Falling into Focus – What’s coming up in 2018

Happy New Year DIY Passion readers! Hope your holidays were smooth as butter and warm and cozy as can be 🙂 I took a looooooooong, much needed recharge and boy, it feels good. I must say, I am having a little trouble getting back into ‘the swing of things’, but I’m rolling with it and realizing that I’ve got a new life now and ‘normal’ isn’t really anything to strive for.

I didn’t even open my computer for ten days while on break (and I didn’t die!!), so I didn’t do the normal blogging things where you plan and plan and plan into the future. I’ve done that before, and you know what? I never really works for me. I’m more of a go with the flow kind of blogger and my intention this year is to TRUST more in that gut instinct.

In fact, I think TRUST is going to be my word for 2018. I initially thought it would be ‘self-care’ because my health took a major hit in 2017 with being on mat leave and starting my business and neglecting my health completely. I know I need to prioritize a little bit of self-care in each day. Like for instance, stop drinking my first cup of coffee while simultaneously washing my face and paying the bills. I just need to give myself a bit of time to physically address my needs and enjoy the act of nourishing myself in simple ways.

Then I thought REFLECT could be my word because I’m feeling very drawn toward reflecting the good I wish to see in the world and reflecting truth and reality on my blog. This will happen this year. You’ll see more of me – warts and all. And I think that will lead to better blog content to be honest.

But in the end, I think TRUST encompasses both of those things.

This year, I plan to actively and actually carve out time to listen to my inner voice, my intuition, my deep abiding faith and knowledge and then trust it. For so long, I’ve pushed aside that voice, ignored it, rationalized a million reasons to not follow it, heard it and chosen to look the other way … I mean, who hasn’t ignored their gut before?! So now I vow to trust in my instinct to prioritize self-care, trust that I can and will reflect the light I wish to see in the world and trust that this journey of blogging, entrepreneurship, motherhood and beyond is opening up opportunities that are amazing and wonderful – EVEN when I’m scared out of my mind and want to do nothing more than curl up in a ball and listen to my Andrew Lloyd Webber compendium on repeat for days at a time.

I NEED to TRUST my gut because when I do, great things happen.

What about you? Do you have a word for 2018?

In terms of the blog, I have a couple things I can guarantee you’ll see coming up soon. One of them is the dining room, which hasn’t really been updated since we moved in. We are partnering with some really great Canadian brands on the project and I’m BEYOND excited to show you what we’ve been able to do with some basic DIY skills and a little outside the box thinking.

The next thing I can guarantee you’ll see is more colour. I’m TRUSTING my gut that adding colour back into my home is a path to increased joy and energy. I’ve got a set of chairs that I made over a couple years ago that never really ‘did it for me’ and they are going to get a jolt of colour and a new place of prominence on the main floor soon. (You might say it’ll be a FATabulous transformation 😉 )

Beyond that, I’m not so sure. I know and trust in my desire for literal balance. As a blogger, media entrepreneur, influencer – it can be really easy to fall into the ‘more is more’ trap, especially when it comes to sponsored content. My goal for 2018 is to only partner with brands and sponsors who ‘get me’ and who truly are partners in helping me tell great and HONEST stories… you know, back to that whole idea of me only wanting to reflect what is true and real. I have some awesome brand relationships now that I’m pumped to cultivate and while I have some ‘dreams’ about other brands I’d love to work with, I’m just going to leave myself, my energy and my trust that opportunities I cannot yet imagine are waiting for me to grab them.

I am okay with the fact that this decision likely means I won’t make as much money… but 2018 isn’t about ‘money’ and ‘more’ for me. It’s about trusting that wherever I am, it’s exactly where I should be in that precise moment. I don’t need to feel behind or like I’m always playing catch up (a deep seated feeling cultivated in me by my newsroom background where if you weren’t first, you were garbage). I don’t need feel like I don’t have, or am not, enough. I never want to allow fear to put me in a position where I let myself feel less than what I am, where I allow myself to be measured by someone else’s stick, or where I lose trust in my ability to be confident and growing towards the good.

I am not proud to say that over the last few months, fear and doubt left me in situations where I didn’t stand up for myself and where, quite frankly, I let someone steamroller right over me. It shook my confidence for weeks, frayed my emotions and, in so doing, suppressed my inner voice. I know those situations were all of my own making. Not because I forced another person to act a certain way towards me, but because I didn’t trust that I could have changed the situation and outcome myself. This all changes now. Now, I will seek to trust myself.

In each moment, I will seek to trust that I am where I should be and if it doesn’t feel right, I will trust that if I listen clearly to my gut and inner voice, I can actively choose to guide myself in the right direction.

Back into the swing… or should we say the steady march towards tomorrow… 🙂

Peace and love,

E