I spend some time reviewing what I didn’t accomplish — why?  Was it because it was not well defined?  Did my path change?  I need to know what happened so I can correct and get back on track or decide if it was not a true goal.

I also spend some time celebrating all that I did accomplish!

Three questions need to be asked and answered:

1.  What is working?

2.  What isn’t working?

3.  What can I change or what do I need to let go of that is not working?

I have spent 2008 doing a lot of learning about me!  What it is I truly want and really defining and getting clear on what that is.  2009 is going to be my year for implementing all that I have learned.  I intend moving fast and putting a lot of things into action.  I am very excited about 2009 — I hope you are too!

I have begun my New Year’s Day ritual a little early this year — shows you how excited I am!  I can’t wait to get started.

In 2008 I attended:

David Neagle’s — Experience the Reality of Success (ERS) www.experiencethereality.com and Ali Brown’s – Online Success Blueprint Workshop.

These both were very insightful and valuable to me.  At ERS, I learned what is holding me back on achieving my goals.  What I need to do differently — it is about being afraid and doing it anyway –getting out of your comfort zone, so that you can grow!  At Ali Brown’s I learned a step by step process (blueprint) for taking any business idea and researching and launching it.

2009 — I have joined a Mastermind Group — http://www.stefaniehartman.com/circle/ with Stefanie Hartman.  I have been looking for a group that is the right fit for me and I believe I have finally found it!

I am really looking forward to meeting the people she has put together, to help them accomplish their goals, get some fresh ideas on accomplishing mine, and working together to hold each other accountable for implementing our plans!

Are you ready for 2009 to be your best year ever?

Live BIG and Laugh LOTS!
Debbie

I put the roast on the barbecue and set the timer for 30 minutes to check it — in the midst of having champagne and visting I didn’t want to forget about it.  Good thing!

The timer went off and I got up to go check our prime rib — hubby, saying “let me know if you need any help.” 

As I opened the back door onto our porch, I immediately noticed smoke and then saw the flames shooting out of the barbecue!  I ran back into the house and yelled “I need help.”  I heard my family chuckle remembering my husband’s last comment.  “NO, I REALLY NEED HELP!”

I didn’t realize as I ran back out on the porch that my house was also on fire!  The flames were so big coming out of the back of the grill that they were hitting the house…my log house!

As the men came running — they started emptying their beer onto the flames, as my husband got the hose! 

Me — I was yelliing — MY PRIME RIB!!!  PLEASE SAVE MY PRIME RIB!  My house is on fire, the flames are so big they are having a hard time getting to the grill and all I can think is “what am I going to serve all these people for dinner!”

The flames were put out and there lay my once beautiful prime rib covered in about an inch of charcoal.  The men in my family are awesome — they cut off the black stuff — we rinse off the meat with beer, put it in a roasting pan, poured in some beer, and finished cooking it!

It was fabulous!  My grandson said it was the best “Log Cabin” meat he had ever eated!

Moral of the story — Yell FIRE, when there is fire, not help — people tend to come to the rescue faster!

Lessons Learned — beer has many uses: puts out fire, marinates, rinses, and can be consumed as a social beverage!

Oh, and my house — just needs about a 3 x 4 foot area replaced — could have been worse, so this really is no big deal!

I hope your Christmas was as enjoyable and as eventful as ours!

“The Passion Test” helped me to really look at all the things I wanted out of my life and helped me to prioritize which ones were the most important to me.  It is a simple and easy method to identifying your passions and creating the life you want.

“The Four Agreements” is about achieving personal freedom and discovering your authentic self.

1.     Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity.  Say only what you mean.  Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or  to    gossip about others.  Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
 
2.     Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you.  What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.  When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3.     Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.  Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama.  With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4.     Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick.  Under any circumstance, simple do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Using both of these books helped me to begin the process of figuring out what I wanted and set the criteria for my making decisions.   Were my actions, plans, opportunities taking me towards my passions and what I wanted to create in my life or away from it? 

Was my perception of what I thought others would think holding me back?  Was I trusting my inner voice or worrying about how others were going to accept my choices?  Releasing myself from the judgment of others, as well as myself helped me to move forward with achieving my dreams.

I hope you will read both of these books and give me your insights on what you thought and how they helped you in creating the lifestyle you deserve.

Laugh LOTS and Live BIG!
Debbie

But, then again, I heard of people going back to college in their 40’s, 50’s and even 60’s to pursue their dreams, so maybe time wasn’t a pressure factor after all. 

So, I stopped and wondered how many of us make decisions based on how old we are?  What other people may think of us? Or maybe we what we feel others expectations are of us? 

How many times do we make excuses instead of decisions?

Excuses:
I can’t because I am too old?
I can’t because I do not have the time?
I can’t because I do not have the money?
I can’t because……

What I discovered is these are all excuses! In order to break away from the excuses in my life, I needed to release myself from needing the acceptance of others when what I wanted to do was different, the approval of others that my decisions were right, and the fear of things that were holding me back from accomplishing my dreams. I also needed to learn to trust my inner voice.

What excuses are you holding on to? What dreams do you truly want? What fears and beliefs are holding you back from taking action on them?

More thoughts in Part II of How Do You Make Decisions?

Laugh Lots and Live Big!
Debbie

I am not one that looks “backwards,” but moves forward and this is part of the struggle for me — looking back where I was and how I got here.

While I think it is important to look backwards in a manner of self-reflection and gaining perspective, doing so to connect with those feelings of where I was is not something that is easy for me.  But, connecting to those feelings will help me with writing my journey from my heart – not my head!

