If you have never been to northeast Florida we do not have seasons, just hot and not hot, thats it. Growing up in a rural town in Arkansas and being around farmers until I left there at twenty to join the Navy I had a sense for what season it was. I knew it was planting season or harvest or when it was time to prepare the ground or leave it alone. Each of us have seasons in our lives and we need to know what season it is and when they change we need to know how to plant seeds, cultivate the ground or harvest our reward.

Yes if you know anything about the Bible you know that Jesus told the parable of the sower and the author of Ecclesiastes told us there is a time for all things. Have you ever stopped to think about those times and what they mean to you?

1. Cultivating - This is a time to make the ground ready. When you cultivate your mind you are reading books and listening to cd's (mp3's) and filling your mind with good information to set a solid foundation for what is ahead. Cultivating also has an aspect that makes it the most important area for success. You must cultivate before you plant. You need to study the area you are going to start your endeavor in but also begin to establish personal growth habits by learning to set goals and make lists of important tasks to handle.

This is also the only season that never ends. Steven Covey calls it "sharpening the saw." You must always be renewing your mind and thought process in order to move forward with what you are called to do. I have put the cart before the horse and tried to reap while I should have been cultivating.

2. Planting - Planting is the time for making contacts adding to lists and developing relationships. This is the time to increase your productivity. Hit the street if you are a sales person, put your book on the internet if you are an infopreneur, or gather names for your list if you are a network marketer. You must increase your output during the planting phase in order to reap the payoff of the gathering phase.

3. Gathering - This is the time to reap your rewards. Unlike the seasons of planting and sowing; spring and fall, this gathering also coincides with continual planting and cultivating in order to gather in at another time. During this time knowing when to speed up and when to slow down is very important. Keeping a balance is crucial or you will end up off track of your goals or worse burnt out. Know your priorities and know when to just reap in order to refocus on cultivating and when to start sowing again in order to reap later.

Stay focused at all times on the big picture and what is really the most important things of all.