Happy New Year!! Let's Live 2014 With Purpose!!
This story by Anne Lamott got me through the last year of my college degree. And I use it often to try to calm and quiet my ADHD enough to focus on something overwhelming that I need to get done (e.g., picking up the phone to make a doctor's appointment, emptying the dishwasher, bending over to tie my shoe . . . . ).
"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said. 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"
I call it "One Bird at a Time." So what are you trying to accomplish this week? What stands in the way? (i.e., What is the problem you need to solve to make it happen?). What "one bird" do you have to work on to clear a path?
At the moment, getting in exercise is my most important bird. Friends of mine just joined a gym I've been looking at. They're getting me a two weeks pass to try it out. And to work out with them, I have to be there at 6 a.m. Just shoot me, but I'm committing to three mornings a week.
I started out 2014 with a morning 5K run in 29 degree weather (warmed up a little as we went). Elizabeth pushed me harder than I would have pushed myself. I had to trot to keep up with her walking. I'm putting things in place to help me be successful as I go into the rest of this week.
One bird and one day at a time.
"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said. 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"
I call it "One Bird at a Time." So what are you trying to accomplish this week? What stands in the way? (i.e., What is the problem you need to solve to make it happen?). What "one bird" do you have to work on to clear a path?
At the moment, getting in exercise is my most important bird. Friends of mine just joined a gym I've been looking at. They're getting me a two weeks pass to try it out. And to work out with them, I have to be there at 6 a.m. Just shoot me, but I'm committing to three mornings a week.
I started out 2014 with a morning 5K run in 29 degree weather (warmed up a little as we went). Elizabeth pushed me harder than I would have pushed myself. I had to trot to keep up with her walking. I'm putting things in place to help me be successful as I go into the rest of this week.
One bird and one day at a time.