I am a positive thinker, always see the glass half full (even see it ¾ full) I take action, move forward, but this was a time in my life, that I gave into having a pity party for myself – wallowing in grief, and fighting changes that were out of my control, and learning to let go and be okay with that.

So, the first step in self-discovery is giving yourself permission to go down the wrong road, knowing that sometimes you must do that in order to know which is the right road!  There are no mistakes, only lessons to be learned!

Laugh LOTS and Live BIG!
Debbie

I belong to AssistU community, which is a forum for the graduates of AssistU to share resources, as well as support each other with challenges within our business.  One of these VA’s shared their client was holding an online game called “The Happy, Healthy, Wealthy Game®.” (http://ultimategameoflife.com)

The game is played for 90 days.  There are weekly calls, you have a partner, and you achieve points and the one with the highest points wins. 

You pick three goals – one for each of the areas of Happy, Healthy, and Wealthy®.  You create actions under each one of those goals, committing to at least one action under each area each day – you can commit to more, but if you do not accomplish those actions you lose points. 

Points are earned by accomplishing each action item you committed to; points are doubled if your partner also achieved their commitments.  No points are achieved if you do not do what you committed to or if your partner does not complete theirs.

This game was a great turning point for me.  It helped me to recognize what I was committing to, what I was over committing to, but also learned the why behind my choices.

The calls were about goal setting, creating a foundation for success, conditioning and programming (why we do what we do), the 7 environments of your life, elimination, the power of focus and the law of attraction, and awareness in action.

The processes within this game really helped me to make a shift in my thinking and working through where I was in life and moving forward with – “Feathering my Empty Nest.”

I felt “lost.”  But, how could I be lost?  I still had my husband, my daily life, routine — the only thing different was that my children now lived somewhere else.  

I didn’t know what to do with myself.  Where my house used to always be neat, orderly, and everything ran like a well oiled machine – it was now messy, unorganized, and I just couldn’t get it together.

I was building my Virtual Assistant practice and it was going very well – I poured myself into my work and neglected the house, my husband, and my children.  Well, neglect is really a strong word.  I didn’t neglect them, they just weren’t the first thing I focused on anymore – they were also adjusting, but I was too busy trying to “reinvent” myself to notice.  I was too busy to notice that I had also stopped taking care of myself.  My weight was out of control, I was no longer exercising or even eating healthy – life was starting to fall apart.

I’m not exactly sure the moment I realized life wasn’t working for me anymore, but things were about to change! 

I worked when my oldest son was little for a short period of time, but other than that, I had the privilege of being a “stay at home” mom.  I also had been homeschooling my children for seven years and had three more years to go.

I had gone back to school when my youngest son was around 3.  I completed my Associates Degree in Accounting, and so I decided to check into getting my Bachelor’s Degree.

We live an hour away from the college – who wants to commute that every day?  Plus, I was still homeschooling.  So, this wasn’t an option.  I could wait until they moved out, but I felt I needed something set up and in place before that happened.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle them leaving, and every time I thought about it, I started crying.  Needless to say — I didn’t have a lot of confidence I would be making good decisions or grades after they moved out, so I needed to decide now.   I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence I could made a good decision now either.

I was reading a book by Cheryl Richardson, “Take Time for Your Life.”  She was explaining about Virtual Assistance and AssistU (http://www.assistu.com)  had a training program.  Hmmm, now that was something I could do from home.  Plus, after doing some investigation, I could make more money being a VA than having a 40 hour a week job.  No commute, no office politics, no leaving home, I would be my own boss, and I could even work in my pj’s if I wanted — hmmm, this was really a no brainer decision — no matter what frame of mind I was in.

So, I applied to AssistU and I got in!  For me, this wasn’t just a training course about how to become self-employed as a Virtual Assistance, it was a discovery process.  This was the beginning of my journey to “rediscovering me.”  Who I was, what I liked, and how my experiences growing up and the people I met along the way, all had effected where I was in my life today.

I was about to discover, not only who I am, but who I wanted to be.  I also was about to learn what things I wanted to “let go,” change, and develop.  I was scared and excited all at the same time!

My Aunt Jan told me to prepare for them leaving because even though this is part of life, it is a hard part.  She told me to find something for me that had nothing to do with my children.  It would help me during those really rough days.

But, how do you really prepare for this?  I trusted my Aunt Jan, as she had already gone through this, but what was I going to do for me?  I hadn’t worked outside the home for over 17 years!  I didn’t have a hobby and I knew that I didn’t want to get a job and leave the house for 40 hours a week when there was so little time left to spend with my children.  I was told, this was my time!  Time to do something new!

I thought if I talked about my children moving, helped my oldest son find the perfect apartment, talked about how things would change, really embraced this next season of my life it would be easier and I was accepting this change — or so I thought.

Nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the pure raw emotion that over took me.  I was lost, who was I if not a mom?  Intellectually, I knew I was still a mom, but my role as a mom was changing, plus I no longer knew who I was as a woman.

I don’t think anything really prepares you for the day your children leave, even with hearing that “this too shall pass” and “you are not alone.”  Even though at times this may help to ease the pain, honestly, there will still be those days and those moments that seem unbearable.

It has been 7 years now since my oldest son, Rhys moved out on his own.  My youngest, Chad for the most part is gone.  He does comes home on the weekends from college.  I like to believe it is to see me, but his girlfriend is the first one on his list these days.  My daughter, Heather moved out in-between the boys.  

Feathering Your Empty Nest is my journey of saying good-bye and “letting go” to one season of my life and rediscovering the woman I am.  In sharing my journey, my hope is to help those that are going through this thing they call “Empty Nest Syndrome,” so you do not feel so alone and lost, and to provide guidance and steps to help you find the woman you are!  It can be a wonderful time of your life!