First To Be, Then To Do

Macro Monday is easy to play,
snap a macro (or close-up) photo,
post it on your blog
then go to Lisa's Chaos
and sign Mr Linky.

To Be!

I read a refreshing article over the weekend that gave me a new idea about how to face each morning. Before you write your To Do list (whether on paper or in your head), write a To Be list. And keep it short!

After all, as my friend Mary reminded me the other day when I was bemoaning the fact that I got so little done one day, we are human BEINGS, not human DOINGS.

Yes, we all have stuff we must do simply to keep our lives on track: correspondence and bills, laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, playing with our kids, giving loving time to our spouses, act on committees, do volunteer work ... oh, yeah, and our jobs that earn money.

But if we want to keep in touch with our own inner spirits, the stuff in life that makes us tick, the essence that gives meaning to our lives, we also need to give 30 seconds of thought each day to what we want TO BE. When we consider who we want to be, how we want to present ourselves to the world, to our family, to ourselves, then it will help us know how to prioritize all those TO DOs.

Here's a couple examples:

Monday is the day I get the house spiffied up to help the week run smoothly. In addition, my teenage daughter is on Spring Break and we want to spend some extra one-on-one time together. With that in mind, I asked myself, "What do I want to be today?"

I chose Productive and Focused.

This morning, my husband had a meeting in which it was his turn to bring snacks. Last night we bought some mini (3") Bundt cakes, strawberries, pineapple, mandarin oranges, and springtime silk flowers. He's getting to be a legend for making innovative snacks with a nice presentation, rather than plopping a bag of bagels on the table. Later in the day, he had a lunch meeting with the gal he's mentoring. She wants to learn to be a person of vision, and there's no one better at the credit union to teach her than my husband.

With those meetings in mind, Dale decided that today he wanted to be An Inspiration and Ambitious.

So here's your challenge. Tell me ... what do you want to be today? What two qualities do you want to embrace and personify?

Aim your energies in that direction. At the end of the day, see if deciding what you wanted To Be helped direct your energies and intentions in that direction as you worked your way through your To Do list.