I’ll take accountability, Alex.

“You need an accountability partner,” my friend suggests.

“What’s the incentive?” I ask trying to keep a straight face.

“We can do this TOGETHER. It’s a win-win situation!!!” my friend says passionately. 

 Friendship! Friendship! Good old fashioned friendship!

For the past month, we’ve been on this mission to change our lives, one goal at a time. And we’re trying to accomplish this goal by reading and implementing the exercises in Brian Tracy’s book “No Excuses.”

An accountability partner role is to help you stay on track and set attainable goals.   Luckily, we’re realist. We know this venture isn’t going to be easy for either of us.

We’re going to be emotional and at times confrontational.

Baby steps.

Our pact involves three things: watching trigger words about the past or future, watching our language and watching and calling out any signs of procrastination.

Day one: Check in, follow through.

“Have you completed the exercises?” the text reads.

“Of course,” I respond confidently.

“Learn anything you’d like to share?”

“How much time do you have?” I laugh—cracking myself up (I do that a lot!)

My cell phone rings.

The work has begun. I have a goal.

And an action plan.

How’s that for ready?

Brian Tracy’s book main focus is mastering self-disciple principles and implementing the lessons learned into your personal/professional life, with emphasis on being prepared to do the “real work.”

The first thing I pondered:  “Am I ready to evaluarte my excuses–real or imagined?  

Check.

Two: Can I accept being “checked” by my accountability partner?

Check—I think.

Am I willing to go—even by myself—to the unknown and invest in myself?

Check, check.

According to Tracy, highly successful people has made being self-disciplined a priority. The adage goes:  “Nothing succeeds like success itself.”

He says: “Success is not the money you make but rather the excellent person you become in the process of striving toward success and exerting self–discipline every time it is required.”

“Ready LaLinda?” my friend questions.

“I’m ready, willing, and able,” I say.

No Excuses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Defriend Me.

The song goes, “Friends, how many of us have them? Let’s be Friends.”

And friends we were for 20 years……until I made a critical decision few days ago– to unfriend/defriend her.

Our “friendship” –or so I thought—flourished when I felt completely at home in her quaint and unique shop filled with cute/artsy type of remnants of our beautiful state, such as hilarious signs, handmade soap, Avon products and animal lover’s do dads, shirts.

Ever come across that person who really  gets you? Well, our sisterhood went into high gear as we discovered we both had similar life experiences; we attracted the same type of men; we were going through lives highs and lows and we both thrived on challenges.

So she issued me one: “C’mon, walk the mountain with me,” she says referring to our city’s historical and famous Mountain.  I soon found out why natives and newbie’s called it “Bad A– Mountain.”

“Huh?” I must have responded in my Scooby Doo voice while my eye brows shot up.

“Gal, you can do it!” she said in her Southern twang.

“And you’re sure about this?” I tease. “Me?”

“Heck yeah!” she nodded her head resolutely.

“I got you girl,” I said giving her a high five.

The first time around the mountain: Five miles and two hours of torture.nd

Our later walks unleashed more exciting similarities.

 We were both strong, passionate women.

And we were both activists for causes/situations that personally affected us and our community.

She was a staunch animal rights advocate who turned her focus and passion to rescuing animals and adoption.

“My life has gone to the dogs,” she’d say jokingly and often I laugh at her funny, entertaining Face book.

And I felt her ire for animal cruelty, animal abandonment and especially animal euthanasia.  She landed on the news for her animal causes and I couldn’t be happier for my friend.

Then things took a strange turn. I started seeing her offensive, dogmatic (hah!) rants about President Obama, I won’t repeat.

Ultimately, as the attacks became increasing insulting, I stopped reading most of her posts.

Then there was the last straw.

Last week, two African-American men were unjustly and savagely killed by police officers (my view). Few days later, five Dallas, Texas Police officers were slain and seven others wounded by a lone sniper.

According her posts, Obama was responsible for inciting these “idiots” to protest. In a Wall Street Journal article, Obama responded to the video shooting circulating on social media. The article states that he sought to balance the concerns on both sides, saying police officers play a critical role in communities, while African-Americans have legitimate reasons to distrust the law enforcement. The article clearly states he used the moment to call on Congress to adopt changes to the criminal justice system, citing a series of statistics showing African-American and Latinos are more likely than whites to be questioned by police and incarcerated.

The defining moment came when she posted an offensive cartoon about people disrespecting the law and what happens as if justifying the actions take by police officers.

Bam! I couldn’t look the other way.

Nope.  

Deal breaker.

I’m done.

I’d love to say that the decision to walk was easy. It wasn’t. For days, I vacillated on the longevity of our relationship and I came to this conclusion: Longevity doesn’t always mean healthy. I learned some people are seasonal. They’re not meant to be in our lives forever, for whatever reason. The universe wants us to learn the lesson and move on.

With that in mind, it was click: defriend/unfriend.

Gone, but hardly forgotten.