One thing about goals is that you get to set them. If you reach them FANTASTIC! If you don’t, it’s not the end of the world. You get to set a new goal and strive to accomplish it. 

We are almost 4 months into the year. What goals have you accomplished so far?  Has your 2012 been all that you planned? Are you living up to your fullest potential? Be sure to take time to appreciate the little things. Listen to the wind. Help an elderly person across the street. Watch children play. Visit a friend. 

Try something NEW and outside of your comfort zone.  One thing that helped me move from that safety net is finding a life coach or mentor.  My mentor is amazing. She holds me accountable to what I say that I’m going to do and helps me stay focused with my goals.

If for whatever reason you feel stuck and want to take your life up a notch, consider speaking with a life coach and taking full charge of your life. Remember if you don’t, no one else will.

Have a Sevenly Day!
Nathan 

Today was the most hectic day out of the week for me. It started off a little damp and then it became wetter and wetter the later it got. One thing that I got from today is that you just never know who you affect out in the world. Our words are all we have, and sometimes we either use them in the wrong sentence or not know how to use them at all.

I had the most exhilarating time tonight with the ladies from a book club in Maryland and they were incredible women who loved my book.  It made me feel amazing to hear their questions about the book.

Managing a day job and really wanting to be the best you can becomes a challenge at times. I am so driven but sometimes it really feels like my engine is about to burn out, but I can’t give up now.  At least that’s what I keep telling myself. I pray that God gives me the things to say.

I need to go scream, because if I do it in the house someone will think someone is killing me. That’s how loud I want to scream right now.

Scream for me.

At the end of each year, organically, I start re-evaluating the various relationships in and around me, namely my friends.  This year was no different. I took a hard look at where I am in my life and decided that there were a number of people who weren’t stepping up to the plate. With that, I made a short list and began to eliminate names from my cell phone.

Sometimes making these decisions can be tough, but ultimately, it comes down to YOU and what YOU want to achieve in the coming year.  If you have people in your life who are always talking about doing but showing no action, then it’s up to you to either empower them or move on and make friends with people who are moving forward.

We live in a day and age where being stagnant is unacceptable. Choose to surround yourself with people who are in motion so that if you are every stuck, you can call on someone who can get you out of that place.

An interesting way to look at your friendships is to place a dollar value on them. I know it may sound shallow, but remember it’s just an exercise.

So make a list of your top ten friends and put dollar amounts next to them. I promise you the exercise will be fun.  Tell your friends to do the same.

N.

Every now and then when people ask me how I am able to accomplish certain goals, I break it down by explaining to them my relationship to time.

We all have the same amount of time, however, a good number of us aren’t effective with it’s use. So many people complain that they don’t have enough, but my theory is that we all can get certain things done, we just have to make better efforts and be willing to make sacrifices.

1.  Make a list.  Keep the list at five items.

2.  Measure out how much time you think it’s going to take to accomplish the items on that list.

3.  Be willing to delegate. Often, we feel that we have to do everything on our own and we don’t. If you have an assistant or a trusty friend, ask for help. There is always someone out there who can provide space for you to check off one of the items from your list.

4.  Identify your distractions. One thing I had to become clear about was that I watched way too much television. I call television the dream stealer. I came to the realization that there really was nothing on television that I NEEDED that couldn’t be recorded and watched at another time.

5.  Learn to multitask! I know multitasking isn’t for everyone, but it’s a very useful skill. I have ADD so it works wonders for me to multitask and I get so much done in the course of a particular time span.

6.  Start early. If you get a decent night’s rest, you should start your plans early while your peers are still counting sheep. I made it a point to leave my house an hour earlier than usual just so that I could get to work with an hour to breathe and cross more off my list.

7.  Give yourself credit. So, you may not get to every item on the list, but give yourself a treat for crossing off the ones that you did. Remember without a list, you are just doing ‘stuff’.

Take a moment today and ask yourself… What is my relationship to time?