Monday, December 3, 2012

The Concrete, The Essential

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Hello people!  Amazing!  It is the third day of December already.  Even though I am wondering where all the days of this year went, I am extremely grateful to God for ensuring that we met most of our goals for the year.  Even if we didn’t meet the goals we had set, it is still a great privilege to be alive enough to plan towards 2013.

Today we will continue with the train of thought in last week’s post. And this is simply that planning will bring clarity to what we want to achieve in the New Year.  It is inspired by a post on SethGodin’s blog.

On the post he spoke about soft and hard. He said the stuff that we can measure and appraise are the concrete (hard) things we deal with in our business.  The soft things, however, are the essential yet immeasurable stuff we have to handle.  He emphasized that the concrete stuff receive more attention than the soft things.  I immediately could identify with the post, because honestly, today, I didn’t feel like leaving my house for the office.

The lethargy I was dealing with had nothing to do with concrete stuff, but the fact that I had, on my list, a lot of soft but essential things to deal with. 
Unfortunately, dealing with these essential stuff can be harder than dealing with the concrete issues because in the end you can tell how far you have gone with the concrete but cannot quite do so with the soft and essential.

Now I understand that the last thing you may want to do is spend time planning on paper for next year because it may be impossible to measure how far your planning may take you.  Someone actually asked me, what happens if the plans fall through?  What if everything I planned didn’t happen?  Let me quickly say that yes, some of the stuff you plan for may not happen because other events will overtake them.

However, as long as we take time to think things through, the likelihood for the plan for the entire year to fall through is almost nonexistent.  This is not about playing God and making plans that cannot fail. It is about partnering with God, and making sure that our strategies support His plans for us so that we can move quickly to accommodate his work for our lives in 2013.  So even though I am not feeling motivated at all, I am here at my desk looking through all that I need to do, and taking on the essential so that my concrete will align with God’s will and what I want to see in my dream work in 2013.

One tip I will like to leave with us today is to see planning as trying to solve the problem in our minds even before it shows up.  See everything you are putting on paper right now as a test run for a year of significant dealings.

Your dream is the core of your life and the quality of thought you put in at the planning stage will determine the problems you will be able to solve in the New Year.  Everything that people will come to you for will be built around your ability to solve their problems.

So roll up your sleeves, pour yourself a cup of tea or coffee and push through the drudgery that your planning stage may be right now.  Don’t forget the picture of the accomplished task; let it be what will keep you going till you make it to your destination.

Drudgery or not, hard or not, I know you will make it NeverTheLess, I promise you will.

Hugs

Sistar B

4 comments:

  1. Wow! I love that revelation about planning -" trying to solve the problem, even before it comes up". The idea of sitting down to write a plan makes me want to lie down in a darkened room and eat a chocolate bar bigger than my head! But if i approach it like this, thinking about the things that could derail my dreams for my business in 2013, it makes it far less painful. This approach also frees me from the notion that a plan has to look a certain way, to be a plan. This way I can something simple, that works for me.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, for another brilliant post and wonderful advice.

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  2. My sista, thanks so much for stopping by again. Just looking forward to your post makes it imperative for me to post a thought every Monday. Your consistency means so much. Thanks a whole lot! Talk about crawling into someplace, I felt like that yesterday... I didn't feel like coming out to deal with those planning issues at all... but like you said, it doesn't have to be anything overly elaborate. Just a simple guide is a great start. So let's roll up our sleeves and do the 'hardwork' now, it is essential to our overall growth. You are loved.

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  3. Thank you so much for this post and a huge thanks to my girlfriend Roz for sharing it with me. I was just thinking about 2013 goals when I received her text message to check out this blog post. After the 2012 year I have had, having gone through seperation & divorce, death of my brother, two kids in college, relocating thousands of miles from home with my job and finding out I am going to be a grand ma, my 2013 goal list only had one thing listed " get out of bed". After reading this I have actually expanded the list to include not only several 2013 goals but also a few 3 and five year goals.

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  4. Wow! @Nina White, this was really a year for you! Phew! But you know what you are still standing and that says a lot about how far you will go. You are in my prayers girl, and I know that you will make it NeverTheLess. Just keep slicing them one at a time, and be very intentional in how you will achieve them. Like I always say, I know that you will pull through NeverTheLess. God isn't done with you yet. So I can say, congratulations! Because your life in 2013 is officially SOARING in Jesus name! You are loved and appreciated!

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