Welcome back from vacation season. How are you feeling about saying goodbye to summer? What are you looking forward to this fall?
I must confess to a case of back to school blues this week. Even though I welcome sweater weather and I love the promise of a new notebook, I feel a pang. Have you noticed some leaves have already started to turn?
Summertime invites us to put productivity on the back burner and savour the downtime – without guilt. Summer usually gives all of us “over functioning perfectionists” a reprieve from work expectations. The summer season, by definition, is a licence to lounge more and relax.
I also need to reflect more on my resistance to September this year. I know this fall could bring significant changes for me workwise. Some of these changes will be my choice, and the others will be someone else’s idea.
Working with organizations means dealing with imposed change. My decades of employment and self-employment have taught me that organizational changes don’t have to make sense to me to be happening.
And just because I’m uncomfortable doesn’t mean it is not going to work out well. There will be a silver lining to whatever happens, and it will be my job to find it.
The bottom line is I’ve felt a bit out of control and uncertain about what happens next. I have an overwhelming desire to back up a couple of weeks and hide out in August a while longer.
But it is always in my best interest to stay awake and stay in reality and adapt to it. It is time to embrace whatever is coming up and get into gear.
September means back to business. I need to bring some of the summer attitudes into my fall routine. Like many of you (probably most of you) I’m a woman who feels the pressure to do and feel like what I’ve accomplished is “enough.” This tension around our work and life balance is a constant theme in so many of our lives.
It is time to weigh in on how I’d like the next months to unfold and commit to changing what I can. A sure-fire way to do this is pausing to notice what is in my sphere of influence. It is time to reflect on my work and life experience and create a vision for this final lap of 2018.
I need some time to focus and prepare for the season change. I feel like I’m at the end of a cycle and getting ready for a new chapter in my work and life. We can spend a lot of time in reflection at the end of the year when it is too late to change it.
How do I want to finish the year and make the next four months count? What about you? What are you looking forward to this fall? What do you need to recommit to and embrace in your work and personal life to finish 2018 strong?
Why not take some time this weekend and put on your favourite fall sweater and make a date with yourself? I will be doing the same. With our pumpkin spice lattes (or equivalent) in hand, let’s all enjoy 30 minutes of quiet time.
Create the space in your life to answer questions that will help you create and shape your vision for your next four months. Write your answers in the PRESENT tense and emotionally connect to what you’re envisioning.
Notice some hope surge within you while you write and reflect and enjoy it. Think about who else will benefit from you showing up as your best. Create the motivation you need to take your next steps to finish 2018 strong.
Get SPECIFIC and write down your responses to these questions.
1. How do I want my life to be in for months’ time?
i) Personal Life, Home and Family
ii) Career, Work and Business Life
iii) Health and Well-being
IV) Finances
v) Community, Friendships
vi) Spiritual and Learning
vii) Write anything else that you perhaps haven’t mentioned yet here
2. Who do you need to BE to achieve this? I need to be someone who is…….
3. If there was one important CHANGE you could make over the next four months, what would it be?
4. My THEME for the next four months of 2018 is: _________________________________________________
If you care to share what you came up with, I’d love to hear from you!
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