31 Decisions I’m Glad I Made

What up readers! Long time no write!

This year I’m jumping on the blogging bandwagon and participating in The Nester’s 31 Day Writing Challenge. Get excited people! I will be writing on a regular basis again!

I participated in the challenge two years ago and really enjoyed it. It was hard, but stretched my brain and creativity to write within specific timeline and topic, and I need that structure and challenge in my life again this year. (Read more about my series two years ago: 31 Days to Financial Freedom.)

This year, my topic is 31 Decisions I’m Glad I Made.

Gulp. We’ll see at the end of the month if starting this writing challenge and choosing this topic is a decision I’m glad I made or not.

I literally came up with this idea a few hours ago (so this is a very impulse decision), but I have been thinking about this topic a lot. I just finished reading The Best Yes, and this quote really resonated with me:

The decisions you make today matter. Every decision points your life in the direction you are about to travel. No decision is an isolated choice. It’s a chain of events. If you choose wisely, your future will reflect that. But if you don’t choose wisely, the decisions you make now will take you to places you don’t want to be later.

Wow, no pressure, right?!

I thought it would be beneficial to spend this month sharing some of the decisions in my life that I am happy I made — whether it was a good decision by saying yes, or saying no, or just choosing to put forth effort and work hard at something.

I have no idea if anyone will find this interesting (besides my mom who is my forever cheerleader in anything I do), but just maybe this series will be helpful if you find yourself paralyzed when making decisions.

A few things to preface before starting this series:

In case you start to think sometime throughout this month that I’m a decision-making rockstar (ha ha ha ha), then I have a list of friends and family I’d like to give your number to. They can tell you very embarrassing stories of what lengths I go to overanalyze and make a decision. I text friends pictures of hats before I buy one. I send them detailed pro/con lists. I drive myself (and probably them) absolutely crazy trying to make a decision. That’s kind of why I want to write this series — confirm to myself that I can, and have, made good decisions to help with future decisions.

I also want to point out that while I’m going to focus on the good decisions I’ve made, I have also made some really stupid ones as well. I actually thought about naming it 31 Dumb Decisions I’ve Made but thought that would be kind of down and not very encouraging. So we will try to focus on the good.

Last point — what may have been a good decision for my life, may not always apply to yours. I think it’s really easy to see people who say, “I quit my job and started my own design shop and it was the best decision of my life!” and then think I should do the same. What may be a good decision for me (like getting a dog, spoiler alert), may not mean the best decision for you.

Here are a few things you can expect from this blog for the next 31 days:

• A post every day by yours truly about a decision I have made.

• A photo of the shoes I am wearing that day. I know, SO random. But a blog post without a picture is kind of boring, but I don’t have all the time in the world to create a really awesome graphic unique for each post, so I’ve decided to include with each 31 post a photo of my shoes. That will make these 31 days less stressful for me. Plus, if you really like shoes, there’s a reason to come back each day. :)

• A few other non-31 day related posts sprinkled in between the posts. Like October goals, September (and maybe August) highlights, and finally get around to updating on my dining room wainscoting project.

So there’s the plan for this month! Who’s excited? :)

If you want to see all of the posts from this series, the links will all be added to this page.