, that means checking I’ve carried a fresh bottle of water - so needed when you’re stuck in traffic. And that I’ve put in new CDs that I want to listen to. And that I’ve got all my chargers in place, just in case my bluetooth handfree or phone battery is low on charge.

(03) If it makes sense for you, get a driver! I personally perfer driving my own car, but I know scores of people who have drivers, purely to catch a few winks between meetings or to get online & do work/play during the commute. If you’re like me & concerned about your car, make sure your driver is fully informed about how you like things (for example, I don’t like unnecessary honking) in advance, so that the driver doesn’t end up annoying you also!

(04) Another thing I do often is change the CDs in my car. This helps make every drive different even though I’m usually driving the same routes. Sometimes I carry Joyce Meyer’s latest podCasts that I can listen & learn from during the drive. Other times I carry Norah Jones / Michael Buble / Tenors - that completely relaxes me when I’m stressed. And sometimes, specially on my way home, I blast the latest music at volumes that are not good for ones ears (no, I’m not advocating you do this often ;)) and sing out loudly (& I mean LOUDLY) and dance with the music, all the way home. Of course, you should keep in mind, all the suggestions are assuming you’re the only person in the car. If you have a passenger, you might want to consider their preferences too

(05) Accept the fact that there are ALWAYS going to be idiot drivers on the road. Just accept it as a fact & move on. There’s no point allowing the idiot who cut you, or the other idiot who drove waaay too slowly or the other one who almost hit you annoy you. It also is kind to passengers, if any, not to abuse these idiots out aloud when driving. I’ve noticed it’s de-stressing to yell at these guys when I’m driving - but it actually stresses me more when I’m the passenger and someone else is yelling! So, best solution, stop all the yelling, accept them as a necessary (unfortunate) fact of life, thank God you’re a better driver & just move on.

————————

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

(c) Marianne Williamson

The Sunshine girl asks to to take ONLY FIFTEEN MINUTES of your time today & declutter something.

Is it your office desk? Your desktop on your PC? Your living room? Your bedroom? Your clothes/shoes closest?

What can you Declutter from your life today?

Don’t just read this, do something & then only will reading this really help you. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time here.