NCRW Huh, What’s That?

Do you know what I believe about you? Yes, you – each and every person who is reading this (and even those who are not). You are “naturally creative, resourceful, and whole” just as you are. I believe this about all of us. This is how I approach each client I have and every person I deal with from day to day (or at least as best as I can!). It is also a major component for the International Coach Federation, where this is listed in the first sentence in their Code of Ethics.

I’ve taken the first class on coaching, where we had a group to practice with each week. We spent time talking about NCRW (naturally creative, resourceful, and whole) and how sometimes we’re tempted to jump in and “help” people. We inadvertently rescue the client instead of helping them find their own way. I’ve struggled with this sometimes, not from believing that they’re not capable, but from wanting to help them.

Early in my organizing career, I had a client who kept asking me what she needed to do. I kept responding that I wasn’t here to tell her what to do; I was here to help her figure out what she needed for herself. I did not have THE answers for her. I’ve always said that we’re all different and what works for one of us will not necessarily work for another one of us. I can bring up possibilities, ideas to explore whether they fit you, and even share some observations from my experience and knowledge.

I’m good at what I do, maybe more so because I’m not going to step in and start telling you what you need to do and how to do it. You are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. I want to help you discover how true this is and provide support (and accountability as needed) as you navigate your struggles. As simplistic as these terms are, let’s look at their definitions:

Creative: 1) having the quality or power of creating 2) resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc.; imaginative
Resourceful: ingenious, capable, and full of initiative, esp in dealing with difficult situations
Whole: 1) comprising the full quantity, amount, extent, number, etc., without diminution or exception; entire, full, or total 2) containing all the elements properly belonging; complete 3) undivided; in one piece 4) not broken, damaged, or impaired; intact — All from dictionary.com

Believing these things about yourself might be challenging, especially as you face the struggles you’re having. Yet, having struggles and places where you are challenged, you are still creative, resourceful, and whole. When you work or just interact with me – that is where I come from and regardless of what you are dealing with. You can be NCRW and still need help. Sometimes this can be the hardest step – acknowledging and asking for help.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it seems easier to believe that about other people more than you can believe it about yourself. At least that’s often how I’ve felt. Yet, what would the people who love you say to you about this? What would you say to a friend struggling like you are? We’re surprisingly more kind to others than we are to ourselves.

There’s always room to learn and grow – learn more about yourself, how you work/function, what causes you to struggle with this piece or that piece. As we learn and grow, we recognize more and more how true NCRW is and can let go of some (maybe even all) of the negativity we pile on ourselves. So remember, I believe that you, yes you, are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. 🙂

Styles of Procrastination

Do you procrastinate? I think everyone does. Period – everyone, at least to some degree or another. The question really comes down to whether your procrastination is interfering with your life – and the degree will vary between people. Some people are guilt-ridden with “minor” procrastination and others can procrastinate with much more tolerance. Some of us want to minimize the procrastination behaviors while others are managing as it is.

My mom would tell you that I’m a chronic procrastinator. I’m notoriously bad about sending letters and packages in a timely way. I certainly see that there are areas where I do procrastinate and in general, I’m fascinated with procrastination. This is one of the reasons I picked up and read It’s About Time!: The Six Styles of Procrastination and How to Overcome Them Dr. Linda Sapadin with Jack Maguire.

As it says in the title, she breaks chronic, pervasive, and deeply-rooted procrastination into 6 styles: perfectionist, dreamer, worrier, defier, crisis-maker, and the overdoer. She provides a quiz so you can figure out which type or types are your personal style. The quiz focuses on the 6 types with 10 questions where you answer the questions with 1 of 3 possible choices: frequently, sometimes, and rarely or never. There’s an easy formula for calculating your scores and where you get a score of 10 or more, this makes that type of procrastination a major style for you. When your score in a type is 9 or less, this is a minor style for you.

Each type then gets a chapter with examples of people who’ve struggled with this type of procrastination and why. She spends most of the chapter addressing 3 areas that will make a difference in changing this type of procrastination: changing how you think, changing how you speak, and changing how you act. For the changing how you think, she has a visualization for each of the 6 types.

