How to redefine Success

Hello my lovelies. I hope that you haven’t missed me too much and that the crickets were able to serenade you during my absence. The entire month of July was just SO, SO, SO busy. Here’s a short run down:

• 4^th of july – ended up getting burnt out (no pun intended) + rain= not much going on
• 5 birthdays, 1 anniversary
• Got babe’s car fixed whoo hoo!
• Almost storms every single day, some got VERY bad
• QA inspection (eek)
• Attempt to meet hotel year end percentage scores
• Boys have been in and out of town
• Getting ready for school
• SOOOOOOOOOOO hot (hottest July ever – according to local news, we had 22 days that were 95 degrees and over with 2 days of 100 degrees and over)
• Headaches – almost week straight
• And while we’re being honest here, money got tight due to the way the pay period calendar gods worked (kinda sucks only getting paid 20^th and 5th)

 

Needless to say, its been a little busy.

I’ve decided to edit the few goal themed posts so if you were looking for the other parts, you’re not crazy, they were there. I admit, I got a little behind and then I thought: ‘Oh, it won’t be that bad to catch up.’ Come about 5 posts behind, I frustratingly scrapped the theme. I sincerely apologize for the quietness from CMS, but I don’t want to write crap for you just for the sake of having a blog post up. So I decided to take a little time and focus on personal needs first so that I could come back big and strong.

 

In the midst of chaos

So, by a general definition of failure and not one set by myself (ok, maybe a little), I failed in that particular endeavor of cranking 10 posts regarding goals, 9 of which had their own particular focus. What goes up must come down right? However, in the midst of the chaos (aka July), I ended up celebrating the small things (aka successes).

While I didn’t get to see any BIG booms for 4^th of July due to being tired + rain, the rain did cool things off, my plants were happy and I got a decent nap in despite people trying to still attempt some sort of fireworks in the complex.

While the boys were in and out of town so much and babe was over to see them as much as he could while they were in town, he still got to spend some great quality time and he still got to come home to me. While they were gone and if work wasn’t too crazy for the both of us, we got to spend more time together than we usually get to. We even had a movie and Zaxbys wing date that was a lot of fun.

While I wasn’t able to give my love a birthday that I wish I could made possible for SEVERAL different reasons, we still had a good night and he liked the surprise small cheesecake wheel I got him. Sweet love = sweet cheesecake.

While I was unable to see my dad for his birthday, both him and my mom really enjoyed the card I sent via snail mail (who doesn’t love getting mail via snail mail these days?) and Dad’s words were: “Your card was the best thing about my birthday”. Well I’ll be darned…

While the prep work was INSANE trying to get a hotel ready for a QA (Quality Assurance in case you didn’t know) inspection, we somehow passed with a 95%!!!

While we were trying to get year end percentage up and even though we didn’t make it and we’ll get fined, we still have our license/flag right now and we were so close. As a team, we still got a lot accomplished in such a short amount of time. We had some factors that dropped us… like elevators that decided to throw a hissy fit and not work right *cough* at all and a hoity-toity wedding group that you would think they were staying at the Ritz Carlton.

While I had a headache for almost a week straight (and in hindsight, I can probably see why now) and probably becoming Advil’s Customer of the Month, I was able to get some sleep and get rid of the headaches.

 

At the time, I certainly didn’t see them as such, but these little things are still successes. Successes should be celebrated right?

So let me ask you, what is success to you?

To me, success should not be defined as what’s the percentage of the items I was able to cross off my to-do list or things considered ‘accomplished’ and instead success should be determined by the corresponding emotion. For me, success feels like a happy, radiant glow with the sense of accomplishment that a purpose has been fulfilled. Having the sense of accomplishment makes me feel like the success meme kid. You know, this one…

 

Yes, you’re welcome haha

 

It’s so easy to not see or undermine success. We feel like if its not big, then its not a success. Success is not a go big or go home. This is where I feel like set ourselves up for, ironically, failure. We always says, is the small things that count but its not always something that we practice what we preach. Its past time that we drop this mentality and embrace what positive things life gives us, small or large. I believe that adding in a heaping dose of practicing daily gratitude along with appreciating any and all successes is vital.

This month, we’re gonna focus on what is success as defined by you, a challenge and simply just a month of encouragement. August brings a lot of emotions: summer ending, seasonal jobs coming to a close, the feeling of make it or break it regarding relationships, back to school or just starting school for kids and college, finances tend to play as factor for end of the season items or back to school items or even taking out loans to pay for school. This month, let’s focus on the successes we’ve already accomplished and will accomplish in the future. You got this! You totally are gonna rock this! I believe in you and I believe that you can do it!

 

I wanna hear about your summer successes. Tweet me, share it in the brand new FB group Shine Bright, pin me things you did or tried this summer. Tell me also about the stuff you want to accomplish. I’d love to hear about it and support you.

Come back Friday for this month’s challenge I have for you.

Let’s celebrate.

Shine bright

<3 Jenn