Tiny Buddha

Category: meaning & passion

  • When You Want to Make Progress Fast and Feel Impatient

    When You Want to Make Progress Fast and Feel Impatient

    “Tortoise was over the line. After that, Hare always reminded himself, ‘Don’t brag about your lightning pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!‘“ ~The Tortoise and the Hare (Aesop’s Fables)

    I was sitting in an introduction to calligraphy workshop when a fellow student asked the instructor, “What do I need to become a professional Calligrapher, what would it take?”

    We were all on the edge of our seats with that one. It was as if we were about to learn the secret ingredient to Grandma’s cookies.

    The answer, to our surprise, was pen and paper.

    “The materials are no different than that of a novice calligrapher,” the instructor explained.

    The distinction between a novice and professional calligrapher is not in the tools they use, but rather in the professional’s commitment to practice, their pace, and the time they took to learn and do something.

    The same goes for any professional at their craft.

    I recalled a time when I was on a cruise ship and saw all these tourists with huge camera lenses and gadgets for their cameras. I was incredibly impressed and at times intimidated with their gear as I would hold up my own iPhone to snap a quick picture.

    After a while of being on board, you get to know one another well. I realized that despite their top tier lens, basically all of their cameras were set in auto mode.

    What good is such an advanced lens when you don’t know how to use it?

    They had gone from zero to one hundred with no practice, no skills acquired, just fancier devices.

    This lesson on the professional calligrapher has always intrigued me.

    When we look up to the expert, we assume that increasing the quality of materials or having access to nicer resources is what makes them great. This assumption overlooks the time it would have taken them to learn something new and to achieve their goal.

    Instead, we want to cut corners and are looking for the shortcut. We want to make progress as soon as possible, perhaps because we feel behind in life and think we need to hurry to get ahead, or because we think we’ll be happier when we reach our goal.

    Cutting corners is not a strategy that necessarily benefits us. It’s a way for us to be more useful and readily available to others, get more things done, and exhibit productivity.

    Our concern for positive feedback and acceptance by others keeps us from taking the time to experience something thoroughly for ourselves, just because we enjoy it or are curious about it.

    Just because.

    This past year I have been working with my sister to brainstorm new career opportunities. My current goal is to become an independent filmmaker.

    Similar to the observations shared above, I found myself quickly approaching the mindset of the calligraphy student: What would it take, what would I need to make the best movies, to be a great filmmaker?

    I too, wanted the shortcut. The direct route to achieving my goal. Is there a certain camera lens I need to have, light kit, microphone, or skill that would lead me right to success?

    After deep dives into blogs about filmmakers and watching online video subscriptions about filmmaking, it occurred to me that I had all that I needed to accomplish my goal.

    There was no shortcut to filmmaking.

    It was just going to take time.

    Time for me to learn more about the tools that I already had.

    Time to pick up my camera and practice shooting interviews.

    Time to use a pen and paper to write down script ideas.

    Time to make bad videos so that the next time I could make a better video.

    Time for repeated effort, continual practice, and eventually, improvement.

    It’s easy to get caught wasting time looking for a solution instead of taking time. In the end, we lose energy and motivation looking for the right tools or answers.

    We do things with the intention of going fast rather than far. We fixate on the end result and rob ourselves of the fun we’d have and excitement we’d feel if we let ourselves enjoy the journey.

    Instead, I’ve learned that I stand with the tortoise, not the hare, “Slow and steady [wins the race].”

    Go far. Reach farther. Take the time to become your best self.

  • If You Think Reaching Your Goal Will Make You Happy…

    If You Think Reaching Your Goal Will Make You Happy…

    The path IS the goal.

    The process is more important than the result.

    Life is a journey, not a destination.

    There are three very common, some might say cheesy and clichéd sayings you may hear when it comes to taking action to reach your goals.

    Some of you are probably rolling your eyes already, and I did when I first heard quotes like these.

    But I’ve recently realized something that has made me U-turn on a lot of my own old, outdated beliefs around goal-setting and achievement and acquisition of material things, or just generally “making it” in life.

    The path you’re traveling, the journey you’re currently on, really is the only thing that matters. All we have is the now.

    You can and should have dreams and aspirations, but I want you to think beyond them. You are capable of so much more than you think.

    Plus, the path you’re on may very well change for you, as it did for me.

    I’ll tell you about my dream.

    I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a professional musician. I wanted to tour the world as a guitarist in a metal band. Not necessarily be a rich and famous rock star, but to play shows, record music, and make a decent living doing so.

    I started out on drums originally. I used to practice at school. (No way were my mum and dad going to let me have a drum kit in the house!) I was pretty uncoordinated and flailed around like a sweaty octopus making a racket, so I ditched the sticks and picked up a second-hand electric guitar, vowing to one day “make it” in the music biz.

    Despite my family and friends all thinking that it wasn’t going to happen, and in some cases actively discouraging me from pursuing this very unorthodox career, I did in some small part succeed. I have played nationally and internationally, written and recorded music. I also have made a comfortable living teaching guitar for nearly ten years now.

    But what I am most proud of is not the fact that I proved my parents wrong or that I can stick two fingers up to anyone that doubted I would ever get this far. It’s not that at all.

    In some ways, they were kind of right. I didn’t fully make my dream come true after spending twenty-five years trying to do so.

    You see, I was just on a different path for a while to the one I’m on right now. Allowing myself to evolve naturally, let things take their course, and stop trying to control everything, has been an absolute game changer and has gotten me to a very good place.

    My original musical dreams, combined with my passion for helping people, led me down another route from that of the main stage at a festival—to teaching guitar. And I’m so proud and quite frankly amazed sometimes that I’ve been able to teach hundreds of people in my local area, and hopefully have made a positive impact. Playing a small part at least in their musical journeys.

    Where am I going with all this bragging!?

