Still feeling swamped, but this the first week in over a month I felt like there was some routine back in place with all the ins & outs of daily life.
I am choosing to focus on growth & progress, and celebrating those victories.
I can’t wait to start writing longer actual posts again soon.
What am I pretending not to know?
What would the person I intend to become do next?
What are 5 concrete examples of actions steps I could take to leave my comfort zone? In my relationships, in my business, and in personal growth
What am I waiting for?
Why won’t I finish (drafting!) my DMP!?
These are all examples of the questions that have been going through my mind this week.
I just about typed “it’s been a challenging week…” and then I started laughing.
(It’s 11:14pm on Friday night. I’m sitting at my dining room table, with my laptop out. Everyone is FINALLY asleep, knock on wood. And I am trying to get my blog post out for the week. I’ve been writing it in my head for a few days now.)
Who am I kidding, in theory I guess I could say that about every week…there’s a mindset switch that needs to happen surrounding that sentence, RIGHT HERE and NOW. I don’t think I could honestly say I remember a week that HASN’T been challenging, for several if not many years. As in “gosh, this was a pretty easy laid back week.” HAHAHA
Ok- so on that note. I think my approach needs to be expecting and ACCEPTING and EMBRACING whatever variety of challenges come up any given day or week. Just plan on it, and plan to hunt for and discover the growth opportunities, like a TREASURE HUNT.
This week: A got tummy/fever sick Sunday night, and stayed home both Monday and Tuesday because she had to. D’s Monday afternoon class got cancelled due to inclement weather. A wanted to stay home Wednesday morning – I think she was still just feeling a bit beat from her illness though technically she could attend. By 9:30am though, she would not stop asking to go to school, so I took her around 11:15 so she could have lunch with her friends and finish her school day. D had his usual Wednesday afternoon class. Thursday and Friday were already scheduled days off for A for the whole school. What does this mean? It means that the little chunks of time I might normally be able to squirrel away with only the two boys home, or the time D is in school when I only have C (and sometimes C naps), were non-existent. I could feel my frustration and negativity building as the length of my to-do list grew and the opportunities to cross those items off disappeared.
Also, my sweet feline sidekick of almost 12 years started acting funny on Monday around dinner time, and following my gut I got her into the vet on Tuesday morning, accompanied by 3 helpers. Unfortunately, the general exam & and xray revealed an abdominal mass approximately 2″ in diameter on her right side, slightly displacing some organs. She is super furry/fluffy, and that fluff had disguised how distended her poor belly had become. We don’t have a for sure diagnosis at this point, just some possibilities. I am heartbroken.
So, all that might not seem like much, but it was enough of a detour from our routine that it really threw me for a loop.
I am so grateful for my father. He surprised me on Tuesday by showing up with subs and parfaits for lunch about an hour after we got back home from the vet. While we waited for him, the kids & I put in some serious playdough creation time!
Grampa also came bearing interesting pamphlets and info on community activities & events to show the kiddos. And my mom’s bottle of OPC-3 to share some until my order arrives. The kids were so happy to see Grampa. Today I got both a text and an email from him asking if he could come down and spend some time with me and the kids, go on a bit of an adventure. I replied that yes indeed that sounded lovely and also I could really use to grab a shower. 🤣 We skipped part of the adventure in favor of C getting his first decent morning nap all week long (Praise God!) and we went out for lunch instead. I got to see a dear friend of mine, who I haven’t seen in far too long. I was able to fly through a handful of items on my list that were time sensitive to this week and that required me to apply some critical thinking skills to complete while Grampa played with the kiddos. I got my shower in.
I connected with our mail delivery person. Her name is Colleen, and I know specifically how I can help her with her job over the next 2 weeks.
I followed up with a few potential clients that I am confident that I can help with some of the products I broker, and even if they choose not to become clients, I know I am adding value to their lives simply by providing education and resources to them.
I learned something new about social media today from my friend Carrie AND I took action on it right away instead of “waiting for a better, more convenient time.”
I have some pictures i’d like to add in, but I hear someone stirring, and I still have to brush my teeth.
I feel like that moment between knowing what I need to do and doing it is shrinking, that hesitation is there less and less often. The space between the ‘a-ha’ and the action.
This week one of the notable concepts we covered was “The Dash”.
If you have never read this poem, you’re in for a treat. (I’ll copy the text at the end in case this image won’t enlarge/zoom well.)
Rather than avoiding thinking about or talking about death, by embracing the certainty & reality of it, we are freed up to seize each moment and make every day we are given, count.
And this in turn can help move us closer to those goals and the life we imagine and our intentional future selves.
I’ll be 40 in December this year. And if a allot myself a generous 80 years on this earth, that means I’m nearly halfway there.
Close your eyes a minutes and imagine your favorite season. Summer? Spring? Fall? Winter?
What do you love most about it? Can you smell the smells you have tied to it? Can you picture the activities & people that are there with you?
How many of those do you have left? Of course, we never really know- I believe only God knows. But if you could guess just based on average life span. How do you want to spend those seasons?
