"LAST CALL!"

What happened to 2013? Where did it go?  It's that time again.  We are smack-dab in the middle of the last quarter of the year.  If you are just beginning to figure out what you want to do with 2014, you're kinda late.  Me too.  Like Michael Jackson, "You Are Not Alone."  I am here with you.

The Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC

I'm just starting to really think about next year.  How can I bring order out of what I am currently undertaking so that I can begin the new year with some kind of focused, well-contemplated effort?  It's funny, but most people don't get into the full swing of a new year until about March or April, at least in the US.  We're like crocuses.  We pop our heads up above the frost in February or March, but we don't really resonate as the miraculous proof that winter has passed unless some observant person takes note.  By then, we've lost the hibernation season as a time to reestablish our goals and priorities for the upcoming year. Certainly, a new year is an arbitrary point in time to reassess things, but most people do it then.  It's like a group consciousness.  Everyone is thinking about it at the same time--except maybe Jewish people and the Chinese.  They get a jump on the proceedings with a thousand-year head start, at least!

Procrastination can take on many guises.  Waiting until the last week of the year to figure out what's gonna happen next is a colossal capitulation to the vagaries of chance!  Our ability to influence outcomes is so limited anyway, why not do all we can to chart a course for the future?  On the other hand (said the Libra), I've come across two or three five-year plans that I painstakingly mapped out at different points in my maturation process.  They are all hauntingly similar--and I did not keep a single one of them in front of me as I went about my year.  Shewt.  Looks like all that work was for naught, for real.  Maybe not.  I hope that the process itself gave me some needed direction.  Looking back, it seems like busywork to me, but like a seedling, a bunch of stuff happens below-ground before it pokes its vulnerable head above the earth and into the light of day.

One of the things self-starters do so well is build accountability features into their life-plans.  They tell somebody what they're gonna do, and give that person or group permission to call them out when old patterns or habits begin to sabotage outcomes or implode enthusiasm
 

Comfort zones are comfortable until they widen out into a rut, or erode so deeply into our motivation as to become THE HOLE.  

The quickest way out of such self-inflicted ennui is calamity.  Nothing feels worse than to find yourself in the midst of an uproar that you KNOW could have been avoided.  Your hateful mind will take you accurately and unerringly back along the chain of events that precipitated the current mess, and show you every circumstance, situation, or scenario in which you zigged when you ought to have zagged.  We can let these shortcomings become the on-ramp to depression and defeat, or we can take a hard look at our personal culpability and do better.  You gain the respect of others when they see you doing this.  More than one person has come to me and admitted that part of the reason they were able to persevere through The Great Recession was because they knew I was getting by on far, far less than they.  "If she can do without it, so can I!" was the mantra of one of my very best friends, whose landscaping jobs simply evaporated during that time--leaving him with a thousand-dollar drop in his monthly earnings.  I'd no idea he was making so much money cutting folks' grass! He's now in the succumbing stages of lung cancer.  He was a smoker when I met him thirty years ago, and knowing that his life is winding down motivates me to establish myself.  I don't want him worrying about what's gonna happen to me when he isn't around to bail me out anymore.  The kindest thing I can do for Ellis is to get my house in order.  NOW is the time to make that happen.

I want to be in Napoleon Hill's "Massive Action" mode when Spring 2014 arrives.

These are FIVE GOALS that I have set for 2014:

1. Get a bank account

2. Connect that account to PayPal

3. Focus this blog on fundraising

4. Establish a viable online revenue stream

5. Have Malachi's trip paid in full by March 30, 2014

Feel free to hold me to account regarding these five things. 

The completion date for items 1, 2, and 3 is January 31, 2014.  Number four starts right now.

It's tough to admit to The Plus that I do not have a bank account, but the fees to keep my cash trickle in a bank became prohibitive in 2008.  I "pay as I go," and I'm a chick who hustles with all her clothes on, but now it's time to hold myself to a higher standard.  

If you want to come out of the closet with your most fearfully un-articulated goal, I'll be the first one to reach in and drag you out from beneath your self-inflicted clutter!  

Just let me know.

Thanks for taking the time to read this blog.

#FriendsofMalachiMaxwellGlass