    An illusion of control is what I believe we have, but we truly don’t know what’s around the corner for us.

    And I think that the immense pressure of setting and achieving goals takes away some of the fun of that unpredictable journey.

    We set ourselves goals to achieve or acquire things that we believe will make us happy, right?

    So, you’re not after the goal per se, you’re actually after a happy feeling. You can have that happy feeling right now, even if you haven’t yet reached your goal. And you might eventually find you’re happier doing something else, if you’re willing to let go and shift gears.

    Next time you’re setting goals just remember that change is inevitable. Be flexible with your goals and have fun going after them!

    It’s fine to follow your dreams, but always follow the path that brings you the most happiness in the present.

    All we have is the journey.

  • 12 Habits to Adopt to Make This Your Best Year Yet

    12 Habits to Adopt to Make This Your Best Year Yet

    Many of us head into the New Year with big goals and ambitions. We think about everything that seems to be lacking in our lives and imagine ourselves far happier and more fulfilled on the other side of massive change.

    There’s no denying that certain accomplishments can amp up our life satisfaction, but I’ve found that our daily habits are the biggest contributor to our happiness.

    You can have a job that excites you, the best body of your life, and the perfect partner for you, but none of it will fully satisfy you if you don’t also prioritize the daily habits that nurture your overall well-being.

    If you want to feel good about yourself and your life, you need to regularly do the things that make you feel peaceful, joyful, and alive.

    With this in mind, I recently asked twelve Tiny Buddha contributors (all involved in our upcoming Best You, Best Life Bundle Sale) to share one habit worth adopting in the New Year. Here’s what they had to say:

     1. Start the day with positive intentions.

    “The moment I wake up, I do not move. I hold still for several minutes. I contemplate qualities I would like to offer for the day.

    Then I silently repeat the following affirmations:

    I offer this day peace.
    I offer this day joy.
    I offer this day enthusiasm.
    I offer this day kindness…
    (or whatever qualities I would like to offer on that day).

    And I keep going until I feel I am done.

    Some days are harder than others, especially if I wake up very early, still tired, with the prospect of a long day ahead.

    However, this simple, pithy practice sets the right tone. It fills me with gratitude and it firmly places me on the right track.

    From that point on, my day goes well, and everything aligns in the best and highest way possible, even if/as and when challenges arise.”

    ~Personal Growth Teacher Julie Hoyle (juliehoyle.org)

     2. Practice mindfulness.

     “For someone seeking a change in their life—to stop doing something destructive, to start doing something healthier, to become more confident, to step into the version of themselves they know they really are—the single best habit to cultivate is mindfulness.

    Mindfulness is the skill of paying attention on purpose to the present moment without judgment. This is the first step to change. It helps you recognize when you are doing the thing you want to change. It helps you understand when you are stuck. It helps you realize what you are really feeling and thinking.

    It gives you the starting point of your map. You can recognize what is really happening—’Oh look, I jumped to the worst-case scenario again. That made me feel afraid and uncomfortable. So that’s why I am looking for an excuse not to go to the party.’

    From here you are able to step outside those emotions of fear and discomfort and look at the situation objectively. From here, you can create change. You can challenge your thinking. You can reframe the situation. You can remind yourself of where you want to go. You can make a plan.

    We so easily live on autopilot. That’s not because we are lazy. It’s simply the more efficient way for our brains to operate.

    Create a habit, and you don’t have to think about what to do the next time that situation comes up. That frees up energy for your brain to do other things. But efficiency does not equal excellence. This autopilot way of living leads us to not notice what is really going on. Without mindful awareness, we get stuck in our feelings, we ruminate like a broken record, we keep making the same unhealthy choices over and over again.

    It’s a very simple skill—to be aware. But there hasn’t been a strong biological or evolutionary need to cultivate this skill in order to survive which is why most of us do not have this skill naturally. We need to work on it. We need to repeat it over and over until it becomes a habit. But it is so worthwhile.

    It’s actually a very subtle shift in your thinking, yet incredibly profound. Like standing under a waterfall, then taking one small step back out of the water and seeing the waterfall in front of you. Small step, big difference.”

    ~Stress and Anxiety Coach Sandra Wozniki (stressandanxietycoach.com)

    3. Adopt a meditation practice.

    “You know that feeling when you’ve been away from home for a while and then you finally walk in the door? It feels good, right? It’s hard to put into words, but something in your heart opens.

    Home is a place where we can open because we feel safe, warm, and held. It’s a place where we know we can always come back to, no matter how long we’ve been away. There’s a feeling of belonging.

    For me, meditation is like this. A returning home. As my mind begins to quiet, there’s an increasing sense of stillness that comes forward, and my heart responds. Stillness brings a sense of peace, clarity, stability, and a deep sense of connection and being held.

    As we move through this life, we all crave that feeling of home. A foundation. A sense of belonging somewhere.

    We often create a sense of home in the world, in a physical location, to recreate what’s fundamentally accessed through our heart.

    Returning to stillness is a returning home at its most essential level.

    In a world where we’re constantly bombarded by distractions, stimulation, dramas and conflict, it’s easy to forget what home feels like. Add to this a busy, emotionally reactive, and self-judging mind, and it’s easy to forget that a sense of home, peace, and warmth actually exists inside us.

    It does!

    Stillness is always there, in the background of our awareness, ready and waiting to support us, but our mind is usually too busy to notice it. And when there’s drama, turbulence or overwhelm in our life, stillness offers a very stable place to rest. But if we don’t train ourselves to know stillness, then when the drama and turbulence comes, stillness will be hard to find.

    Meditation helps us remember and build our relationship to stillness by getting us out of our head and into our heart. The more we visit stillness through meditation the more it permeates us, which means it’s more available for us in everyday life.

    So, when we’re in a stressful situation it’s a matter of letting stillness hold you.

