The Check-Off List
Two-Thousand-Twelve is going to be a special year. I mean people have already been talking about it for quite some time. There’s even a movie out about it and the Mayan Calender is ending. All that is telling me is that it is going to be a special year. I don’t believe any of the hoopla about it ending but I do believe it will be a new beginning. However, my thinking is that we should probably act as if it is ending anyway because tomorrow really isn’t promised to us. When I think of it that way, my list for 2012 has changed from my original thoughts.
So here it goes…
- Do at least 3 things on my Bucket List – I have a long bucket list but there are three things I know I can tackle within the year which include: Learning how to meditate (without me thinking it’s silly or any other distractions), going to the shooting range (been wanting to do this for three years now) and going to Disney/Universal Studios (have only been to Disney World in Japan).
- Go on a Peaceful Vacation - I have learned thru the years that it’s really important to take a vacation when you can just to at least refresh; however, mine are never peaceful. Something always happens to ruin the trip or I somehow added work into the whole equation. I would like a trip where I am just “zen” the whole time.
- Write a Book – I am finally deciding to write a book and plan to have it done mid year. It’s something I have wanted to do a for a long time and now I feel like I have enough content to put one out and work on another to be done at the end of the year.
- Revamp My Site – This is something I have wanted to do for a while now, I am not quite ready because there is so much I want to do with it. Although I have been told it’s a nice site, there are some advancements I had plans to incorporate since I started this site.
- Start a New Site – I have had my personal site domain I have planned from the start to create so that I can brand myself. Most of you don’t know the whole story behind “Marika” as that is not my first name. I would like you to know more of who I am and how I got to this point, because you will then understand why I created this site and why I write about some of the things I do.
- “Work Smarter not Harder” – If you haven’t noticed by how often I post that I stay pretty “busy”. I work A LOT. Last year, I got better about saying “no” to people so that I didn’t add more to the full plate I already had. I love to help people but sometimes, unfortunately, it’s not smart to do so. Once I build the foundation I envision, I definitely will be able to help people more.
- Find a “Sponsor” – Sponsor is such a nice word isn’t it? Nicer than maybe investor or partner. Well, I am the type of person that loves to do things by myself. But now that I want to work smarter and not harder, I have realized that allowing certain people to help me is wise. I also know that I will have to help them back; therefore, finding someone that has a similar vision or is doing similar things where it would be easy to give back is vital.
- “Align my Circle” – I saw many people stating in their statuses how they are cleaning their closet. Well, that would take to much of my energy to go thru my lists. However, I have found prayer and self discovery to be much more effective. Every time I sit down and really talk to God about aligning myself with the right people suitable for me, He will then (like clockwork) take someone out of my life that did not need to be there. It’s always been a situation that showed me who they really were that didn’t align with who I am. But before I talk to God, I take some time to learn some things about who I am because if I don’t know who I am I won’t know who I should be aligned with. This year I want to change some things about my energy so that the people I attract are in my alignment that way I don’t have to go through the pain of losing people out of my life. Though it is necessary it’s still not fun when you lose someone you became close to.
- Do More Video – My plan is to start interviewing people and doing more personal video blogs like I used. Also, since I travel for work I am going to get a nice video cam to tape my experiences.
- Love Myself – I have been single for some time and have learned that is it important for me to stay this way at least until this process is solid. I think we all will be in the process of loving ourselves constantly; however, obtaining a solid foundation of self love is important. I have some great people in my life that help me with this periodically. What I have found got me off track was dating men that had no plans to love me so, I will definitely have to be more careful.
- Forgive Myself – Forgiveness is something I have had to learn to do. If you follow signs, Scorpios are not good at this. I am much like my sign in this respect. I have had declare certain situations complete, in order to forgive the person that caused them. However, the root of most of the bad situations have pointed right back to me. I have found it easier to forgive others to avoid forgiving myself. It’s not healthy because it causes me to be quite hard on myself. It also makes it harder to let go. I have found that when people forgive themselves everything else comes easy with faced with a situation.
- Create a Game-plan – Of course, in order to do all of the above I will have to stick to a game-plan.
So what’s your 12 things?
Good Day..!
“I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.”
Well, I don't know… because I do think there is a lot of luck and blessings involved for all of that to happen.
Yes, these days it IS, when you are LUCKY! I go back and forth with the whole "soul mate" theory. My parents said they were and they are no longer together. So that's not really setting a good message for me.
enjoying it 100%.
Good Lawd, that's a big list. Don't know if I could come up w. 12 but my main thing is to be true to myself and keep it real with not only myself but with others all day, everyday.
Which boils down to this…There have been many times in my life when I did things that went against the grain of who I am. When we do that falling on our face is the inevitable result. So I've probably done enough face falling for this entire group. On the other hand when I move with the flow and do things that mesh with my uniqueness things just have a way of working out.
Prime example, I've always been the type of person that likes to have my hands in a lotto stuff at one time. Always…I could never be content just doing one thing. Thank goodness that since meeting my wife my love life has been simpler
But ppl who I considered to be wise men and women would always pull me to the side and say, "B'…I know ur good at different things but stop being all over the damn place, Son. If you focus u can do more. I listened and even tried to do that for a while, but found out that it just aint me."
But funny thing is when I look back through history and look at the people of color that came thru that Harlem Renaissance period there were lots of people that excelled at two, three or even four things in life. I wanna be like those people.-those r my heroes. People like the Herndons' who started Atlanta Life Insurance company, but who also ran a string of successful barbershops.
Of course my main focus is on online entrepreneurship but I also love poetry, consider myself to be a bit of a hip hop historian, and have an interest in self development and in seeing ppl have healthy relationships.
So this year my plan is to dig my roots deeper into online business – things like doing better online videos, creating more info products, and becoming a better affiliate. Likewise, I'd like this to be the year that I spread my branches and begin writing some poetry and maybe even doing the occasional hip hop album review-all while helping others to see that they can do it too.
I would love to read some of your poetry…. what kind is it?