I took the quiz, twice, actually! I took it as I started the book, and scored 10 or above in 4 of the 6 procrastination styles. Later I was talking to various people about how I had read this book and how I scored high in several areas (a case when scoring high is not such a good thing!). I decided to retake the quiz, mostly just out of curiosity. That time my highest score was a 6 in one type. My conclusion is that the test is not statistically valid, since I could get wildly different scores and is a reflection of my own state of mind. (For those of you who don’t know me, you might not realize that I have a self-critical nature. ☺) It’s completely plausible to me that I would get different results, and the truth is that my procrastination probably also ties in with my state of mind in the moment.

I appreciate that she focuses on the idea of helping the reader to find ways that work for them – she’s not implying that there’s a “right” way to be, so she’s “inviting you to change from your personal path of avoidance – the BUT path—to your personal path of resolution—the AND path.” The number of case studies, examples of others who’ve struggled is varied and was easy for me to relate to the styles. People’s behaviors vary greatly within each of the types of procrastination.

The visualizations for each type of procrastination are interesting, and create some major repetition since the directions are included in each chapter. I’ve never been one for visualizations, so this did not speak to me much. I could see how the visualizations could be helpful for people though.

From what I can tell, from looking within myself, to working with various people, to friends and family – procrastination is a highly complex behavior. As a whole, breaking procrastination into 6 styles seems too limiting. There are too many other possible issues involved with why we procrastinate. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting look at procrastination as it relates to our personality.

Find Your Motivation

We all have different reasons for why we want to get organized or even to stay organized. There is no one right answer – what matters is why you want it. Do you know what your reasons are? It’s worth it to give it some thought and find as many reasons as you can. These personal reasons are what can help get you going if (or when) you falter.

Some of what I hear a lot is how overwhelmed people feel with what they’re dealing with – from piles of boxes on an unused room to the mass of papers they have to a house that has simply collected lots of things. It doesn’t matter what the size or scope is, what matters is how it feels to you. A few people are concerned about how their loved ones are feeling and reacting to the state of their home. Others are adjusting to difficult transitions in life – from the death of a spouse to downsizing (voluntarily or not) to new health issues.

Although the above are fine reasons for wanting to get and stay organized, some of them are phrased on negative terms. If we went to a list of our reasons for getting organized and saw as a reason “because I’m overwhelmed” or “because my spouse is always yelling at me” or even “because I cannot concentrate the way I used to” it’s unlikely to inspire us.

Find a way to make the reasons positive. If you’re overwhelmed, you are looking for an easier way to doing things, a way to simplify things for yourself. If a loved one is badgering you, you might be looking for a way to improve your relationship and become closer with them again. Sometimes those life transitions are challenging, yet I believe there are positive ways to view your situation. For me, it was a chance to learn new ways of doing things and I love learning.

The point is that you want to figure out the reasons that matter to you for getting organized – maybe you want more time to enjoy life. I’d suggest that you actually write them down somewhere. I don’t think you need to look at them every day, although you certainly can. The idea is that you have them to pull out when you get discouraged or falter in your efforts. It could also help if you find yourself procrastinating working on things.

When you’re feeling discouraged, you not likely to remember the real reasons why you’re trying to change things. You’re also more likely going to remember the negative reasons, which are not usually motivating! By having a list of positive and personal reasons to change, you can refer to it when you need to. You can even add to it as things occur to you – since life is a process like organizing, your motivation can shift and change too.

Knowing what your motivations are for getting organized is probably the very first step you need to take toward getting and staying organized. Just as it’s hard to remember what inspires you when you’re feeling discouraged or overwhelmed, our reasons for being more organized can get lost when we’re struggling. Those underlying reasons can re-inspire us to keep working (or start trying again). When we have a list to refer to, it’s easier to re-energize ourselves.

Getting Things to Their Home

I was working with a client, and I told her to toss her clothes toward the laundry basket. “Um, huh?” you might be thinking to yourself. The point I was making was that we don’t need to be stodgy and particular about how we do something. We can try to have fun with what we need to do – not unlike my entire blog post about “Make It Fun.”

When we’re looking at people not getting things to where they belong – there’s two situations we might be in:

we’re leaving things wherever we’re at when we’re finished with them or
we’re getting them close by, or near their “home.”

Therefore, in dealing with things that don’t move from where they were last used – we can toss things towards where they belong. Of course, you’re not going to throw your CDs at the shelf! The other way is to start baskets/bins of things that belong in other rooms. I’ll admit that I will often drop that bin off in the other room where it will sit ignored for a few days sometimes. At least it’s in the right room, if not it’s “home.”

