January 2021

It’s Hard to Envision Your Future when You’re Focused on Your Past

By now, I certainly hope you have figured out how much I love quotes and sayings. They sometimes may seem contrived or even pithy, but even if they are, we like them, memorize them, and most importantly, remember them. Therefore, I offer for your initial amusement, followed by a knowing acceptance, finished with a nod of gratitude the following: 

Yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery.

Before you accuse me of being Captain Obvious, allow me to expound slightly. Why do we (which most definitely includes I) spend so much time worrying, wishing, and wasting time thinking about the past? For that matter, ditto for the future. I have some ideas which I hope you will consider and then follow me in directing your focus where it belongs.

Abundance and Importance Versus a Scarcity Mindset and Urgent

As we settle into the new year, I want to encourage you this week to continue to keep at the forefront of your mind those ideas, dreams, and goals you started the year with. Many people who are not reading this article and are not focused on becoming the best versions of themselves have already long forgotten all of the things they said they were going to do this year.

This brings me to my first encouragement for you in this post. Ideas are just dreams until they’re written down. If you haven’t already, it’s never too late to start but wherever you fall here, get your dreams, visions, ideas, goals, and any and everything else you want to accomplish down on paper. Got it? Good.

Gaining Clarity from how we See the World

Famous American poet and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau famously said, “The question is not what you look at but what you see.” On some level, we were all horrified by the events that took place in our nation’s capital last week. Not surprisingly, it has stirred up even more division and vitriol than existed a week ago, which seemed palpable even on its own.

I have no interest or inclination to get into a political discussion. If you’re looking for that, you won’t have to look very hard. I have determined that I will focus my time on building solutions by offering grace and kindness rather than looking to become involved with the many opportunities available to engage with strangers and especially close friends in a moral online battle. My solution is straightforward; I try to ignore it.

It’s Hard to See Your Future When You’re Staring at Your Past

Happy New Year! As the year begins and we are all on 1,200 calorie diets, going to bed by 10:00 p.m. so that we can get up to exercise by 5:00, and reading three new books while focusing on how to break revenue and income records, let me welcome you back, perhaps abruptly, to reality. 

I certainly do not mean to throw cold water and by no means do I intend to do anything other than to encourage you to make 2021 a year you will look back on with gratitude twelve months from now. I am not a proponent of New Year’s resolutions, so my tongue in cheek poking fun is just that. But seriously, where will you be on January 5, 2022? That is entirely up to you.