Take Control Of Your Life TODAY— As Told By A Life Coach

If you were the event planner of your life, what would you set up? What past or present situations could've turned out better if you'd planned them out from start to finish? What present or future intentions and goals need more clarity before you proceed? Ponder as I tell my story.

Sometimes it's hard to tell when enough is enough. I'm at a restaurant, and the food tastes so good I keep eating even when I'm no longer hungry. I'm on an outing and we keep walking and talking and get home well after sunset. The papers on my desk take over like blackberry vines or morning glories, and I wonder if digging will suffice or if I'll need to excavate.

I participate in an Easter egg hunt and forget what happens when I eat a lot of candy all at once. I send out a flurry of emails and then lose track of who I'm supposed to follow up with when, partly because I let myself get distracted with all the other things I hear, see and wonder about.

Is there a time to call it quits, to say "Enough is enough"? Or can I really indulge myself like a kid on Christmas morning? What criteria do I go by? What feels good? What I can get away with without having to buy a larger wardrobe or hire a secretary? Is it about living on the edge, and daring fate to wrestle me to the ground?

Don't I get any control over the late bus I need to catch, the work I lose when my computer crashes, the lack of chemistry when everything else is right with the man I'm seeing? Well, obviously, though I do have control over my choices, I sure don't have much say about whether I'll be in an accident, if I'll be laid off or when my stocks will lose value. Is it all a crap shoot? Well, hardly.

What stands between me, a flat belly, a cleared desk and more time to lay back with a book or a daydream? I suspect it all comes down to clarity, mentored by commitment — right now. My friends would say "now" has been a couple decades long, I seem to be clear mainly on my love of variety, exploring and discovering the Internet. I have no problem telling my world about the findings but I'm likely to leave those boxes of information unsorted and therefore unhelpful to myself or the world.

To know that they're "here somewhere" doesn't give the data a chance to become useful knowledge.

How is clarity operating for me here? Well, as long as the doer, which is the part of myself I probably most identify with, is in charge, I'll probably keep on churning out new websites to explore, various markets for my coaching, alternative destinations for weekend outings and yet more self-help books as I search for ... what?

The practice of voice dialog would suggests that I get in touch with my Aware Ego and make my choices from that non-judgmental, objective place rather than from my doer. I agree that would be wiser. Sometimes, however, I am unconscious of the fact that I haven't just drifted into doing, but have landed and parked there for the duration. My Aware Ego, the Self I want to identify with, is like a flag person slowing me down for a barrier, but that self cannot help me if I don't notice the flag.

So clarity comes nipping at my heels again and barks till I acknowledge why she's yipping at me. That herding dog. clarity, knows that if I keep heading north and then detour west and back south, that I'll never get to the destination I'd earlier set for myself.

Now I can change my mind about where I want to end up, but do I want to head back over the same territory I just covered?

What if I took extra planning time to scope out all the rivers to be crossed, the mountains to contend with and the mosquitoes to defend against? Would the lack of surprises keep me from enjoying the variety I so crave?

I can't bear to be bored — I don't want to miss out on good things; I'm more of a one week scout checking the trail ahead than a one year explorer taming the new land. Part of the truth for me is that I haven't come to clarity, probably because I give mixed messages to that heel nipper, about short term versus long term destinations. And so I certainly can't make a focused commitment. I make commitments all the time, and I follow through on most of them. But they're discrete and separate, like items on a grocery list.

What would it be like to be the event planner of my life? To revolve the activities and experiences around a common theme? I want balance, so that I have time for my granddaughter, my coaching, outings, reading, journaling, breakfast on the deck, keeping on track with my budget, exploring new web sites and all the things that bring me joy and pleasure.

What might a common theme be? I few years back I made a one week commitment , which was a long one for me, to completion. I agreed with my coach that for the next week I would finish each thing I started before I went to the next thing. If I feared I'd forget, I made a note. One consequence of that was that I wouldn't lose as much if the computer froze up.

I would prove to myself that I could focus! And I'd have the "new experience" of a whole week of completions. When I visited my brother in LA the next week, I asked his support in staying with one subject instead of flitting back and forth. It was a good experiment. I've engaged in many experiments since. I remind myself to just notice and don't judge.

I am so very curious what your common theme might be. What "Being or Doing" activity would be an interesting experiment for you for a week? If you felt like it, might you choose to read Hal & Sidra Stone's books on Voice Dialog? Might you do something each day this next week to modify a habit that has almost become unconscious, like mine of doing many things at once.

This past week, whenever I ate, I did only that. I didn't add TV, didn't bring food back to the computer, didn't talk on the phone. If someone was there to share the meal, we talked. If not, I turned meal time over to my daydreamer. It's a new habit I very much like. What might you discover about a new way of "Being or Doing?"

I’m curious. I'd be pleased to offer you a complimentary 30-minute coaching call to explore your road to clarity in any area of your life. See more at Communication Coaching. Have fun on the way to Clarity!