Yaro Starak, www.Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, recently wrote about his personal goals and reflections of the past year. “I knew if I focused the year entirely on business projects, then I’d neglect this other aspect of my life, an equally if not more important part…my new direction focused on relationships, including business relationships, friendships and intimate relationships.”

Perhaps many of us are not unlike Yaro. The tendency is to do what we always do…bury our heads in our work and making money – at the expense of other parts of our life.  Can you relate?

“Sometimes working on balance is more important than working on growth of a specific area, and may well end up resulting in growth in that area anyway, because you’ve made space for it to
happen.”

Can you relate to Yaro’s desires?

• I wanted to meet more like minded people – independent, exciting people.
• I wanted more fun.
• I wanted to realign the balance in my life between work, play, and socializing.

Yaro is clear about his desired end results. What do you desire to achieve by December 31, 2010? What do you want to make space for? How do you make it happen?

From www.tut.com:

“Rosie, the trick is learning to maintain an unwavering focus upon your desired end result, your completed dream, the “finish line,” without insisting upon, or even contemplating, its means of attainment, no matter how logical, obvious, or tempting it may seem.

Tallyho,
The Universe”

Is 2010 the year you will grow your relationships, have more fun, realign the balance between work, play, and socializing?

Stephen C. Paul said, “For all those years you’ve protected the seed. It’s time to become the beautiful flower.”

Perhaps 2010 is the perfect year to become the beautiful flower?

Check out the wisdom in today’s message from tut.com: “You don’t take ‘baby steps’ for the distance they cover, Rosie, but to put yourself within reach of life’s magic.

Just like you don’t hoist your sails to move the boat, but to put yourself within reach of the wind.

Hoist, baby, hoist, baby, 1, 2, 3, 4 -
    The Universe”

[Side note: if you love this guy as much as I do, Mike Dooley, who brings these invigorating messages to us every day, help him out by purchasing a copy of his new release of the long awaited text edition of Infinite Possibilities: The Art of Living Your Dreams! Go to www.tut.com to read all about it… Amazon extends 34% off and B&N 35% off today! I don’t get anything for promoting his work. I just love starting each morning with his pearls of wisdom, that’s all.]

Back to the baby steps…it is those baby steps that put us in reach of life’s magic. For example, reflect on your day yesterday. What baby steps did you take at work, in your home, with your kids, with your health? Maybe you took them and didn’t really think about them?

I’ll toss out a few examples to consider. Want to do something about improving your health? Maybe just start with a baby step.

Perhaps the first step is purchasing a bath scales. I know, gross. That will lead to the next baby step that takes tremendous courage: stepping on it. I promise you, once you do, you will be on your way. Actually, perhaps the first baby step is to decide. Decide to purchase that scales. Decide that today is the day to take that baby step towards the magic of your good health.

Speaking of scales, I am having fun with the one I just purchased. For $39 at WalMart, you can purchase a “Healthometer Body Fat & Hydration Monitoring Scale.” This scales will give you not only your weight, but also your % body fat, % body water, % bone mass, and your BMI (Body Mass Index). A brochure is included that explains the normal ranges for males and females.

Take another baby step…post a calendar by your scales and start recording your numbers. The numbers will be an incentive to keep you on your path. Among other things, this simple step somehow stimulates the RAS in your brain – the reticular activating system – that causes your subconscious mind to keep pushing towards your goal.   

Another baby step is to put Dr. Joel Fuhrman on in your car, your automobile university, as you travel to and from work. Thinking I have no time right now to read, I recently purchased his Eat for Health and Eat to Live audiobooks. Well, forget that, I ordered the books yesterday, so intrigued was I over the excellent information I am learning on his CDs.

Dr. Fuhrman’s CDs are full of little baby steps. For example, he teaches the importance of adding foods rich in micronutrients to your diet, such as found in deeply green leafy vegetables. Taking that one little point, here’s a funny little baby step.

Yesterday Dr. Gabhart and I met at my house to work on our book. When it got to be lunch time, we decided to have some tuna and some mouth watering cherry tomatoes, fresh from the garden. I prepared my tuna with nothing in it. Meanwhile, Dr. G. is rifling through my spice drawer.

“Here, put these Marjoram Leaves and Basil and dried Tomato & Garlic mix in that tuna. What do you think all this is? It’s your green vegetables. This is good for you! Where’s your onions? And put a little olive oil in there. You can’t eat that tuna plain!”

Oh my goodness, when she got finished with that tuna, I thought I was at Thanksgiving dinner – and all because of the addition of a few herbs – no egg or mayonnaise – just the healthy micronutrients that I heard Dr. Fuhrman talk about earlier that morning.