The situation I described was with a pre-teen girl and I talked about acting like it was basketball. The truth is I’m not into sports and neither was she, but it’s intended as a way to get the items closer to where they belong – making it easier. She had been dropping her clothes on the floor and leaving them there, which isn’t unusual. Yet trying to make a game of getting the clothes closer to the laundry basket makes it interesting. To some extent, it’s also about retraining ourselves to new habits.

Often, I’ll do similar things with paper trash – throwing them towards the basket. I find myself curious about how close, or not, I’ll be. Or whether if I bounce it off the wall just so, will it make it in.

Sometimes we know what we need to do – that item needs to go there, but we still don’t quite get to happen. Right now, I’m not talking about the things we’re undecided on or are still active. You’ve made a home of various things, yet there are still piles. Is there a way to make it more fun – like tossing them?

Unfortunately, we still need some discipline. If you toss things towards a basket – you’ll still need to take some time to put the things where they into the basket. If you move things into the room where they belong, you still need to take some time to put them away within the room.

This is the time when your perceptions of time are likely to be exaggerated – it will take much less time than you anticipate to put them away. Could you time yourself to see how fast you can put all the desk supplies away (once you’ve got them all piled on the desk)? Or set your timer for 10 minutes and put everything away that you can before it goes off?

It takes time and practice to make sure things make it back into their “homes” after you’ve used them. I know my suitcases are notorious for sitting out after a trip – yet we can find ways to improve our behavior in returning things to where they belong. After you’ve identified where you falter – are things left where they “fall” or do they make it partway? From here, you can begin to find ways to get them the rest of the way home.

Use Your Time Intentionally

With that title, do you think I’m going to talk about being more productive? I’m certainly a fan of being as productive as possible and always striving to find ways to improve productivity.

But, that is not my point with this title.

It’s about being aware of how you’re using your time; of asking yourself periodically if you’re currently using your time in a way that you want to be.

Maybe the best example is a couple of weekends ago, my husband saw me sitting on the couch playing a game and he asked me “is this how you want to be spending your time?” My answer was “yup.” What he hadn’t been aware of was that I’d just stopped being productive and was taking a few minutes to relax before jumping into the next task. I was using my time intentionally – since I had decided to take a break and play a couple of games.

In what felt like an occurrence of synchronicity, one of the sessions I attended at the NAPO conference this year, talked about having an “intention awareness.” A couple of month’s prior, I’d started asking whether my husband and I were using our time “intentionally.” It was a way to simply pay attention to how we were spending our time, and whether there were other things we needed or wanted to be doing.

You probably know, as I do, how easy it is to lose track of time. I love Sudoku, and there are times when I sit down to play and the next thing I know, several hours have passed! Eeekk! That wasn’t what I wanted to be doing – at least not for that long. I’ve had that happen on the other end of things, where I’m working on something around the house (or even with a client) and before I know it hours have passed. It was “productive” time, but at least with the housework, was it what I needed or wanted to be spending all that time on?

It can be challenging to even remember to ask yourself the question about whether you’re spending time the way you want to – if it weren’t, you probably wouldn’t lose track of time at all. It can be helpful to have someone else around to gently ask the question, as my husband did to me. Yet, he’s gone all day and I’ve gotten in the habit of first – randomly asking myself, whenever it occurs to me. Second, I use cues around the house, like when a plane goes overhead (which happens a lot) to stop and consider if I’m using my time in the way I want to be.

This second approach is actually what the session talked about – finding some ways to cue yourself to stop and think. Ideally, it will be somewhat randomly and periodically throughout the day, since it’s something you want to think about more than once a day. Even a timer that you continue to reset can help here.

I’m fascinated with time. It never changes, yet it certainly feels like it does – our perceptions of time are erratic and inconsistent. I’m amazed how easy it is to lose track of time – whether we’re being productive or goofing off. Everyone I know, professionally or personally, seems at least a little discontented about the way they use their time.

Here’s a question for you – are you aware (and happy) with how you’re using your time? I don’t believe we can ever be perfect, yet I do believe that there’s always room for improvement – are you ready to start asking yourself “is this an intentional use of my time?”

