Setting The Big Goals...

After years of seeing the "coincidences" of my life come together to form gorgeous synergies, it should be old hat by now.

It isn't.

A little background first: over the past couple of years, I have managed to gradually add 15 - 20 pounds back to my frame. There are lots of causes... the world's most stressful job, several life-altering emergencies, a happy marriage, and lack of focus on my health as I moved through all of these events.

After months of thinking about it, I managed to get past the precontemplation stage and made it to the gym. ::taking bow:: My hope is to get back into the habit of paying attention to my body... exercising, relaxing, eating what nourishes me.

This stage of thinking and planning over the past several months wasn't simply about my health. It involved gestating several other crossroads initiatives. And the entire time I am working out all of these details, I am feeling a pull to something bigger.

So where's the synergy?

As I sit on my gorgeous sun porch and work on a variety of projects -- all while watching the birds and deer and turkeys wander by -- the realization that I am connected to this beautiful planet through more than my laptop keeps poking at me. But how? What project? Where do I put my energies?

I go to my facebook account to check on my pokes and farms and see an invitation from my high school chum, Joseph Phillips. He's been all giddy for weeks about an project launch of his, and rightfully so.

10 Goals 2010

Joseph's new project is all about the little ways we contribute to the bigger stuff. He has way more information over at 10 Goals 2010 at the Lifelong Project but the gist is this:

Be kind.

Do good work.

Help others.

Make friends.

Encourage.

Give your time.

Give love.

Achieve goals.

Share.

So, Joseph, old pal, I love this idea. I'll spend some time contemplating how these goals get integrated into my daily routine. Perhaps this is the next phase of the MegaChallenge 200. My impulse is to say I'll attempt to integrate each of these goals into my yearly 200-times-gets-me-there mentality. I don't know how that would look yet.

My first goal is to figure that out.

Silence Doesn't Indicate Inertia...

I love this blog. I know it is hard to tell that from the long absences--okay, complete neglect--over the past couple of years, but I do!

When I started the MegaChallenge, I was some 39 (50) pounds overweight, living in a marriage that threatened my life, working on my degree, homeschooling my kids, and in need of a place where I could "talk" without being edited. It was an act of courage--actually several, since it took multiple tries to get logged on to blog spot--that started this blog. When I wrote that very first entry I honestly had no idea whether anyone would read it.

Then something amazing happened. People did read it, but that wasn't the real magic. The real magic was finding other people who were in the same boat. No, not identical boats--just similar ones. There were these other bloggers who were also losing weight, but the pounds weren't actually the point. Life was the point. They were exploring that question that seems to manifest itself from some common place in us all--"Why are we here?"

Of course, the answers varied widely. They had to. How could Allan--an admitted foodie and a food broker from NYC--maintain his sanity as he made his attempt to lose weight while handling the most decadent of foods all day every day? How could Renee drop the pounds while carrying around her self-doubts? How would Trish bounce back from a post-tummy-tuck weight gain while she juggled her responsibilities and the ones she took on for her family? How would Shawna hold up under media scrutiny when her weight-loss blog and book made her famous?

Sure, we were all talking about weight and diet and exercise and scales, but they weren't the only common themes. Other A-Has emerged as we blogged.

Balance -- Maintenance -- Relationships -- Goals --Celebration

Those are the topics of larger conversations. Yeah, I lost weight and worked out and wrote about it on this blog. But I also transformed my life, found balance, improved my relationships, set brand new goals, and celebrated successes of all sorts!

I thought about deleting the MegaChallenge when I co-created Blissification with my long-time, off-line friend, Christine. Blissification is all about what I am up to now: helping folks find their bliss. But I paused on the delete link. Maybe the MegaChallenge still has its purpose. If I am telling someone that they can be happy and all they see is the current Gina--the one who lives on 6 acres in a gorgeous part of the world, with a wonderfully supportive husband, a job she loves, and kids all around, and who is regularly called, "PollyAnna"--will they believe I have any idea what they are going through?

So, the MegaChallenge stays so that if at some point someone wants to know how I got from where I was to where I am, I can point them here.

And, who knows? At some point this 10 extra pounds that I have been carrying around for the past year might become something I want to eliminate. When I get past the precontemplation stage, this is exactly where I want to record that journey.