Mid-Year Resolution: A Stop Doing List

“Wait,” you say, “people who are focused on the positive shouldn’t take time to think about a stop doing list.” And yet, that is just what I’ve been thinking about today. Spending time to reflect on what I want to stop doing can be as positive and forward looking as making a to do list.

We are each given an allotment of time on earth, but we don’t know how long that may be, only that it is finite. Over a lifetime, I’ve accumulated all kinds of habits and assumed many responsibilites. What I don’t usually take the time to do is to assess whether all of the accumulation is still the best use of my time and energy, or the best way to function in the world.

Jim Collins suggests the following questions to consider when making a stop doing list:

1) What are you deeply passionate about?
2) What are you are genetically encoded for — what activities do you feel just “made to do”?
3) What makes economic sense — what can you make a living at?

As David Whyte, echos with poetry, life can make …

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it…

And so, a mid-year pause to make a stop doing list….