Happy July update for the 2023 Goal Setting Challenge: How to make 2023 Your Best Year Yet, July Edition! If you’re new here, over 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) on my 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 goal of making 2023 my best year yet has been quite the journey of self-reflection. This challenge has been an excellent source of motivation to show up each day as the best version of myself possible.

The July update feels very exciting because we’ve officially reached the HALF YEAR mark for 2023. Now is a fantastic time to reflect on your goals and how much progress you’ve made this year. Leading up to July 1st, I’ve taken about five days to hit a hard reset. In those days, I’ve done a lot of self-care, reflecting, and taking action to make some changes. There is something that feels a little different for the July update, like the energy we were trying to usher in during the month of June. July is going to be all about implementing hard change. Over the last few months, I’ve built out the support I need to make these changes, and now it really feels like I have the foundation to do so.

June Reflections & July Progress

Mindset

June was definitely an up and down month. I had high’s and low’s, but I think the overall consensus between my friends and I is that June just had some weird energy. I don’t know what was going on astrologically, but it felt “off,” is the word we’ve all been using. A major contributor to that has definitely been the weather. It has not felt like summer here at all; we’ve had rainy days almost all of June and it’s definitely affecting the energy. Personally, my ‘off’ feeling I think has been rooted in not feeling grounded. I’ve been seeing an acupuncturist, and something she said to me a while back has been sticking with me. She asked me if I’m a particularly jumpy person. Now, I’ve always rooted that in my trauma, because I am incredibly jumpy. But she said people who are very jumpy are not grounded.

I was in shock when she said this to me because I consider myself a very grounded person. I’m grounded in my belief in the Universe and in myself, my business, my friendships, etc. So when she said that to me, I started contemplating on where I’m not grounded and perhaps how my past trauma is affecting me today. I started to realize that I’m living in my belief and in my intentionality, but I am not actually grounded by it because I’m not dedicating enough of myself to these practices and beliefs. By realizing this, my mindset took a major shift with optimism. I can see now what exactly I need to work on. It’s not about the habits and routines, because I know what I want to do there. I need to ground myself in my energy, in my beliefs, and in my goals.

Resistance

Last month, I regarded any resistance I was feeling to feelings of fear. I was scared of making the adjustments necessary to the changes I desire, likely, because I was scared of failing. If you’ve been following this challenge from the beginning of the year, it’s likely obvious that I’ve been working on the same goals for a long time now. For months I’ve been facing resistance to implementing particular intentional habits, routines, and changes. I’ve been pondering this question of why over the last few days in preparation of writing this post and recording the podcast. Why can’t I seem to implement these changes and stay true to them?

In last week’s podcast, I talked about the lack of connection I’ve been feeling to my feminine energy. If you’re not sure what I mean here, I encourage you to listen to the episode: Connecting with Your Divine Masculine & Feminine Energies. After recording that podcast and contemplating this question, I’m absolutely convinced that I haven’t been able to conceive these changes because my masculine and feminine energies are not aligned and balanced. Allowing the changes that I desire to take place requires a fine balance between the masculine and feminine energies within, and that’s what I plan to balance.

How I’m growing in July

I am so utterly excited for this next month. I’ve taken some really amazing ‘internal’ steps to prepare for the second half of 2023. Not only have I spent the last several days connecting with my feminine, but I’ve set out to implement certain habits or actions that will continue to help me connect with my feminine. Along with these actions, I plan on doing a variation of the 75 Hard challenge as 30 days of hard change. Over the month of June, I’ll have a good variation of ‘work’ and ‘play’ time. In those 30 days, I’ll strictly be working to balance (our word of the year). Balance work and personal life, balance relationships with personal time, balance the masculine and feminine. Everything will go under a balancing transformation.

UPDATES

Want to follow along even more on the journey to make 2023 your best year yet: July 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!