Week of My Life!

My goal each month is to write two articles for this blog. And so, this morning when I sat down to write at Starbucks, I was hoping to be inspired. I made a couple unsuccessful attempts at new topics. When these didn't go anywhere, I pulled up some other articles that were in the works. Still no great inspiration. Finally, I decided to buy a card for my husband's birthday (today!) and call it quits.

On the drive home I was feeling a little discouraged about not having at least a good start on an article. Here it is July 22 and I have published only one post for the month. Time is running out.

Then I began to think…this week has been one of the most exciting and rewarding times in my life. Surely there is some wisdom or inspiration to be gained from what brought about these events. Here's what happened…

On Tuesday and Wednesday I had two presentations for the New York State Teachers' Retirement System. I love speaking with people who are planning and preparing for their retirement. For some participants, this date might be 5-10 years from now. Still, these individuals are taking steps to prepare and I have the privilege of sharing in their journey.

The other big event is my husband and I closed on a property in Saratoga Springs, NY. This is the little city where we rented an apartment last September to May to experiment with downtown living. Who would have thought that less than a year later we would decide to purchase a studio apartment—our pied-à-terre (a French term meaning a small house or apartment that the owner uses as a secondary home.)

The lesson for my readers (and for me) is that neither of these life-enhancing events took place without effort. I didn’t magically wake up one morning to public speaking engagements. Instead, I responded to an unexplainable feeling that I’m supposed to be creating, speaking, and making a difference in my own unique way. I took action and gradually built a consulting business.

The same is true for Saratoga. By being willing to experiment—trying something different even though it didn't make sense to most people—Dave and I learned that our lives can be enriched by sharing time between a country home and city home. We also learned that we didn’t' have to compromise our retirement savings to achieve this goal. As I wrote in my journal, "The size of the space doesn't matter. It's the magic that happens there that matters."

Now it's your turn. What dreams do you have that will lead to an awesome week? I'm not talking about extremely unrealistic dreams. According to Seth Godin, author of What To Do When It's Your Turn, "The safest of dreams we experience are dreams with no hope of coming true. Concrete dreams, on the other hand, are based on effort and keen sense of what is possible. Living with the possible takes guts."

So, what are your concrete dreams? What's possible? And what are you going to do about it?

Copyright 2016 Patrice Jenkins. All Rights Reserved.