Raring to Go Toward An Inspiring Life!

Checking in with this entry from the comforts of home. After a thankfully uneventful, but long, drive back from Cape Cod, our menagerie cruised back into San Antonio Friday evening after a four-day land-voyage. The return home each summer is always bittersweet--I experience a bit of melancholy to be leaving my friends and the beach behind in August, aware that I will not return for another nine months. At the same time I am excited and energized as I look forward to the unexpected opportunities ahead.

Each summer I spend some time thinking about what I want to focus on come September. In the past I have used the summer months in a variety of self-healing ways: to become more fit and healthy, to grieve for the loss of family members, to create a business plan and launch my Flying Pig merchandise, among other things. This year my goal is this: Besides keeping myself open to opportunity, helping others to create more fulfilling lives and attracting goodness into my own life, I will spend this year actualizing Debbie Ford's "The Right Questions." If you are unfamiliar with this remarkable book, I encourage you to check it out as it is a book that will truly change your life (I have it listed on my website Book Picks section). The author has created a list of ten surprisingly simple, but profound, questions which help one to gain awareness about how certain decisions and choices have lead to one's current state and how to make empowering and positive choices to create a more fulfilling life.

So often we move through each day, each month and each year in a robotic, unconscious manner. We often repeat behaviors that do not lead us any closer to an inspiring life or greater fulfillment. Examples of this are: talking yourself out of taking an adult education class this Fall, not pushing your plate away before you reach for the second helping, choosing to watch a mindless TV program over playing catch with your kids for 30 minutes. Every choice we make--each and every day--should be one that brings us closer to our goals and dreams, whether those goals are physical, spiritual or emotional. When we wake up from the unconscious reverie and focus on what we want in our lives and create a plan of action to move toward accomplishment and realization, we are rewarded and energized as we note our progress and accomplishment. It is only when we keep our goals in our heads, distractedly swimming about with no clear direction, that we experience the three Ds: disillusionment, discouragement and disappointment.

Question #1 from Debbie Ford's book "Will this choice propel me toward an inspiring future or will it keep me stuck in the past?" is the question for this month. In thinking about this question, I look at my behaviors and thoughts from a place of curiosity about whether my choices promote my vision of what I want in my life and whether my behaviors and thoughts bring me closer to the realization of my dreams. It is easy to remain frozen in the past, that is, afraid to approach a situation from a novel perspective. This is because we all experience a need for safety and predictability in our lives. Sometimes propelling oneself forward involves stepping outside your comfort zone and taking a risk. For some of my clients the fear of taking a risk keeps them anchored in a place where they are unhappy--their desire for predictability in their life outweighs their desire to realize their dreams and take a leap of faith to create change. I help my clients navigate this sometimes scary chasm and move into a place of greater fulfillment and self-confidence. Hold onto your dream, and if it is truly something you want for yourself, move yourself closer to that dream by making choices which empower rather than defeat you.

I will work to maintain a conscious awareness of the small and large choices I make over the course of the next 30 days--will you do the same in your life? Debbie Ford writes "When we're moving in the direction of our deepest desires, we feel the support of the entire universe behind us, and we are inspired by our lives." Isn't now the time to feel inspired by YOUR life?

Thought for the Day: Write down a goal you would like to accomplish within the next 30 days. As you move through the next 30 days, ask yourself the following question: "Will this choice propel me toward an inspiring future or will it keep me stuck in the past?" What changes will you make to keep yourself moving forward toward your inspiring future rather than frozen in your unhappy present with regard to that goal?

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. --Langston Hughes