Secrets #10 and #11

Well, I knew it would happen eventually. I am proud that I at least made it to week 10 before I completely missed a post for the Next Chapter Book Blogging Group.  So it is time to get caught up and I’m starting with my thoughts on Secret #10 – Living in Abundance with Positive Priorities. While considering the abundance in my life, the chapter asked the question “how are you using your gift of time?” When I considered this honestly, I realized that I had fallen back into some bad habits. This has to be a priority for me in order to keep myself moving forward. Another challenge in the chapter was to create a list of ten things you’d really like to do in your life. These are considered life-enhancing Positive Priorities. The things I identified for myself are:

• Explore places in the world
• Learn about history related to whatever strikes me at the time
• Expose my sons to lots of places and experiences
• Enjoy clothes shopping
• Walk someplace everyday
• Live more green
• Feel truly loved
• Create visual representations of how my mind relates things to one another
• Experiment with various art styles
• Share my passion for self-expression with others

Now I need to start spending my time on things that work toward these priority items. One of my first priorities is to get back to exercising on a regular basis. Over the past month, this has not been a priority and it affects so many parts of my life that I need to remember that it is worth the time (Billy Blanks would be happy to know that I have done a Tae Bo workout twice this week and it is only Wednesday ).

Secret #11 is entitled Subtracting Serenity Stealers. Many people think of this as eliminating the toxic people in your life (at least that is how I have approached this in the past). When I saw the word BURNOUT used in the chapter, I immediately thought of this in terms of doing to much, having unrealistic goals, and sacrificing other parts of your life for the one “really important” part. I remembered the feeling of being burned out during college and at times, during my career as an accountant but I never thought I could experience burnout as a stay-at-home mom.  Today I had an A-HA moment as I wrote this because I had just booked a flight to go visit my brother in San Francisco. I have been feeling the need to go somewhere for quite awhile and have looked at flights to a lot of different places over the past two months. The book contained a list of burnout warning signs  and as I read them, I realized that I had been experiencing many of them. I think that in addition to being tired of the routine of cleaning, cooking, laundry and driving the boys places, my insecurities and uncertainties in response to the ever-present question” What do I really want to accomplish with my life?” have caused me to feel burned out. Every time I try to answer that question, I stop because I would wonder if I really wanted something as a goal or was it because that is what other people were doing. While reading this chapter, I realized I have always had a goal, achieved it, and then made a new one, repeating the cycle. Now that my children are both in school, I have felt that I needed to start the cycle again since I had TIME. This chapter also lead to an epiphany that I could actually change a goal, something I had never considered. I realized that I could set a goal and work toward it and if I decided it wasn’t something I wanted, I could say “NO”, even if I was on the threshold of achieving it if I decided it was not right for me. I was amazed at how much energy and excitement I felt just from this realization. Now the important thing is to remember it so I don’t fall prey to those internal dialogues that always seem to plague me. Time to develop some positive self-talk to keep me moving. As stated toward the end of this chapter “change is difficult and you can only move at your own pace”.