Have a totally different life by this time next year

My first entry for this goal a year ago, available here, listed the ways in which I was going to measure my change.

I think perhaps the most definitive change is that I have committed to art school. It’s funny—I actually submitted my first application for a scholarship to study art yesterday, so it is almost as if on the very end of the challenge I confirmed the direction in which I am going. I am more public about art school now, telling this to people when they ask me what I am going to do. I am prepping a portfolio (which is going very slow, but it is because I am realizing I can only do so much and how very true it is that, to do something well, you need to focus on that one thing) and applying to art schools in December/January.

The stress around this change, but more so, about unresolved issues with my previous way of life, affected how I handled my spiritual growth and physical well-being. Both genuinely reflect that I still have issues to slowly resolve, but it is a process. I actually want to think that these will slowly resolve up until October 2010 (the end of my Saturn return, as predicted in my birth chart. For now, it is like working through shells, coming to terms with issues of identity, habits I have used to make up for my insecurities, etc. The stress around the change might have made me unconscious of what I was doing at times, but on the whole I feel I have more awareness than what I had a few years ago.

And moving to a new place/ learning a new language? Well, there is not a connection between the new place (US, UK, or Iceland) and new language (Russian), but I am definitely taking steps towards a shift of location and using my brain differently (where Russian and art both play a role).

These are still the issues I want to have changed by this time next year.

At this time last year, I wrote that I wanted to be at a completely different stage in my life. A year has passed, and it seems to me that all this year has been an incubation period of sorts to get me to the point of conceiving and accepting an entirely different life.

While the external circumstances of my life at present still seem to be in a state of transition, I think that I now understand that I had outgrown the way of life I envisioned and planned for myself a decade ago. I guess it is only natural that it might take a full year (and even more than that) to come to terms that, as much as I was attached to certain aspects about my past self, it would involve a lot of resistance (and, ultimately, self-denial) to insist staying in that same place. It is funny how events in the last two weeks have really brought this home to me. Perhaps I do not have a completely different life right now, but I have definitely constructed a hinge point for my life to change. I literally do feel it as a hinge, where the direction of my life was bent, and can now only turn in a certain (completely different) way.

I am (gulp) less than four months away from this. And what is different about my life? Living back in the US, sure, but this was not what I would call a radical change. Or okay, maybe it is, but given that I am still floating around here and not grounded in a concrete way, it almost feels like things haven’t changed. Hmmm. Am I being too hard on myself? I just feel I haven’t figured anything out, and I am coasting by.

Things that are different:
- Living in the US again
- Cutting myself off from the non-profit (still two little strings attached, one starting with a P, the other with a G)
- Biking (who would have thought?)

And that is about it, really.

Inspired by wbmsic’s entry on organizing goals, I have also organized mine in order to understand my own objectives better.

There is one overarching goal, followed by four themes in my goals:
The goal: Have a totally different life by this time next year.
The themes:
1. Spirituality/Personal growth
2. Creativity/Self-expression/Language
3. Body/Health
4. Organization/Life management

There are also sub-categories to each of these groups. Here is the breakdown.

Spirituality/Personal growth

Presence:
Practice mindfulness
Let go
Be more grateful
Meditate daily

Self-understanding:
Do Project 365
Explore my feminine side
Know what my favorites are

Relationships:
Forgive my mother
Stop lying
Fix and strengthen (or close) relationships

Creativity/Self-expression/Language

Habits:
Write every day
Draw every day

Artistic creations:
Write my novel
Stop collecting art supplies and start creating art
Make my grandmother a meaningful present for her 80th birthday
Make a family tree
Go to Iceland

Languages:
Learn French
Improve my Spanish

Body/Health

Healing:
Achieve perfect physical health
Lose 25 pounds
Cleanse my colon
Chew my food thoroughly before I swallow

Exercise:
Exercise at least two hours a day
Do one hour of yoga daily
Tone my body
Work on my calves

Schedules:
Wake up early, go to bed early
Develop a daily morning routine

Organization/ Life management

Organization:
Stop being careless
Eliminate clutter
Organize my e-mails/ bookmarks
Organize my photos
Get rid of all my old underwear and bras

New skills:
Master my Mac
Learn to drive
Learn how to manage my mother

Goals not on this list will be put on the backburner for the time being. These are my main goals.

I don’t have them in this order on my profile page, where I list them according to priorities, but this exercise was still enormously helpful.

Aside from actually doing the 43 things on my list, I think I need to give myself time for visualization, goal charting, and monitoring progress on my goals. I think that this is the best way to achieve this.

Just a quick thought.

Well, let me list specifically how I want my life to be different:
1. I want to be in a naturally reflective state, living in the present and practicing mindfulness. I do not want to rush, I do not want to judge me or others, and I do not want to plagued by obsessive thinking—in short, I want peace of mind.
2. I want to be on a completely new career path as a writer, an artist, and a creator. I want to live without working, and writing, drawing, painting, creating are not a job for me. They are my calling.
3. I want to be have a completely healthy body. I want to heal my ovarian cysts, be a healthy weight, and have a flexible, toned, strong, and athletic body. No signs of hormone imbalance and high insulin.
4. I want to start my new life by living a period of time in a new country. Iceland is the country I would like to live in, and I have taken steps to accomplish this goal. But I am open.
5. I want to speak a new language, specifically French. Language acquisition symbolizes flexibility and ability to present a new side of myself.
6. I want to have solid stock of my relationships with others, specifically my family, but also my friends. I do not want to have unfinished business with anyone.

These five things are the main indicators of having a different life for me.