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Date:
March 1, 2016

Author:
Ashlyn Carter

filed in:
Lifestyle

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Let's get you a message so tight you can bounce a quarter off of it. Around here, we serve up science-based storytelling strategies the creative set.  Even while raking in more than 1.26M in agency work since I've been at it, I firmly believe working from a place of rest (not hustle) IS possible—and I want the same for you. Words matter. Best be sure they work (and oui, with math) ... and know how to party while they're at it. 

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Reading time: 4 min.

Powersheets Goal Setting Ashlyn Carter Lara Casey

As far as goal setting worksheets go, I’m fairly certain it doesn’t get better than Lara Casey’s Powersheets: I’m pretty sure it is #Powersheets that helped talk me into quitting my job and starting this adventure.*

Last October/November, right at the start of the partial hospitalization program I entered while on leave of absence from work (full-disclosure, NOT to garner sympathy, but show God’s faithful, it was for anxiety, disordered eating, and depression), mama mailed me a copy of Lara Casey’s book, Make It Happen.

I think I sent this to Wes one day. Bad pic, but this was real life!

I think I sent this to Wes one day. Bad pic, but this was real life!

I ripped open the Amazon mailer and dove in. God used her story and spoke through her to me. To my fears. It changed everything.

Make It Happen looks in the face of any enemy-seed planted in the soil of my heart, and sings God’s faithfulness over it. I can trust Him, I learned. Even in the pain, agony, and sorrow of what we thought was a broken marriage, the impossible was possible. Lara’s story showed it. Wes lived it. Maybe I should start to believe it.

Bit by bit, I leaned into the scriptures Lara mentioned. I started asking God for the impossible. Lara prayed, and it worked. My jaded soul KNEW this truth since felt-board and youth camp days, but so haunted with shame and depression, that glimmer faded under gnarled, storybook-sized vines and thorns. But what had I to lose praying that big? Trusting that much?

Knees to the closet floor, I prayed for things I wrote in my Powersheets: a job where I could focus on what matters — aka my new husband, family, my friends, loving other human souls well; I prayed for freedom from the chains of perfectionism and anxiety. Panic attacks. Depression. I prayed for my broken story to be used for the kingdom.

December started. Prayer started to soften things. It lead to a still, quiet winter of gazing at the bare ground. What did I want to plant there? What seeds had I forgotten were in my pockets? Art. Words. Creativity. Dreams for the Kingdom. I’ve had those seeds since grade school.

I can plant them.

Kool-aid drinker I tend to be, a few weeks after I snapped Make It Happen shut, a $50 order of worksheets popped in our mailbox. I told Wes I had a new project, and one crisp December night, I got after my Make It Happen Powersheets workbook.

Sharpies in every color. Puppy on the floor. Anthro candle lit. Two, maybe three glasses of red wine. Prayers and words spilled out in my workbook. Anxiety hadn’t worked. I wanted to come alive again in the Lord. I wanted my Father to give me big dreams and visions for daughters of His kingdom again.

I want to be fully vulnerable, and share with you my Powersheets monthly goals at the fresh start of a new month. I want to show you how God IS faithful — I have prayed for years to be a writer, to rest well. To marry Wes Carter (Yup. As half of Samford knew at the time, I was always obsessed. You’re the best guy in the world, babe!). But Lord? What YOU ordain raises its wise eyebrows at my half-baked ideas … You take me deeper in faith, refine the dross until the gold drips pure. I never would have thought 27 would have looked like it does, but praise GOD for it.

 

I’ll cut to the chase. 🙂 In March, I want to:

Make prayerful professional ministry progress. I have this desire to help build up women in their dreams, committing my writing and marketing know-how to them.

Dance in the zig-zag; this won’t be a straight line.

Remember Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I can’t do this without Him.

I’ll recharge and adventure by leaning into Easter, starting to run in the pretty spring mornings, planning 2 social-media-free days, go on friendship walks, and loving on German Shepherd puppy #2.

Goals? You can read them all in the photo above, but the daily goals I have are most important: Did I study and hide Your Word in my heart? Spend time on my knees in my war room closet? Honor Wes? Move my body well (not hard, just well. that means resting well, too)? Write and callig daily?

Here we go, new month! Let’s cultivate what matters.

* p.s. I’m not advocating that you go quit YOUR job. Disclaimer. 🙂

Fun fact: I ended up serving Lara as a client helping to copyedit her second book, Cultivate!

Reading Time: 5 Minutes

I’m fairly certain it is #Powersheets that helped talk me into quitting my job and starting this adventure.*

Last October/November, right at the start of the partial hospitalization program I entered while on leave of absence from work for anxiety, disordered eating, and depression, mama mailed me a copy of Lara Casey’s book, Make It Happen

3/01/16

comments +

  1. […] on annual business planning and I was introduced to the Power Sheets Goal Planner (thanks, Ashlyn @ Ashlyn Writes!). I went down the rabbit hole of Lara Casey and the Cultivate brand and I decided to give the […]

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