Before my 31st birthday expires...

A few pictures of the day. (I'll keep updating this post til later.)

Along with some musings.

My 31st bday was not hugely different from the average day in the life. Slightly more self-indulgent, perhaps. (And a lot less guilt! Working on ridding myself of that not-so-helpful emotion.) But milestones like this make me a tad bit more contemplative. (New Years, Bdays, the beginning and end of each quarter and autumn in general make me feel the same way. Ah what the hell I just love an excuse for taking stock. It's in my nature.)

So in this contemplative state, things take on a new color and resonance. Something hit me this weekend while I was in Elena Brower's yoga class. (My first with her.) As a yoga teacher for nearly ten years, what I appreciated most about her class was how thoughtful she was about the preparation for it (I was right up front thanks to Justin and could see her notebook/notes). She even made notations during the flow. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't about our down dogs.

Nope. Her class was much more about a concept that involved feeling sensation/energy/emotion and then giving your body/mind the option to redistribute it.

Truly a great practice to have in life. How often do we get stagnant and let all the focus, energy, emotion go to ONE SPOT? (Like, for instance, when you are in a really long plank and all you can think about is how hard it is to hold that stinking plank?!) Well her point is that you can re-focus and re-distribute that pain energy instead of sitting there in the thick of it.

How this applies to my Birthday Life Inventory is this: where am I letting my energy and focus pool and stagnate? What can I do to hit "recirculate?"

I stood at my white board last night and made 30, 60, and 90 day goals. For the first time (in a LOOOOOONG time) they don't have dollar amounts or client #s. Instead I put # of hours reading, meditating, writing, tweeting, blogging, walking, spending with family & friends, yogafying. Truly, I put on my goals list the things that I deem most important but that sometimes get scuttled to the end of my to do list because of the Urgent/Unimportant things that come up.

Now when I look at those goals, not only do they seem doable, but also they represent the things/people/experiences that are most important to me. Yes of course they include some business-related items. In fact, I love Angela Jia Kim's (founder of Om Aroma & Savor the Success) concept of "sending out ships" that may or may not come back to you as a way to approach new biz development, networking, media pitches and speaking opps. So my goals include very regular launching of ships great and small.

But the bottom line is this: if I am taking care of myself and my business and my Most Important Goals, then the rest will take care of itself.