We always exist in a state of grace. Grace is our benevolence of heart, and our generosity of spirit. Grace is unconditional love and the beauty that is our humanity. When we know that we are blessed with grace, we can’t help but want to live our lives in grace …grace is a permanent part of our being. Knowing we are graced gives us hope, makes us more magnanimous, and allows us to trust that we are taken care of.

No matter what situation has arisen for me, when faced with a crisis of minimal or biblical proportions, some unexpected curve ball of a blessing (grace) has popped up out from left field. I never see them coming, but every time they are there. The blessings can be something as small as hearing a phrase that has stuck in my head so long that it reveals a new perspective. Or, it can something as big as finding funds for paying financial commitments.

No matter how bad it seems, life just has a way of gliding on. Every time. Believe me, it has happened often enough that I have let go of any skepticism! Life works out without me being at the wheel every minute. I know I can comfortably take a deep breath, hand my fears over, and just go with whatever happens, trusting that I’ll land on my feet. Every time.

The trick comes in letting go of a personal blue print for how things should work out. The ability to accept what is happening and letting go of ones original expectations is key when dealing with these unexpected turns of fate. We have a tendency to get stuck in our heads, clinging to an idea of how we think life should go, and we can have a hard time accepting anything that doesn’t comply with that idea. The fact is that life is unpredictable.

Even positive turns of fortune – an unexpected influx of cash or falling in love – require us to be flexible and to reconsider our plans and priorities, sometimes in the blink of an eye. Consider this: your car breaks down, and you are late for an appointment. And, while it’s true that you never arrive at the scheduled meeting, you end up spending a few relaxing hours with people you would never have met otherwise. Or, the trip you thought was for business; and when the deal fell through you got depressed. However because of changes in your undertakings, you landed at the airport two days earlier than planned and you met the love of your life!

Joseph Campbell said “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” So, next time a curve ball comes your way, take a deep breath, say thank you, and open your mind to a new opportunity!

One day you’re going to college, studying and having fun; the next thing you know you’re working long hours, eating on the run, rushing home to take care of your kids or your spouse/significant other. Where does the time go? Managing time means more than managing your life against the clock. It means taking time to look at the priorities that you say are important to you. How many times do you say “I don’t have time?” Are you really saying “that is not my priority” Think about it? We are always telling others and ourselves “I would if I had the time.”

We think we have no choices about how we spend our time. Technology that was supposed to make life easier has actually done the opposite and is eating away at our personal time. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), computers, email, cell phones and pagers all compete for our attention. Electronic organizers and communication devices create an “on-call” work mentality that takes priority over personal responsibilities. Lack of time is more perception than reality. The problem is the lack of commitment to your priorities after you’ve set them. People overwork, set time to watch television and surf the Internet, but many people don’t set time to do the things that they say are important to them; for example; exercise, interacting with family or just spending time clearing your mind and doing something you enjoy. In one of my previous articles, “Wellness After 30: Getting The Most Out of Later Life”, I talked about the importance of taking a closer look at how you spend your time on an average day; writing down your daily activities to find opportunities to include things you might not have known existed.

In order to free up some of the time you spend watching television, you may want to record the TV shows you enjoy watching, and when you play them back, fast forward through the commercials. You will gain 12 minutes of personal time for every hour of TV you watch. Don’t be forced to follow programming schedules. Watch fewer shows but take the time to enjoy the ones you do see. Try limiting your time surfing the internet to one hour per day. Analyze the total number of hours you are spending at work versus how productive you really are on an average day.

Time is finite: 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 7 days a week. You can’t save it, but you can waste it. The amount of time we have does not matter, but rather the way we use it. Life can change in an instant so it’s important to make the most of what we have. Make time for what’s important to you: connecting with others, working in a career you’re passionate about, being proactive about your health by being physically active. Here are five steps you can take right now to get started.

1. Establish priorities that are truly important to you.

If your life is already full of things to do and you have no more time to add anything else, which is the case for most people. What do you do? Well you definitely don’t want to add anything to an already full plate. You must take some things away in order to free up time.

If I examined your life right now, would I be able to see what’s really important to you? Ask yourself what’s working, what’s not working and what could be better.

2. Re-evaluate your priorities using your time the way you really want.

As a mom, I have an ongoing struggle to get my children to realize that as they get older I need them to be accountable for the things that are within their capacity to handle, so that I can have more time for what I want to do. I have easily done this in every other aspect of my life, but this particular area is not so easy. I work consistently to get to what I really want in this area of my life everyday.

Take an inventory of your life; Are there areas of your life that need your attention, energy and resources? Look at the people that are in your life and assess why they are there. Do they fuel you or drain you?

