I woke up today with all of my ideas, to-do’s dreams, things, and some in my mind. Do you ever feel stuck in your own maze of thoughts? Just grabbing a cup of coffee took me MENTALLY, to the gym first, next to my phone to check my Starbucks balance next, then while on my phone, I checked my bank account, remembered, I need to read my daily devotional before I did anything else, then realized the time, thought about things to post today, thought about my blog, what am I going to write about, text messages keep blowing my phone up, Ughh.. I have lot’s of laundry to fold that’s been in the basket for a week, should I watch TV while I fold? , Nah that will only suck me in. Maybe if I intensely clean my house, that will be my gym workout? I need coffee, I need to go to the grocery store, What should I do first? Let me make a list, let me grab my planner out.. over to the kitchen to finally just make myself a freaking cup of COFFEE!
All of this within about 20 min of brain space. Geeze! It’s enough to make you want to just go back under the covers, but I didn’t. I made a list, I fixed my coffee, and I set out to do one thing at a time. I’d love to tell you right now that that little list is filled with check marks and all has been completed, but it hasn’t. I mean it’s halfway finished, some things have been scratched off, and new things added, but it like me, is a work in progress.
If I may be honest, most days, those lists don’t get complete. Most days those to-do’s carry on to the next day or next week, and most days, they just don’t happen. It’s ok, I’m still here, and guess what, I’m still a freaking amazing person, with or without it. Here’s another truth, most days some items do get checked off, most days, I am accomplishing stuff, and most days, I at least have an idea of what got done and what didn’t. Some days I care, some days I don’t. I’ve learned to forgive myself, and move on.
My next point, task’s and to-dos are one thing, goals, dreams, and career desires, and you know the big stuff.. Well, that’s another thing.
Once again, if I’m being honest, I recently have found myself coming full circle with alot of things. 1 being a dream that was placed in my heart a few years ago, has resurfaced with fiery wings. So I have sat and given it much thought, consideration, prayer and have decided to act on it. Also, that I’m stuck crap up there ??, although I have systems in place to get unstuck, I need more!
I’ve been feeling more and more in the same position and well, stuck. Now before we go any further, I know all about patience, well I’m learning to be more and more patient, but as I wrote in my last piece about dreams, I also do not want to miss opportunities that are surfacing. I’ve been praying and submersing myself into God’s word, God does say I am enough and he is the mighty counselor, but I have felt a strong need to seek a mentor.
Without counsel, plans go awry, But in the multitude of counselors they are established.
Proverbs 15:22 NKJV The Holy Bible
Because I have a little bit ( some would say more than a little bit) of compulsive nature in me, I have done my homework. I have researched programs, coaches, agencies, individuals and had a few consultations.
With the Lord’s, and my husband’s blessings, I am happy to say that I have finally come to a realization or to a point that I am seeking a business and personal mentor. A coach if you will. I have in the past, invested in workshops, events, and so on but I think it’s time to get some things inside me unstuck and propel to the next level. Not just dreaming, doing, and continually creating the life that I feel called to lead. This decision also came with the dream in my heart that resurfaced and I think I need a little clarity, guidance, and direction.
I’m both excited and hopeful about this new step, and I cannot wait to take you along with me every step of the way. I’m a little nervous about getting uncomfortable, but I am ready to grow some more. The place where I am today, I’ve been here before, and I’m ready to admit pruning and shaping are necessary for growth, and I’m ready for the new me to metamorphize into the new me.
This may be common knowledge to you, as it was to me, but the fact that I’m willing to invest in myself and admit that I need guidance was kinda big for me. It was a decision, and I know everything starts with a decision. I look forward to next time with you, and I pray that you are blessed, happy where you are, and where you are going.
Too often, people get stuck in a state of over-thinking, the result is that they never reach a decision.
Steve Backley, The Champion in all of us: 12 Rules for Success
Coffee Calendars and Conversations is a time management
group, accountability group, a group where women can feel safe discussing their
challenges in life and a group that gathers weekly around some cool coffee
shops to plan out their day to day lives. Our mission is to create a space
where women can grow, support one another, dream and live out those dreams.
So how did Coffee, Calendars and Conversations (or as I like to call it for short CCC) get started?
Coffee Calendars and Conversations was started by me,
Crystal Ybarra. It was during frustrating times and the need to be held
accountable to make things happen in life. Let’s rewind a bit more. A few years
prior to that I was setting goals, knocking them out and really enjoyed
learning about time management and what it meant in my life. I was beginning to
learn how to give, take and create some sort of balance in my crazy life. In a direct sales environment, I loved
teaching goal setting and how to make the things you want to happen, happen.
