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Chuck in the Towel?

It’s December 31st, time to set those New Year’s resolutions. I get to set goals and decide exactly what I want and go after it and it’s all exciting and life is full of opportunity and abundance. Instead I’m ready to chuck in the towel… does anyone else ever feel that way? I have this whole New Year inviting me in, and I can choose to create anything I want, and it’s all I can do to get through this day.

I have a great life. I have a wonderful husband and family, a beautiful home. I just came home from Mexico, had a great Christmas, and I am living my dream of being an author AND I still want to chuck in the towel. Why? Could it be that I am sick and injured, or is it that I don’t know what is going to happen next? Is it that I don’t know how to trust the universe in providing what it is I am asking for? That I need proof that everything is happening the way I asked? Or is it that I am just feeling sorry for myself?

I certainly hate feeling sorry for myself, but if you have read my book, you will know that I am good at it, and it’s comfortable. It allows me to shut down and not do anything: Stay stuck and be right about something. I get to wallow in my self pity and get all my needs met (destructively). So now what???

How about getting off my butt and doing something. Anything. Anything that will bring me closer to my goals. The first thing I did was to reach out and ask for help. I called our coach and said, “PLEASE give me a good butt kicking because I am forgetting why I am doing this.” So she did. She reminded me that how I get what I want is absolutely none of my business, and that I just have to remember to focus my attention on my mission. Then I thought of all the things I have been telling myself and others all these years, “You become what you think about most of the time,” so now I ask myself, “What do I want?”

Well, I want to be happy. When I think of how great of a life I have – I can’t not be grateful.

At the church I belong to, there is a burning bowl ceremony every year at this time. The burning bowl gives us an opportunity to write all our fears down and burn them in this bowl. We toss ‘em into the bowl and they get burnt and they get burnt because they aren’t serving us in any way by rolling around in our heads. Mine anyway. Once we drop the piece of paper into the bowl we get to reach into another bowl (not burning) and choose an affirmation for ourselves. Mine was about inner peace. Easy to say I thought, and my next thought was that inner peace is just as easy to create. If I can think sad, then I can think happy. If I can think lack, then I can think abundance. And what I do know is that happy and abundant are way more fun.

The other thing about this burning bowl ceremony was about forgiveness. What or who do I need to forgive this year and I got to include myself in this list? Shawn and I are currently struggling with feeling hurt by someone. It’s hard not to react with resentment and revenge when we are hurting, and we have to remember what our big game is. Our big game includes the people that we feel hurt by, so it is hard to ‘cut ‘em off’ or react when they are a part of our long term vision. If we didn’t have a clear vision and game plan, it would be easy to get mad and even: That’s not what we want. We are continually reminding ourselves of what we want, which assists us on staying on track.

Are you clear about your big game? Your vision of what you want your life to look like 30 years from now? 30 months? 30 days? Today? Don’t throw away today, you can never replace it.

If you haven’t set your goals for this year, you can go to our website and download the goal setting worksheet from Chapter 9, print it off and use it.

If you are choosing today to ‘do,’ then ‘do’ with joy, and if you are deciding today to ‘be,’ then enjoy ‘being’. I used to beat myself up for not ‘doing’ enough, so that when I am ‘just being’ I don’t always get to enjoy. Well I have just had a great time ‘being’ for a few weeks and now I get to get back to ‘doing.’ And having a big game and knowing what I am here to do gives me the opportunity to enjoy what I do, instead of thinking it’s a must.

Shawn and I have big plans for the coming year, and one at a time we will bring them to be and we are choosing to do it with ease and faith. We trust that you are doing the same.