September 3 – Happy Labor Day.
I woke up today later than I ever do, and it was after an incredible night of sleep. For once, I had nothing firmly scheduled into the calendar. It was in effect, a mini sabbatical, without the plan going into it.
Today has been a day of deliberate laziness, if that is a real phrase, as I am tending to make up more words as of late – just ask those around me that are spending extended periods of time. It has also been a day of forward looking retrospection – probably another phrase you’ve never heard…I have been combing through my goals for the rest of the year even as I relax today. A weird combo vibe that is working for me, and an inspiration for this post.
What has happened today is a refresh across a few areas of my life, and a renewal for 2018. Did you know we only have 118 days left this year, God willing? I was having a very extended and serious conversation the other day about the immutable nature of time. Well, it hit me today that we are now moving into a new season, quite natural and obvious given the holiday many of us had this Labor Day.
There are a slew of things that are on plan for the rest of this year, and four months remaining is not a whole lot of time to get them all done. I’ll be outlining a few of the upcoming goals and in some cases – exceptionally specific deliverables that I have in motion already for this year.
Do you have any major goals between now and the end of the year that you have planned for yourself? I am not talking about things with your family or trips with your friends. I am speaking to a major gift, deliverable, class, or habit you can gift to yourself in the next 12 weeks starting today.
I was consulting with someone two weeks ago, and we hatched a plan to help them lose twenty pounds between now and the end of the year. Not a huge lift, plenty of time to do it, and a very reasonable approach – provided the discipline is applied – to get this done. For this individual, this will be a HUGE win for them as they go into 2019.
So back to my lazy Labor Day – I found myself out with my partner in crime, and we both found an amazing spot in McKinney, TX where things seemed to slow way down. It is a little area right off of downtown, and it is a spot I have missed numerous times over the years of living here in TX.
Not today.
Today – I was able to sit down and take it all in.
As we were sitting there, out of the corner of my eye – I noticed a squirrel (a real one this time…SQUIRREL!) that was clamoring up a branch to get some more acorns. This guy was cranking today. By the time we ended up leaving, he had pre-positioned a half dozen acorns that he clipped off the trees in the lawn where we were.
It was something I had not really appreciated since the days of my childhood up in Vermont where the winters are especially harsh. If the squirrels up there do not put the work in, they will die. Or maybe raid a neighborhood barn and steal from a compost pile out back…I digress.
Here’s the point – let’s assume that we all have the rest of the year with our health to knock out 2018 like never before. What sorts of things do you have in mind for the rest of the year?
Are you going to wait for the acorns to fall off the branch, and pick up whatever is left on the ground after others have already taken what was green on the branch or even what hit the ground – before you got around to your 2018 plans?
Are you going to get something established for yourself, nobody else, for you – and clamor up the branch, if you will, to begin picking what you want – now. Why wait for things to drop and fall, go grab it now.
You still have time this year to get somethings done for yourself.
For me, I have a number of post topics for this blog and another project I’m driving – all sitting in the hopper. I will be asking for feedback on a few of those topics as ones worthy of your time, in the hopes of starting to get some priority on the topics I publish.
For me, I have a course I am 6 months into, and I have another 4 months to go to complete. This is a class I am taking outside of my employer, and I’m doing it for me. This is something that I will be completing in December. It is continuing education, and it has already transformed the way I think about a number of things in my life. I will be sharing more about this coursework in the coming months – you can be certain of that.
For me, I have some self publishing beyond the blog posts to be done. In consulting with a coach very recently, she suggested that I just give away the ebook. I was toying with the idea of giving away a piece of it, and then publishing the rest out on Amazon and iTunes/iBooks for a fee. Well, I’m going to just give it away at this point. Much more to come on that.
I will continue to post 3-5 times a week here on my blog with new content that is going to be relevant and self authored. I will continue to post 2-5 times per week on LinkedIn. Instagram and Twitter will be nearly every day by the looks of things. The multi-platform content strategy is largely set, and the content in many cases is already preset.
I just enlisted in another course that is a 10 week circuit of awesomeness, and that class is the inspiration for this post. I have had all of the above in play, and largely time allocated for them. Some weeks, I do better with the time budget than others, and I am able to hit everything in terms of doing and being.
Then there are other weeks where I, simply stated, do not.
The good news is that the variability of my time management and overall performance is increasingly predictable. I am reaching the point where I can forecast which days are the high output days for a given dimension of life or role – and which days – like today that will be deliberate in a lack of outward output.
The class I just signed up for, is one that I think will coincide beautifully with my plans for 2019. Much more to come on this topic. I am PUMPED.
Next month, will mark the first full year of this current journey that I have cracked open here on this site. I started to truly share things in May of this year, a full 7 months into my journey, on this site.
So the time I am putting in now will likely blossom in 3-4 months, when things are starting to truly round into form. I am putting the work in now, deliberately investing the time and skills development to arrive at 2019 ready to rock on a whole other level.
Take a moment to consider if you are putting the time in for this year or next.
Are you burying acorns in preparation for the upcoming winter and 2019?
Are you building upon your losses and wins thus far this year to make the end of the year – worthy of you?
118 days left in the year, are you putting in the work?