Let Your Passion Lead You

Have I mentioned before that I’m not a big cook? Even that is probably an overstatement, since if I can avoid cooking, I do. I’m fortunate to have a husband who loves to cook; yet, part of me is ashamed of how little I cook. Part of me even wants to cook. I will do some baking from time to time – especially at Christmas time when I try to make several batches of cookies. Do you know what happens though when I go into a store with gobs of kitchen gadgets? I yearn to take them home – if I had that thing, then I might cook. If I had this thing, I could make more desserts.

I’m tempted to purchase things for a life I’m not leading. Granted it’s a life part of me wants to have, except that a few of those things that have come into our home are neglected. Owning those cool tools has not changed my behavior or actions. My life is fine without my cooking more.

Do you have things in your home that do not support the life you’re living? There are two sides of this: the things for the dreams you have and the things for what you’re not doing (and really have no drive to do). Only you can decide which category those things fall into.

Are you buying clothes for a life you’re not leading? If you’re a stay at home mom and your closet is filled with clothes meant for fancy outings which you never go on, then there’s a discrepancy. Is this a dream you have for yourself – to have events requiring formal wear? Is it what you truly want? If you actually had a chance to lead that life, would you be happy?

Do you have loads of supplies for a hobby that you wanted to start, yet somehow have never started even the first project? Sometimes this is more about having too many distractions or not enough space to feel able to begin. Or it can be about trying to lead a life that’s not yours.

If you had all the time and energy you desired, what would you want to do with it? How would you spend your time? Where does your passion lead you? The truth is that if the only thing stopping you from pursuing that hobby or activity – there are ways to solve those struggles. You just need to know what is interfering first.

The truth is that we all probably have some of both types of things in our homes. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you can recognize when you’re buying for a life different from yours, you can cut down on the things coming into your home that will inevitably become clutter since you won’t use them. While on the other hand, you’re buying for what you really want to spend time on, you can hold off until you make the time and space for doing them.

One side note: if you’re overwhelmed already, you might actually be too critical of yourself to be objective. I’ve seen too often the judgment of an “I’m never going to…” that doesn’t seem to accurately reflect their interests, and is more suggestive of how their time and space feel out of control. In that case, I recommend holding off on a too aggressive response and waiting until the process has moved further along and we’ve had a chance to create additional space and potentially time.

PlanetSafe Planners

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Undated 30 day calendar planner

Pros:

customizable
adjustable; easy to rearrange (with post-it notes)
environmentally friendly
reusable (depending on style used)
great for visual people
thin and sturdy

Cons:

restricted to home- not possible to carry around
limited space on some calendar squares
not reusable, with some styles

Review:

This is another product that I discovered through the NAPO expo, at last year’s conference (and this year’s too) – PlanetSafe Planners. I love the idea that you use a dry erase marker on the calendar, how easy and clean to change things. As well, they enable using post-it notes for other areas, again so easy to rearrange and move things. The flexibility and ease of using their planners is exceptional.

My husband and I might be unique; we have no calendar in the house to record events. We have our Google calendars synced, and these are always with us. Without kids or any other reasons, we’ve found no reason for a wall calendar to tell us about our appointments. Nevertheless, I think this can be a superb calendar for some people – as long as you need that household calendar. The only condition is that you use it and don’t rely exclusively on what (if anything) you carry with you.

Considering what my schedule often looks like, the squares look too small for extensive schedules, and then trying to add in other people’s schedules too seems unrealistic. Thus would depend heavily on how much you need to keep track of. If I only put in rough hours of when I’d be otherwise occupied, there’s potentially enough room for several people’s obligations.

I think I might be a little odd – for I found myself resisting the idea of this environmental calendar that I’d need to replace every year – and how “environmental” that it is. Then again, it’s not paper. Although reading about their development, these calendars are a 100% green product after struggling to find a natural adhesive. They also offer options for undated calendar options.

Although for myself I’m not interested in their calendars, I am tempted by some of the goal planners- the idea that my husband and I could have a very visible post-it note planner for our joint goals, for the house and other plans. This is one the strengths of PlanetSafe Planners – they are a great visual – with the different color post-it’s, you’re unlikely to miss it!

Yearly goals with post-it notes

In some ways, the intriguing part of their planners is how a number of them also focus on goals and tasks – having a space included separate from the calendar for these items. It would be very rewarding to take down the post-it notes after completing tasks. The limited, yet not small area would encourage people to NOT over schedule.

