I looked at yesterday, April 1st, as an opportunity for a fresh start. We had just finished with a beautiful Easter celebration, it was the start of a new business quarter and it was the Philadelphia Phillies’ first baseball game of the season. (Yep, I’m a Philly girl!) It also felt a little bit like Spring (finally!) with the sun shining warmly. The sun shining, flowers blooming, kids outside playing, baseball season starting, and a new business period to me means an opportunity to take a fresh look at life and all of the possibilities it has to offer. It’s a new beginning.
Reflecting on the goals I set in the beginning of the year, I’m doing well with some and less so with others. My big goal was to run Broad Street, which is a 10-mile race in Philadelphia, in May (I’ve previously never run more than a 5K). I was doing very well training in the beginning of the year, but then injured my ankle and had to stop. I ended up seeing a doctor and doing five weeks of physical therapy; to say it was a nuisance is an understatement. This old body doesn’t heal the way it used to!
After I hurt my ankle, I was really bummed and fixated on the fact that I was NOT achieving my goal. I recently turned my mindset around, though, and I’m now doing a little running again and am just enjoying the process of getting back into good shape. I’ll miss the Broad Street run, but I’m finding other races to run that are realistic goals based on where I am physically today. Now I look at it totally differently and with a much better mindset, and am so excited that I can start running outside and enjoying the weather. This was a reset I really needed.
Yesterday I had a lot of down time (too much, frankly) waiting for a doctor’s appointment for my daughter. The downtime enabled me to consider how both my personal and professional lives have gone in the first quarter of the year. I was able to mentally celebrate a lot of great accomplishments, but also find ways to improve. Now I am excited to head into Spring with a few adjustments and a strong start.
I hope you will do a quick re-count of your first quarter and allow yourself this wonderful opportunity to start again. No need for us to wait until next year to make some changes in our lives. Every day is a new day for opportunity and possibilities. What are you proud of and where can you improve? And if things did not go as planned, be easy on yourself and begin again. As we all know, life sometimes throws us a curveball and you just have to go with it versus resist. Here’s to new beginnings for all of us….
