It’s Been a Year…

If you haven’t been following my journey, you may not be aware that a year ago this week: I turned fifty, my hubby and I left a perfectly good job, left a beautiful southern home and put a greater travel distance between my greatest treasures—children and my granddaughter.  We stepped out into a dream.  It’s been a year of excitement, adventure, challenges, victories, growth, stretch and most of all CHANGE.  Life is rich, scary and full of possibilities.  I am fully alive.

I’ve always said to others, “You can’t give what you do not have, so make sure you have it before you try to give it away.”

As a coach, writer, speaker and person of influence, I believe I can’t help others chart their coarse and live their dream, if I am sitting on the sidelines of my own life.

So this week, as I look forward to the next year of my life, I purposefully look back and view what took place, what showed up and what did not.  In setting the forward course and pace for this coming year I ask myself, “What do I want more of? What do I want less of? What will I expect?”

In coaching, I use a four-quadrant personality profile assessment that is image based- FIRE, WIND, WATER, and EARTH.  It’s my favorite assessment tool because it’s sticky and easy to use in everyday life and relationships.  Anyway, my personal strongest characteristic is FIRE.  And like a FIRE, I am passionate, strong, direct, dynamic, intense, and want lots of fuel to burn.  Just ask my family.  When I get focused, watch out.  The focus becomes a project with a short time line, and the standard is excellence.  Most of the time you’ll find me with multiple projects streamed one after another.

Leaving the familiar and stepping into the dream was a big transition and a THRILL for this FIRE personality.  Dreaming the possibilities, watching opportunities show up, and having clarity give direction and change, is a great adventure for a FIRE.

Like a breeze when it encounters a quiet smoldering fire, stepping into this dream stirred and intensified the passion and possibilities within me.  It didn’t take long for the ideas and opportunities to bring exciting dynamic daily celebrations.  Wide-open places brought new experiences and great people into my life that renewed the flames in my heart and stirred my passion to add value to others.

This opportunity brought great satisfaction to my heart, like ripe, low hanging fruit on the branches.  My imagination celebrated the promise of helping others live out their life-purpose from a strong heart.  I long to see people leave a trail of significance, as they chart a new course.  For me, this is like pulling that sun-warmed fruit from the branch, putting it to my mouth and having the sweet nectar burst onto my cheeks and chin…. Beautiful satisfaction.

What the FIRE personality needs to remember is that after the FIRE blazes the territory, it is the EARTH that nurtures and brings order for new life.  The EARTH embraces the seeds, brings a process and plan, and works the detailed meticulous, steady course of moving forward in order to create the landscape of my life.

Can I be honest? I do have strong EARTH tendencies.  EARTH and WIND are my secondary, or moderate elements of my personality profile.  I do like things in order and they must have purpose.  I am supportive, solid and want ‘the process’ to navigate.  But my FIRE wants all that done yesterday.  I have ideas, plans, vision and more.  What I do not have is one hundred people to help me make that all come to pass within an aggressive timeline.  Nope. Building the landscape and vision for MY life is MY responsibility.  It’s my WORK to do.

I found myself saying to someone the other day, “I’ve planted heaps of seed over the last few decades, that the nursery growers for Wal-Mart could pull up their big trucks and landscape my life.  I want them to unload all those potted plants, mature and in bloom, and place them within the pathways of my life.  I don’t garden with seeds. That takes too long.  I transplant, and when it’s done, I want to sit back and experience the texture, fragrance, color and life, that spring up from vision.”

And after one year of stepping into my dream, when I look at what did and did not show up in my life, I come to the conclusion that some areas are not lush because I didn’t make the investment it required.

What showed up in my life were the things that were transplanted into the new season as the result of the skills, gifts, talents, abilities and behaviors that I have nurtured for over forty years.  They began as seeds, forty years ago.  Today, they are currently strong dynamic strengths that flow easily and naturally.  They ARE a part of ME.  My FIRE personality knows how to activate those strengths and bring them into a state of flourishing.

What didn’t show up in my life were the new parts of me that I wanted to see more of.  I wanted to be further down the path in this new direction and I wanted greater substance from what I put in place.  Here is the reality.  The things that I am exploring and developing are still in seed form.  They are fragile and need to be held in a steady climate and be nurtured.  They need faith and expectation for what they will look and be like when fully developed.  Those seeds need a watchful eye and a nurturing touch.  They need the EARTH-work—the constant, steady support that will bring forth strong natural value to the landscape of my life; and that my friend is a challenge for a FIRE.

These seeds also need the WIND that blows in the message of the possibilities to water and bring changes for growth.  Those seeds need to see the big picture perspective and the sound of possibilities.  As I write, I remember an experiment done years ago, where a group of people created a wind-free environment to study its effects on tress.  The result? The trees grew, but the branches could not bear the weight of their own fruit.  They broke under pressure.  What we plant in our lives needs the wind to create a strong and flexible strength.

With that metaphor in mind, I recognize that the seeds of change, the new crop that I am landscaping and expecting to harvest in my life, will require both EARTH and WIND to grow and produce.  And that is my stretch.

The moderate strengths of my personality are EARTH and WIND.  To give the strengths of my EARTH and WIND characteristics the lead role in this season, will be work.  It’s not how I roll.  It’s hard to keep a blazing fire quiet enough to not rage out of control, while stoking it just enough to keep it from going out and becoming cold.

I like a sprint, not a marathon. I like to conquer and make history, not study it. Yet, I have to make a choice based on reality.   If I want the fullness I desire in my life, I must count the cost and make the investment.  It is mine for the taking and it’s within my reach.  “I need to put on my big girl panties and deal with stuff,” as was posted on a Face book page the other day.

It’s my choice and on the one-year celebration of my dream, I choose. I decide once again, to dream the possibilities, expect opportunities to show up, gain clarity that gives me directions and yield to change.

How about you?  Where are you on YOUR journey?  How are you viewing the opportunities in your path?  Are you giving place to the strengths you carry, but don’t usually give them the lead? Ask yourself these questions:

What do I want more of in my life?

What do I want less of?

What is in my hand today, to move me towards that outcome?

What will be my first step?

Come on friend.  Let’s dare to live out loud and make a difference in the lives of those around us and in ours. Let’s live a life that will create a lush, rich landscape in our world.  Let’s live a life of significance and fulfillment.