PlanetSafe Planner 30 day calendar and tasks

30 day calendar with task or customizable section

From my limited perspective here in the Midwest, it’s sad that this company is not better known. Although there are some limitations to some of their products, they are worth keeping in mind to help you plan – depending on the contexts relevant to your life.

Note: All my reviews are done without consideration for the company (sorry!) – as unbiased as possible! I don’t receive anything from any of them and most don’t know I’m even reviewing their products.

Evaluating System Breakdowns

Life is always changing – it’s not a static environment. I addressed this not long ago in the We Must Always Change. This is one of the reasons that our organizing is never actually finished. You can create good systems and maintain the organization for any number of years, yet it’s likely that there will be pieces that can be improved after some time. Our situations and approach change as we move through life. This can be daunting to many people – “you mean I’m never really done?” Truthfully, no.

This can actually be an uplifting thing. Really and truly. It opens up possibilities and can create space before your eyes. Unfortunately we often need to look at things with “new” eyes, ready to see opportunities we’ve previously missed. We also need to make sure if doesn’t mutate into a reason for self-flagellation.

I’m the first to admit that I’ve created systems for myself that end up falling flat on their faces. It’s usually not obvious right away. Only after a number of weeks or months does it hit me that that new way of doing something is just not working. Sometimes it’s about how my husband uses the items. Other times, I’m dealing with something new to me – like when I started scrapbooking, I had all these various things, and there are just so many ways of organizing them. I struggled to find a complete system that worked – and had to fight chastising myself for the lack of total success.

It’s too easy – and I see this too frequently – for us to recognize only the negative. We are glaringly aware of our failures and gloss over the pieces that do work. When you’re looking at systems that have broken down, you need to search out the ways it does work for you. Those scrapbooking supplies may not have completely worked, but there were always ways that it did work. There are ways your systems are working – you need to figure those out.

However small those pieces might be, the successes are clues for you about what does work for you. You can examine those and see if any of those principles can apply to the rest of the system. Do the successful pieces work because they’re easy to access – like putting away new scrapbooking things? Do they work because they’re close at hand when you’re doing it – like sorting mail by the trash? Leaving behind the idea of “good” and “bad” – we’re more likely to succeed at things when it’s relatively easy. Are there ways to make pieces easier for you?

This is when you need to not rush blindly ahead, you need to take time to think about and evaluate what you need. Take time to plan, figure out what goals you need to meet. It can feel like planning is a waste of time, yet according to Dr. Donald E. Wetmore, “1 hour planning will save 10 hours doing.” Each time I re-did the craft supplies, I waited to give myself time to think about what wasn’t working and come up with what I needed to modify. Only after I figured that out did I dig and starry changing things.

It can be daunting that our best intentions didn’t end up working out the way we thought they would, yet it can be an opportunity to make things exponentially better. It also reinforces how change is not only just a part of life, but also part of the journey and growth integral to living. When we apply that to our organizational systems, it means that we can improve our efficiency and productivity too.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Let me admit something – I frequently struggle with wearing myself out. I’ll wake up one morning with plans of all that I’ll get accomplished and it falls flat. I’ve exhausted myself in prior days and my body and mind demand a reprieve. Often I blame this on having a chronic disease and how it can be unpredictable. The truth is that although this might be part of the picture, I also have a tendency to overdo things. As a professional organizer, I feel like I should be better about this not happening, yet I’m human as well as I recognize it and am working on it.

Somehow, many of us strive to just work harder. As if that’s the answer – “If only I could work harder and faster, then I could manage…” This is not the answer. We only have a limited supply of energy, whether you have health issues or not. We all need a certain amount of sleep to re-energize ourselves. The truth is that we need to work smarter.

I was fortunate enough to get into the expo of ASTD (The American Society for Training and Development) last year and was intrigued with a booth there: The Energy Project. Although I found the people manning the booth to be rude, I was captivated by the ideas presented. Since a year ago on coming across them, I’ve been fortunate enough to attend a few webinars they’ve put on. Eventually I buy his latest book and read that to get more in depth information.

One of the things Tony Schwartz, the CEO of The Energy Project, says is that we have 90 minutes maximum of focused attention before we lose that energy. After that, we need to take a break for renewal. He recommends doing this throughout the day, after 90 minutes of focused work to build in intermittent renewal breaks, as we have cycles like our sleep cycle. He says how long those breaks are depends on you and what will help you renew your energy although it can be as little as 5 minutes – it’s about the quality of the renewal, not how much time we spend. If we can implement those renewal breaks throughout our day, he says that we’ll be even more productive.

