My birthday’s coming up next week and I’m already getting geared up for another new year. I like to think of my birthday as my new year’s day because it has more meaning for me than an arbitrary date on a calendar that someone else created.

I also like to think that I haven’t wasted the past year by not accomplishing everything I set out to, but I would be lying to myself if I actually believed that thought. (How’s that for honesty, eh?)

I was looking over my list of goals for this calendar year and realized that I have a lot of work left to do if I’m going to achieve everything I said I wanted to this year. I’m pretty sure that if I buckle down and focus, I will be able to get it all done. So I’m making a public statement of commitment here to really get focused on growing my business and taking care of some pretty serious loose ends that need cutting off before I can move on.

One of the things I’ve been telling myself I would do for year is read a bunch of the self help classics and blog about my thoughts as I was reading them. After all, as a personal development blogger I really should have some basic knowledge of what the masters have written. But alas, I have procrastinated on that too. Until today.

Last night I was checking out the profiles of some new twitter followers (yes, I really do visit your profile when I follow you back!) and came across a really cool article by Gregg Davison in which he talks about how so many self-improvement fanatics read voraciously and never really do anything with what they read. In All The Books You Read Wont Help A Bit! Gregg also says that “reading 1-2 books a week is counter-productive in most cases.” This really struck a chord with me because I read about 10-15 books a week when you add in all the self-help books, business books, and fiction that I read every day. And that doesn’t include magazine articles, online articles, or blog posts It’s no wonder I live in a perpetual state of information overload!

So I’ve decided to take action on the steps that Gregg suggests in his article and start reading the classics I’ve been procrastinating on. Slowly. One at a time. And blogging my thoughts about them as I read them so that the information really sinks in. I started this morning with Think and Grow Rich and read the Preface and the first chapter. I’m almost ashamed to say I’ve never taken the time to read it until now, but after reading the first few pages, it occurs to me that I probably wasn’t ready for it before now.

The message I got from reading this morning certainly fits with where I’m at in my business as well … working at defining a solid, focused purpose and direction for where I want to take things over the next year. I’m still processing my thoughts on it all, so will write more on that later. As I mentioned in my Monday update, I have some new ideas I want to put into action, and I really want to do it right this time.

And that’s all she wrote for this morning :) The PLR.me mastermind call is this afternoon and I need to go and get some lunch into me before I get on the phone for that.

If you feel so inclined, leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts on Think and Grow Rich, or on Gregg’s article. I’d love to talk more about this with you!

Have an incredible, productive day :)

To be in the now, you must let go of the overwhelming feelings that hold you in the past and keep you from moving into your desired future. ~~ R L Bray, No Open Wounds

Living in the moment is a topic that is near and dear to my heart — literally. After all, surviving two heart attacks made me realize that every moment really could be my last, so I’d best enjoy each and every one of them. It’s a real wakeup call to start living in the now instead of wasting time dwelling on a past that can’t be changed. The only thing that I can change now is how I remember and react to those memories. And, for the most part I do fairly well at leaving them where they belong.

But, there are days when the past looms large, and I’d rather crawl into a corner and nurse my hurts instead of getting on with the business of living and enjoying life. And as you can no doubt see from the huge gaps in posting recently — there’ve been more than of few of those days in the past few weeks.

One thing I’ve learned about living moment to moment though is to always be paying attention to things that show up. And when they show up in multiples, you better believe I sit up and take notice. Once or twice might be cause for a “hmm, I best have a think about that” but when four — count ‘em, four — posts on living in the moment cross my path on the same day, I really think the Universe is tryin’ to tell me something. (“Get the lead out and get back to doing what you’re meant to be doing” comes to mind.) Add to those the book I’m reading which has as one of its main premises the theory that you can’t be fully present in the now if you still have hurts and wounds from the past that need dealing with, and you have a pretty convincing club for the Universe to whack little ol’ Lena on the head with!

It was John Lusher’s post Have We Forgotten How To Be In The Moment? that got me thinking along this track early this morning. He offers up some great suggestions on how to be more present in the moment. And the comments of Mr. Business Golf on living for the nanosecond and people who bring their cell phones onto the golf course are priceless. (Don’t even get me started on people who can’t unplug long enough to play a round of golf.)

Amber at Epic Self has some really great awakening exercises for living in the now that she gleaned from reading Eckhart Tolle’s books as well as a cool list of 11 reasons to live in the now. This was my first visit to her blog, and I have to tell ya, she’s got some great stuff there.

There’s a great post at Positively Present, in which Dani shares a poem she wrote when she was thirteen and an analysis of what it means to her now. I’m almost tempted to dig out my own high school poetry and see just how warped I was at thirteen. :)

One of the best reasons I’ve found for living in the moment comes from a quote by James Joyce: “I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.” If we want our tomorrows to be something other than a repeat of today, we have to make the changes that we hope tomorrow will bring in this moment, here and now. If that’s not a good reason to not dwell on the past or worry about the future, I don’t know what is.

Living in the moment, for me, has a lot to do with feeding my inner child. I love to stop and watch the ducks in the park, and I love to sit on the swings and contemplate the flow of life. I notice things like how blue the sky is and how green the leaves and the grass are. In “The Path to Personal Growth” I wrote: “Side paths are meant to be explored, roses are meant to be smelled, and butterflies exist to be marvelled at. Live your life to the fullest, do the things you love, and enjoy every minute of it.”

And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing this moment with me. :)