It is 2012 and, like some of you, each January I take a look at what I want to accomplish in the coming year. What is going to be special about 2012? I am not a big believer in New Year’s Resolutions, so to make this an effective process I look at four things: 1) incompletions, 2) tolerations, 3) accomplishments and 4) goals. Today, we are going to take a look at tolerations and incompletions. Next time I will write about accomplishments and goals.

Let’s start with incompletions; things that are unfinished. Incompletions are part of the human experience and the end of the year is a wonderful time to identify them and decide what to do about them. We all have some and they can occur in many different areas and levels of consciousness but we usually look for them only on the physical level. (For example, my office is a mess or I am not ready to file my 2011 tax return.) But what do I mean by “any level of consciousness?” Well, we human beings exist on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. There are additional levels such as the subconscious and unconscious but for now we are going to deal with the ones we can change. Okay, I am getting side-tracked. Let me give you an example about an incompletion on the emotional level.

I recently noticed that I had an incompletion with my parents. There was a little tiny part of me that was still holding them responsible for times as an adult when my life was going poorly. As soon as I recognized it I realized that I did not want that and that it could make a difference if I communicated my insight to my parents. So I did and, to make a long story short, I had wonderful conversations with each of them that have altered my relationship with them inside of me and enabled us to have clearer communication with each other. Conversations since then have been richer and I am excited to have more authentic relationships with my mother and father.

Now, I know this sounds easy and you might call me crazy, but my personal experience is that the potential of a conversation like that outweighs any risk or fear I might have. I think you get the picture. Incompletions can be found on any level of consciousness or area, so take a moment to identify one and do something about it today.

In working through this area, I discovered that my relationship with my parents was not only an incompletion but also a toleration. A “toleration” is a term created by the late Thomas Leonard, the founder of Coach U. It is something or someone who we accept even though it is not what we really want. For years, I tolerated the quality of relationship with my parents. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t nearly as good as it is going to get. I also tolerated how poorly my internet was working and that I didn’t have proper heat or cooling on the third floor of my house. These are also areas that I noticed and addressed in the past few months.

You see, tolerations exist on different levels of consciousness and they can be small or big in scope. They can last for years until we do something about them. For example, we tolerate the way we are treated or the way we treat ourselves. We wear shoes that we don’t like, we say “yes” when we want to say “no”; the list goes on and on. So, as you ponder your incompletions and tolerations here are a few questions for you to consider:

• What do I put up with that I don’t want to any more?
• What is incomplete in my life?
• What am I willing to do about the answers to my questions?

I am here as your cheerleader for making a breakthrough in 2012. Why not take a chance and risk looking at ways you tolerate your own incompletions?