You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust.
You were born with ideals and dreams.
You were born with greatness.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t.
You have wings.
Learn to use them, and fly.
— Rumi
It’s December. The hustle and bustle of the holiday season is well upon us all. If you’re like many families, rather than holding your family closer, you’re struggling to get it all done. This blog post series is designed to put you and me in a frame to better appreciate the holidays and more importantly, better appreciate our lives every day.
Stop Doing List
There are things in our lives that we love to do, that give us energy, that expand our horizons, that make the view of the world seem just a little brighter than before. Then, there are things that we dread to do, that bring us down every time and make our lives seem like one boring trudge after another.
Some of those things, you have to do. The trash needs to get emptied. The dog needs to get walked. You’ve got to deal with (insert least favorite relative here) during the holidays. But there are some things that we do because we feel like we need to – we serve on a board because we don’t have the heart to get off of the board, we sign up to teach Sunday School when our heart isn’t in it, or we keep our mouths shut when the bank teller calls us by our incorrect name, yet again.
Guess what? Everything you’re doing right now that doesn’t bring you joy, that doesn’t expand your horizons and that doesn’t fill you with energy is taking away from your family, it’s taking away from you and it’s taking away from your growing business.
Take five minutes write now to write an Expansion/Contraction List. On the Expansion side are things that you LOVE to do, things that fill you with joy, things that make you feel like you could scale a mountain, the things in your life that you want to do more of. On the Contraction side are things that you hate to do, that you dread doing, that you feel drained every single time you do them. Go ahead, get petty, write it all down, get it all out!
Once you have your lists, the next part is easier said than done. But it’s the first step to enjoying the holidays AND 2012. Commit to doing less of THREE things on your Contraction list and commit to doing more of THREE things on your Expansion list.
You define ‘more’ for you. It will vary with each person but you must define it. If you don’t get specific about how much more time you’re going to spend smelling the roses rather than washing your windows, you probably won’t do it and you won’t be able to see a measurable result in your mood and outlook towards life. In order to make more time for those things that enliven you and make you say “Whooo Hoo!”, you’ve got to quit doing other things, preferably things that don’t inspire you or things that you hate doing.
This concept didn’t originate with me. I’ve heard it time and time again from great leaders but it bears repeating: you are what you do repeatedly, day in and day out. This December and in 2012, do more of the things that energize you, that make you feel good and that lead you to your goals. It all starts by making that list and writing everything down – so do just that, today.
