Lauren van Vliet, author

Have you ever had something – a quote, an idea, a song, anything – pop into your life, and then you can’t shake it? Just when you think it’s gone, it comes back. It’s been happening somewhat regularly lately. Usually it means I’m avoiding something

Most recently, it’s been happening with this quote:

Six months of serious focus and alignment can put you five years ahead in life

Bola, founder of Clever Girl Finance

I first stumbled across it months ago, maybe a year. It’s been rattling around, popping up at random times.

Immediately I found stumbling blocks: It’s a nice idea, but it would require a lot of work. I already feel like my time is at a premium. My life isn’t so bad, it doesn’t really need to change.

As I began to ponder the quote, questions without easy answers presented themselves: What am I trying to be in alignment with? How can I measure what ‘five years ahead’ means? What things would I ‘seriously focus’ on? What does it even mean to have ‘serious focus’? I’m generally moving forward, why put this extra pressure on myself?

As the quote kept popping up in recent weeks, I started asking the hardest question of all: am I really happy with my life?

Answer: not really.

I mean, my life isn’t bad, and I’m not depressed, but there is so much more than that. I realized that I’m existing, not thriving.

And I want to thrive. God wants me to thrive.

So I began trying to answer the hard questions, and get past the stumbling blocks.

And – deep breath, no more stalling – I am ready to do something about it.

I will turn thirty in about six months (October is the six-month mark, to be exact). And there’s a real temptation to bemoan the fact that I’m getting older, and I’ll be a ‘real adult’ (not a ‘young adult’) who hasn’t hit some of the major life milestones, like getting married, owning a house, and having kids. I still haven’t even paid off my student loans.

So, I’ve decided to flip the story. Instead of complaining for the next six months, I’m going to spend them setting myself up for an awesome third decade.

I still don’t have answers to all those tough questions, but I don’t need to. I have the important answers.

It would be impossible to live in perfect alignment and with total alignment, for a day, let alone a week or month. So, with a lot of prayer and reflection, I narrowed it down to four areas (in no particular order):

1. Mental/spiritual health
2. Physical health
3. Finances
4. Writing

Each of these are part of long-term goals I’ve been working towards for a while. There is no way I’m going to accomplish those long terms goals in six months. For instance, publishing a novel takes, at minimum, 12-18 months, AFTER it’s been accepted by a publishing house (and I’m no where near ready to send it to publishers).

So, over the next two-ish weeks, I’m prayerfully choosing specific goals, that will put me on the right track towards those longer-term goals. Some are fairly easy to choose and explain, like I’m going to start building an author platform (something which has paralyzed me for the last year or so, even though it’s incredibly useful when it comes time to publish). Others are more challenging to articulate, like mental/spiritual health. Maybe the six-month goal is to simply become more in-tune with these areas – I don’t know yet. There is no way I can truly track whether or not the next six months will put me five years ahead in life, but ultimately, that’s not the point for me. My twenties were good, with lots of lessons learned and adventures taken. It’s time tackle some new adventures, perhaps a little closer to home, but exciting nonetheless. I want to be ready when those opportunities arise: ready physically, mentally, spiritually, financially, and creatively.