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by Harriett Simon Salinger
Fuel for your business
It’s December again, so it’s natural to be thinking about what you did and did not do
in 2002. While this may not be the end of your fiscal year, I know you are thinking about money. You
are also considering what to change next year, what you want in your life, and how you will get
there. Perhaps you are circling around the same corral as last year. Is this the time to move
to a more spacious home with fewer self-imposed limitations in your life?
Are you complete?
We often talk about being free of unfinished business and energy drains in our lives. Unfinished
business is a huge drain. Year-end is a good time to assess what needs to be finished either by
action or declaration. I am not sure if we are ever fully complete — except when we leave
this dimension — but why not go for a big house cleaning
this month? Do you see the value?
Never make resolutions!
Promise me you’ll forget about making New Year’s resolutions. Make New Year’s
goals and New
Year’s intentions. But resolutions? No. A resolution is resolving
against a thing or a behavior.
This only causes the mind to focus on what is being resolved against. For example, if you resolve
“I will never eat ice cream,” your mind will be glued to ice cream. Instead, say “I am a
healthy eater.” Get it?
No more excuses
As humans, we are wonderful and complex beings. Somewhere at our very core, however, we have a saboteur. Once we
identify this saboteur, there really are no more excuses for not playing full out in our lives.
My personal belief — and the focus of my work — is to support human beings to fully live their
abilities and gifts. Is 2003 the year for you to do this?
Check out Fuel cells for tips on how to set
your intentions for 2003.
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Fuel cells
Let’s make a list
First, open a fresh page in your word processing program. Then, in no special order, make a list of
everything — and I mean everything — that has changed for you in 2002. Try to list at least
100 items or more. This could be as fundamental as having a new hairstyle, or as huge as a new home. No
item on your list is any more important than another. This is not an exercise of success, but one of
really seeing what the year was like. You will be amazed as you see your list grow.
Now that you have the list, take time to say, “Wow!” We easily dismiss many aspects of our lives.
In doing so we discount ourselves.
- Ask yourself what “success” means
How do you know you are successful? It may be the smell of your new car.
It may be experiencing love in your life daily. There is no right answer. This
is your expression of success.
- Set your intentions for 2003
Whether you call them goals or intentions, we are talking about what you desire most.
I think of intentions as that place where our will and spirit intersect. Make this real,
not fluffy. Your goals/intentions have to belong to you, not someone else. Talk about your
goals/intentions with a friend or “goal” buddy. Ask each other challenging
questions. Less is more on this one.
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Fuel for your soul
Consider these words of wisdom:
“Practice isn't about achieving a goal. It's not a means to pole-vault over suffering. Practice
is my way of looking life in the face and saying yes to all its disparate gifts. Practice keeps me
awake when I would sleep, and reminds me it's the journey, unfolding in this very moment; it's the
journey that reveals the truth, and not the destination.”
— The Fruits of Practice by Danna Faulds (from the book “Poems from the Heart of Yoga
- Go In and In”)
“She (the other) cannot be the reason you are not who you want to be!”
— author unknown
“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart.
Try to love the questions themselves.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answers.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
“To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions (no excuses!)”
— William James
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