The "Work-In" - Think Backwards to Move Forward

Ed Negron, a former drug user, turned gangbanger, turned drug dealer, turned own best customer, turned addict, turned recovering addict (still there), turned activist, turned business manager, turned student, turned Substance Abuse Counselor, turned better and happier person, turned someone who can love and be loved (Love you Patrick), turned blogger. Check out Ed's own blog here.

Featured almost every Thursday on LifeLube --- check out all of Ed's "Work-In's" here.

On to a new decade...

The end of another year has come. Take time today to reflect on your past year. Celebrate all your accomplishments by taking a deep breath and letting it out with a big thank you into the air. 

Let the winds carry your gratitude silently and gracefully to all its destinations... to wherever, whatever, and whomever it was that helped make your accomplishments possible.

It’s also time to look at the failed attempts and mistakes. Take another deep breath and let it out with another big thank you into the air. Let the winds carry your gratitude to everyone, everything, and every place that provided you the opportunity to learn what does work for you, and to grow from it. All of us would benefit by using that knowledge to deal with situations we mishandled in the past. But we must remember that whatever mistakes we made, we made with only the knowledge and resources that we had then, and we may have done about as well as we possibly could have at that time. Going forward, say to your self: “I'll live fully today, allowing no thoughts of regret from my past to intrude." 

Or what one of my clients always says to his peers, “When you know better, you will do better.”

It’s also time to set some goals, or resolutions, for the year to come. If you’re anything like me, you have probably tried every way possible that you can think of to follow through, with either very little success or by really busting your ass to make it happen. The other morning I was reading one of my favorite daily motivational websites, The Daily Motivator, by Ralph Marston, and he wrote something that just blew me away. I had never thought of looking at goal setting this way. I was so excited about it that I asked a client if they would be willing to give it a test run that same day. So I mapped out one of their goals this new way. We both had an “ah-ha moment.” Not only did it sound good it was so much easier to create.

Okay, okay -  I know the suspense is killing you. I will leave you, on the last day of 2009, with the wonderful words from Ralph Marston:

Think backwards

• When you're planning to travel, where do you usually begin that planning? You begin with the destination. 
• You cannot know what direction to go unless you know where you would like to end up. So a successful plan begins with the destination and works its way backwards to the point where you begin. 
• When you desire to reach a specific goal, the same kind of approach will work very well. Start with the end goal, and develop your plan backwards from there. 
• When you're clear about the goal, you can easily figure out what would be the last step necessary to reach that goal. When you know the last step, you can determine what the step before that will be. 
• You can develop your plan, step by step, from the end to the beginning. When you do, instead of wondering what the best first step would be, you'll know precisely what to do first, what to do after that, and what to do after that. 
• However ambitious the goal may be, there is something you can do right now to get off to a solid start. 
• Visualize the goal, work backwards step by step, and you'll know precisely how to begin. 

--Ralph Marston


Have a SAFE and Happy New Celebration & MANY BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL IN THE NEW YEAR!!!

To read daily motivations visit my blog at thework-in.blogspot.com or to receive daily motivations via email join our Google group Back To The Basics Please .

If you are not sure how to begin your work-in or need some guidance please feel free to post a comment or email me directly at thework-in@hotmail.com, I will response as soon as I can.

(Usual disclaimer applies: The suggestions on this blog are just that “SUGGESTIONS.” My words cannot heal your pain and or addictions. Nor can I change your life. Only you can.)

“Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness." -- Shakti Gawain