Retinal Detachment, Blogging and Goal Setting

I apologise to my regular readers for my enforced absence over the last couple of weeks. Alas for the second time in my life I was inflicted by a retinal detachment. This is where the retina peels away from its underlying layer of support tissue, causing severe vision loss and if not treated will lead to blindness.

I had to undergo a Vitrectomy which is an operation where the vitreous gel is removed, the retina treated with a laser and the tear repaired, then a gas bubble is injected into the eye to securely press the retina against the wall of the eye.

When you ask a blogger what they are most dependent on you will more than likely get the response ‘my laptop’ or ‘Internet connection.’ Yet there are other things we take for granted. I’ve certainly been reminded of that.

I can now tell you that your eyes are absolutely essential because without them it’s going to be virtually impossible to write up your posts, edit them, research or do many of the other things we need to do.

For the last 3 weeks I have been unable to do any of my work. Having had a retinal detachment operation I had virtually no vision in one eye the other having to do all the work tired very quickly. With the fact I had to posture, which is lie on my side keeping my operated eye elevated for 50 minutes an hour, using a laptop and doing work proved impossible.

As a personal development coach I will often say every cloud has a silver lining. This time away from the laptop unable to do my coaching work, communicating with my students, teaching the compass for life course or writing blogs, although very frustrating has given me time to reflect, listen to audio books and assess what I’m doing.

I must admit this entire event caught me off guard and was a total shock having had this very same problem 5 years ago I didn’t expect it to happen again. Another great saying is we can take nothing for granted.

I love blogging and I’ve missed it as I have my other regular responsibilities, but it has given me a wakeup call and got me asking a question of myself, ‘am I using my time in the most valuable way?’ I had been much focused getting things done but have I been doing what would be most beneficial for my advancement and growth.

On one of the Brian Tracy audios I’d listened to he recommends an exercise that was similar to one I’ve got my coaching clients to do for many years, yet I have to admit I’ve not done it myself for way to long.

Now I’m going to suggest you try it out. Take a piece of paper and write down your top 10 goals for the forthcoming year. Just let your pen start flowing across the paper.

Lying on my side during my recovery from my latest eye operation I began writing the following.

1. Once again own my dream home
2. Buy a brand new black range rover sport
3. Live on the island of Lanzarote
4. See both my daughters happy in life and successful in their career.
5. To rebuild my health and fitness to peak levels.
6. Successfully coach 1000’s through the compass for life course both online and off.
7. To get back to speaking on stage
8. To have wonderful loving relationship
9. To travel and see all the wonders of the world.
10. To be a best-selling author.

Now I know I haven’t written these using the smart process and I don’t apologise for that because this is just an exercise to allow your mind to open up to things it wants to do.

Going over these goals, or what could also be called a dream list, it is obvious to me that these aren’t all achievable in the year. And although it’s good to have your big goals, you also need achievable targets for the year.

So there’s another question you need to ask yourself. Out of these 10 goals which one excites you the most and if you could achieve it by focusing much of your time for the next 12 months which would you choose.

Now initially that was hard because they’re all important to me. They all matter greatly. So I had to ponder this for a while. Then I asked myself another question  if I was to lose my sight completely in the next 12 months which of these goals would I have wanted to achieve beforehand. The answer jumped out of me. For as long as I can remember I wanted to become an author, write a book, see it on bookshelves, see people’s feedback on how much my book had changed their life. I’ve written 1000’s of blogs created a course produced lots of coaching materials but as yet I have not published a book. So this to me shines out as the one thing I don’t want to miss out on. From now on I will focus 2 to 3 hours a day to working on my book, and even though initially I’ll have to record it through audio and transfer to text later on, I’m going to get it done.

Why don’t you do this exercise because there’s no better time than now when shortly you’ll be thinking about your new year resolutions?

Drop me a comment once you’ve decided the one thing you want to get done before disaster strikes and you lose your sight.

It’s good to be blogging once again.

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