Pick a row

By Martha O’Regan
This was the closing statement of a very inspiring speaker at a local business meeting several years ago.  Admittedly, I don’t remember the exact context, but I believe she tied it to picking corn in Iowa. Regardless, the line has stuck with me and lately has become one of my primary “shift” thoughts, especially when I am feeling overwhelmed from the limitless rows to choose from these days. Just pick a row, choose a path, or as my father used to say, “Lead, follow or get out of the way.” In other words, commit to something and do that something well.
With all of the advancements since our ancestors’ day, we can get strangled with information overload, wasting precious time on distractions rather than what is really important to our overall enjoyment of life — family, recreation, health, etc. We can get so bogged down with wanting to be, do or have everything that we actually end up with nothing. Or, we commit to doing it all, saying yes to everything only to one day find ourselves in total exhaustion or in pain or illness. Learning how to pick a row and balance our lives reduces stress, bringing an enormous feeling of freedom and well being.
So, where to begin? When it comes to setting goals or commitments to any area of your life — health, relationships, career, finances, etc. — start by writing them down. Just start writing in list form, breaking it into categories if you choose.  You just want to get all of your hopes, dreams, goals, and intentions out of your mind and onto paper.  Then just sit with the list looking at and ‘feeling’ each item separately.
Then, on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest, give each one a number representing your level of desire to be, do or have the specific thing on your list. How did each one “feel” in your body? Did some area contract or did you feel an expansion somewhere? Have some fun with this one as you repeat this through the entire list.
Then go through again grading each item on your level of belief that it can be achieved in a specific time frame.  Use a reasonable time frame such as three to six months. Look at the list again with these numbers, circling the ones with the highest numbers, and, voila — there’s your row!  Now, it doesn’t mean the other things on your list of dreams, goals and intentions aren’t important.  It just means they aren’t on this row to focus on, so don’t discard these items as this process should be repeated again in three to six months.
Now, you can take your row and begin to breathe life into it by creating an action plan and seeing or feeling your goal manifested.  Start to create it in your mind as though it were already true and real. Understand that each present moment is actually “past tense” based on thoughts and beliefs that have already occurred. This helps to truly grasp that if we don’t like what is showing up in our life right now, we can start creating what we want for our future.
It’s been said by many that we spend much of our life creating what we don’t want so we can eventually come to terms with what we do want. So with that in mind, pick a row, dream the dream and create the life that you do want. Live Well … Have Fun!