creating a better year

and by extension, a better life.

It's Sunday morning (okay technically not anymore) and I'm not in Church, but a new ritual i've started is that I like to spend my Sunday mornings finding inspiration for my week - whether that be reading something inspirational from the Good Book or other sources or on the net or watching some john edward or other program. Not that it's the only time in the week I do anything like that - but I make a concerted effort to start my sundays off this way in an effort to keep me on track.

The second half of last year found me yearning for the year to simply be over. Come January, I began voicing my hopes for a better year. It certainly wouldn't take much to improve on 2008, but the more that have thought about it the more that I contemplated whether or not I wanted to sit by and allow 2009 to simply serve me up something or if I wanted to take some positive actions to try and create a better year - the answer became clear.

Having a clear answer did not provide me with clear "right actions" but it provided the fuel to send me down the path in search of the right actions. I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking about things which is a good first step. I've tried to focus on my attitude towards things. There will always be things that I may not have control over but one thing that I will always have control over is my reaction to those things. It's the one thing no one can influence more than me. And if you understand that principal that "perception is everything" you realize that there is real power in simply choosing to control how you react.

I am embrasing change. I am on the cusp of some very real change in my life and I have no firm grasp of where that change will take me. How exciting is that? Instead of worrying or fretting about how things will likely not work out - I have decided instead to wonder about what cool things are in store. How I will enjoy the new changes and what doors of opportunity they will open.

Does that mean that I have zero anxiety or worry about things. NO. I haven't yet become a master at this - but it means that when those negative and worrysome thoughts creep in I make an extra effort to be aware of it and change my thinking pattern.

I can already see the results in certain areas of my life which of course gives me more inspiration to double my efforts.

I am also trying to remember daily to be grateful for the miriad of stuff that is right in my life and for the stuff that I have been blessed with in the past, believing that no extra goodness comes to the ungrateful heart. Sometimes it's easy to forget to remember to be actively grateful so that's another area to which i'm trying to focus my attention.

So these are a few of the things I'm doing to make 2009 a better year..... What about you???

Okay, that's all for now - Carry On.....