Lynne's Three Life Lessons for the New Year

 

 

Kent Julian, a fabulous speaker and friend, recently asked a question on his blog;  What would you say to help people live into their bigger story?   I love this question!  It recognizes that we are all living a story for others whether we mean to or not.  Secondly, it acknowledges that we have a large measure of control over that story.  Of course, we can't engineer all the circumstances of our lives.  We don't choose our families and we certainly don't have control over other's choices.  However, we can determine to a large extent our reaction to the circumstances of our lives.  Here are my three life lessons that steer my course and I believe help me live into my bigger life story.

Live Life on Purpose 

So often people let life happen rather than making it happen.  This has been the greatest lesson I've learned.  My early years were spent wishing, waiting and wondering if I'd be able to accomplish my dreams.  I thought that the stars had to align, the universe had to  be generous and the right people had to wander into my life.  I gave away my power to anyone and everyone.  I didn't set goals and I certainly didn't create an action plan to make my dreams reality.  I had an exhaustive to-do-list and I was very busy but without any clear direction.  Living life intentionally has changed my focus and my life.

Look for the Opportunity in Everything 

Living intentionally doesn't mean that I don't face opposition, failure and tragic circumstances.  Of course my life, like yours, has events and relationships that are discouraging and disappointing.  Sometimes I can make changes that improve the situation.  Sometimes I can't.  But I can say that if I look hard enough there is always an opportunity in the midst of it all.  Maybe it means that I change my perspective.  Maybe it means that I learn something that I can share with someone else who is going through a similar concern.  Always it means that I have grown and changed in someway for the better.

Learn Something New Everyday

There have been times in my life when I tended to cling to the same routine, the same habits and the same environment.  My goal was to feel comfortable and keep the status quo.  Being open to learning means being open to change.  It means moving beyond your comfort zone into new territory.  This is true in simple things as well as in the bigger events in my life.  Here's a recent example of my being resistant to change and learning.  I've driven the same way to work for 20+ years.  It involves traveling down a winding, dark two way road before the sun is up.  It is fine early in the school year, but once we move into the winter months and the weather involves rain, fog and even occasionally, snow the drive in the dark is treacherous.  Nevertheless I persisted in traveling the same road believing that to change and drive on the expressway to  my work would be even worse.  This year when my arrival time was made even earlier, I finally decided to try it one day and see if the drive was better.  Guess what?  It is a huge improvement!!  Why did it take me so long to try something that was so simple?  It was an unwillingness to learn and try something new.  Learning something new is an ongoing challenge but I continue to look for ways to learn and change even though it means doing things that are uncomfortable.

What about you?  What advice would you give to others to help them live their bigger life story?

Want to spend an entire day learning to live intentionally, finding your calling and making it a reality?  Join us for the Called Woman Conference-The Reinvention Convention 2014:   www.acalledwoman.com

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Life Lessons From The Garden: Last Year's Garbage Can Be This Year's Harvest

I gardened some last year but my youngest daughter Hayley gardened more.  She was really into it.  She researched the best plants, bought organic seeds, built raised boxes for the plants, started them with a grow light inside and wound up with a veritable forest of tomato plants.  There were so many tomato plants and so many tomatoes I am still using frozen packets of tomatoes now a year later.  Because there were so many tomatoes some of them weren't even picked and rotted on the plants falling to the ground.

This year, Hayley's living in Kentucky so I'm on my own with the garden again and I'm doing okay but I can't say I've even come close to the prolific garden of tomatoes, she produced last summer.  I bought my tomato plants already rooted, planted and watered them and they're doing fine.  Here's the really interesting part of this story.  In the raised beds where Hayley planted tomatoes last year I've had several tomato plants simply volunteer.  They grew in a bed where I planted lettuce originally and when I saw them sprouting I wasn't sure if they'd survive.  However I've staked them up and nurtured them a bit and amazingly enough it looks like I will have tomatoes from last year's garbage.

There's a lesson in this for me.  Last year's garbage can become this year's harvest.  Seems obvious in gardening but I have found it to be a lesson in life as well.  Some of the most difficult times in my life have been a struggle to survive.  But in the midst of surviving, I've found that I can use what I've experienced and actually thrive later. I can site lessons learned, relationships renewed, deepened or established. I have learned things that can later become support for and shared with others. The last two years have been  particularly painful years for me in terms of family. I've experienced the death of my mother and stepfather and broken relationships.  Has anything good come out of this?  Although it was initially hard to see there has.  I have forged new relationships, strengthened old ones and trimmed toxic relationships from my life.  In addition to that I've written a book about finding and living out your calling.  I've definitely made a message out of the mess.  In the midst of adversity, I have learned to ask myself, "Where's the opportunity in this?"

What about you is there a message in the mess of your life?  What is the opportunity that may now be available to you?

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