Determination

1. firmness of purpose: firmness of purpose, will, or intention
2. fixed purpose: a fixed purpose or resolution
3. act of discovering something: an act of finding out or ascertaining something, especially as a result of investigation or research

 

Oh my gosh determination is a good word for me right now. So many things come to mind when I think about determination, truly determination is a good word. As you know, I am focused on 31-days of no spending this month and this has taken so much determination from me and the kids to not spend money.

There are some super, super cute pillows I want from Pier 1 Imports, the Embroidered Medallion Pillow is at the top of the list. It is cute online, but so much cuter in person. Super soft too. The navy and light blue would match our freshly painted family room – I painted one wall in the family room a deep, rich blue. There are a few others that are on my list as well: the Blue Stripes and the Ribbon Floral just screams “buy me!”. I looked at all these and more the other day. Seriously, I wanted to buy them all. They would look fabulous on our tan-colored sofa with our blue wall. I didn’t buy them. I was tempted, very tempted, but I left the store without them. I think about them daily and I look at the picture on my phone often, in fact the picture from my phone is on this entry, maybe in February I will buy them. No judging me for taking pictures of the pillows and looking at them, you probably do the same thing you just don’t want to admit it to the public. Now, you might be wondering how I was able to paint our family room with the no spending January in motion, well, I kind of cheated. Since gift cards were excluded from the no spending month, I bought the paint with a Home Depot gift card that my husband had.

The next obstacle was getting through a trip to University Village I did buy two things during that trip, which didn’t cost any money because I had some exchanges to make from Christmas. In fact, I ended up with extra money as what I purchased was less than the value of what I returned. Along with gift cards being okay, I decided exchanges were okay too. With both gift cards and exchanges there is no money out of pocket per say. Although going to U Village during 31-days of no spending was HARD. My daughter went with me and we both kept focus and determination on our no spending goals. We had to have determination of meeting our goal or we wouldn’t have made it out of there without spending. My daughter said window shopping was actually kind of fun. Then she retracted that statement and said it wasn’t really that fun but having time alone with me was fun. I will take it. Although we didn’t buy anything, we had a terrific outing together and spending time with my little girl, laughing, is worth more than buying anything. Period.

It’s January 10th which means we have made it TEN days without spending money on anything other than groceries and necessities for living, like toilet paper. Well, I suppose I should admit we did cheat when it came to food. We bought take-out dinner as a family twice and I treated my son to lunch this afternoon. He had a hellish doctor’s appointment, allergy testing, this morning. So we had lunch together before taking him back to school. If the dinners and lunch count, then we haven’t made our goal. I am giving us a pass on those though because the fact this, we haven’t spent money on clothes, toys or home decorations and that is HUGE, I mean seriously huge for us. Huge!

As I think about our no spending for 31-days and the word determination, I think we can all appreciate the word determination a little more. You might not have the same goal of no spending, but I’m sure you have a goal of some sort. And, what I have been reflecting on a lot lately is that truly any goal is possible with some determination in succeeding your goal. And, it also seems that January is a popular month for goal setting. So whether your goal is to save money, lose weight, get a new job … or whatever your goal is,  set it. Focus on it. You can and will reach your goal. I know you can with a little, or maybe a lot of, determination.

If I can go 10 days, let alone 31-days without buying clothes or things for my house, seriously it makes me believe anything is possible. Remember this: Anything. Is. Possible. With. Determination.