    Does this mean it will work every time? Not necessarily. But with consistent practice you’ll change your relationship to the things that trigger and drain you, because you’ve chosen to cultivate a different, more important relationship. A relationship to stillness.

    And your heart is the bridge.”

    ~Meditation and Mindfulness Instructor Ben Fizell (peacekeeperproject.com)

    4. Use mantras as affirmations.

    “I’m a big fan of using mantras as affirmations. Sometimes life can feel as though it’s spinning out of control, and our minds can conjure up daunting scenarios that increase our stress levels and add to anxiety. A simple mantra can be super effective in helping to cut through the noise and bring us back to a single focal point.

    One of my favorite go-to mantras is ‘I am safe. I am loved. I am good enough.’ I say this at least three times, further affirming the words with each repetition.

    I recommend creating your own mantra using words that feel grounding for you. Keep it short—a sentence or two is plenty. Using affirming words (especially out loud) can create a healthy and empowering habit of self-awareness and self-care.”

    ~Author and Artist Skylar Liberty Rose (skylarlibertyrose.com)

    5. Play in nature.

    “How you play in nature is up to you. It might mean sitting in your yard, on a balcony, or even next to an open window and allowing yourself to revel in a tree’s stillness or a bird’s melody.

    It might mean adventuring to a new neck of the woods, or ambling down a familiar path while taking the time notice all the little things we usually miss in our hurry or preoccupation: the soft, green moss; the startling blue tail of a lizard half-hidden under a rock; or the curious expression of a wren that’s watching you from the bush next to the trail.

    Not only does playing in nature reduce stress and anxiety and improve overall health, but it can also help us find our way, both literally and figuratively.

    It’s like Rumi says: ‘Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.’

    We have so few chances in our everyday life to practice following our hearts, however, that most of us have forgotten how to do it. Wandering freely under the open sky, following our curiosity and desire, we learn how to let go of trying to arrive somewhere and discover the joy of simply taking the next step on our own unique path.

    When I began to reconnect with the natural world, I couldn’t help but rediscover my own human nature: my true self, that is; the gifts I have to give the world and where I fit into the ecosystem of life.

    Walking through the woods, I began to realize that just like every other living being on this planet, I have an important contribution to make; that when my mind finally grows quiet, I can hear a soft voice of wisdom telling me what that might be; and that if I listen to that voice, I too can—to borrow Mary Oliver’s phrase—take my place in the family of things.”

    ~Certified Integral Coach Meredith Walters (meredithwalters.com)

    6. Try habit stacking.

     “I highly recommend a self-care practice I call ‘habit stacking.’ This is taking several small habits and putting them all together in one time slot, i.e. first thing when you wake up.

    For instance, you might begin by doing a short meditation, which would lead to drinking a quart of water, followed by ten minutes of stretches, and then maybe preparing a green drink. Habits are motivated by triggers, so each activity stimulates the desire in your body for the next one.

    Do these regularly at the same time for a few weeks, and they will become engrained. Your habit stacks can work at any time, day or night, depending on when you want to create your own self-care zone.”

    ~Author and Speaker Suzanne Falter (suzannefalter.com)

    7. Connect with your body daily.

    “One habit worth adopting in the New Year is to start taking a few minutes every day to connect with your body. Pay attention to how it feels, to how you feel. Consider how you want to feel and what you can do to bridge the gap between the two if there is any.

    This is super powerful because we get so caught up in obsessive thoughts about all the things we think we’re ‘supposed’ to be doing for our bodies (and usually end up not doing) that we never stop to just connect with and listen to what it actually needs.

    This also works for mental health. If you wake up feeling down, angry, stressed, overwhelmed, (etc.), ask yourself, what does my head/heart/soul need today? Often, you’ll notice that you really just need a break. Give yourself that. Or maybe you need to find something that feeds your soul and gets you feeling passionate about something in life.

    Too often we end up going through the motions of life living in survival mode simply because we’re so busy staying busy that we don’t stop long enough to figure out what we need to feel vibrant, joyful, and fulfilled.

    If you struggle with healthy eating, take this one step farther by applying it to food. Take a second before you eat to ask yourself, how is it going to make me feel if I eat this? Do I want to feel that way? Why? This is a super powerful tool because it provides space between an auto-pilot impulse and the action that follows, to make a conscious choice based on what’s best for your body in that moment.

    The other reason it’s super powerful is because it helps you to start noticing if/when you’re purposely punishing yourself with food.

    If you go through those few quick questions and decide to purposefully eat something knowing it’s going to make you sick or to continue eating when you’re already full and know that eating more will make you sick, (and you don’t care), you’re punishing yourself with food. Beginning to recognize when that’s happening is the first step to learning how to change it.”

    ~Cognitive Behavior Coach Roni Davis (ronidavis.com)

    8. Practice breathwork.

    “One habit that I think could benefit many people is to incorporate some form of breathwork into their routine. That could be simple mindfulness meditation, box breathing, or some of the more advanced pranayama work in yoga—whatever works for you. From my experience, just a few minutes a day can have a profound impact on stress levels and your quality of life.

    Whether you’re looking to be a stronger athlete, to support your mental health, to be a more present partner or friend, or be more productive at work, I can’t really think of any areas in life that aren’t improved by adopting a regular breathwork practice.”

    ~Movement Coach Luke Jones (heromovement.net)

    9. Be selective about the news sources you tune into.

    “It’s admirable to want to stay informed about current affairs, especially in an election year, but carefully choose news sources you trust and even then, limit your exposure. There’s no value in feeling indignant for half your day, having arguments on social media that you can never win, or getting angry over events or with people you have no control over. All that achieves is that you hand over your personal power to others who are more than happy to take it.”

