RECIPES FOR SUCCESS

THURSDAY, June 8

Today at my Memoirs group we discussed the topic "Recipes for Success." There were only three of us today but the topic generated some interesting thoughts.

Margaret told of an incident she experienced yesterday when she had been on an outing to the Sunshine Coast. On the bus returning to the city, the bus was crowded with some rowdy kids with skate-boards. One of them was using a lot of foul language which she found distatesful and disrepectful. Rather than directly confront the young man though, she used an ingenious method of diplomacy to draw attention to his potty mouth language, which began with a discussion with his companion about their skateboards. In the end, her diplomacy and tact really had a positive impact on the kid. He stopped swearing and was quiet the rest of the way home, no doubt thinking over what she had said to him once she's got his attention with questions about his skate-boarding, which was that if his mother had been on the bus she'd be quite embarassed about the way he was behaving. Diplomacy and tact were Margaret's recipes for success.

MJ, who has just returned from six months in London Eng, said she thought 'teamwork' was necessary for success. She read about her adventurous jaunt to France and Italy (by car) with her friend and how together they managed to find their way and figure out directions even though they didn't speak the language.

My recipe for success would be 'discipline' and 'determination' -- to stay focused on the goal and not give up when the going gets tough. I hope I can use this 'recipe' to finish work on my novel this summer as well as some of the other tasks I have in mind to do. If you keep putting things off, they never get done. It's better to just launch into it and do it. DO IT!

I'm such a great procrastinator and waste a lot of precious time dawdling or doodling around instead of doing what I should be. But this week I set about trying to get a few of these tasks finished, such as planting my balcony garden, cleaning my balcony, washing windows. I intended to carry on today but alas, it was pouring rain so instead I spent my afternoon browsing the shops uptown. Tomorrow I have various errands to run but I am hoping the weather will clear again so I can finish the gardening and move on to another task -- such as refinishing the coffee wagon table and painting my telephone shelf. I can only do it when the weather is nice enough to have the bird outside because of the toxic fumes. Then, there's the job of getting back to my writing. I have been thinking about it all day today but was unable to spend any time working on it, but I must do something before Sunday because then my guest arrives from Germany and it will be three weeks of adventures and visiting. One thing though, Patrick likes to roam about town on his own, so I have no excuse no to work on my novel while he's out and away.
And I'm sure the days we plan to spend in the Interior and on the Island will be inspiring to me too.

What are your recipes for success?