@2011 Photo by Steve SamuelsAn essential success secret is to reflect and appreciate your progress. If you’ve been working towards organizing your home, it’s important to pause along the way and acknowledge all the work you’ve done to create more order. If you’ve been moving towards a more comfortable life balance, stopping to review where you are enables you to recognize your growth.

One of my 2011 goals was to write more frequently and put out a new post every week. I’ve stayed close to that schedule and have focused on writing about a different aspect of organizing and life balance each month. To honor the idea of pausing to appreciate successes, I’ve collected for you my favorite 2011 posts. I am grateful for the wonderful community of readers and commentators. For those that wrote comments, your thoughts enriched the dialogue. Your ideas are always welcome and I encourage you to continue adding to the conversation.

Linda’s Favorite 2011 Posts:

Fresh Start:  5 Ways to Get A Fresh Start

Embrace Change:  Checking-in On Change

Next Step:  What’s Your Next Step?

Too Hard to Let Go:  My Tea Said, “Let Go!”

Too Much Clutter:  Release Mind Clutter

Too Little Time:  8 W’s of Time Management

Getting Motivated:  5 Motivation Tricks

Enlisting Help:  7 Ways to Help Self

Discovering Success Secrets:  Environment for Success

It’s your turn. What goal have you been working towards? Have you paused to reflect and acknowledge your accomplishments? Can you share one of your successes or challenges with us?

@2011 Photo by Linda SamuelsAs we welcome a new month with the climate and focus transitioning to the fall season, I’m reminded of a favorite anecdote, Charles Francis, my friend and author of Wisdom Well Said, shared with me several years ago.  The story suggests that our growth and success stem from immersing ourselves in a nurturing, conducive environment. And so the story goes…

A favorite fish of many hobbyists is the Japanese carp, also known as the koi. The interesting thing about the koi is that if you keep it in a small fish bowl, it will only grow to be 2 to 3 inches. Place the koi in a larger tank, and it will reach 6 to 10 inches. Put it in a big pond, and it may get as long as a foot and a half. However, when placed in a huge lake where it can really stretch out, it has the potential to reach sizes up to 3 feet.

An analogy can be made concerning people. Our growth is determined by the size of our world. It is not the world’s measurable dimensions that are important, but the mental, emotional, and physical opportunities to which we expose ourselves. Realizing that growth comes from the inside and not the outside, we come to the understanding that, unless we place ourselves in the right environment, we can never reach our full potential.

Perhaps you’ll be venturing off for a last summer vacation, having a BBQ with family and friends or catching your breath before the busier fall schedule begins. As you enjoy the coming days, take some time to reflect on the ingredients you need to create an environment of success. Will it mean organizing your physical space or mind clutter? Perhaps it will involve learning new skills. Maybe it will be connecting with new people.

Join in the conversation. What small step you can take to create an environment for success?

On a recent family beach vacation in the Outer Banks, I was lying in the sand, looking up at the clouds. They were slowly shifting. The clouds weren’t moving quickly but undulating and reshaping themselves ever so slightly. As I watched them, my thoughts felt connected to their movement. It was the beginning of the vacation. I wasn’t relaxed yet. I, too, was slowly adjusting. I was attempting to let my motor slow down and just be. Like the clouds, I was in a transition.

Transitions can be easy or difficult. Many factors influence how we process them, such as temperament and attitude. Transitions can be successful, painful, or somewhere in between. While the transition I just described was about shifting from being in the busy mode to a relaxed state, we often find ourselves in other kinds of transitions. They include getting organized, having children, moving, changing jobs, becoming empty nesters, losing loved ones, and many other significant times.

Transitions usually make me uncomfortable. With my most recent, launching our youngest off to college, I’ve used many strategies to help me through this time of different. These concepts can be helpful for all types of transitions, and I’m happy to share them with you.

10 Ways to Navigate Successful Transitions

• Floating – Allow yourself time to wander without any pressure. Don’t make any radical decisions while in transition.

• Thinking – Indulge in your thoughts. Reminisce, future think, and go where the mind wants to go. It’s all about processing your thoughts, the positive and the negative.

• Feeling – Allow yourself to feel. Cry if you need to. Laugh if you want to. Don’t deny or hold back your feelings.

• Connecting – Communicate with others. Use all possible outlets such as email, telephone, texting, old-fashioned letter writing, or face-to-face contact. Extend yourself so that you’re not alone.

• Writing – I’ve always been a journal writer and am now a blogger. If you’re inclined, writing is another helpful way to process and document your thoughts.

• Being – It’s OK to just be without doing. Get rid of the “shoulds.” If you need a nap, take one. If you need fresh air, go for a walk. If you want quiet, sit. Remove any pressure. Listen to what feels right for you.

• Gathering – There’s nothing like spending time with the people you love. So, instead of retreating, get together with friends and family. Be around others, whether sharing a meal, listening to music, or dancing. Strengthen your relationships.

• Traveling – Getting away from your familiar environment, even briefly, is valuable on many levels. Travel experiences spark new ideas and remove us from the familiar. Allowing ourselves to enjoy these new environments and sights strengthens our confidence and sense of well-being.

• Thanking – Gratitude for what was and what can be is essential. Acknowledge all that there is to be thankful for – the people, places, and things.

• Opening – Be open to the possibilities. The life you knew has been altered by choice or the natural course of things. Life is now different. Keep your mind open to what might be and what you might want to invite into your life.

Are you in transition now? What strategies help you?

Many years ago, I developed my list of Top 10 Organizing Success Secrets as a way to help others think about the ingredients needed to successfully integrate organizing into their lives. Most lists are flexible in nature. In the spirit of flexibility, I’d like to add another item to the Success Secrets list.

This next secret was inspired by an email I recently received from someone I love dearly. Without naming names, she shared with me a very funny story. She had been extremely busy between family, work and preparing for several trips. She exclaimed that even her “lists have lists!” So many things were going on that she wasn’t feeling her normal, on-top-of-things self. Feeling frazzled, she accidentally packed her sneakers in the freezer. As the freezer door closed, she realized what she had just done and stopped to have a good laugh.

The 11^th Organizing Success Secret is Slow Down. Pay attention to the indicators along the way. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in having to do everything now. We live in a fast food, fast paced world. But when the sneakers end up in the freezer, the car keys can’t be found anywhere and we don’t know if we’re coming or going, it’s time to take things down a notch. One of the best blog posts I’ve read in a while is “The Elegance of Slow.” DeeAnne White writes about how slowing down helps us appreciate what is around us and truly focus on the moment.

So if you discover your possessions in unlikely places or can’t find them at all, it might be time for you to slow down long enough to catch your breath, regroup, have a good laugh and move ahead at a more reasonable pace.

Have you experienced any indicators lately that you’d like to share?