3. Make time for yourself.

Make yourself number one as a priority. Spend your time and energy on things that bring you joy and make decisions based on what you want instead of what others want.

Practice excellent self-care. Focus on yourself in order to strengthen your balance, well-being and quality of life.

4. Set boundaries around your life.

Say “no” with respect when you already have a full plate. Don’t let your guilt talk you into saying yes. Explain to others that in order to honor your priorities you cannot add anything else right now. You can reschedule or just decide that it does not contribute to your overall priorities.

Learn your limits. We don’t say “no” frequently enough and we end up paying a price. For example, your best friend asks you to go to the mall today, your son has soccer practice, your daughter has violin lessons and your spouse/significant other is working late. What do you do? You can tell your best friend that you have to reschedule the mall trip for another day in order to honor your priorities.

5. Time is a gift.

If you found out today that you had 30 days left to live. What would become important to you? You shouldn’t wait for a message like that to live your life to the fullest. Spend your precious time right now being alive and enjoying your life fulfilling your purpose on this earth everyday.

Now that you’ve freed up some time, create an action plan and set goals to achieve what you say is important to you at this very moment.

A new year is upon us. A fresh beginning. Twelve whole months to achieve this, become that, and acquire the other. Whatever your goals or resolutions are for 2007, be they overwhelmingly gigantic, or very reasonably attainable, the secret to achieving them is to take consistent steps in the direction you want to go in.

And believe it or not, the first step is to know not only what you want, but why you want it. This is important because it goes to the heart of your motivation. If you’re not crystal clear as to why you want what you want, then when the usual procrastination triggers occur you’re very likely to fall prey to them. This may sound a little off the wall, but you may not want what you think you want, or you may not want it for the reasons you think.

It is a very common experience among coaches to have clients show up with a particular agenda, and for it to emerge some sessions down the line that the real agenda is something else entirely. Why? Because for the most part we live our lives unconsciously, and we set ourselves goals and follow them unconsciously. When we get in touch with what really matters to us, we often discover that what we really want is much more simple than what we thought we were after all along.

Or indeed it may be much more complex and challenging a prospect than what we wanted to take on, and therefore we were trying to convince ourselves that we wanted something else, something easier to achieve. Knowing what we really want, and why we really want it, can be unsettling, but it is also energising and motivating. When it’s a deeply felt authentic desire, pursuing it will be a joy in itself.

When you get down to the essence of what you want, you can tell immediately if it supports your core values or is in conflict with them. If there’s a conflict, you can be absolutely certain that you will sabotage yourself along the way, even though you might not be consciously aware of why you’re not seeing it through. When your goals are in alignment with your values, you’ll have the commitment to see it through despite the difficulties you’ll encounter.

One of my major ambitions for this year is to start running personal retreats helping people to learn how to be truly happy. I want to build outdoor adventure activities into the mix, and make these workshops a significant part of my business. I don’t know when, or where exactly, or the precise how-to’s yet. But none of that worries me because I do know why I want to do it.

I want to do this because I want to combine group coaching with fun activities, as I come across people all the time who are prepared to spend more money on holidays than on their own personal development, and yet they are asking themselves why they aren’t happy. And I am committed to helping people to realise that they can be happy right here right now, without the perceived perfect life conditions they wish for.

I want to do it because it will be fun for me too, and I am totally committed to having fun in my life at all times. For me, fun isn’t about frivolity, or at least not exclusively! It’s about thoroughly enjoying what I’m doing at the time I’m doing it.

I also want to feel free at all times. Freedom for me is about always feeling that I have a choice, never doing something out of a feeling of obligation, but rather because right now it’s what I want to do.

I want my life to be a continuous adventure. The fact that right now I just have the bare bones of a plan, with all of the details still to be fleshed out, scared me at first. But now I view it as an adventure. I know what I want and why I want it, and I’m going to give myself as much time as I need to discover exactly how to, rather than pressurising myself to deliver it as soon as possible. To do that would be to make it too much like hard work – the opposite of fun and freedom! Hmm, I might even need to head off on some personal retreat for myself as a first step – what a thrilling idea…

And along the way, I might discover that what I really want to do is something else entirely. That would be absolutely fine with me, as I would make that discovery doing what I really, really want, which is to explore possibilities with a sense of fun and freedom.

So, my point is, before blindly chasing your goals, know why it is you’re going after them. What will having achieved that give you? Stay focussed on the essence of what you’re after, and if you end up taking detours along the way, or even changing course altogether, it really won’t matter. You’ll have enjoyed the journey, which at the end of the day is what life is all about.