    ~Certified Life Coach and NLP Master Practitioner Tim Brownson (adaringadventure.com)

    10. Add gratitude to your “sorry’s.”

    “I don’t just say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I also say, ‘Thank you.’ For example, instead of only saying, ‘I’m sorry I was late,’ I also say, ‘Thank you for waiting for me.’ And instead of merely saying, ‘I’m sorry I was sort of out of it the other day,’ I also say, ‘Thank you for being there for me both during good times—and my not so good times.’

    This subtle shift helps me to feel better about my human glitches. Plus, it also winds up improving my relationships—because I’m sharing my appreciation with people, and gratitude is a good heart connector.”

    ~Bestselling Author and Award-Winning Designer Karen Salmansohn (notsalmon.com)

    11. Talk to strangers.

    “One habit worth adopting in 2020 is talking to strangers. This is a habit I started picking up in 2010, and it has been the best change I’ve ever made in my life.

    Our relationships are probably the second most important determinant of our well-being, trailing only behind our health. All relationships and interactions—including the ones with strangers—play a massive impact on how much you enjoy each moment.

    By talking to strangers, you’ll improve your social skills, get better at connecting with people, and you’ll learn how to enjoy any moment with random people. When you’re able to go to a book club, a bar, or a work conference by yourself and have a good time, your life improves drastically.”

    ~Blogger Rob Riker (thesocialwinner.com)

    12. Get more and better sleep.

    “I have come to learn that the quality of our sleep dictates almost everything in our lives! It has an effect on our mental state, our physical health, our attitudes toward things, our relationships, and ultimately our success in each area of life.

    Sleep has taken a back seat in the world of healthy living with exercise and nutrition being in the spotlight. But all the evidence points to sleep being the foundation of our overall health.

    Science has shown that if we sleep poorly, we eat poorly and exercise poorly too. If we sleep well, we make better decisions, choose better foods, can exercise more effectively, and we can ultimately live a more rewarding, impact, and successful life. It has a domino effect.”

    ~Life and Performance Coach Brendan Baker (startofhappiness.com)

    —

    Do you already practice any of these habits? And are there any habits you’d add to the list?

  • 4 Sensitive Superpowers That Can Change Your Life (and the World)

    4 Sensitive Superpowers That Can Change Your Life (and the World)

    “You were born to be among the advisors and thinkers, the spiritual and moral leaders for your society. There is every reason for pride.” ~Elaine N. Aron

    Stop being so sensitive. Lighten up. You’re oversensitive. Stop overthinking. You’re weird.

    If you’re anything like me, you’ve had those words slung at you like rocks from a slingshot for as long as you can remember. The underlying message is clear: You’re too much. There’s something wrong with you.

    Your heart strings have always been like finely tuned antennae, picking up on even the most subtle signals of other people’s heartache and embarrassment. Witnessing someone in intense pain can cause you inner turmoil for weeks on end. And when you feel pain, it’s always intense.

    I get it. I can still remember clearly the first time I had my heart broken. We’d moved across the country, and my best friend mailed me a letter to formally let me know that, with me having moved away, we were no longer best friends. She had a new best friend and they had special nicknames for each other.

    It’s the kind of playground politics that have been going on since time immemorial, but I didn’t know this. It probably wouldn’t have helped if I did. It was my first time being rejected, and it hurt like hell.

    When I went back to that same school a few years later, no one would play with me. My friend was right: She’d moved on. So had everyone else in my class. At recess, I sat alone, eating my tomato sandwiches.

    One of the new boys started picking on me, calling me horrible names, while my former friends simply stood by and watched.

    My teacher picked up that something was wrong. She called us in and asked what was going on. When we’d shared our stories with her, I was stunned by her reaction.

    Instead of using it as an opportunity for learning and healing, she brushed the whole thing off. In that one seemingly insignificant action, she was upholding the message society gives us from the minute we’re born: Being sensitive is wrong. Being vulnerable is even worse. Just harden up already and get on with things.

    At the end of that year, when we went off to high school, the other kids voted for me to get the ‘loyalty’ award at prize giving. I wasn’t too young to get the irony.

    By high school, I was ready. I’d learned my lesson. Like many people who’d been told all their life they were too sensitive, I’d developed impressive armor. I would go into my teenage years knowing how to keep people out.

    By my twenties I’d perfected the art of keeping people at a distance.

    Then, in my thirties, I dared to ask myself: What if sensitivity is a good thing? The mere idea felt transgressive. But then again… what if it was? What if, in fact, sensitivity was a gift?

    I decided to do an experiment. At that point, I’d been to trillions of job interviews in two years, with no luck. Every time I’d got to one, I’d dress up in the stiff, corporate way I thought told interviewers you were capable. I was putting on my armor. Not this time. If sensitivity was a good thing, how would showing people that side of me be?

    I decided to embrace who I was. I dressed in a way that felt authentic to me. Something more artistic, flowy that to me, clearly signaled: Here is a sensitive, creative person. These are the qualities you’ll get when you hire this person.

    It worked! It was the best interview ever. We had an actual, meaningful conversation instead of the stilted kind of thing that usually goes on in interviews. They hired me.

    Today I’m utterly convinced there are many, many advantages to being sensitive, and I keep finding more. Here are some of the more unexpected gems that I just adore and that make me excited about being a sensitive person. I hope you’ll be just as enthralled.

    We’re super observant.

    Sensitive people are keenly aware of what’s going on around us at all times. In fact, highly sensitive people should actually be called highly observant people, says psychologist Elaine Aron, who created the scientific model for what it is to be a person with the trait of high sensitivity.

    We’re always scanning the environment and people around us in order to understand what’s going on and to make an emotional connection, usually at a speed that would send someone else reeling.

    How to use your gift of being observant: It’s no wonder employers report being more satisfied with sensitive workers. Being aware of every single detail—the ones to expect and the ones to eliminate—is a big plus in just about any job, from surgeon to event planner to researcher. It also makes us great with people.

