Break out the shovel!

With two storms - a bit of ice and snow and a lot of freezing rain, the winter wonderland outside my front door is a total hazard. In an effort to ensure that the postman or anyone else walking on my walkway doesn't fall, I had to get out there and clean it up. It's interesting - I could have gotten out the shovel yesterday, but just really didn't feel like it. I was hoping that the sun would come out and melt the ice away. Alas it was a balmy 25 degrees today and so all of the ice was stil there.

It took me most of the day (I guess really almost two) to get up the energy to get out there, but I finally put my boots on and headed out to conquer the ice. After I got outside, it really wasn't bad. While it was a little chilly, the sun was shining, I was actually getting a little exercise for my poor flabby arms and in no time, I had cleared a neat path for the mailman and for me to get to/from the house.

I go through this whole story because it is exactly what we need to do before going into the New Year. We need to break out the shovel. Most people start the New Year with resolutions about what they are going to do differently - eat right, lose weight, work less, call friends more often. But there is little thought to what needs to be cleared away first to make that change. What barriers stand in your way of accomplishing your goals?

So you want to work less in 2008 - you've got two more weeks to prepare for that transition. Just like that ice on my stoop is not going to magically go away so I can get my mail, your work responsibilities aren't just going to diminish. So what do you have to do in the next 14 days to enable you to begin 2008 on the path toward realizing your goal. Do you need to take an inventory of your projects and figure out what the priorities are, what can be delegated and what can be postponed? Do you need to look at how you are spending your time to determine if there is another more efficient way to allocate it?

Setting a goal is relatively easy, but setting yourself up to acheive that goal will send you out of 2007 on a very high note. Actively shovel the walkway so that you can head down a cleared path and begin the New Year with a real commitment to achieving your resolutions.