With the email we are writing? The phone call we need to make? The difficult conversation we are avoiding? How we spend our next hour of time? Our next week?
If you like to cook, you can skip reading this post. For when cooking, we always have a good idea of what we will make for dinner. What we are trying to accomplish is so crystal clear in our minds before beginning. This clarity makes the steps leading up to preparing a meal easy. Allowing us to put all of our efforts and focus on creating a meal worth serving.
We have no time to consistently find this type of clarity in our day. We hurry to do things mindlessly, without ever giving much thought to what really are we trying to accomplish. Questions, problems, or responsibilities steal time from us regularly. Leaving us with our muddled thoughts and vague broad ideas of what we would like to do. Life’s activity, smashes them all together. Blurring things into one. Leaving little time for finding the straight line between our next step and the accomplishment we truly seek.
What are we trying to accomplish is a difficult question to answer. It most certainly will slow us down. Forcing us not only to focus, but to prioritize what is most important in our lives currently. For priorities will change over time. Needing the wisdom to understand that we can only do one or two things at a time for this type of prioritization to work and help us gain clarity.
The darker side of not thinking deeply about what we are trying to accomplish is when we are angry, hurt, or frustrated. Reacting emotionally to situations, like these, rarely helps. “Quick to think and slow to speak” was a favorite saying of a mentor of mine. Again, what do we want to accomplish now that we are in this position? Move on, find out what we did not understand, forgive or ask for forgiveness? Usually, our responses simply want to make ourselves look good or prove we are right. Our friend the ego, always wants to win.
Accomplishment sound so big & official. It’s not. Simply, what do we want to show for our time and efforts? Working hard to move to a new house? Exercising and dieting to lose 20 lbs? Finding patience within us to deal with life’s setbacks? We are good at putting things off and then saying that either we are still working on it or I will get to it someday.
Finishing something or creating something that you want so deeply is where we can find true joy. If only for a day to rest and say “job well done”.
Just stop and think how quickly half of this year has already gone by. Isn’t it time to figure out what’s next for us to accomplish before the rest of the year “gets away from us”?