Martha Treats Newsletter


Martha Treats, sent once a month by email, gives you an inspiring learning nugget around completion
and includes an invitation to take action around that learning in your life.
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Just published:  Martha Treat August 2024

Stopping Short of the Final Step

My constant refrain with clients of all the way through to completion applied directly to me a couple weeks ago. My sister-in-law Facetimed me holding up a puzzle box I had apparently sent them a few years before.

I had received the puzzle as a gift from a close friend and re-gifted to my family having not actually opened the box. As my sister-in-law opened the puzzle to begin doing it, she found a card addressed to me and a beautiful small, wrapped gift. I had a moment of forgiveness for assuming it was just puzzle pieces years before and not taking the final step of fully opening my friend’s gift. 

How many times do we stop short of the final step?
  • Texting and getting interrupted and not actually sending the text.
  • Leaving something behind that we need for a meeting.
  • Forgetting to call someone as we didn’t write it down or create a reminder.
  • Not fully reading an email and responding without answering what was asked.
  • Distracting ourselves by trying to do multiple actions at the same time, and not finishing.​

For the most part I believe the culprit of not taking something all the way to completion is this:
Being one step ahead of ourselves, thinking we know, and then hurrying past the moment to get to the next step, thinking we don’t have time.

Our full awareness in this moment actually leads us naturally and without effort all the way through to completion and we benefit in these ways:
  • We focus on one text at a time and send it.
  • We naturally take with us what is needed for the meeting.
  • We make the call as we write down what we agreed to in the moment we agreed to do it.
  • We read an email completely and respond to what was being asked
  • We allow ourselves to relax in what we are doing and naturally do one thing at a time all the way through to completion.

Stopping short of the final step is simply forgetting to slow down to our breath, that there is a relaxed natural pace if we choose, and that our full attention is one way to honor who we are.

And in my case, I missed out on receiving my friend’s gift and thanking her. Glad those final steps actually happened even if six years later. Yikes!

All the way through to completion is a practice worth choosing and in doing so, it can honor those in our lives as well as their gifts.


Martha Invitations

1. Slow down to you don't miss taking that final step.
2. Keep breathing in the doing.
3. Watch, observe and listen with your full presence to what Martha

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Read Previous Treats:

2024

2023
2022
Treat #257  Completing in our Being
Treat #256  Relaxing and Receiving
Treat #255  Are you in the 2-Minute Continuous flow? 
Treat #254  Gratitude Always the Next Action
Treat #253  The Hopeful Maybes
​Treat #252  The Trail Left Behind 
Treat #251  Freedom in Awareness
Treat #250  A Sea of Choices
Treat #249  Available to Attention
Treat #248  Allowing Room for the Unrehearsed
Treat #247​ ​ Relaxing into Softly, Slowly, Gently
Treat #246  Listening and Moving Spontaneously with our Creative Spirit  
Treat #245  Beyond Reaction into Forward Moving Action
Treat #244  A Blank Slate
Treat #243  Relaxing the Push Flowing with Everyone's Perfect Timing
Treat #242  Arbitrary Cutoffs
Treat #241  Incomplete. Not done. Unfinished
Treat #240  On Purpose Doing
Treat #239  Watching Awake
​Treat #238  The Joy of Doing
Treat #237  Completing Up to the Moment
Treat #236  Fully Receiving Through Completing
Treat #235  Time for a Radical Step?   
Treat #234  Being on the Empathy Track  
2021
2020
Treat #233  Letting Go into Freedom
Treat #232  A Lighter Touch
Treat #231  How are you Effort-ing?
Treat #230  Experience Is The Freedom
Treat #229  Things Are Rarely as They Appear
Treat #228  The Impossible To-Do List
Treat #227  Doing from Listening
Treat #226  The Act of Looking
Treat #225  Listening to this Moment's Action
Treat #224  The Last Piece
Treat #223  Acknowledging with Gratitude
Treat #222  Up to Date
Treat #221 Choosing to Cooperate with What Is
​Treat #220 It Takes as Long as it Takes
Treat #219 Availability to Perfect Timing
Treat #218 Engaging Yourself into Action
Treat #217 Go for the Truth in You
​Treat #216 Switching Gears Freedom
Treat #215 Seeing What We are Looking At
Treat #214 Clarity of Focus
Treat #213 Appreciating/Acknowledging Begins Within
Treat #212 How can I Assist - The True Next Action
Treat #211 Use It or Lose It
Treat #210 Finishings Along the Way

​
2019
2018
Treat #209  A New Beginning
Treat #208  All Designed For Us
Treat #207  Reverence and Joy for Doing
Treat #206  Choosing vs Auto Pilot
Treat #205  Defaulting to the One-Track Focus
Treat #204  Elegant and On Purpose
Treat #203  The Fullness in Minimal
Treat #202  The Real Culprit of Focus Drain  
​Treat #201  Resting in Action
Treat #200  Loving the Empty Spaces
Treat #199  Putting Together All The Pieces
Treat #198  Are you at the Top of your To Do List?  

​
Treat #197  The Tiny Finishings
Treat #196  Emergency,Crisis,Fire
Treat #195  Mastership
Treat #194  It Works Every Time
Treat #193  Let the Stuffing Be Gone
Treat #192  Whole Focus
Treat #191  The One Thing Not to Complete
Treat #190  Just Keep It Flowing
Treat #189  In Between Time
​Treat #188  What is Stealing Your Energy? 
​Treat #187  To Skim or Not to Skim
Treat #186  I Love January 
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2017
Treat #185  Both Hands Please
Treat #184  I'll Remember
Treat #183  Creating New Doing Paths
Treat #182  A Habit Worth Quitting
Treat #181  Eclipse of Action
Treat #180  Forgive Me for Multitasking
Treat #179  What are You Looking At? 
Treat #178  Are you Squishing Snails?
Treat #177  Relaxing the Grip
Treat #176  All the Time in the World
Treat #175  When is Enough . . . Enough
​Treat #174  Engaging Yourself to Completion
2016
Treat #173   A Kink in the Works
Treat #172   What's Stopping You? 
Treat #171   All of Ours to Do
Treat #170   Attitude Adjustment 
Treat #169   IN Consciousness
Treat #168   Completing Past our Reactions 
Treat #167   Keep Your Dog Leash
Treat #166   The Essential Piece
Treat #165   Day is Done
Treat #164   Do-Nothing Time
Treat #163   Curbside Calm
Treat #162   Pile-Up