Our March 15th Kuna Chamber of Commerce luncheon featured a dynamic, inspirational speaker: Ronda Conger. Most of us have heard it before, but she was excellent, and helped me focus NOW. She challenged each of us to chose and write down the One Big Thing we wanted. Then make it happen.
My big thing is too big. It is too complicated. It depends on too many other people. I am already working on it. My One Big Thing simply won’t fit on a one big thing list. I have to keep slogging away as time permits realizing if things don’t go well I’ll at least know I tried.
So I wrote down a little thing. I want it to happen. I’ve wanted it to happen for years. I could make this happen if I focus on it. I just haven’t made it a priority.
NO.
Not okay.
I haven’t made that little thing a priority because it is little, and really quite unimportant.
I realized that Ronda’s trick needed an adjustment to be useful for me. Rather than highlighting the one thing I should change in today’s snapshot of my world, I need to pick:
The One Thing I Will Wish I Had Changed A Year From Now.
Knowing this year will see dramatic changes, how silly to have spent the year to make a change to last year’s snapshot. Heck, a million of us could accomplish that same trick a year hence with Photoshop. It won’t mean a thing.
So what REALLY is my One Big Thing?
(Naturally, the over-achiever picks two) 😉
1) Getting Constitutional Sheriffs in our county [,region and country]. I’ve written plenty about this elsewhere and will write a lot more over the next 8 months.
2) Strengthening our community food bank dramatically. I have been working behind the scenes, do not yet have any significant progress to report, but now know it is one of the two big priorities in my life. Starving people make lousy neighbors and easy marks to become peasants. I have some interlocking ideas to improve that situation locally. I now know it needs to move from “I ought to do that” up over a bunch of things that are less important.
Life goes on. I will also practice and shoot Expert in Service Rifle this year. I’ll get my garden in, bird netting structure over the fruit, and fence the dog out of the compost. I’ll get the water softener installed. I’ll get the shop insulated. I’ll play some trombone (but start no more bands with me as leader or organizer). I’ll still participate in the Idaho General Assembly, Kuna Lions, Kuna Chamber of Commerce, Libertarian Party, but that’s just part of having a full social life, isn’t it?
Oops. I can’t even count to one by twos.
Maybe my one big thing needs to be to learn to think in terms of one big thing???