With the holidays behind me, I can look back and for the first time in my adult life I can say that I was able to accomplish the tasks I wanted to accomplish during the holidays. What I am noticing is that during this time of midlife I am finding that the day to day, season to season routines are running smoother.

Perhaps this is because I have had years of practice, learned by my past mistakes, and have taken the time to allow myself to be prepared!

What a novel idea!

Being prepared for the holidays was a conglomeration of some key concepts. These concepts consisted of actually thinking, and placing my awareness towards what it is I need to address. Being prepared for me means to let go of what is cluttering my life, concentrate on what is most important, and take the action to complete what will improve my life.

How can one be prepared for midlife? Does that seem like a funny notion? What I see all around are many friends and acquaintances who struggle with this notion of being prepared. It could be for the day to day running of our home, our business and our life, or the huge events we find occurring in our lives disguised as milestones and monumental situations.

What I find is the more I concentrate on the little essentials, the more I feel that I am learning to be successful with really being prepared. The answers to the questions, “What is important to me?” and “What do I really want?” seem to be the overarching guide to tell me what it is I need to think about or be to feel the subtle glow of the success of either the holiday or my life.

The following question is, “What action(s) do I need to take?”

In order to be prepared for success, I ask the questions. I then determine what can I let go of that may seem important, but is not relevant to the answers I came up with. Just as an example, I will tell you that based on holidays past, I didn’t feel the happiness of the season when I was running around in circles. This recent holiday season I found I had to be really focused on what I wanted; I had to determine what would make me feel the way I wanted to feel.

I wanted to feel calm and happy.

That meant I had to decline some nice invitations, and not overextend giving of my time when I didn’t really have it to give.

This was huge. I didn’t just think about it, I acted on it. The holiday was the most peaceful, and I participated in activities that were really meaningful to me.

Lorraine

 

This entry was posted by Lorraine Calhoun on January 7th, 2008 under Mid-Life with keywords .

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