HOW TO FINISH STRONG

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 Everyone I know seems to be taken off-guard by this fact.  I’ve been a part of many conversations in the past couple of weeks where one person says, “Can you believe it’s almost Thanksgiving?” and the other people shake their heads, looking a bit dazed.

So, in the service of not ending the year feeling as though you’ve been flattened by the march of time, here are some things you can do to finish the year ready to start fresh:

Remove small annoyances: My son just told me that his license plate has been hanging by a thread for a couple of months, and that every time he gets in the car he thinks about fixing it. Little things like this suck up our mental bandwidth and make us feel unfinished.  Over the next month, when you see minor hanging chads like this in your life, take a few minutes to do something about them.  You’ll feel relieved out of all proportion to the actual task.

Clear out your space:  I spoke with someone last week who raved about Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  Whether you use her book, or do it on your own, the end of the year is a wonderful time to get rid of all the physical clutter in your life.  My husband and I just moved to a new apartment in New York, and one night we gathered up a bunch of boxes and plastic bags and got rid of everything in our old apartment that we didn’t want to take with us. It’s amazing how much stuff most of us have that we don’t need or use. Once the books and clothes had been given away and the junk had been thrown out, I definitely felt mentally and emotionally lighter.

Clear up confusion: Think about how you would complete this sentence: I’m not really sure… I imagine a few things spring to mind; most of us have situations in our lives that are murky.  Does Aunt Jill expect us to invite her for Thanksgiving?  Does my boss think I’m going to finish the sales forecast by the 15th? We often let minor (or not so minor) confusions linger, generally because we’re afraid to find out the answers to our questions. Find out. You’ll feel clearer, and you’ll have a better sense of what to do next.

Have important conversations:  Is there something you’ve been carrying around with you and not saying? One way to tell: you’re having the conversation with the person in your  head that you need to have out loud.  For instance, I was talking with a woman last week who was responsible for sending out a daily e-update to her company, and she was really tired of her co-worker not giving her critical information till a few minutes before the deadline. When I asked whether she had said anything to the person about it, she said no. Make an agreement with yourself to figure out how to bring up those tough topics before year end – and then do it.

Ask for what you want:  This is related to the one above. When you’re having those tough conversations, don’t just complain: request.  I encouraged the woman with the late co-worker to go to her and say, “I’d really appreciate getting your information by 9:15, since the newsletter goes out at 10.” And once you’ve warmed up by asking for  day-to-day things like this, ask for the big things, too: feel like you deserve a raise or apromotion?  Ask for it. You know that thinking about it has been taking up your emotional bandwidth