A New Year, A New Path - The Path of Love

This is my year of deep change, both personally and professionally.

The path I choose to pursue is the path of Love. This is not a new pursuit for me. It is my oldest and deepest longing to find, keep, give, receive, live and share Love in all its forms - especially in the form of a mate relationship.

I am no longer young. But neither am I past the point of no return. I believe this: We can find love - and love can find us - at any age.

It is my intention [and this is way beyond a "resolution"] to begin a lasting, joyful, right-in-every-way mate relationship this year - 2011. This is my personal path.

It is also my intention to develop experience and expertise in guiding others along this path, through writing, coaching, and speaking on the topic of "Love, Dating, Marriage, and Mating in the Senior Years".

How do I define "Senior Years"? Not sure yet. I am a Senior - chronologically, if not in my psyche - and I am wanting to connect with women and men in my age range. But the path of finding Love is not restricted to an age range. It is a universal longing, from birth to death. So, I would say that though I may be aiming my arrows towards the 55+ crowd, or the 60+ crowd, anyone who resonates with this subject, and is on this journey, is welcome to join the pilgrimage.

Watch for these developments in 2011:
- a blog and a Web site devoted to this topic and including lots of Resources
- a proliferation of articles, both online and in print - and perhaps an eBook
- a coaching and speaking practice devoted to "Love, Dating, Marriage, and Mating in the Senior Years".

Stay tuned.

If you are on this path, or have been recently, and you have questions or issues to resolve, or wisdom and experience to share, please contact me by adding a comment below.

Procrastination: Some Thoughts

Procrastination! A fascinating topic. What IS procrastination? The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of the verb "to procrastinate" is "to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done."

I have a calendar program called AnyTime. My version is pretty old now, but it serves the purpose. I use the daily display. On the left is the day, laid out in hours. On the right is a To Do List for the day.

Now, I mention all this because almost EVERY day, there are more things on my To Do List than I can, or do, accomplish that day. There are inevitably items that spill over to the next day and some items that I just scratch off the list.

Sometimes I notice that the same item spills over from day to day to day. I neither do it, nor scratch it off the list. It is something I need, or want, to do, yet somehow I never get to it. THIS is procrastination - just staring me in the face, day after day! Do you have items on your To Do List like this?

At first, I thought that there were two types of procrastination: (1) You have a task to do but outside distractions or interruptions prevent you from doing it. (2) You have a task to do but some internal and usually ill-defined resistance leads you to choose to do something else instead. You just simply put off until tomorrow what you could do today. And somehow, "tomorrow" keeps on being "tomorrow" day after day after day.

However, in reviewing the Dictionary definition above I note the word "intentionally". So, there are three factors afoot here, and the first type of procrastination described above - outside interruptions or distractions - turns out to be something other than true procrastination:

(1) External interruptions that cannot be avoided and that reasonably take priority over the task at hand: This is NOT procrastination, though if repeated or perpetual it may be a matter of poor boundary management.

(2) External distractions - also things that need to be done, but could be done at another time, AFTER you have completed the task at hand: These distractions are NOT procrastination, though they could be used to support procrastination. This is a matter of lack of focus and prioritizing, combined with poor time management - sometimes a symptom of ADD or ADHD. [Watch for my upcoming Blog article on "Procrastination: Ten Top Daily Distractions and How to Handle Them".]

(3) Internal distractions that lead you to "blow off" the task at hand and do almost anything else instead: THIS is true Procrastination! And the root of this type of procrastination is RESISTANCE.

The optimal way to handle procrastination in our lives is to OWN our resistance to doing the task and take a good hard look at WHY we are resisting it. And there could be many reasons.

Here are some possibilities:

- The task is too difficult
- The task is too easy; it's boring
- It takes too long
- It's too much work - more than you feel like doing
- It's overwhelming in its magnitude
- It's not interesting or meaningful
- The incentive or reward is not great enough
- I'm just lazy
- Doing the task may result in something unfavorable to me, or to someone else
- It seems like a waste of time
- You have a "gut feeling" that doing this task is not a good idea [and when you do put it off, you often discover that intuition was right]

Once you understand WHY you procrastinate, and you OWN your resistance, then you can stop sabotaging yourself and make a clear choice about how you will handle this going forward. Your resistance loses its power and you are able to solve your dilemma and move on.

P.S. For more insights on Procrastination, visit the Website Procrastination Is Fun.

Blogging Again: Back in the Saddle

Bless me, someone - it's been 8 months and 17 days since my last Blog post!

And, more than that, it's been twelve months since I published the last issue of my monthly e-newsletter, LifeWork Letter!

Why the long hiatus? Who knows, for sure. I've got some thoughts about this.

I'll tell you what it's NOT: It's not due to illness, nor family emergencies, nor a career change, nor retirement, nor an extensive trip around the world, nor a dislike of writing.

On the contrary, I am very much alive and well, my family is well, and I am still a life/work coach, trainer, speaker, and writer. I am not retired, though I do take more time off than I used to. I haven't done any traveling, except for a brief two-day trip to Maine this summer. And I love writing more than ever. In fact, this month - the month of November - I am once again participating in National Novel Writing Month (www.NaNoWriMo.org).

So, again, why the long hiatus in writing my Blog or Newsletter?

• Well, for a while back there, I was heavily involved in developing and facilitating an entrepreneurial training program specifically designed for unemployed workers who wanted to start their own businesses. Writing time slipped away.
• Then, as late spring approached, I embarked on a focused weight management and exercise program (self-designed) that resulted in getting much more fit and healthy and losing 15 pounds of last year's "winter weight". This took a lot of time, focus, and energy.
• As summer came into full bloom, a special friendship did too, and spending time with him became a welcome distraction. No, more than a distraction, it became a priority. (Still is.)
• Then came Fall - a birthday, some business presentations, some PR in two newspaper articles, a sore shoulder from over-exercising, rehearsals for two musical productions, fundraising for a non-profit, and complications in the special friendship - all taking precedence.

But what's the bottom line here? What derails us from our so-called "productive activities"? What causes us to lose our focus and drift?

Here are some thoughts about that, some possible causes:

• Distractions
• Laziness
• Exhaustion
• Procrastination
• A reorganization of priorities
• A lack of Purpose, or a change of Purpose
• A need for a break, a change of pace, some R&R
• A desire for fun and/or creative endeavors
• A time for learning, gathering new ideas and information - some "mulling" time
• A period of transformation, similar to being in the chrysalis stage between caterpillar and butterfly

Now, I am filled with thoughts about all these areas, and a desire to share my ideas, and to dialogue with my readers. All these topics and more are now on the table for discussion. In my next blog post, I will address the issue of procrastination.

So, let me hear from you. What takes you off-course in your life? Or, does your course merely change? How does procrastination fit into your picture?