I’m excited to be writing again. I am starting this new year with more enthusiasm
than I have ever started a year before. It has nothing to do with 2020 finally
ending. It's that I've been searching for a long time to figure out how to be me.
It's what we're all doing, isn't it? I've felt stuck for a very long time. Since starting
therapy and devoting more of my reading time to personal growth content, I have
sparked a desire to really understand the core of me. I want to peel back all the
layers of labels placed on me by others that have become a part of my own self
talk. I want to change my inner dialogue to be filled with the tenacity, imagination,
and confidence we all have when we're young and our thoughts aren't filtered by all
those limitations that we have been confronted with over the years.
In my search for making things clearer and trying to find a system that will help me
do that, I discovered Plan with Laken on YouTube. She introduced me to PowerSheets.
Something about seeing Laken explain how PowerSheets have been a game changer
for her, made me think this system could work for me. She’s not a fellow five, but her
three-ness shown through and her ability to get things done using PowerSheets has
me believing this system has validity. So I doubled-down, bought the PowerSheets,
attended the virtual Cultivate Your Year Live, joined all the Facebook groups, and
subscribed to Laken’s Patreon to maintain the accountability I know I need to get things
done. This all coincided with me starting to read more personal growth books. I typically
never read non-fiction. I love historical fiction, mysteries, and fantasy. Those worlds help
me truly escape when I can’t completely revel in true solitude. The initial process of it all
helped me to be able to write down some solid goals and break them down into actionable
steps. The prep work has given me insight into what I'm valuing at this point in my life
and the action plan to get my goals accomplished.
My therapist introduced me to Enneagram types and upon taking a test I discovered
I’m an Enneagram Type 5, the Investigator. Now I know this seems counter to me
denouncing labels, but this personality test is different. It's designed to help you
identify those labels that have shaped your personality and learn how to navigate
life and relationships based on an understanding of them. That way you can learn
to not let them control you and you can get back to the core of you are without them.
As my type implies, I do tend to spend all my time researching and testing, but never
really following through with getting things done. I get stuck on wondering what other
possibilities are out there, what can be more efficient, or creating my own system and
constantly revamping it because I crave efficiency. That's at my core of five-ness.
I started checking out books about productivity styles/strategies, how to form habits,
and personality types (specifically Enneagram books). It is true that 5's tend to prefer
quite a bit of alone time to recharge and get centered to face interaction with the world.
Yet, I found that accountability was key to helping me build momentum to help anything
new really stick. Without it, I find it hard to get past the hump of waiting for those small
gains to add up to that moment when everything just seems to click, the mental effort
is gone, and the habit is ingrained in my way of life. Noticing this contrast has made me
want to dig deeper into the world of productivity, personality types, and habit formation.
I know I’m not the only one who struggles with these roadblocks. We’re
all different, requiring varying strategies and sources of motivation to solidify the
changes we want to implement. That got me wondering about why I do the things
I do, or don’t do the things I should do. Last year I only read a handful of books and
didn’t really dive as deep into the content as I could have. So for this year, in order
to make the reading more intentional and actually apply it to my life, I’ve assigned myself
12 books and will be blogging monthly about one. At the end of the month I'll have my
first post on my takeaways from Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's regularly $27, but is
on sale now for $11.98! If you would like to join in, I have the full list below. Please feel
free to share in the comments anything that you've read that you found helpful. My list
may not be for everyone, but your suggestion may help someone. And I'm always looking
to add to my ever-growing "to be read" list 😍!