Let me take you back even
further, time management became an important thought in my life when working
independently. Even when I held traditional jobs, I learned that outside work
where no one was telling me what to do with my time, that it was up to me to
make these things happen. I’ve always used some sort of calendar or planner to
write dates and important happenings down, but for a long period in my
twenties, I relied solely on my memory to get to appointments (this was pre
digital everything times). Looking back, I have no idea what I was thinking. In
an independent position (I worked for myself) my income depended on my
appointments being held to make money. I remember receiving a phone call, Are
we still on for today? Oh crap! I totally forgot. Some instances, I could pull
it together, rush and make them happen, but far more often, I was relieved when
they cancelled, or even worse, I had to call and make excuses of why I had to
reschedule. I was a total flake! This behavior started spilling into my
personal life, double booking things, forgetting, and not gonna lie, even not
feeling like going to an event on the day of and deciding not to go. How could
I continue running my business and life this way? I was self-sabotaging and not
even realizing it.
With this behavior, sadly I began to lose clients, and began to frustrate friends and family. I really couldn’t be depended on. Years passed, and the habits were created, and I began to understand how important appointment setting, and holding was. Being in business for yourself requires a lot of effort, time, money and people you can rely on. You come to expect people to show up for you, without clients showing up to appointments, you won’t go very far. It wasn’t until I poured the last $50 I had into an event where many said they’d show up for and only one person came (which we had fun and I was so grateful to her) that I realized they were all flakes too. Honestly, I was upset, hurt, and felt so rejected. These feeling were necessary to create a movement in me. How could I blame them, it wasn’t personal and they were only exhibiting behavior that I had been exhibiting for years.
Be the change you want to see in the world. ~Ghandi.
From that moment on, I decided if I expect women, or people
in general to honor their word, then I have to first be a woman of my word. I
decided to say no if I knew I had no intention on coming to their events, and
if I said yes, I’d better be there. Being timely was also a huge flaw of mine,
and honestly still struggle with it on occasion, but It is something that I choose
to work on daily. I remember a friend being so disappointed when she made
dinner for a group of us and that look from her when 1 hour after dinner was
ready to go, other friends still hadn’t arrived. She had limited time for a
sitter and really wanted to enjoy a warm fresh meal and some conversation time.
When the others showed up nearly 2 hours late for dinner, she was so hurt and
explained to me how rude and inconsiderate of her time those friends were. It
hit me like a bolt of lightning. All those years, I thought; what do they care
if I’m late, I have a life too. It never dawned on me that I was being rude and
inconsiderate too.
Fast forward as I stated above to me knocking out goals, being accountable, holding others to their words as well. Things were going great. Sure, people would still cancel on me, but in general, I decided that wasn’t stopping me and kept on going about my business. I respected my time and therefore people were respecting my time too. The foundation of calendar setting, time management was laid out. In fact, it became one of my favorite subjects to coach others on, because I had been able to transform my life using these same skills I was teaching. Color coding, scheduling, blocking out time and telling my time what it was doing instead of it telling me what to do. I loved it. But then something occurred in my life. My home-based business took a plummet due to some emotional and personal issues and I completely let go of it. I was SHOOK. I went through too much to tell, but unfortunately, I decided that I was done setting goals for the time being and done being little miss on point with everything I was doing. I needed a break, and a break is what I took. I used the word unfortunately because this decision if handled properly could have been ok. Breaks are great, breaks are necessary, but a break should have a beginning and an end, mine, had no end in sight. I was on the road to nowhere, literally. There’re quite a few stories in there, but here’s what happened in a nutshell;
I went back to work doing part time fun work, but my life
was not going in a given direction anymore. I was just letting life happen to
me. I had dreams, aspirations, I wanted to make a difference in the world, and
now, I was just waking up, going to work, and once again, letting life pass me
by and I knew it. I think a year passed by, maybe even two. Initially it was
fun, not having goals, not having pressure, but like I said that needed to have
an end. I became stagnant in my life. Time was passing me by and I was not
accomplishing the great things I had once dreamed about.
I luckily have a very good friend
Jamie. Jamie and I would meet for lunch often and she saw me through
depression, and anxiety and much more. One thing about Jamie is I think she
thought more of me than I was feeling for myself at them time, and because of
that, I usually tried to pull myself together when we met. I wanted to be the
woman she saw me as, and quite frankly I missed the woman I used to be. I had
to come to realization that the old me was gone, but there was a new me waiting
around the corner. Jamie and I would brainstorm. We’d take our notepads and
dream away. Jamie always helped my creativity and from those dream sessions and
doodling our thoughts onto paper and into each other’s mind. Something was
born. We had discussed the things we missed about our time with our direct
selling company and knew there was a way to create something great. We
essentially created networking groups, in our heads, and knew that there was a
world of women just like us out there. If we were dreaming, others were out
there dreaming too. We wanted to connect women somehow.
