Happy August update to the 2023 Goal Setting Challenge: How to Make 2023 Your Best Year Yet, August Edition! If you’re new here, throughout 2023, I have implemented a goal-setting challenge to hold myself accountable to my big dreams. Each month, I’m serving updates via the Blog and Podcast to keep you informed (and hold me accountable) to making progress. We’re covering topics of success, where I’m facing blocks, falling short, and where I plan to improve over the next month. Each update is becoming a small piece of the 365-day puzzle where I’m actively tracking my progress over one year. My overall goal for this year has been to seek balance in every aspect of my life. This challenge has been an excellent source of motivation to show up each day as the best version of myself possible.

This edition of the challenge is extra special because it’s my birthday month! Which means it’s a month of celebrating and joy! Moving into the month of July, I did a hard reset, taking the weekend to practice self-care, reflect, and reprioritize. As July went on, I continued to practice these efforts daily and I prioritized myself. I made stronger efforts to stick to my daily habits to successfully make those “hard changes” I spoke about. Now, moving into August, I’ve had a bit of fear about how quickly the end of the year is approaching. That being said, my goal for August is to make sure I’m practicing self-awareness. I need to be practicing daily check-ins to see how I’m doing, what I need, and where my priorities are at.

July Reflections & August Progress

Mindset

Over July, I did a lot of traveling, and it felt well balanced between time for myself and time for the business. As I was exploring this on the August Podcast update, I noticed that the major shift occurring in my mindset was my ability to believe everything truly was (and will) work out. This is a mantra and affirmation I’ve been working on actually believing over the last several years. I think in the last few months, it’s become something I truly believe. For such a long time, I had been toe’ing the line in arguing to myself that everything will work out, but fixating on the how. And now, it feels like that thought is really starting to resonate to something I believe. There isn’t a point in stressing about something that we know will eventually work out because of the restraints we’ve put on it.

Lately, I’ve been feeling stressed about client work (thankfully we’re on a waitlist again). I bit off a little more than I can chew, and I’ve been trying balance the work load. It hasn’t given me as much time as I’ve liked to really prioritize growing the business. I have a few major projects we’re looking to accomplish by the end of the year. I’ve been waffling back and forth on stress levels about this because there are some major (and very exciting) projects. But as this thought has been resonating more and more, I truly believe that not only will things work out, but they will do so exactly how and when they’re meant to.

Resistance

I think my resistance lies in the ongoing struggle I’ve been facing this year with consistency and being flexible when needed. Over the last month, the main struggle I’ve been facing has been following through with my goals when I’m out of my regular element in any way. I talked about this on last month’s podcast as well, mentioning how whenever my schedule changes or I’m out of my physical environment, I have difficulty maintaining progress. This certainly coincides with my drive for balance. If I can find a better balance for habits whenever I’m out of my environment, then I would be able to maintain better progress without giving up things that feel intentional.

The reality is, everyday is different. And I have to get used to adjusting my routine day-to-day based on many aspects: goals for the day, expectations for the day, schedule, environment, etc. So as I move into August, continuing my travel and my birthday plans, my goal is to mindfully adjust things as needed. I certainly don’t want to give up habits completely, but I also don’t need to do the exact same actions everyday. The goal should be to do what feels good for the day that will help me feel productive.

How I’m growing in August

This month will be really exciting. I’m wrapping up several major clients, and minimizing my client list for the remainder of the year so my team and I can focus on some very exciting launches. Minimizing that goal down to August, I think my focus will be on how I can, on a day-to-day basis, maintain my priorities and an even balance between client work and La.Rue work, both of which promote growth but in different ways. My more personal goals for this month are to make sure I’m inserting space for self-care, reflection, and intentionality not just daily but even hourly. August will be another amazing month, because no matter what, I’m growing.

UPDATES

Want to follow along even more on the journey to make 2023 your best year yet: August edition? I’m also updating you and going into far greater detail once a month on the podcast! You can follow along there and subscribe to the La.Rue Thrive Hive Newsletter as well to follow along for updates on my 2023 progress. I’ll update you on the podcast on how I plan to improve next month. I’ll continue talking about what resistance I’m facing and what solutions I plan to find! I encourage you to comment below on your progress so far in 2023 and how you plan to improve. Feel free to drop any questions in the comments, and I’ll see you next month!