Are You On Track with Your Life’s DESIGN?
“What’s the use of running if you are not on the right road.†– German proverb
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.â€Â – Lewis Carroll
Ah, March.  It’s finally here. Spring, tulips, sweaters in blue or green and violet.
Maybe you’re seeing red, instead. All those red marks you’ve made on your calendar, online or otherwise, marked: “Priority!â€Â “Do this today, or ELSE!†or my personal favorite: “If you haven’t done [INSERT YOUR OWN HIDEOUS REMINDER] by this date, you have got to be kidding if you think you’re going to meet that deadline.â€
Many women over 40 experience the beginning of March as a time to evaluate for better or worse whether we’re on track for what we set out to accomplish back in January.  In fact, if you’re in a business, it’s April that feels like a freight train is headed right for you if you haven’t made first-quarter goals.
If you also feel so overwhelmed that the concept of being “on track†means you’re literally racing on an actual track, running for some version of a commuter train as you gulp your coffee and balance the schlep of your laptop, lunch, extra pair of shoes, hat, gloves and scarves without getting a heel caught in a pothole,  as you wonder out loud if you unplugged the coffee pot/hot-rollers/steam iron or other small appliance that could turn your home and everything in it into a towering inferno, let me assure you that you are not the only one who feels that way. For me, March is like a 30-day warning for April. Or, a 30-night warning…
Around three o’clock this morning, sleep not only eluded me but the demons of worry outright smacked any notion of even a fitful sleep right out of my body. It’s not the first night in the past few months that this has happened. This time I finally gave up and got up. I know from experience that the additional hour or so of sleep after all that tossing and turning only makes me feel worse as the day wears on.
What I finally realized in the shinier light of late morning is that over the past two months I have been doing way too many things at the behest or request of other people. While a lot of those things and people are part of my overall DESIGN for what I really need to accomplish this year, many are not. What’s worse, I am not focusing during what should be the most productive times of my day on those people and activities that will in fact keep me on track and within my DESIGN that I set for this year’s goals.  So, of course, when my over-active brain should finally shut down at night so I can sleep, my survival instinct kicks in and wakes me up to help me remember all those things that I am really supposed to be doing. It’s not as if these priorities are not written down; it’s that I somehow have distorted the priority of reactive, seemingly urgent tasks at the expense of the proactive non-urgent but essential activities that will really help me DRIVE my strategy forward.
If you’re facing the same kinds of demons in the middle of the night, or in the middle of an intersection as you speed through a red light and hope the cops are as sleep-deprived as you, join me this month as I write more about why and how to have a DESIGN in mind and in writing, for your personal life, career or other legacy. A DESIGN helps you see where you want to go; create strategies and tools for how you’re going to get there; and use your right-side intuitive brain as well as your left-side analytical brain to help you envision a destination and set goals to reach it.
DESIGN is the blueprint you need to help you achieve anticipated or intended actions; it’s the charter for your life, your year, your month, your week, your day. Regardless of what you’re Dealing with, or whatever distracting Deals come your way, if you have a concerted DESIGN in place, you can always get back on the right track, literally and figuratively.
Next:Â Stop your whining, get DESIGNING!