This makes sense to me. I also know that I’m notorious for getting so absorbed into something that before I know it hours have passed. This is not healthy – I want to be conscious about what I’m doing and how I’m spending my time. I found a Mac program that helps me address this issue for when I’m on the computer for long stretches, Dejal Time Out Free. It fades the screen for me at the intervals I’ve set – for resting my eyes and reminding me that 90 minutes have passed with the option of postponing the break or even skipping it altogether.

I’m still practicing applying this when I’m not at the computer. I know what I need to do; I just forget to set the timer! I’ve talked before about how using a timer (Time I & Time II) can help us get control of our time, and now we can use it for our energy too. I’ve my timer handy so that I can use it both for the focused attention as well as to track my breaks. It’s been amazing how refreshed I’ve felt at the end of the day when I’ve applied this process during the day.

As an entrepreneur, I could always be doing more work. That’s not including my other roles as wife, friend, daughter, or the various values I hold in my life and I want to spend time on. This is not any different from anyone else as we all have many roles and values that we need to attend to in order to feel we’re handling things well. If we can use this 90 minutes cycle to focus on those various aspects, we’ll find more balance without the exhaustion from overextending ourselves. It’s a process and we can train ourselves to stay focused and then enjoy the break before digging back in.

We Must Always Change

One of the reasons I moved back to Wisconsin was the seasons. In southern California, I could appreciate the buds appearing in the spring, but I missed the bright fall colors in autumn and the snow in winter. If you were in one of the many states hit with the recent storm, you might be thinking I’m especially odd right now! Yet even with the blizzard we got locally, I appreciated the snow. As I walked around the next day, I was amazed by the textures and shapes created by the snow and wind. It was beautiful.

Drift of snow in our backyard

Beautiful texture in the snow

The evening when it all started my husband and I were sitting there listening to the wind howl and gust. We talked about being a little anxious about whether some damage might happen, yet we both knew there was nothing we could do at that moment, the storm was here and we just had to wait it out. As it turned out, there was no damage. We did have snow in places that went over his 6-foot head as well as a buried garage door.

Change is inevitable. One of the reasons that I adore the changing seasons is that it’s a constant reminder that things change. We might wish it and even try to minimize those changes. The truth is that there are transitions that we’ve adapted to already. If you’re a parent, as your child grows, there are more changes in a year than you’re counting. When you pause to think about it, you’re amazed by how big they’ve gotten – and not just their size. “Nothing is permanent except change” Heraclitus

Attempting to control change is useless. Change is about moving from a known place –where you are right now – to a place that is relatively unknown. If clearing the clutter is the change you want to make, you might have ideas of what that will look like, but the reality is likely to differ from your imaginings. The truth is that as you begin, your vision can change and better ideas will emerge, like the buds in spring.

Life happens in the meantime. You’ve created great plans, you know just how you’re going to handle your time and stuff. Then life happens. Someone else interferes with your schedule – those unforeseen things happen. It’s here that I personally struggle the most – not from other people changing things, but rather from expecting too much of myself! Except this is what life does, and finding a way to go with the flow minimizes our stress.

Embrace opportunity for change. It’s too easy to be hard on ourselves. We’re hyper-aware of how we’ve failed and ignore the opportunity to improve things. I’m always on the lookout for things that aren’t working the best. I’m even eager to find ways to simplify and improve the way we do things. It’s easy to put on the blinders and ignore things. It takes time and energy to figure out what needs to change and most importantly, in what ways it needs to change. Frequently only parts of the system aren’t working, so scrapping the whole system isn’t the answer. Yet, if we can be eager to change, we’re open to how to improve.

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.” Alexander Graham Bell

Change = Growth. Maybe not immediately, but eventually! Each time we make changes, we learn things – sometimes only what NOT to do, but nevertheless, we’re learning. Often it’s painful and the changes can be the opposite of what we want. Yet, it’s still movement. As frightening as change can be, stagnancy is terrifying. I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want is to be stuck anywhere.

Before long, the snow will melt away and those buds will arrive. Change is all around us, whether we look for it or not. It happens whether we want it or we don’t. It is inevitable. Nevertheless, it can be something for the better and the more we can embrace what life brings our way, the happier we can be.

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” Goethe