Sunday night musings

So another weekend has come and gone and here I am on Sunday night, trying to make the most of the final few of the forty-eight hours we are given to recuperate for another week. But instead of indulging my ego and drinking a bottle of red wine to avoid thinking of Monday morning, I'm drinking wine and using this time to be productive and nurture my goals and think about what I'm going to do this week to work towards my dreams (that is to be a published writer and contributor to whoever will have me!).

Seriously though, I'm tired of feeling defeated on Sunday night because somehow, over the weekend, my goals and dreams didn't materialize in time for the alarm on Monday morning. Maybe this change in attitude is partially due to a fantastic dinner I had with a dear friend whom I've known for now more than half of my life. We were catching up after not seeing each other since January (an issue deserving of its own post), talking about our lives and what we want to be doing and it became so obvious that despite our dreams and possessing the abilities to achieve those dreams, we hold ourselves back, self-sabotage and procrastinate, all while watching other people with less experience or skill succeed.

It got me thinking about something I think we overlook on a daily basis - how important it is to encourage each other to pursue our dreams. I will be the first to admit, that until recently if I saw someone, especially another woman, who was successful and appeared to have what I wanted, I was so jealous. That jealousy manifested itself into hostility often towards people I barely knew. It was as if I was looking at life like there was a finite amount of success to go around and each time I saw someone else who appeared to have it, it somehow lessened my chances of succeeding. It's embarrassing to admit and is petty and completely unproductive. What I should have focused on was drawing on their experience and learning about how they achieved their success. My sister gave me a proverbial kick in the pants this past week in that regard, pointing out how ridiculous it is not to learn from the people I have around me for fear of looking like I don't know what I'm doing. As she said, people are usually pretty happy to discuss their own success, so after this post is done, I'm going to take her advice and send an email to someone who has achieved what appears to be success I would like to replicate.

The bottom line: We need to believe in ourselves but we also need to know others believe in us too. Having girlfriends and family who follow up (read: stalk you) and make sure that you are actively working on your goals (read: not procrastinating) is essential to succeed. I recently had my husband, my sister and my cousin all asking me about my progress on finishing an article I had been working on for two months. They were interested in knowing how I was doing, but more importantly, knew that eventually, I would tire of hearing myself make excuses for why I hadn't finished. (I am happy to say, I've finally finished the article and sent it to the travel editor at the Globe and Mail last week. While it would be nice to be published, I'm just so happy and extremely proud of the finished article regardless of if it ends up in the paper or not).

So now I am returning the favour. I've promised my dear friend with whom I dined on Friday night, that I will haunt her via text message, checking in to see if she set aside time to work on her business plan for a business that is almost undoubtedly going to succeed. You know who you are and I'm coming to get you! As a very smart man once said to me, you owe it to yourself to do this.