Is it really almost Thanksgiving again?  I used to dread this holiday.  Oh, I love turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie, but it is also the beginning of the end of the year.  And that would bring the realization that I was still in the same old rut.

 Same old boring work…..same old miserable marriage…..same old place where I didn’t belong.

 

But it’s so hard to make changes to life. And it’s scary.  And there are so many things to consider. And there is never enough time to just be quiet and think about it all. 

 Have you been there?         Are you there now?       What are you doing about it?

Let me tell you what I did.  I suddenly knew that I just couldn’t keep getting up every day in that house, in that town, to go to that office.  I took off on a two week vacation much to everyone’s surprise. I was a mother of two teenagers, an owner of a business, and an involved member of the community. 

I just left and went to a family summer home by myself. I spent my days on the shore of the lake, on a sailboat, and walking miles through the countryside thinking. Sometimes I would speak my thoughts aloud to myself, to the animals, to the wind.  Sometimes I screamed at the heavens.

I bought a notebook and started writing down all my feelings.  The frustrations, resentments, disappointments, lost dreams and anger came spilling out.  Then a funny thing happened. Once I had emptied my bad feelings onto those pages the courageous, rational and independent person I used to be started to emerge. I remembered, and believed, that I was a smart, capable and caring woman who had a lot to offer the world.

By the time I left, I had made up my mind my life would be different. I identified five areas of conflict that I needed to work on. These were not small things. They were large challenges, and I knew I could not fix them overnight, but I went home with a new resolve to expand and grow. That year (1997) I started to climb out of my rut. 

I’m writing this now because I recently found that notebook.  I actually had forgotten about it. I’ve shredded most of it.  Those days are long gone and I’ve always believed that we have to look forward, never back. But I was startled by the page with the five challenges on it.

I had never looked at it again, but over the course of the past 10 years, I have accomplished every one of them.  It took me 2 years to resolve the business ownership problems (I sold out to my partner); it took another 4 to decide that the marriage could not be saved (I left); it took another 3 to move to the place where I belong (back home to PA); and another year after that to finally launch Life and Work By Design (my dream work).

So what is the moral of the story?  Positive change takes determination, planning, self understanding and time. Whatever it is you are struggling to change, you can do it too. You can climb out of your rut a little bit at a time. Make this year different.

            make the time…..take the time…. stop losing time!

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