It started innocently enough…  I opened my uplifting, daily email from tut…

“The choice is always simple enough, Dar.  Clear your plate if you want dessert.”

It makes sense.  It’s a good rule of thumb.

Somewhere along the way, though, I realized how much “dessert” I miss out on.  No, not the sweet stuff that follows a meal, but the delightful things that motivate us and give us something to look forward to — amidst the work and the chaos of life. 

Dessert can be as simple as time and energy to pursue fun, a new book — whatever gives you a quick boost. Are you missing out on dessert?

You could be missing out on dessert if you… 

1) Find yourself with a full plate, empty it, then refill it again immediately;

2) Tend to be creative, with ideas swooping in on a regular basis;

3) Are surrounded on all sides by sticky notes full of ideas;

4) Grew up learning that you can’t go out and play until *all* the work is done;

5) Find yourself with small piles around you (like a fortress), and the piles just keep growing.

If you can relate to any of these (feel free to add your own to the list), you may find your dessert moving away from — rather than towards — you.  But, dare you think of dessert — with so many other things to do?  

Yes, I hope you dare to have dessert anyway, because it can refresh you.  And, let me share a secret with you about dessert:

Sometimes, dessert just tastes better when you eat it FIRST.

You never know, it may be the very trigger you need to move that stuff that keeps you bogged down — or those projects you haven’t worked on in the past 30 days.

(Confession:  I had dessert first.  I picked up a beautifully illustrated crafts book, plus a lovely journal, for the writer in me.)

Go ahead.  Give it a try, because a funny thing may happen along the way… You may just free yourself.  Free yourself to breathe again.  To create.  To brainstorm.  To do whatever you want to do.

Now, as for me, I’m free to be this totally imperfect person that I am.  And, perhaps best of all, I’m free to have more dessert, because it motivated me to get some major things accomplished.

How about you?  How’s your plate looking?  And, what’s for dessert?

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Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.  I’m so very thankful to have you here with me, dear reader.   :-)  And, if you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, I wish you a beautiful day as well.