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Today is exactly six months after I turned 30 years old, a journey which I planned to blog about here as I grow and learn in the next decade of my life.

I’ve named this part of my life the Map Your 30s blog but I now realize that I never actually explained what that all means, or what even the concept of “mapping” stands for.

Yes, I’ve talked about why it’s okay to not have your life figured out at 30, where I currently am in my life and even the scary part of turning 30 that I have been holding back on. There’s also been smaller chapters about how my life turned into a rom-com, beginning to go to therapy, going back to a flexitarian diet, whether or not I should buy a car and the struggle of growing out my hair.

These have all been important tidbits into my life after 30 and I know I still have a long way to go, and a hell of a lot of room to grow in my six key areas of focus (relationships, career, home, finances, health and confidence).

But one thing that I haven’t actually explained as I started this journey isn’t the WHY, though there’s more to be said there, but exactly what this next part of my life means to me.

Last year, after I had gone through a particularly difficult time in my life, a friend gifted me a swirly heart picture from MapYourProgress.com. The story behind this Maps project is quite interesting, but what fascinated me more was the combination of art and charting your progress toward something important all through this oh-so-pretty map.

From losing weight to paying down debt to creating a new habit (like recovery!), I was fascinated by all of the possibilities. The drawings, you see, actually represent goals and the power of this Creative Progress Maps system is that you can actually set whatever goal you want. “Just pick one that matters to you,” the creator instructs.

And so I picked mine.

My goal is to make turning 30 into the Decade of Awesome, as the same friend who gave me the heart-shaped map said, and I’ll be coloring in the map’s swirls as I make progress.

That’s the whole point of my new quest, and thus the Map Your 30s blog went from being an idea to being an actual thing. It just happened to be a thing I didn’t explain very clearly before today.

And so now, six months after turning 30, I am more focused than ever on making the next few years of my life the best that they can be. Because there’s no age limit to living the best life you can, right?

In fact, since turning 30, I think that I actually have my priorities a bit more in order. I may not have everything figured out yet, but I’m looking forward to getting there.

All of this is ultimately about having the courage to follow my dreams and about having the courage to say that I have a lot of growing left to do–and that’s TOTALLY okay too. It wouldn’t be a life worth living if I wasn’t constantly learning and striving to be happy.

So happy half birthday to me! It’s going to be a good decade.

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(Image via MapYourProgress.com)