Ten days that changed my life

I'll do a one a day post for a week to try and catch up and then I have to take another ten day break.

Yep, it's hard to believe but my life changed in ten days. I just have a few minutes to write about it and then I have to get back to work so I'll try to condense this as much as I can. A few weeks ago I talked about feeling flat. Part of the problem was that I'd get up in the morning, cut my head off, run around for fourteen hours and then collapse at the end of the day. Usually in front of the television with some cop or lawyer show. I really felt like I had no time to do anything and that nothing was concluded. Not always of course, but on the few occasions that I was able to finish a project or work I was never satisfied. I worried about money a lot, didn't feel I could make plans because Hubby was always gone...the list just goes on and on.

I also mentioned here that I'm training a group to run NYCM. They're thirty entrepreneurs that own their own companies. The common link they have is that all of them use the service of a Coaching Service. a Business Coaching service. Everybody of course paid for me to train them for the year but the head of the coaching business asked if we could barter our services. They have a lot different course to take so I said yes but that I'd have to think about what I wanted to do. Last month I came up with what the exchange for me would be. I wanted him to help me get organized. I thought it would be something simple where he would show me that I needed to keep a schedule or something...which I do, but it went a little deeper than that.

First he had me draw a chart that I divided into eight areas of my life and draw lines where I wrote in what I wanted out of each area by the end of the year. Then he had me do a affirmation test on four areas on my life which had a points total. My strong area turned out to be in personal relations, my weak was finance. I'm shocked... Then he had me do another chart where I drew in my levels of satisfaction in the eight areas comparing 2002 to 2007. For those that don't know 2002 is also known as "The year that totally sucked" in every aspect of my life. The chart was easy to do but I was surprised that my satisfaction level since then in a lot of areas hasn't raised much.

I circled three areas out of the eight that I wanted to concentrate on: finance, work, body (mine). The first two are obvious but I need to underline that by "body" I mean sports, workouts, races, spirit.

Now that I had narrowed the three areas of concentration he had me break them down and tell him exactly what I wanted to accomplish, how I was going to go about doing that and a time frame them. All of this took hours of work until we finally got down to a one half hour phone call and we were able to condense the conversation and get to work. The first ten days I did this it really helped that Piero took Evan down to his Grandmother's for a visit. I had most of the day open (except when I did stuff with Olivia) to work on my itemized list and get myself organized.

It's just amazing how much energy I had by taking care of business that I had put on the backburner for months. Just for a reference, I am self employed. I have several companies I work for plus a regular writing gig for a magazine where I do have deadlines. The rest is all up to me. It's great because I can be available for the kids whenever, it's difficult because I need to give myself direction all the time and sometimes that is not easy. Just having a 30 minute appointment once a week with someone who asks me why I didn't get something done and when am I planning on getting it done has totally changed my life.

This is the first time in a long time that I really look forward to sitting down and working. The wheels are turning, that blah feeling is gone. Hurray!

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Like I said, in the next few days I'll try and do a post a day before another break.
Highlights:

• my first tri of the season!
• Olly's going to Art School!
• New women to train with!
• My husband's athlete won a marathon!
• Evan becomes a US citizen!
• I'm seeing my family for the first time in 7 years!!!!!