Thank Goodness It's Monday #384

THE 30-DAY COUNTDOWN

IS UNDERWAY

  

My old-school paper pocket planner has that feature that shows the number of days past/days remaining in the calendar year for each date. And, according to it, we’ve got 35 days left to accomplish all those items we detailed in our New Year’s Eve 2011 list of resolutions for 2012.

 

So let me ask –

How are you doing? Have you made major headway on making all those lofty 2012 goals a reality?

I’m going to be right out there and confess that, at this point in the fourth quarter of 2012, I am not eleven-twelfths of the way through all the things on my made-last-December/January list. 

Not even close. 

Sure, I’ve knocked off items. But not nearly all of them. 

And, I can see clearly now that there’s not a chance I’m going to wrap up but one or two of the biggest ones that remain in the 35-days-including-weekends-and-holidays ahead.

And now I’m going to tell you what I’d wager you’ll hear from no other self-improvement blog/chat/whatever:

That’s great news! Depending on the time of day you’re reading this, between now and the beginning of 2013, you have roughly 840 hours to devote to determining how you will memorialize 2012 and how you lay the groundwork that determines how 2013 will evolve.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Begin now to chart your course to the eventful days ahead with a positive mental attitude. Don’t be overly concerned with what didn’t or won’t get accomplished.  Remember what transpired thus far this year – good, bad, and stops between -- as part of a worthwhile, formative, learning process. 

No SuperStorm Sandy excuses. No “Back in February there was that family thing …” Or, “Well, last summer I couldn’t …” Or, “With all the pre-election run up clients just wouldn’t commit …” Or …

Or … OR… OR….

That’s all behind us now.

Don’t look back. Don’t mope and fret the days away in this 30-day countdown period.

 

Let the successes of the 331 days gone by guide your thinking, planning and actions. Instead of allowing your current 2012 Goal Achievement shortfall to distract and discourage you between now and calendar year end, fire up the positive self talk.

Sure the looming year-end is significant. But the year’s end is also an artificial thing. There’s no particular magic in 365 days divided into the common, civilly accepted 12 Gregorian months. 

Query: If, in the Latin that’s at the root of so much of our language, “septimus” indicates 7th and “octo” means 8, “novem” 9 and “decem” 10, why are the months of the final stretch of the year linked to those designations – September, through December – the 9^th through 12^th months of the year?

Answer: Their number rank IS right in the “old” Roman calendar of 304 days spread over 10 months (the Calendar of Romulus), which began with the Spring equinox in Martius, (now March) named for Mars, the god of war. 

And that’s exactly the point.

A countdown to some deadline can BEGIN at any time.

And END at any time. 

December 31, 2012 can be a significant deadline only if you want it or allow it to be. 

Even the IRS allows calendar-year taxpayers to make decisions and take actions that impact a taxpaying year after the days of that year have become history. 

TGIM Challenge: Why should you be more demanding on yourself for most things?

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Don’t feel pressured to make this 30-day countdown period any more significant than it needs to be. Set goals for the future, sure. But live and do your work in the present.

You have roughly 840 hours left in 2012. 

• Does that seem like too little?
• Or a lot?

Don’t be driven to distraction and wrong action by a self-imposed need to get done by a date certain some idea that seemed sensible nearly eleven months in the past but deserves a different priority now.

Only one thing is for sure: The moment you’re certain things won’t change, they will. Because things always change. 

Just thinking about change changes things. And so, having thought about it, maybe you now realize how the year-end goals that you set nearly a year ago may have revised, reformed, and evolved so that, perhaps, they are not so great a priority now. 

Your job right now is to get on with what matters most right now. 

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that you lose track of what’s behind you. You do not have permission to quit trying just because the road turned out to be longer, harder, steeper than you initially expected. 

Good goals remain good goals. And --

Goals not accomplished by a deadline matter. But deadlines can often be adjusted. As a student of self improvement you know there will be setbacks as well as successes and that you can best prepare for each by a process of continuous learning. 

The thing you absolutely don’t want to do is let delayed or postponed or dropped goals from months ago discourage you from the very vital and worthwhile process of having forward-looking goals today and plotting a path to accomplishing them.

So, in the time you have remaining to you in 2012 – 1,512,000 seconds, give or take – what are you going to do? 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: I’m looking forward to taking some part of that time to plot out my short- and longer-term business, financial, personal, health and spiritual goals for the month and fitting them to my plans for the years (yes, years – plural) ahead. And I’ll give some time each and every day to evaluate and revise how I’m moving forward on making those goals a reality.

There. Got this TGIM done in time to get it to you today. Accomplished that.

Now on to meeting other deadlines.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

 

P.S.  “Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” Hal Borland (1900 - 1978) said that. He was an American novelist and journalist who called much of his non-fiction newspaper work “outdoor editorials.”