Preparing for 2010

So here is the dawn of 2010...

We are saying goodbye to not only 2009, but the entire decade of the 00's. Besides being 10 years older, how does that make you feel? Do you feel that this decade has just flown by? Are you still somewhat living in a year from this decade and feel out of sorts that time has past you by?

There are a many memories I have of the 00's. It has only been 10 years, but it feels like it's been a lifetime ago. I hardly remember being that kid in 1999 celebrating the turn of the millennium. I was a newlywed of 6 months, and just started an expansion of my recruiting business, and everything couldn't have been better. I was down in San Diego on the turn of the millennium on the beach where we had gotten engaged and it was the perfect celebration.

As the early 00's went by, I was blessed with a lot of success in business, and life in general. I was in my late 20's and it seemed like I was finally coming into my own, and being the rising star that I had awaited my whole life. I was making a lot of money, and although I could appreciate it, I became calloused to it. I began to expect it, and not work hard for it. I lost track of what had gotten me to where I was, and expected everything to simply stay the same while I was in my comfort zone. Looking back in hindsight, it is easy to see all of this, but I was simply blind to it at the time.

The point is, I expected everything to change around me, rather than it be, me making the changes.

When you make the changes in your own life, you control your destiny. Contrarily, when you allow other people to make decisions for you, you have no control of where you are going. -You are simply along for the ride.

Don't get me wrong, there is a time for coasting, but at the start of a new decade, do you really want to coast? I would think that every New Year is important to people for the first 3 weeks. Everyone has this new rejuvenation for the New Year, and they make all their resolutions that generally don't last because they don't change, they expect everything to change for them. And then they get surprised when nothing changes for them. Sound familiar?

Common resolutions include weight loss, quitting smoking, spending more time with family, making more money, working harder, working less... All of these things usually start out well for about the first 3 weeks of the New Year and then fade away quickly.

Why is this?

It's because there was no preparation put into maintaining these goals. You can get most anything done in a month or so on your own, but after that, your body gets tired without feedback, and seeing your goals starting to pay off. -A month just isn't enough time to see results for something that you have been letting go for years, so we lose motivation.

And that's what I lost in the mid 00's.

I was completely devoid of motivation. -And it lasted for years. It was a full time job of trying to get motivated to do anything. In fact, it's still a battle for me. When you get in a rut, it's very hard to see out of it. You get complacent and instead of not liking things, you get used to putting up with them, and simply settle for where you are in life, and that becomes your routine. -We all have routines, and for years, my routine was simply not growing up, and living the life of Peter Pan.

But you pay for it... You always do. Oh, you may think you aren't going to, but it's never free. You pay for it in the future or in some other way, but rest assured, you will pay for it.

So now is the turn of the decade. What can you do to actually prepare for this decade to improve upon the last one? What have you learned in your own personal life that will prepare you for the 2010's? Can you make a list of all the good things and bad things that you want to change, and then incorporate them so that you can utilize your strengths and weaknesses?

Can this truly be a new start for the new and improved "You" for once and for all? Is now the time that you needed, and now you can truly be motivated for it?

Well, if it is...Fail to plan, or Plan to fail. It's just that simple.

And I'm certainly not a planning guy, so I know that I have to plan to make a lot of changes in my life as well. Mainly because I know I won't hold myself accountable to anything unless I write it down as a goal and put in the planning to do it, and consciously make a change to make it come about. And I know this about myself.

Oh, I will make excuses, and tell you a great story of why something never turned out. But in reality, I know it was a lack of planning and commitment on my behalf.

Does this sound eerily similar to your life as well?

Of course it does!! I'm not the only moron out there, we ALL do this!! That's why we are human. We all fall into these routines, and we all deny them. Except on New Year's Eve, and then we become strangely aware of it, right? lol

-Until tomorrow...

I don't want to end by saying "Make this the best year ever" or "Happy New Year to you and your Family" because so many people say that, that it takes genuineness of it.

So I will close by saying, I hope both you and me make the necessary changes, and plan to keep doing them so that we won't ever have to say it again on New Years Eve.

That way, when you are singing Auld Lang Syne at Midnight, you can truly be looking back on your time that year and be happy with very few regrets, because you took control...