    Highly sensitive athletes even report it being a plus on the sports field, where they don’t even have to see everything going on around them—it’s as if they can feel where the other players are, anticipating their next moves.

    Whether it’s building a rapport with your neighbors, knowing what your clients need, or noticing the tiny detail that makes all the difference in the product you’re creating, your gift of being observant is a massive plus for your personal life and career success.

    We’re deeply joyful people.

    When you’re told all your life that you’re “too sensitive” and “too emotional,” it can feel like you’re some sort of mopey Eeyore-type character. I remember being told my personality type was “melancholic,” which even as a child I knew was an old-fashioned word for depressed. Way to make someone feel good about themselves!

    Thing is, like me, you’ve probably always suspected that’s not the whole truth.

    Like me, you’re likely to be the person who laughs loudest in the cinema. The one whose friends are able to locate them by following their laugh in a theatre. The ones who, when they return after being away for a while, overhear their friends saying, “Aaah—that laugh. I’ve missed that laugh.’

    Truth is, sensitive people feel everything deeply—that includes happiness, joy, and exhilaration. We’re the kids who check out the environment thoroughly before using the flying fox or the water slide, and also the ones who feel the most exhilarated after finally taking that plunge.

    How to use your gift of joy:     Mindfulness is a bit of a buzz word these days and for good reason—in these busy times, it’s a great way to lower stress and increase your engagement with the physical world.

    When you’re already someone who notices the tiny detail on a leaf or the vivid turquoise of the kingfisher flying over the lagoon, it’s much easier to tap into mindfulness—and joyfulness.

    While I don’t like the term “overthinking,” as it feels very negative—seeing all the possible outcomes is a plus in many ways—we can sometimes get stuck in a rumination loop, feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed when faced with making a decision.

    This is when our ability to appreciate beauty, art, and joy becomes such a wonderful gift. Take time to notice the beauty around you and to just be, and feel your mood lift. Enjoying that walk in nature often brings clarity, allowing the solution to appear as if out of nowhere.

    We make superb leaders.

    If you’ve felt beaten down for a long time, it can feel like you’re just not cut out for a leadership role. Truth is, you’re uniquely equipped for this role.

    Not only do employers report more satisfaction with their sensitive employees, but studies show we make incredible leaders.

    It makes sense really—people want to follow someone they can trust.

    “Highly sensitive people miss nothing, while falling back to let team members shine and have the innate ability to say the right thing at just the right time,” says John Hughes, who trains corporate clients on how best to support their highly sensitive employees.

    Now that sounds like someone I’d want to follow!

    How to use your gift of leadership: We don’t often associate gentleness with leadership, so seeing yourself as a born leader might be hard right now.

    In reality, anyone who inspires people by their actions to live a better life is a leader. Right now, you might be an inspiring leader to your friends or your children.

    So ask yourself: Is this my season to take on a leadership role? Maybe you want to lead your volunteer group or apply for that management position at work. Maybe you’re in that stage of life when your career is drawing to a close and you want to pass on invaluable knowledge by mentoring younger people.

    Don’t be afraid—step up to that leadership position. No one can do this better than you.

    We’re innovators.

    When you look inside a sensitive person’s brain, you’ll notice that areas for understanding subtle cues are more activated. So are the ones for depth of processing.

    Noticing and thinking deeply about things allow us to combine ideas in novel ways. We’re born innovators.

    How to use your gift of creativity: The world is absolutely crying out for creative thinkers right now. Everyone from established corporate firms to small start-ups is actively seeking out innovative minds.

    The information era is most probably the very best time for a sensitive person to be alive. So, whether you use your creativity to contribute to a supportive workplace, to create your own business, or to raise one lucky family, you have it in you.

    If you believe in yourself and work hard, always following your principles and looking after yourself, the sky’s the limit!

    You Can Change the World

    As a sensitive person, you have unique talents and insights to offer the world.

    You’ve come a long way, learning more about yourself and slowly accepting the fact that being a sensitive person is not something to be ashamed of.

    In fact, you’re starting to see it as a gift—and you’re excited about the possibilities.

    You’re a keen observer, a fantastic leader, a natural-born innovator, a deeply joyful person and someone who benefits enormously from having—and creating—a supportive environment for yourself and others.

    With gifts like these, there’s no one better equipped to change the world. All you have to do is step out.

    The world needs you right now.

  • What to Do If You Want More Purpose, Passion, and Meaning

    What to Do If You Want More Purpose, Passion, and Meaning

    “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” ~Joseph Campbell

    Do you ever feel like there’s got to be more to life? More purpose, passion, meaning—whatever your word of choice is?

    It’s happened to me twice. The first time was during the early years of my legal career, and the second time was just a few years ago (after battling an aggressive breast cancer).

    Each time I craved more meaning, yet these two experiences couldn’t have been more different.

    When it happened to me as a young lawyer, I didn’t know what to do.

    I’d wanted to be a lawyer since I was ten years old, and there was purpose behind the choices I’d made up to that point. Decisions that had gotten me where I was, such as:

    1. Majoring in economics (with a business minor) in college because I wanted to be a business lawyer, and
    2. Choosing corporate finance law because my ability to quickly see patterns and solutions was beneficial to structuring deals.

    In the early days of my career, I had a deep sense of fulfillment. But over a period of four years, that gradually changed.

    I didn’t realize how bad it was until the morning I stepped off the office elevator and suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was having a panic attack.

    I walked to my office, shut the door, and cried. That’s when I admitted to myself that I felt trapped in a purpose-less life that I’d worked hard to create.

    And that brought questions such as: How could I have once felt passionate about this life? Had I been wrong? If not, what had changed?

    After allowing my self-doubt to paralyze me from doing anything for a few months, I finally decided to do something about it.

