It is the second week of November and we have a total of eight weeks left in 2011. My, what a year it has been! Many of you have already started with your holiday plans. What parties are we going to this year? Are there donations that have to be made? Do we have money in the budget to buy things at the charity holiday parties and auction drives? What about taking care of gifts on our friends and family list? So many things we start to think about.
I started my day off today on a plane. Gwynne and I are headed to Milwaukee to visit the Harley-Davidson museum. But our weekend was spent, as usual, with some friends as we here in Texas enjoyed our extra hour to play board games and enjoy good company. The game we played was the here-and-now version of Monopoly. Those playing with us got to see the capitalistic Tim as I worked to control the board, always wanting a better deal than was offered. But I ended up losing when we counted up because of my one fatal landing on Fenway Park (Park Place, in the old version) with extensive improvements. Still, the game got me to thinking this week about a few things we’ve talked about in this blog over the past year. With the help of my partner, I’ve decided to have a theme this week of “One More Push Before the Year is Done.”
Next week, I will be speaking at an event here in the Dallas area. B-Harmony is a local networking event that connects people with games and activities to see if you like the people before you do business with them. We have a theme this month of “It’s All in the Cards” and my speech will be titled “Goals: the Future is Now.” This coordinates with the launch of our newest program about Life Change.
To start out our Monday, let’s look at what we are going to do with the next eight weeks that are left in 2011, then we will move on to 2012. I want to mention a few other posts from this year as we make these next few weeks count in our life.
1. Do you still have hope? Many people came to read this blog back in the end of March. The week started with my dad’s story, then a single mom, an abused woman, a dreamer who failed, and a cancer survivor. All of them still had hope in their lives. As our year is not over, we still need to have hope in our dreams and goals for 2011. Yes we might fail at them, but we get up, use the lessons from what didn’t work and reset our goals for next year. Never let the hope die.
2. Make a clean sweep. As mentioned above, we learn from what did not work and we use hope not only to reset the goals but to clean out those things that are not working. If you already know that goal you will not get done this year, it’s time to set up next year if it’s still important to you. Clean out what is not working and start the set-up of next year to make it work then.
3. Know your limits. As we talked about back in April, we sometimes place limits on ourselves and as a result you may have found in the past 10 months that things may not have worked the way that you have been trying to get them done. Have you looked at all the options? Maybe as we finish the year out you might want to see if you could make an adjustment to get things done another way. After all, how old are you? Do you know your limits? Have you been pushing past them with no success? Maybe a change is in order to bring success.
4. Rainy days. I told this story over the summer while traveling on Route 66 and facing several days of pouring rain on my way home. Well, we did not have much rain back here in Dallas this year, but we should still be prepared for them. Last week I took one day to head up to Texarkana for our Harley passports that we are working on. I left the house that day knowing my total miles would be about 300 for the day. I knew my route, and after all we haven’t had much rain this year. Well I got stuck in the rain 70 miles from home and had no rain gear with me. It also brought in a cold front and I ended up coming home after dark so it was cold. I did have a warmer coat on the bike and was able to dress warm to deal with the spots of wet for my ride home. So always be ready for the unexpected; into our lives some rain will fall from time to time – even in a drought. Be ready for lots of rain if you are trying to finish up many things in a short amount of time.
5. Purpose. Remember that if you are alive, you still have a purpose on this earth. Last week, we at the Panther Creek Harley group said goodbye to a wonderful member who we lost in a motorcycle crash. We heard the stories at his memorial service of all the lives he had touched, how two years earlier he lost his wife to cancer. Well, he is gone but we still have a purpose to share. No matter what yours is, now is the time to find out and work on it. As the title says above “The Future is Now.” We are only guaranteed this very moment, not tomorrow, and yesterday is gone so live your purpose now. One of the big things this year was from the radio preacher who said the world was going to end. First he said in May; then when it didn’t happen he gave another date in October. Well we are still here, so what’s your purpose?
We will cover more this week as we make plans to give 2011 one final push. So see you tomorrow. This is Tim Gillette, The Rocker Life Coach. It’s time to live your dream, to love what you do and those you share life with. Let’s make 2011 count and become the RockStar in our world.
