The new year is already in full swing, and I have been wondering what resolutions to make. Last year, I started on a life plan for 2007 and beyond. This came at the time of preparing for my rebirth at 50. I went through a process of working out my vision, mission, and values, capturing my dreams in words, determining main life goals, and mapping out results and actions for the year. I also wrote down what I should stop and avoid doing.
All in all, it was a thorough exercise involving my mind, soul, and spirit, and it helped me prioritize my life around three arenas: being true to myself, growing to my potential, and caring and sharing for others. I finished the life plan on April fool’s day, 9 months ago. And not surprisingly, what I wrote still looked fine to me when I reviewed it during the past week.
So what resolutions could I possibly make to add more value to my life? I pondered this question for many days, and today I found an answer that satisfied me. New year resolutions are, of course, about change, and about commitment to action that will achieve the desired results. That requires priority setting, and last year I learned that while I felt that I could do almost anything if I put my mind to it, most certainly I could not do everything I wished!
My list of actions for last year was already focused, yet still long, thereby reflecting my ambitious goals and big dreams. In fact, one of the questions I reflected on this past week was if I shouldn't downsize some of my life dreams and plans to fit better within my constraints, especially those of the obvious financial kind. The more I thought about it, the more sense it seemed to make. In particular, I questioned if I should really pursue large investments in a dream house project in
In fact, I had already started writing resolutions with a view to downsizing into my PDA when, yesterday morning, I came across an inspiring video clip on You Tube that helped me see and choose the opposite direction. In the clip, John and Cynthia Hardy explained how they decided to move on with their lives after spending the last 15 years building up a successful jewelry business, starting in Bali and expanding to
In the message, John and Cynthia said that they felt it was time to pay back for all that Bali had given them so generously over the years. What struck me was that in making their decision, they kept thinking big, which had apparently already become a habit for them. And although I could see that each of their projects would involve substantial investments, it seemed to me that they were not much concerned about constraints. Rather, they exuded a sense of abundance and excitement, and were clearly ready to take risks with some confidence that resources would be attracted to finance whatever it would take, over time.
After watching their clip, I opened my PDA and deleted downsizing from my list. I knew instinctively that I had been on the right path in dreaming to upsize my life in stead. More important than the actual resources at hand was the realization that I can live my life better for myself and others by embracing a sense of abundance and by dropping my all too human fears of scarcity and inadequate resources. In fact, my own lessons learned over the past years came back to tell me to keep expanding, to visualize living forward and realizing my life dreams for the benefit of myself and those around me. I realized that this lesson needs to be revisited every day, and that this New Year’s day and week have been a perfect time to recheck my compass and course.
Photograph: Switches to choose from in the gazebo of the newly completed Villa Agnes in Ubud,
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