It is that time of year.

Whether it’s in the blog post I just read about a last week of December journal-a-thon, or my client yesterday afternoon who shared how she is working on her 2012 goals, it’s time to create the next plan, the next set of goals, to begin everything that will come to be in the coming year.

I feel that shift.

The standing on the precipice, that tension that builds on the edge of grand release of creation.

But I have not begun to plan 2012. Yet.

Yes, I have tons of ideas and outlines and goals and dreams and desires – coming up with ideas is never the problem for me.

But … before I can sit down to create the 2012 plan, before I can begin everything that will come next … I need to end.

Before anything new can be brought into existence, a void must be created into which it will be born.

So, to that end, I am finalizing documents, purging stuff, mourning hurts, forgiving wrongs, recognizing resistance, releasing tension, accepting truth.

I am letting them go – the illusion of control, the idea that I can be perfect, the belief that there is a magic pill that can be swallowed, the theory that I can make them love, like, accept, understand, appreciate, respect me.

I am opening up a space inside of me, naked and raw and vunerable – opening my hands unto God and the universe and the energies that flow all around us – taking a deep breath – and surrendering into the quiet expanse.

I have faith that the answers, that the plan, will come.

And in the least likely ways, I imagine.

So the last week of December you will find me roadtripping to somewhere different and quiet, somewhere they serve coffee and eggs for breakfast, where they say hi to strangers on the street, where there are trees and sky and water and the fresh smell of earth.

I’ll be there working on finishing and emptying and space creating. I’ll be reviewing all my ideas, feeling how each of them resonate with my soul and living your truth and bringing acceptance to the world. I’ll be opening myself up to whatever is the next.

We shall see what impossibilities can happen.

I’ll let you know.

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How are you planning for 2012?

Are you reflecting on this year and clearing stuff out? Are you doing a big end-of-the-year retreat, are you meeting with a coach or are you working through a system? Do you create an annual plan or set of goals or themes for the year, or do you just flow with what comes?

Here’s a photo of my group:  from left to right – Sandy Grason, Sandra Martini, Andrea Blackwood Harriott, Alexandria Brown (head coach), Jane Button, Carolyn Ellis, Fabienne Fredrickson, Toni O’Bryan, Valerie Hayes, Jayne Brodie, (yours truely) Elizabeth Potts Weinstein.

Our mastermind group has a few components, including monthly meetings by telephone, a yahoo group for us to exchange emails, and we get six 15-minute coaching calls with Ali.  But the core of the group benefits are the meetings we have three times per year.

At the meeting, each person gets 45 minutes to do whatever they want – to discuss particular issues or problems, to go over a business plan or new project idea, or to just brain dump a bunch of ideas and see what the group thinks.

During my session, I went through my current plans and asked the group some specific questions.  I handed out a spreadsheet I had created that summarized all my marketing campaigns and my product funnels, and we talked about my target market and the group asked me to identify my passion.  But the biggest part for me was just that the group made me focus on what I wanted to do, stop doing what I "should" do or did not enjoy, and help me figure out how to spend my time for the next 9 months. 

Listening to everyone else’s presentations was very helpful to my own business — new marketing ideas, new wasy to spin my current offerings, and new ways to outsource work.  Our head coach, Ali, also gave us some "insider-only" information about what she does in her million-dollar business, what works for her, and what she has changed to triple her income in just one year.  And then at the end of the meeting, we went around the room and each person said what they are going to do by the next live meeting (90 days) and by the next telephone meeting (10 days). 

This Mastermind group is a great balance of working with a coach and working with a group.  There’s a clear leader to pass on information, give her opinion, and keep us on track.  We also have the collective wisdom and experience of a group that provided more valuable feedback and ideas than any one person (no matter how great of a coach one person may be).

Ali launches her 2008 platinum mastermind groups at her next Online Success Blueprint Workshop in November.  You can learn about the OSBW at her free preview calls – see you there!