    I wrote down a laundry list of things that I didn’t like about my life, which included:

    • Regularly working eighty-plus hours per week (for over a year)
    • Averaging only five hours of sleep per night
    • Feeling like I was easily replaceable and wasn’t making enough of an impact in the work I did
    • Not having spent meaningful time with friends in over a year
    • A wandering mind that was almost never present
    • Snapping at my husband (a lot!) for no real reason and being sour with peers who interrupted my work

    My list of woes was embarrassing, and I didn’t like who I was becoming. But it provided me with a roadmap for how to fix my problems. Moreover, it helped me recognize what purpose really is.

    Up until that point, I’d been looking externally for solutions and thought that I needed to find my true calling.

    The idea that purpose comes from one thing is a myth. And so is the idea that you find your purpose. You don’t find it; you create purpose in life by:

    • using your strengths to make an impact (in an enjoyable way),
    • aligning your life around your core values, and
    • having a sense of belonging.

    Let’s talk about what these mean and how I course corrected in each area.

    1. Utilizing your strengths to make an impact (in a way that’s enjoyable)

    Most people understand that purpose comes (at least partially) from making an impact. But there’s more to it than that.

    If you want to make an impact that’s meaningful, then you need to utilize your skills to the best of your ability (and that requires that you enjoy what you’re doing). That’s how you get and stay motivated.

    My problem was that I felt like my strengths weren’t being fully utilized in the work I was doing—and that I was stuck in the same role, stagnating.

    So, I asked to do more and sought out work from new people. Eventually, I changed firms to work in a different area of corporate finance that was better suited to my abilities.

    2. Aligning your life around your core values

    Core values are principles that make you uniquely you. They affect how you see the world around you and how you make decisions (even if you’re not consciously aware of it).

    When your life doesn’t align with your values, you’ll feel like something’s missing.

    One of the biggest reasons I was so unhappy was because I wasn’t living according to several of my core values. One of my values is family—not only was I not spending much time with them, but I wasn’t exactly present when I did.

    Another one of my values is to connect (which, for me, means connecting deeply with those around me and to stay connected with myself). My quest to do more and work harder make that almost impossible.

    I felt disconnected from family, friends, and peers alike. And my lack of sleep and high stress made it difficult to understand my own thoughts and emotions.

    To fix this, I first set work boundaries and reduced my workload.  Then, I prioritized self-care and time with family and friends.

    3. Feeling that you belong

    Having a sense of belonging is key to happiness. It brings meaning to your life.

    Belonging includes feeling needed, accepted, and loved. To have a sense of belonging requires active effort on your part. It requires that you seek to connect with other people that give you a sense of belonging.

    Unfortunately, the way in which we live often disconnects us from one another. We choose technology over in-person contact and hurry through life to get to the next thing.

    That’s what I had been doing. I was disconnected from those who had always understood me, and even worried that they wouldn’t understand what I was going through. But how could they when I rarely saw or talked to them?

    Luckily, this was fixable—the things I was already doing to better connect with family and friends helped to increase my sense of belonging. Plus, I rejoined organizations that I’d previously been too busy for (and missed).

    This experience gave me a blueprint to follow for life.

    One that helped me figure out why I craved more meaning in life after battling breast cancer (turns out that how I defined one of my core values—service—had changed). But the second time was different because I was confident that I could figure it out.

    It’s easy to get caught up in society’s expectations while climbing the ladder of success that’s set before you. Don’t let that happen, as you’ll likely lose yourself.

    Instead, use the blueprint above to help you create a life that’s meaningful to you.

  • How to Reap the Benefits of Post-Traumatic Growth

    How to Reap the Benefits of Post-Traumatic Growth

    “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.” ~Hemingway

    We all know of post-traumatic stress (PTS) but how many of us know of post-traumatic growth (PTG), a very hopeful and attainable way of life beyond the loss, adversity, and trauma we’ve experienced? It’s a term that was coined in the 1990s and is becoming more popular now as positive psychology and the specific area of resiliency-building have gained momentum in our society.

    What is post-traumatic growth? It’s positive change and growth that comes about as a result of an adversity or loss. It is channeling our pain into something positive.

    It’s more than simply returning to the life we had before the negative event; it involves psychological shifts and changes in ourselves, our beliefs and attitudes, our actions, the meaning and purpose in our lives, our relationships, to an even greater level of functioning.

    This is not to say we don’t suffer and feel tremendous pain. In fact, we first need to allow ourselves to go through the painful and awful feelings that we’d prefer to squelch down. It’s similar to the grieving process where we have to go through it to come through it.

    It is only later on, as the intensity of our negative feelings lessens and softens, that some small bits of sunlight begin to push through the looming clouds and we begin, very slowly, to move forward and integrate the challenge into our lives. We rebuild a new normal.

    Without having a formal concept or name to put to it years ago, I went through my version of post-traumatic growth as an outcome of my daughter, Nava’s miracle: her survival and complete recovery from a near-fatal medical crisis.

    She was on a respirator in a drug-induced coma for four months and then in a rehab hospital for nine months, relearning and eventually, miraculously, regaining every motor and body function.

    Upon her return home from a year-long hospitalization and rehabilitation, I went back to work and resumed my life back home (as I had been living up at the rehab). Needless to say, I was thrilled to have witnessed this miracle—her survival and recovery—and I, as her mother, felt I had been given a second lease on life as well.

    As time went on, however, I felt uncomfortable inside—empty, bored, and filled with angst, feeling like this just wasn’t enough. And then I’d feel guilty over feeling this way; after all, I had our miracle, what more could I possibly want???

    Going back to life as before felt so small to me. I had just witnessed life at its most fragile, sitting by her bedside listening to every beep and bleep of machines that breathed for Nava and kept her alive, with tubes coming out of every opening in her body, on a bed that rotated in all directions.

