Stop Reacting and Be Proactive

As a busy woman have you ever had those moments when you dive head first into a big 'ole pity party? You're running around in circles doing everything for everyone (or so you feel) and you start telling yourself how unappreciated you are, how much you've given up for everyone else, and start ticking off all of the personal interests you once had but somehow allowed to fall by the wayside.

Sure everyone feels undervalued from time to time, but how can we place blame on someone else for putting ourselves on the backburner?

For most of us who are moms, wives and professional women we've had to develop some organizational skills to manage our schedules and keep life in some sort of organized state. We make shopping lists, organize household projects and keep multiple calendars. We know how to plan a family trip months, if not years, in advance, but for some reason when it comes to being disciplined in identifying and working towards goals that make us feel valued we've learned to play the martyr card rather than take charge of ourself.

So why don't we take the time to pursue our passions? Isn't it true that if we aren't addressing and taking care of our own needs it is really hard to properly care for the needs of others?

In an attempt at support and solidarity, we often encourage one another to "take a day for ourselves". For most of us, than translates to a shopping trip, mani/pedi day, or a day at the beach. These days certainly can be helpful for temporary sanity, but they really don't address the problem-- we're not taking the time to really focus on what we want to accomplish so we're not moving forward. After taking a day for ourself, we're simply right back to treading along in the day-to-day routine.

Today I ran across a website than I think can help each one of us stop reacting and be proactive about laying out our life plan-- identifying our personal goals and dreams and developing a plan to achieve them. Author, speaker and publisher Michael Hyatt has a fantastic website and blog with tons of resources for developing your life plan. You can even download his life plan book for free upon signing up for his newsletter. The book gives templates for developing your very own life plan. It is an easy read. I read it on my lunch hour. I highly encourage you to check out his website and the book at http://michaelhyatt.com/.

Let me know what you think once you've read the book. I've got some friends I'm going to challenge to develop a life plan of their own and some that I'm going to ask to hold me accountable for regularly reviewing, revising and most importantly working to achieve the life plan I develop.