March Forth!
 In Get Organized, Life Management, Managing Priorities, Time Management
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About ten years ago I was talking with someone at a business luncheon, and at the end of our conversation he wished me a Happy March 4th. I considered this to be a bit odd at the time, but I didn’t give it much more thought. A couple days later — on March 4th — I received a greeting card from him. The cover of the card contained a picture of a beautiful waterfall. The inside of the card read:

“Thunderous and powerful, yet oh so beautiful. May your power within thunder out, as you march forth and realize all your dreams. Happy March 4th!“

It wasn’t until I received his card that I caught the literary ploy.

The first full week in March is National Procrastination Week. Although you don’t need to wait until March 4th or National Procrastination Week to march forth with your goals and intentions, this week provides a great reminder to get moving with whatever you care about most in your life.

Five Obstacles to Following Your Dreams

What are you passionate about that is not getting the attention it deserves? If you are not currently living the life of your dreams, which of these five reasons do you most relate to?

  1. You don’t really know what you want, so you just “get by” each day, doing whatever is necessary to pay the bills. If you are living for your time off (evenings, weekends, holidays), this may be you. People who do what they love look forward to going to work, as well as having free time.
  1. You are operating under someone else’s definition of success, which does not match yours. Most often, this is a result of something that was passed down from a parent or another close relative whom you don’t want to disappoint. I recall a friend who went to medical school because his father was a doctor and he expected his son to follow in his footsteps. Although he has been a competent doctor for 25 years, he has never felt fulfilled by his work. Once he spent the time and money to complete his medical education, he decided there was no turning back.
  1. You know what you want, but fear of the unknown or limiting beliefs hold you back or create obstacles to your success. I know so many people who have opted for career tracks because they didn’t believe they could support themselves doing what they truly loved doing. Some have found ways to do what they love AND make a living. Others have found ways to express their passions through hobbies or volunteer work.
  1. You know what you want, but you don’t know how to get it. You aren’t sure what steps to take, so you do nothing. If you ask yourself how to get from here to there, and you don’t know the answer, it can stop you dead in your tracks. The key here is this:  instead of asking HOW, ask WHAT.  “WHAT is one thing I can do today that will help me move in the direction I want to go?” Perhaps you can do a Google search for ideas about next steps to take, or have a conversation with someone who can offer you sound advice based on their own experiences.
  1. You know what you need to do, but you don’t have enough time to fit one more thing into your busy life. This is a very common excuse for staying stuck. If time is an issue, ask yourself what you can say no to that is not as important. For example, the average person in Western culture spends several hours a day watching TV. What would happen if you devoted one hour a day working toward what you want, in lieu of watching TV for that hour? That creates seven hours a week that you can repurpose!  I know someone who loves to watch TV to unwind, and she also wants to improve her cardio fitness and lose weight. She has made an agreement with herself that she can watch TV only when she is on the treadmill.

Once you’ve identified the primary obstacle(s) above, there’s another key ingredient to your success.

In my blog last week, Nine Environments that Weave the Fabric of Your Life, I shared the importance of paying attention to all nine of your environments, which play a huge role in your success or failure.

Your environments affect your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You cannot change one environment without it affecting other environments. Once you design your environments, you can delegate your success to the environments you’ve created! These environments help you set up systems that will reap great rewards for a lifetime.

How it All Works Together

Some of my clients initially contact me because they want to upgrade their physical environment by decluttering and getting organized. How would that affect the other eight environments in the Nine Environments of You model?

I’ll share the story of one of my clients (I’ll call her Martha) to exemplify how this domino effect works…

Physical environment: Martha is a small business owner who works from a very cluttered home office. Her desk is piled high with papers, and she does not have a good filing system to manage the flow and storage of important information. Her paper piles have increasingly grown out of control. Recently, Martha was not able to find some important documents she needed to complete projects for several of her clients. These clients got frustrated because things slipped through the cracks and deadlines were not met. (If it sounds like I just described your office, please register for my free Buried in Paper webinar and learn how to overcome the paper pile-up challenge.)

Financial: Some of Martha’s best clients took their business elsewhere, because they didn’t feel like she valued their work enough to manage it carefully. Her revenues dropped, and she started to panic. (If you can relate, you’re invited to my free Managing Priorities webinar, where you’ll learn a process to help you manage competing personal and professional priorities.)

Network: Martha’s last client to leave her was also a great referral source. He started referring others to the new person he’s working with. Although Martha had always enjoyed a consistent flow of referrals to maintain her thriving business, she missed the last five networking meetings that she used to attend weekly–a great source for her referrals.

Relationships: In an effort to clean up the office and find some important information that was lost in piles, Martha moved some things out of her home office and started sorting her piles on the dining room table. Now there’s no place for the family to have dinner together. She has also lined the hallway with some boxes and bags of papers. Martha’s husband has been grumpy and short-fused with her recently. Although he has not directly addressed the issue, Martha can tell he’s annoyed that her papers have started taking over space in the family living quarters.

Spiritual: Martha has been feeling a great disconnect with what gives her life meaning.

Self: Martha is really good at what she does and she used to enjoy her work. Lately she has felt overwhelmed, depressed and discouraged, with no energy for doing what used to come naturally to her.

Body: With added pressure to work harder to replace the clients she lost, Martha stopped going to the gym for her regular workouts. She’s also skipping lunch and overeating late at night. She’s having trouble sleeping because she is worried about finances, as well as the growing discord with her husband and kids.

Nature: Martha used to enjoy sitting at her desk and feasting her eyes on their beautiful back yard, but lately she has kept her nose to the grindstone and hardly ever looks up to notice what’s going on outside.

Memetic: Here’s a snapshot of Martha’s current self-talk: “I can’t do anything right. I’ll never be organized. How can I run a successful business in this mess?”

Martha’s story above demonstrates how all nine environments are connected, and why it’s so important to pay attention to each one of them. The good news is that when you make upgrades to one environment, it affects the others in a positive way, too.

Take Action Challenge

As you review the nine environments listed above:

  1. Identify which environments are causing the greatest discomfort for you right now.
  1. What specific actions will you take to begin upgrading those environments, starting today?
  1. Schedule time to follow through with the actions that you’ve just identified.

If you’d like a fresh perspective– someone to help you design the balanced life you want by aligning your vision, priorities, and actions—let’s schedule a no-cost, no-pressure Discovery Call today.

For a deeper dive into all nine environments, please check out my previous blogs on each of the Nine Environments:

Additional Resources:

Life Architect – Creating Blueprints for Purposeful & Productive Lives

Kathy@OrgCoach.net
www.OrgCoach.net

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