When will you begin spending them the way you want to, with the people you want to? If you are already, fantastic!!! What else could you add to it that you would enjoy and delight in?
The Dash
I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time that they spent alive on earth. And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own, the cars…the house…the cash. What matters is how we live
and love and how we spend our dash.
So, think about this long and hard. Are there things
you’d like to change? For you never know how much
time is left that can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough to consider what’s
true and real and always try to understand
the way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives like
we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect and more often
wear a smile, remembering that this special
dash might only last a little while.
So, when your eulogy is being read, with your life’s
actions to rehash…would you be proud of the things
they say about how you spent YOUR dash?
by Linda Ellis
1996 Copyright Inspire Kindness, LLC
Every Sunday afternoon, our fantastic leaders blast out another amazing 2 hour webinar and mastermind, covering the coming week’s Haanel lesson and concepts. I rarely have the chance to participate live, to be honest, and find myself waiting eagerly for the replay to be posted so I can get cracking on listening to it in 5-30 minute increments. I cue it up, and since it’s via Safari on my iphone, it doesn’t play in the background or while I have any other programs running as primary. It demands sole attention, which is good I suppose but also kind of a pain, convenience-wise. I put it on while I am running my son to & from school, in the rare moments of silence while the 2 boys are occupied and playing as I tidy up the kitchen after breakfast or lunch, during naps and at night, and with earbuds, once the boys are in that zone of asleep enough not to be curious but not asleep enough yet to have me vacate the room without having to start routines over again. I get it in bits and pieces and bite sized chunks of information and revelation and a-ha’s.
We’ve also been reading one scroll each month from Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World. The question was posed to us, “What would make someone the greatest salesman?” And the answer boiled down to being sold on ourselves. Having enough belief and confidence in ourselves to be 100% all in on our own value, goals, dreams, etc, that no one else’s opinion (really) matters.
(the above two paragraphs were written last week Thursday, 2/8…and now that I am back on my laptop again, (my keyboard case for my ipad stopped functioning again…send good vibes! I aim to finish this post today, 2/12)
We unexpectedly lost an amazing family friend mid-January. He was only 72. As I sat in the service to honor him and celebrate his life, I was struck by the fact that there was SO MUCH I didn’t know about him. He lived his life to the fullest. He had a huge grin and ready laugh and sharp wit that was contagious to anyone within 10 feet of him. He served in the military, he gave back to and was involved in community organizations, he was an entrepreneur through and through. His loved his wife and children and grandchildren fiercely, with every bone in his body. His daughter, a childhood friend of mine who is now an incredible wife, mom, and youth minister in Colorado, performed her father’s service. It was an incredible message of hope and truth and joy beyond present circumstances.
Tim Mangless, Len, fast track business commitment
I made an angel food cake from scratch this week. My father in law turned 75 on Wednesday, and we had my in laws over for dinner to celebrate. My mother in law is recuperating from an ongoing respiratory illness- pneumonia with significant asthma complications that earned her a hospital stay.
I had every intention of using a box mix, given the busyness of the week and the limited amount of time I knew I would have to get it done. My MIL had mentioned that my FIL’s mother had often made him angel food cake and that it would be a great choice for his birthday cake.
However…the store I went to for my other errands (one stop shop with the two boys) did NOT have a box mix. Lol. So, we decided to do it from scratch…and D is always up for a baking experiment project!
We decided to do all the prep work before D went to school that afternoon…mixing the dry ingredients, separating the eggs, watching #AltonBrown ‘s how-to video.
It seemed that once the dry and wet were folded together, there was no turning back…in the pan and into the oven…so I decided to tackle that part of the recipe after I dropped D at school and was back home with a *hopefully* sleeping C!
As I tackled that, in the rare silence that I was enjoying, the phrase “honor the process” kept going through my mind. This was one of those undertakings that I knew there were no shortcuts, no rushing it, no cheating, IF i wanted it to turn out. IF I wanted to see it through beyond doing it for doing it’s sake. IF I wanted this to be a gift from the heart. So rather than worrying about how it would or wouldn’t turn out, I just took it step by step, followed the directions and tips, and didn’t stress about how it would turn out, or if it would be done in time. I decided to enjoy each step, to learn as I went, and honor the process.
How in the world does this tie in to the Master Keys Experience, you might wonder?
Well, in short, I am realizing more and more, to trust and honor the process. To not stress out about not getting every little thing done, to not do the requirements and steps simply to check them off my checklist but to learn as I go. To have this whole 26 week experience (and beyond) be a gift from the heart, TO ME, to my FAMILY. To follow the directions and tips from our leaders and guides and mastermind alliances. To not get caught up in the end result or hard and fast deadlines, but to focus on the steady, consistent progress.
The cake was gorgeous when I took it out of the oven. And though I followed directions, it fell flat shortly after. LOL. But it tasted delicious!!! And it was still a lovely dessert and awesome celebration of this wonderful man’s life and years! We are blessed to have him as a FIL, Dad, Papa.
Happy Birthday, Len. We love you.
