Getting Clarity for 2013

By the time I headed into the summer school holidays last year, I was so out of my routine of TCI trainings, webinars and webinar codes that I just tuned out of everything to do with TCI. Didn't even keep up with Advanced Prac assessment requirements.

It's now March and I am starting to get a much clearer picture of where I want to focus this year, even though I haven't run a single workshop yet. (Yes, I have been a bit 'relaxed'.)

Actually, the clarity process began while I was on holiday and ironically, had limited access to the Internet.

I made a list of my Big Rocks for 2013. As Stephen Covey taught, put the most important things in your life in place first (Big Rocks), then the trivial, secondary stuff.

I have a newsletter that I send to subscribers each monthly as part of my Career-Change-Confidence.com project. This year, I decided that instead of panicking every month-end about what I would send out on the 1st of the following month, I would get clear on my theme for 2013 and build my newsletters around it.

The theme came to me in one word: ENERGY.

Are you a believer in serendipity?

I am. There have been too many coincidences (I prefer 'divine appointments') in my life for me to think otherwise.

Soon after I decided that ENERGY would be my theme, I read Brendon Burchard's The Charge, and guess what the theme of the book is?

That's right. ENERGY.

Around the same time,  I was also reading Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project. In it, she recommends a monthly 'new and different good thing' to take on.

Guess what was her recommendation for January?

Boost Your Energy.

I also did something else: I went back to God and basically told Him I want to serve people who share my faith and values.

So my avatar would be women who are believers, and my coaching will be based on what is consistent with biblical principles, so as to be mindful of what the Apostle Paul cautioned.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
Colossians 2:8

How will this affect my business? Will I be able to attract any clients?

I have yet to find out, but there is a sense of freedom and relief from being clear and being authentic about what I want to do and who I want to serve.

Ultimately, it is God who blesses and provides.

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
Psalm 127:1

In my  devotions this week, I have also been reminded of the following verses from the Book of James, one of the most practical and hard-hitting in the New Testament about how to live in a way that pleases God.

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.