On the second day of the new year, I got punched in the face.
This is totally metaphorical.
I didn’t really get punched.

My husband and I sat in bed before going to sleep on January 1st and prayed such a mighty prayer over our families, friends, finances, and goals for this year (I was trying real hard to find a synonym for goals that started with f…fail).

Anyway, we prayed this mighty prayer and went to sleep feeling so energized and excited about all that we have planned for 2018 and the things that will come to pass that we haven’t even fathomed.

This. Is. Our. Year.

We woke up the next morning excited about working toward one of our goals of 2018–buying a house. A local renovation company we love had just acquired a house in need of a total renovation in our target neighborhood. The property had been purchased two weeks prior and wouldn’t hit the market until March or April.

This was as sign.

This timeline matched ours beautifully.

And with it being in such bad shape, who else would want it?

We watch so much HGTV we have the eye of Chip and Jo and the corny finesse of The Property Brothers.

No walls?

Pssh–I see the beauty.

No floors?

I can balance on one lone floorboard to get from one room to the next.

It’s all good! Cause I see the diamond in the rough. I. See. It.

And someone else saw it too, put in an offer for $100,000 more than we ever would, and were already closing on it by the time we walked through it…and before there were walls in the dang house.

BUT HOLD UP, GOD!
2018 IS MY YEAR!
I PRAYED THE PRAYER…IT WAS LESS THAN 24 HOURS AGO!
I know you heard me…you had me ugly crying while I prayed it.
The ugly cry never falls on deaf ears.

And then the first nugget of the new year dropped into my spirit.

“Nik, 2018 is going to be just as hard if not harder than 2017 because your goals are even bigger than before.” 

There’s something about a new year that creates a sort of euphoric state in the first few days. You see only the possibilities and are so emboldened by your goals that challenges seem small. Most of us are on some kind of break from work and are using our time in whatever ways we see fit–and without daily realities to aggravate us. We have developed our plans with bold confidence (as we should) but sometimes without counting the cost of what it really means to achieve them.

I wouldn’t be a real one if I only left you with the 2018 motivation  and not a reminder of the challenges that will undoubtedly creep up this year.

I’m going to let you in on something that I learned a few years back:

Hard is not synonymous with bad.

Hard means you’re doing something that everyone can’t do.

Hard means there is growth on the other side of your obedience.

Hard also means you’ll likely feel defeated more than you feel empowered because…hard.

What that doesn’t mean is that you should give up.

So girl, brace up for the hard now.
Know it’s coming.
Don’t be surprised when it gets here.
Prepare for it.
And then crush it.

And sometimes crushing it means failing, re-starting, and attacking it from a different way.
Sometimes crushing it means staring your debt in the face and creating a plan.

Sometimes crushing it means saying goodbye to a toxic relationship.

Sometimes crushing it means wine and no pants.

When people think crush they normally think dynamite.

One big action that completely obliterates a problem.

Start thinking about how water crushes things.
Consistently and relentlessly wearing away at the blockades it comes into contact with.

This year, be like water.

There is magic in our musings,
Nicole