I joined a few networking groups,
had an opportunity at a place I worked at to create networking events and
through dream sessions and an ambitious mind set that was reignited in me, my
work was evolving too. I was moving forward in the workplace and as time
passed, still yearned for more. When I
led a team of women in my business, we gathered together, scheduled
appointments, made phone calls, worked together, to achieve goals and generate
business. One thing I missed too, not being in a corporate or sales environment,
was being fed. You know all the good stuff, the education, the stories, the
inspiration. I missed that so much. To wrap it up after many attempts to join
and create something, I decided to start Weekly Planning Sessions. Weekly
Planning Sessions was a place where I could gather with sharp women, inspire,
motivate, and get ish done. Now when I say planning, I mean, figure out what’s
ahead for the week, make sure I have it all on calendar, and make myself aware
of any challenges or scenarios that wee potentially coming my way.
The group grew last year we since changed the name to Coffee, Calendars, and Conversations.
This year, I decided to let it be organic, you know let it
just see what it was going to do. Honestly with my heavy to-do load I couldn’t really
put the time into the group. But God.. But God has had other plans. Doors have
been opening, and women are coming from all over town wanting to be part of the
group.
Social Media can be a bit challenging for me honestly, I’m more of a one on one personal relationship kind of person, but I am learning and willing to push more. I feel that this is just the beginning, and much more is heading our way. Stay tuned next time as I write more about what we’re doing and where we are headed. I definitely have been listening to God and want his hand all over this group. On my next post about it, you will learn about some recent events and even hear from a few members. I’m excited and I know this was a long story, and if you’re still with me, you got a total run down of how this came to be. I’m grateful that you are here and can’t wait to share all the fun next time.
Welcome back to the blog! I’m super excited to be back on the grind and writing again. So yes, here we are a new year, and if you’re like me, things are just now settling into their own. The Goals are not only in place but now actually in motion.
The holidays were totally great but can feel like a cluster of events with one event onto the next.
Many new opportunities and happenings have arrived for me, so as always I’m taking you along with me.
My goal for this page is to create fun new content in different areas of interests. Starting afresh with the new year, and all the new adventures that are coming with it.
I am back in school, taking a few classes and this is my second semester back in college. College is different for this 40-year-old mother of 3. Last semester was pretty good, I only took 2 classes to get back into the swing of things. This semester I am taking 3 classes and hope to take extras over summer and winter breaks to speed up a bit. As a more mature student, things are a little different, and my memory is not as photographic as it used to be, making it a little different for me, and I do find I have to work a little harder at remembering info for tests, and classwork. I think at this point in life, once I apply it more it seems to soak in best. Last semester I squeaked out with 2 A’s and I am working on that same 4.0 GPA this semester. It’s fun for the most part, and most days keeps me thinking and keeps me sharp. I am addicted to learning so school has overall been very good for me and has kept me on my toes.
And she loves it!
GOALS GOALS GOALS!
So, I did set some goals for the year, but they were mostly a continuation of the direction I wanted to take my life. Obviously, I have goals that I want to achieve and wrote them down, but I think I focused more on what I wanted from myself mentally, spiritually, financially, physically and am hoisting myself into that direction. I decided to nurture myself to just be BETTER than I had been. Better is my word for the year and Better than I was is what I am aiming for.
With that being said, here’s what I am currently focused on. I am still leading a weekly calendar planning group. We are called Coffee, Calendars, and Conversation. So in our group and my philosophy currently is embedding the habits or activities i am focused on right now, and nothing else. So I write these things down weekly and everything else that comes my way is on the back burner or getting turned down. It is all about focus right now. For example my focuses are :
Spirituality, Work, My weekly Planning Group ( which is my organizational time), Health and Fitness, Family ( includes date night, kiddo time and activities), I am focused on 1 personal social activity a week to keep me from reclusiveness, school which i already mentioned, My Blog ( my goal is to blog weekly) and this deserves my time and attention because I love it!, and my side hustle for extra money which is my One Hope Wine Tasting Business.
I figure this is plenty for me to focus on, build some great time-based habits, a schedule, and then we can add more or take away as needed. I will also revisit this structure quarterly for tweaking.
I just started a new job as well, which I’m very happy with and looking to stay put right now through school God willing. Like i mentioned new things, i had been praying for are now in motion.
So that’s it in a nutshell for the New Year in motion. It may seem like a lot or not a lot, but for me it works right now, and at the end of the day, you have to find and do what works best for you. In my group we had a vision board creating session and if you peek below here is mine. It motivates, makes me want to do better in all things, and just all around makes me happy. I highly suggest you creating one to keep in your dreams and vision in sight. Well, that’s all for now and i will be writing more and of course dive into lot’s of life weekly with you. I appreciate any feedback insight or comments below! Thank you and God Bless your day!
Continually Crystal
My name is Crystal Ybarra ~
I am a wife, mother of 3 and a God fearing woman who is embracing life one step at a time. I began blogging as a means of coping with depression, and anxiety. What I found was a need for God and to share with others every step of my personal journey. You never know who’s listening to your story and who’s life you are impacting. Welcome to my blog and thank you for being a part of our community.
