Overcoming Obstacles: Defining Moment

This entry into the blog covers a defining moment in my life. Out of this occurence came my business and the reason I defined my values and set goals to get to where I wanted to go...

Defining My Values & Setting My Goals.

In 1999, I lost my husband. He was a city manager of a small Texas town.

I was absolutely devastated by his death. Yet, life must go on!

During the weeks and months following his death, I realized that it was totally up to me to make my life work for me again.

It was up to me to fulfill my own goals and to gain peace of mind and satisfaction with my life. I started the process of doing that, but it probably took a good two years to work through all the garbage that fell upon me when my husband's death took place. By the third year, it got better, and by the fourth year, I began to feel human again. As I closed in on year five this Thanksgiving, I realized it was time to do everything I could to share my good fortune of "coming back."

Lots of folks contributed to my recovery. One who comes to mind right now is my Aunt Jo Ann.

After losing my husband, my Aunt Jo Ann (another widow) said to me "I know just how you feel. After your uncle died, out of all the things I missed, the thing I missed the most was my mind!"

There's more to this story which I might publish one of these days, however, to get back to the topic at hand which is how I recognized my values and defined my goals:

Be Determined: I Will Never Give Up

Probably about 100 plus times after that fateful Sunday night after our Thanksgiving Holiday in November of 1999 I sat down with a pen and paper to figure out where I was going to go from that point to get on with my life.

Some people have to try to quit smoking many, many times before they finally quit. For me, I had to work hard to get my life back together.

The main point to remember here is that I never gave up.

Gain Control
I started out right from the moment I realized Gary was dead and assessed the situation. The first thing you have to do after a disaster is to gain control and assess the damage and the assets you have left to work with. I shunned and eschewed victim thinking! I got control over my life.

Count Your Blessing (While Assessing the Damage)
Next, count your blessings. Yes, I had lost a wonderful part of my life but I looked for the lessons to be learned and for the silver lining that I could find from it.

I recognized right away that as a result of Gary's death, good or bad, I was the only one calling the shots.

Establish a Can-Do Attitude
I had two choices to choose my perceptions from:
(1) being in charge of my life, or
(2) being a victim.

Left widowed, I could either see it as an opportunity, or a victimization.

Either I was totally in control of my life, and would say to myself "Ah...but it's good to be Queen!"

or

I could view my situation as a victim of circumstance.

(Quick note: My husband was a very humble man, and he used a lot of humor in his way of communicating. For sure, Gary never elevated his own importance above that of others. But to give him credit for one of the things that helped me to move on, I affectionately use one of the funny little things my husband said privately to me once "Ah...but, it's good to be King!")

If I had employed a victim's attitude, I would have said "Woe is me!! Poor me!!!" Rather, I made a choice to live the rest of my life and to live it well. I assessed what I had to work with and moved forward.

Then, the Next Question - where was I going?
It was a hard time, to be sure, but I used a technique I learned in a seminar I once attended. I call it the "Tombstone List"

Unfortunately, graves and death were a part of my thinking at the time, but those very points helped me to focus on my personal Tombstone List. I knew all the wonderful things that people said about my husband at his funeral and in the months afterward.

I decided to think on what I want to list on an imaginary tombstone which would be erected at my own grave when the time came. From this, I figured out the my core values of my life and it made me sure of where I am going with my actions, time, and resources. I don't have to stop and argue with myself.

My personal Tombstone List can be summed up in five things which are really what are more commonly known as "Core Values." Hopefully, at the end of my life, these things can be said about me:

Brenda strived to:

-Live a life that God approved of; and to be defined by God and not man. (Core Value #1)

-Love extravagantly; be an excellent mother; and, to support her children with her resources, her acceptance, approval and love. (Core Value #2)

-Be independent of others who were negative, toxic, and who were not supporting of her life and her goals and as a result received the desires of her heart in all things. (Core Value #3)

-Increase her knowledge daily, and never stopped learning. (Core Value #4)

-Live boldly, and to let others do the same without criticism from her. (Core Value #5)

Hold to Your Purpose
Once this list was created, I knew where I wanted my heart's true desires to lead me. I also knew how to prepare for where I planned for my life to go. I had to chart a course and get cracking. Admittedly, some days I cracked more forcefully than others. Some days I did not get out of bed.

Some days I wished I was dead, but I remained alive and willing to wrestle through it all. I realized I had a purpose and a set of values that were going to take me through life. This is undoubtedly one of the tender mercies from God who provided me with the wisdom to do that which gave me hope.

Crazy as it may seem, but using the Tombstone List created a new lease on life for me. I am not afraid of death, so the idea of a tombstone has no bearing on my mood. The technique worked well for me.

By generating my core values and writing them down, I took on a new way of looking at things and my whole life improved. I was able to work at the grief, stumble through the cloud of depression with a reason to persevere, and it also worked to reduce the affects of the remnants of old baggage from my entire life. I forced myself to focus forward, and not to look backward.

Purpose is Established: Ask: How will I get there?

From the exercise of creating my own Tombstone List, I realized the best way to be able to pursue what I enjoy is to be self-employed. Satisfactory self-employment would be the vehicle that would get me to the place I wanted to be in fifty years or so.

Hence, self-employment has become my major life drive. I seek it unswervingly, incessantly, and with unwavering determination.

And, as much as I enjoy being an NSA, here's a little insider info on me:

My NSA work is the largest one contributor at present to my income, but I have other methods of working at home that helps acheive my financial goals and I am watching them grow.

I like being an NSA because it does get me out to be around people just the right amount that pleases me. And, I love doing it because I am good at it.

However, I seek other means of income which I can do from my own home and which match my core values. I will write more on this later.

From much meditation on the way life is, and how I could get to where I wanted to be, I have determined that I will do whatever it takes to reach my income goals as long as it allows for me to live within the boundaries of the five Core Value items listed above.

After creating a list of my core values that defined me, and to point me to walk through my life so that I can be remembered as I wish to be, I had to do what we all do: Determine how to to support myself financially to be able to live the life I want to live.

So, I decided to work on my goals for earning financial support. Here's what I came up with:

My #1 Goal is Self-Employment.
My #2 Goal is to be self-employed in a job, or jobs, that I enjoy.
My #3 Goal is to earn a certain amount of assets and regular income by a certain date .

Next time:

Observations to Keep Me Steady

Until then...take care, Brenda