Look at the calendar! The New Year is flying fast as the first three months are nearly complete. Now look back…to New Year’s Eve. What were you hoping to accomplish in 2015? Did you have any aspirations for better health? Better attitudes? Better habits? Now look at today. Where are you? What have you accomplished in regards to your new year’s hopes? Did you take strong steps in January? Did you lose sight or vision in February? March is nearly complete, but today is a good day to reassess, to get back on track and
in character.

What do I mean by ‘in character’? I mean this: character ~ your character ~ drives your goal setting and your goal achieving. If you have lost touch with your character and what your character is all about, then you have probably lost sight of the goals you wanted to achieve this year.

Perhaps the milieu of work or home life has overtaken your schedule and you have no time or energy or margin in which to pursue that one thing you wanted to accomplish this year. The responsibilities of our adult lives will always hound us as we attempt to alter or change the landscape of our character pursuits. But today, I would like to challenge you to re-assess your character…look at who you are through the eyes of the author.  The author is the one who is writing the story of your life. And guess what? You are both author and character!Now with this lens, this understanding, ask the author to discover what motivates this character. What demoralizes this character? What drives this character to say and do the things he does each day? Is this character generally cheerful and optimistic or skeptical and pessimistic? Easily distracted and pulled off course or nose to the grindstone come hell or high water? How does this character relax? How does this character relate to others? to distress? to success? What or who does this character believe or have faith in? doubt? fear?

Remember, you are the author writing this story, and  the author must be aware, astutely aware of her character’s weakness and strengths. This knowledge aids the author (YOU) in building compassion and workarounds into her character’s life. Understanding the type of character of which the author is dealing and writing about, assures that the character will live an authentic life.

So consider this as we approach the end of the first quarter of 2015.
If you want your New Year story to finish on track, or even be an interesting read, the author (that’s you) must know how its character (still you) will react, respond or overcome the obstacles which the character (once again, YOU) will surely encounter as she  traverses the remainder of 2015. The story (YOUR STORY) will be flat and uninteresting indeed if your character is not developed through adversity, trial, challenge, upset, disappointments, triumphs, success, etc. Now look again,  what sort of character are you? Know your character…what drives your character. Write the days for your character with purpose so that you may achieve the reward of your goal!

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.
Sam Ewing