Little baby steps… Mike Dooley, you are right! Thank you for helping us see we can put ourselves within reach of the wind!

What baby steps can you take today to put you within reach of life’s magic?

Forty years ago my husband’s class of 1969 turned their tassels to walk into the world…full of dreams, hopes, and ambitions. It has been two days since the reunion, and I still haven’t recovered from all that soaked into my eyes and senses that night. What happened to those dreams? How did life pass so many by?

As I walked through the door, I almost gasped. Surely we must be at the wrong event. These people are much too old.

An overwhelming feeling of sadness washed over me as I scanned the room full of unknown faces throughout the evening. I watched as the classmates struggled to identify each other, gasping at their discoveries. I witnessed far too many stooped, overweight bodies, too many with the lights out behind their eyes, too many showing evidence they are simply shuffling through life, too many so much older than their stated years.

And yet, how invigorating to see the contrast of some of the classmates, to capture the excitement and enthusiasm in their voices, to watch them physically dance the night away to the old tunes of the 60’s. What has been different about their lives? What made the contrast so distinct?

Thousands and thousands across America just finished turning their tassels. What will the next forty years bring? What will their eyes witness forty years from now when they walk into their reunion?

What an incentive to wake up! There is so much life to be devoured, to be enjoyed! No matter your age, you’ve got a lot of living to do! It is never too late to live the life you’ve always dreamed of.

This morning I watched a presentation by Steve Manning who said that if you are on the planet, you have a life story to write. Steve said people will ask him, “What if I don’t have anything interesting to write about?” His answer? “Start doing something interesting with your life now!

What can you do today to start living? What is one thing you can do to break the monotony, to start to pull yourself up out of the rut, if you’re in one? Can you call a friend and strike up a deal to create an action plan together?

Perhaps a journey toward good health may be a place to start? It is difficult to enjoy life if you don’t feel well. The goal of my upcoming book, The Awakened Body, is to send the message, “Yes! No matter your age, you can feel alive, full of vigor and vitality!”

Jack Canfield teaches us to make a list of 101 things we want to do before we die. Why not start making that list today?  Why not then pick one of those items and begin a plan of action to make it happen?

The “Bye Bye Birdie” musical has such a powerful message for all of us:

Oh, Life’s a ball
if only you know it,
And it’s all just waiting for you.
You’re alive,
So come on and show it.
We got a lot of livin’,
Such a lot of livin,’
Got a lot of livin’ to do!

Some months ago one of the men in our church study group told some ridiculously funny thing he had done. In his sweet, boyish way he followed up his story with the statement, “Sometimes I get stuck on stupid.”

We went around the circle, and each shared a story. I don’t recall what the topic was. I only remember that when it came my turn to speak, I told the group of how driven I have been my entire life. I would always push, write goals, and work hard. In my professional career I took great pride in teaching others to write goals – with deadlines and clear action steps. Push, push, push. Knowing what I know now, I am embarrassed to think that perhaps I was not teaching the right thing. I did an excellent job of leading by example…doing exactly what Esther & Jerry Hick teach us NOT to do –paddling upstream. “Life is not meant to be hard,” they say. “Let go of the oars.”

Interesting that the very next day I opened my e-mail and found an article Living by the Golden Dozen by Tom Hopkins. Sensitized by the experience from the previous day, I mentally challenged the words as I read the concepts in the article:

Consciously repeat these four steps, minute by minute, until they become second nature:
1. Tell yourself, “I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment.”
2. Decide what the most productive thing is.
3. Do it.
4. When you’ve pushed as far forward as you can right now, go back to Step
1 and start over.

I thought, “Oh no, not another resource teaching people to push upstream!” However, my anxiety melted some when I came to these words:

“But don’t become a fanatic. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do at a given moment is to sit down with your favorite person and spend an hour watching the sun go down. Sometimes the most productive thing possible will be exercising, sleeping, or taking a well-deserved vacation.”

And then I recall the words of Doreen Virtue in the movie You Can Heal Your Life:

“Follow the guidance you get, one step at a time. If you take Step A, then you get the next set of instructions. Then take Step B, and so on.”

Earlier this week I listened to a teleconference in which the speaker attributed part of her success to following the advice of author Jim Horan in his book The One Page Business Plan. She said, “It is critical to have a plan for your business. It shows the Universe that you are serious.” Hmm, my first thought is, how does one define “‘success”? I suppose out of curiosity I’ll see what that book has to say.

This thing about writing goals has become a sticking point for me. Should I be setting “goals?” And how do I know the “goals” I am setting are the right ones? How do I know that I am not just being stuck on stupid again?

For now my “goal” is to simply focus on what seems most important at the moment…remembering to enjoy the moment, whatever I am doing.