    One minute she had been eating a blueberry muffin waiting for a procedure and the next she was on a ventilator fighting for her life. If this didn’t make me realize how our lives hang by the thinnest of threads, then nothing would. And I began to feel my inner stirrings and angst more and more. This was slowly becoming clear to me:

    I had just witnessed something miraculous. I had to do something to honor it. As people do things to honor a life that doesn’t survive, I felt a burning need to do something to honor the awesomeness of a life that did, against all odds. 

    It was clearly not enough to just resume, to pick up the pieces where I had left off. That would be like whitewashing away this most traumatic year in my life, not giving the miracle of life the respect and glory it warranted. Not to mention the miraculous complete recovery as she slowly began breathing and eating on her own after more than half a year with tubes and then a tracheostomy.

    And so began the struggle of what to do. I also felt a strong sense of urgency to do and not waste time on this earth where we’re given an unknown and unpredictable amount of time.

    In hindsight this was my angst to grow and push through. It was all percolating inside, and my frustration then became what to do…

    I attempted many different things that I deemed meaningful: from clowning with Patch Adams to foster-raising a puppy for the disabled, to writing a book (which didn’t go anywhere at that point) and other smaller endeavors. I was in search of something big, though, the way some people start organizations and foundations out of their tragedy. But that didn’t happen.

    But what did happen beyond these random experiences of adventurous do-gooding, as I see so clearly now, is that it was all happening on the inside. So, while I was in frantic and frustrated search for that external something, I was living {and continue to do so} more richly engaged than ever. 

    As I stated above, a sense of urgency to doing what I set my mind to now, rather than putting it off, became my M.O.  When I saw a class in the city I was interested in, instead of waiting until the summer when I was off from my school job, I schlepped into the city once-a-week for the class during the school year. A friend of mine would say, “Whatever you say to Harriet, she’ll run with it, so be careful!”

    Now in all fairness I was always a doer and proactive. But this part of me took on a whole new level as I became much more intentional. My interests in various things soared, and I began to feel like there’s just so much out there to learn and do; the world became my oyster.

    Everything I was exploring had meaning to me, and what didn’t, I eventually threw by the wayside.

    After a few more years at my school job, I left, deciding to do what I truly wanted to do in my professional life: work with people going through grief and loss (in all areas) in a clinical setting—my practice—and support them on their journey in coping and eventual growth.

    As someone who was always interested and in awe of people who lived on well despite their hardships,  I developed and curated my own project of finding and interviewing people to learn and put out there for others to see, the qualities and coping tools that led them to grow and thrive beyond their challenges. This eventually became my book.

    And so post-traumatic growth was firing inside me. How can it work for you?

    Drs. Tedeschi and Calhoun, of the University of North Carolina, who coined this term of PTG have identified five main areas where we can experience post-traumatic growth as an outcome of our adversities:

    Relating to Others

    Increased closeness to others, increased compassion and empathy to those going through difficulties, greater authenticity, and connection.

    Connect with people on a deeper and more real level. Recognize where and with whom you feel more understood, connected, and supported. How are you responding to others in pain? Do you feel more sensitive to those suffering? Has your helping hand been extending more to those in need? Have your relationships taken on greater meaning in your life? Are you making more time for them?

    Appreciation of Life

    Awareness and gratitude for what we have, focus on beauty and goodness, living with more presence and intention; the absence of taking things for granted.

    Begin to take pleasure in the ordinary things of life, for it’s the everyday beauty and pleasures that call, nourish, and fill us.

    What are you noticing now that you rarely noticed before? What are you slowing down to really see? Are you being more mindful and reveling in the now? Awe is a positive emotion that fills us with wonder and boosts our well-being.

    What beauty calls out to you? Is it the mountains that give us a perspective of smallness and humility in their grandness; or the expansiveness of the star-filled sky; or the ocean with its ups and downs of the waves in their calmness and subsequent crashing; or the rise and set of the sun that we can always count on for appearing and then disappearing?

    New Possibilities

    Re-evaluating what’s important and what truly matters/priorities; stepping outside one’s comfort zone and taking risks; openness to new ways of living, to new experience,s and learning/taking on new endeavors.

    Take stock of your life and think about your top values and priorities. What now seems unimportant since your tragedy, trauma, or crisis?

    After processing your grief and emotional pain, what new opportunities are you interested in exploring? How are you looking to expand yourself?  What have you realized means more than anything? How can you better honor those things in your personal and/or professional life? How can you spend your time and energy in ways that reflect your values and what truly matters to you?

    Personal Strength

    Greater confidence and self-esteem, recognizing and appreciating one’s abilities and competence, self-pride, greater resilience, and coping abilities.

    Reflect upon your strengths and allow yourself to feel good that you got through your difficulty in ways you thought you never could.

    How did you cope with pain and hardship in healthy ways? What strengths did you use to help get you through the trauma/adversity? Recognizing those strengths, how can you continue to bring them forth in ways to enrich your life? There’s a very interesting free survey you can take here, that lists and puts your character strengths in order. What are your top five; how do they coincide with the way you see yourself?

    Spiritual Change

    Transcendence to things beyond ourselves, renewed purpose and meaning, questioning and searching as we reconfigure our newly designed tapestry. 

    Consider the existential questions of life on a more personal level. Instead of “what’s the meaning of life,” ask yourself, “What’s my purpose and meaning here, and how do I re-create that for myself? How do I connect to my meaning on a day-to-day basis?”

    How are you redefining success and living well? How do you want to spend your days on earth? What mark/impact do you want to leave/have? How has your perspective broadened beyond yourself? Are you more connected to a purpose?

    —

    Once the bad circumstance(s) happen, growth can occur in the aftermath as we seek to create good, find new ways of living that can be enriching and meaningful, and develop and grow in any of the above areas.

