3 Lessons from my momentous year.....

Well, the march of time successfully escorted me into my 6th decade. I find I am the same person I was the day before my birthday just with a slightly different age label. Not that bad really. I know, big surprise, right?? :)

It's been a big year both chronologically speaking and, I'm happy to report, in a personal growth way as well. The take aways for me are:

Holding onto old stuff can suck the life out of you. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, as part of making this a momentous year, I got serious about wanting to get rid of accumulated 'stuff' that was beginning to feel smothering. 'Stuff' as in a house I'd been in for 10 years which was full of furniture, knick knacks, books, old computer and stereo equipment that had a place once upon a time but had long since become big energy sucks. I felt bound down.

So I rented the house out, got rid of a lot of stuff and took a minimal amount with me as I began sharing a house with a woman who has now become a dear friend. And, I wanted to undertake a creative process that would test my ability to stick with something I didn't exactly know how to do. Check out my hair stylist's wisdom on this subject.... Very pleased with how this experiment has shaped up.

Stretching myself into unfamiliar territory is renewing. Once moved, I set out to figure out how to build a website and social network for women in mid-life. That has been my focus these past months. It was the creative project I chose to engage in....it is a topic of great interest to me.....and right after my birthday I stopped to acknowledge the fact that the site is finally a hair's breadth from going live. That in itself is an accomplishment.

That's where the personal growth comes in, I find that having stuck with this and just 'done the freakin' work' I have much more confidence in my ability to do just about anything. I feel green and supple. The challenge of making all these big external changes in my life, helpful as they are in breaking up old patterns, was that making true change requires the heavy lifting of shifting internal beliefs about how I think of myself and my abilities.

It isn't about not being afraid, it's about being afraid and doing it anyway. It's about acknowledging the old voices in one's head that are saying the task is too hard, or why do you think you can do that, or life would just be easier if you stayed in the comfort zone....acknowledging these and then going right on.

The payoff is really BIG. And, the changes don't have to be as radical as mine have been. Anything that pushes you into territory that scares you a bit will do. Once you experience getting through it, it makes you that less worried about doing it again.

Age isn't chronological is it? That's the big realization, DUH!! It's about where you are willing to put yourself. If you put your self in a box, that's where you'll stay. But you can leave the box anytime you're ready.

And, hey, the water's fine out here ! Really!