Last Monday I set down my goals, my intentions for the week. One of those was to continue my preparation for my Camino journey this summer. I wanted to increase my time of hiking from two to three hours. It seemed reasonable at the beginning of the week to do that twice—given the other things I had scheduled.

I find it easy to walk an hour—with enough to see, think about, reflect on. But into the second hour, I become bored–especially if I’m walking around the track at the park. I know if I’m trekking on the coastal path of the Camino—from Porto, Portugal to Santiago, Spain, there will be fellow sojourners to get to know both in my group and others along the way. Now, when I’m walking alone, I’ve discovered that I lose track of how I’ve progressed if I listen to an audiobook.

On Wednesday, I accomplished the first of those three hour training walks. I began on the elliptical at the Apex Sr. Center. After an hour, I put on my backpack and crossed the street to the park for the next two hours. There was enough variety in the scenery, the activity, and getting into my audiobook, Sarah Addison Allen’s Other Birds that the time went by rather quickly; I was pleased. I planned to wait a few days and do the second three hour walk on the weekend.

On Thursday, my morning devotional from Sarah Young’s Jesus Listens helped me to handle new circumstances that arose. She spoke to the need of dealing realistically with the circumstances of our lives:

“I need to accept each day just as it comes to me and search for You in the midst of it all.” (p.12)

That was a timely word from Sarah because various things, I didn’t control, came up and cut into my time to get things done. By Saturday, when I’d planned to walk the three hours on the trails at the N.C. Art Museum, things I had to do had piled up and I was late setting out. The wind was cold and altogether, it felt like I was pushing up against a wall to try to carry out my goal; I had achieved half of what I set out to do on Monday.

I remember back to 2015 when I was taking a course to be a Life Coach. One of the points that the founder of the program, Linda Bark, made was surprising to me. She said that in working with clients to set up plans with timelines, she encouraged clients to underpromise, or to set goals just a little lower than they expect they could achieve (Wisdom of the Whole (WOW) textbook p. 155). At first, that sounded like heresy to me. It would have been to my parents, too, because they always expected more instead of less.

But Linda Bark reasoned that if clients overpromised and didn’t accomplish what they set out to do—the clients would feel they couldn’t accomplish the goal. It would result in them feeling bad about themselves.

“Don’t underestimate the power of clients completing a small step week after week and feeling successful. It adds up to a level of empowerment that can flow into all aspects of their lives.” WOW p. 155

Now, I think if I’d underpromised on Monday and set my goal to increase to 3 hours one time this week, it would have been achieved. Perhaps underpromising, taking smaller steps would also allow for the natural flow of life with interruptions—good and bad, and all that occurs in the course of a day. It would help to be able to accept each day, as Young says, and see God in the midst if I’m more flexible because I don’t have the pressure of too high of standards.

After I arrived at the art museum yesterday, and decided that the cold wind was just too much for the trails, I changed my plan. Instead of hiking, I visited the Rodin exhibit and the one next to it of American art. It was nice to join others in the quiet warmth, soaking in the creations of artists, letting go of any need to achieve anything but moments of enjoyment.

Painting by Joan Mitchell, American 1925 – 1992  “Sunflower” 1969 Oil on canvas

I would have enough time to prepare for the Camino; it was okay that I didn’t meet my goal this week. I had the surprise of going inside the galleries and carrying out images that would energize me. The day unfolded in a way that was different from what I planned, and somehow God was in the midst of it all.

Painting by Andrew Newell Wyeth, American, 1917-2009 “Winter 1946″ Tempera on board