Over 60 Exchange

As I write these lines, the calendar tells me there are just a few days left in this year. Can that be true?

It's time again to reflect on the challenges and successes of 2005
and think ahead to 2006.

We've all heard the saying, "Time flies when you're having fun". As we get older, we realize that time flies whether we're having fun or not.

The holiday season is important to me. Even though it's a hectic time of year, it's also a time for family, for friends—and for reflection.

Consider making it a R-E-A-L Holiday Season:

  R-eview
E-xamine
A-ppreciate
L-earn

Review
It's important that you give yourself and your family not only a gift, but the gift of presence—YOUR presence. Take time with your family and take time with yourself. Review what you've done. Go through your calendar. Make a list of happenings.

I keep an ongoing "chronofile" with a list of events, goals, challenges, current events, notations, etc. This makes it easy for me to review this trip around the sun.

Examine
Think about what these happenings have meant to you. How did they affect the other events? How did you feel? What worked and what didn't?

Appreciate
The Bible says, "Give thanks in all things". It DOESN'T say FOR all things, but rather IN all things. For those things that you wished hadn't been so, you can still give thanks for the experience and the learning.

You may not see the value of everything that's happened in your life right now, but they most likely happened for a reason. Even though those reasons may be obscure at this moment, give thanks anyway.

Life is lived forward but only understood backwards. Most of the funny stories we tell about ourselves were once painful. If we're going to laugh about it later, we might as well laugh about it now.

Learn
What can we learn from this year? What will we want to repeat or expand upon? What will we let go of and resolve to never do again? Remember that good judgment comes from experience. And how do you gain experience? Yup--bad judgment.

The tragedy is not in making mistakes, but rather in repeating them. Burn your learnings deep into your consciousness. Your life will become richer with each passing year.

I urge you to invest in this process and reap the rewards.

Editor's Note: I highly recommend a valuable tool to help you evaluate the year just ending and prepare for the New Year.

The 101 Best Year-End Questions plus 101 Best New Year Questions: over 200 questions to help you make this year your most exceptional yet. Going through this process will help you examine the last 12 months and prepare you for making the best choices for the months ahead.

It'll cost you less than the price of a movie (free for Gold Members) and what it will contribute is invaluable.http://successnet.org/101quest.htm