Circles of Completion

I used to have trouble with completion. It wasn't, particularly, lack of completing things that was the issue, or even gumption or the willingness to work hard. Instead, the pickle seems to have more to do with how much I love to START STUFF! New projects, creative endeavors, big ideas—-I love `em and often dive in with enough enthusiasm for a whole troupe of worker-bees.

When an alluring project catches my fancy, I’m often eager to dance, which means sometimes (just sometimes!) all my OTHER exciting, new projects get temporarily laid aside while I do--until I can get back to them, of course.

That’s why I’ve started something new around our home called “completing the circles.” It started with my husband and I wanting to be good role models for our 17-month-old son. Pick up your toys, clear your plate…good life skills, if you ask me, and good to start young.

As we all know, of course, children learn what they see and not what they’re told. And so, before asking Devin to master this important life skill, we had to do some honest soul searching and self-evaluation.

Life with children is full of project after project, be they our own (laundry, cleaning dishes, wiping his mouth) or his (playing with that truck, this book now, Mommy!). Our home frequently looked like a tornado had hit it—that tornado being us (and that’s US collectively). You could almost map out where our path had gone, from one exciting event in our home to the next.

Now I’m beginning to simply try to complete each task at the time we’re doing it--setting the table, putting out the food, eating the food, clearing the table, putting the food away, doing the dishes--one big, delightful completed circle with nothing to clean up later, no mess to cause our energy to drop just when we’re diving into something new! We’re actually having fun with this whole completed-circle thing. Jim and Devin are getting into as much as me.

In honor of this month’s theme on my website (www.dreamcatching.net) –COURAGE—I’m realizing that sometimes it takes courage to complete things. What will we do with our time when the house is neat, all circles completed? What will happen when we publish that book, finish that project? What will happen THEN?

Other times, courage is not needed so much for seeing something to the end, but having the bravery to “not do” some of the exciting opportunities that come our way, even if they seem “so important.” Sometimes NOT embarking on some of the new circles of activity that distract us—especially if doing so will disappoint others or endanger our sense of busy, self-importance—can require just as much courage as following through.

As we celebrate a year of new beginnings, it can also be helpful to remember that 2006 can also be a year of completions—truly clearing our plate and slate by finishing all those things we’ve been saying we will. Won’t it feel good when we have?

TODAY is a great day to BEGIN closing all those promises you have made to yourself. Have fun beginning—and completing! And HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!