One of the things I love most about summer is kind of the chance to jump off the treadmill of schedules of pickups and drops off and all of that.  As summer has been winding down, I feel like I have been in the mindset of wanting to start off the new “year” with some practical rhythms for being intentional in goal setting.

Over vacation I read a book about chasing your dreams.  I loved the book but when I finished, I was left with this frustrated feeling I couldn’t put my finger on.  Then I realized, I haven’t met my goals and my dreams are too big. 

As a kid growing up, we are taught to chase our dreams and “you can be anything you want to be.”  I feel like the intention is well-meaning and can be true to some degree, but for someone like me that can be a frustrating mindset.  I am naturally a dreamer, and over the last few years with becoming a mom and being a business owner, I have begun to think that maybe I can’t set my mind to be anything I want to be, but I can set my mind to be who I was made to be.

Not all of us can be astronauts.  It can be super discouraging, for someone who sets the bar really high, to not achieve your goals either in the timing that you want to or maybe ever.  I tread very lightly here, because I am the first person to create bucket lists and set high goals and I have spent a majority of my life dreaming big.   

As Racheal and I have been growing our business, we are nowhere near becoming multi-millionaires, we never made it to Shark Tank, we didn’t break the internet with our fame (yet…jk).  Do we have goals?! Absolutely!!!  We even have big ones.  BUT, we trust the plan of what will happen with our business.  We know ourselves and we have people in our lives to help remind us to stay true to who we are.  We seek wisdom daily, through prayer, through friends & family and through people who have walked in our shoes and are maybe a few steps ahead of us. 

If we had a world full of astronauts who would make music, write books, teach kids, heal sick people, run the country, you get the point.  I believe that we are each something to be grown into.  We have in us a maximum potential of greatness that is one-of-a-kind.  We aren’t going to get there by doubting ourselves or comparing to the person next to us.  We are going to get there by looking inward and questioning, “what am I made to be?”

Racheal and I dream of Wild Juniper growing and continuing to be a source of income, but more than that, we dream of connecting to people.  Whether in store, online or through social media.  We LOVE people.  We LOVE you guys.  We dream of being ourselves (which most often is a mess) and we dream of staying true to that.

As we enter this next year, we will jump back into the grind of working hard, but I am hopeful to continually self-reflect and grow more and more into my maximum potential.  As a mom, a wife, a friend, a volunteer and as a business owner.

Here are some questions I am going to be asking myself this year as I start new routines and rhythms. (and you have permission to keep me in check. :))

-Erin