    Creating new goals and finding positive ways to adjust to a new reality is the hope and potential for post-traumatic growth.

    Knowing this possibility for change and growth exists and that we’re not doomed to live out the misery of our challenges and losses can give us something to strive for. To some it comes more naturally, to others it’s something to work toward. Either way it points to a better way to live through and beyond our inevitable life challenges.

  • Finding the Courage to Go After What You Want Out of Life

    Finding the Courage to Go After What You Want Out of Life

    “Just because you’re not doing what other people are doing, that doesn’t mean you’re failing or falling behind. You’re charting your own course and staying true to yourself, even though it would be easier to join the crowd. You’re creating a life you can fall in love with instead of falling in line. You’re finding the courage to do what’s right for you, even though it’s uncertain and scary and hard. Give yourself some credit, because these are all reasons to be proud.” ~Lori Deschene

    I wouldn’t call myself a laid-back person. I have anxiety that leads me to catastrophize, and I struggle with perfectionism. That said, I do pride myself on being a person who’s able to go with the flow, who’s open to just about anything—a person who is, in a word, agreeable.

    Where do you want to go to lunch? I’m okay with whatever. Which movie should we watch? I can probably find something to enjoy in most of them. What should we do this weekend? I don’t know; what do you want to do?

    If I have a really strong opinion about something, I’ll speak up, but what I really enjoy is being in the company of people I care about. I’m usually most happy when everybody around me is happy. As far as I’m concerned, the details of what we’re doing don’t matter as much as the fact that we’re doing it together.

    This attitude is rooted in a number of different things.

    For one, I was raised in a mid-sized, West Coast, seaside town where slow movement and a languid approach to decision making were part of the local culture.

    In addition, I usually took on the role of passive peacemaker in my family of origin, making sure the stress level was manageable for all involved by avoiding conflict at every turn.

    Finally, I grew up immersed in a religion that believed humans were inherently bad and it was essential for each of us to follow God’s will, as opposed to our own, in any given moment.

    Thanks to this combination of influences, I learned to tune out my own desires (to the point where, after a while, I couldn’t even hear them anymore) and take every reasonable opportunity offered to me as a potential good.

    I have rarely said “No” in my life—not because I didn’t want to be offensive or hurtful, but because I didn’t want to miss out on what that experience might have to offer. And, there’s also the fact that I had no trust in my own imagination or sense of personal direction.

    These aren’t always bad traits to have. I’ve met a lot of interesting people, seen a lot of gorgeous places, and tried some very unique foods (fried sheep brains, anyone?) because I was open to what the people around me had in mind. Deferring to the whims of others can have its perks.

    Plus, it is true that sometimes other people know better than we do about certain things. I’ve found myself on many an unexpected but fruitful detour in my life thanks to an idea someone else gave me that I never would have thought of myself.

    Of course, there are also some major drawbacks to letting life just happen. The biggest one for me is the fact that I don’t get much closer to my goals and dreams when I’m ready to say yes to whatever invitation or opportunity comes along.

    Much like wandering around a big, unknown city with no map in hand will lead you to some novel experiences but is not a good way to get you to all of the places you actually want to see, going through life open to every option you’re offered might lead to some fun times but it can also leave you standing nowhere in particular in the end.

    And I don’t know about you, but I want to be somewhere in particular. I want to be a full-time artist. More specifically, I want to be a full-time writer.

    It’s a destiny that’s been calling me ever since I was young. When I was in middle school, my humanities teacher was so taken with a writing project I did that she went out of her way to tell my parents about my talent. I won the all-school writing day scholarship prize when I was a senior in high school. Imagining the future of our class on graduation day, our valedictorian gave a speech that listed a handful of students by name and their predicted successes. “Grete Howland,” he said, alongside the words “famous author.”

    I was surprised to hear it. I was not a popular kid—there was no reason for him to think of, let alone mention, me out of the hundreds of people with whom I graduated on that day. Unless I really was that good. Unless this was something that was feasible for me.

    However, like I said before, I am not the kind of person who’s inclined to choose a goal, set a path toward it, and make decisions that will keep me on that path until I reach my intended destination. As much as I felt flattered, it didn’t occur to me that what my classmate said on that day to the hundreds of people gathered was something I could try to make a reality with a little bit of confidence and some good old fashioned planning.

    Life just went on. I did study English in college, but only because it was what I loved most, not because I had a specific use for the degree in mind. Out of college I moved back to my hometown and worked a mind-numbing data entry job while I figured out what I wanted to do next.

    Traveling the world seemed exciting, and I knew friends who belonged to a global missionary organization who got to do it. Still very much devout to my faith at that point in my life, I applied for the program, raised the money, and then spent six months in New Zealand, Australia and Vanuatu just doing what I was told by the people who were leading the trip.

    When I returned to the States, I was once more directionless. Graduate school seemed like a natural next step, and I had a few friends in seminary, so, yet again, I poured a lot of time and money into an interesting thing I saw the people around me doing while having no particular goal in mind.

    The only thing I knew when I graduated from seminary was that I wanted to keep living in the community I’d formed during my time there, so I found a job close by and stayed in southern California. That job, as an administrative assistant at a small independent school, was particularly fortuitous because I fell in love with their progressive philosophy and decided that I wanted to teach English. Thankfully, a position opened up, and I set off on what would end up being a 7-year foray into middle school education.

    There are no words to express the love and gratitude I have for the time I spent in those classrooms and the relationships I developed with students and colleagues. I witnessed seventh and eighth graders find their voices, discover deep connections across multiple subjects, and develop passionate convictions about social justice. At the same time, I also discovered after a few years that pouring all of my mental, emotional, and physical energy into helping others become better writers and thinkers left me too depleted to work on my own creative writing outside of my job.

    I adored teaching, and took pride in the identity of “teacher.” But I also had to consider whether I really wanted that to be my vocation forever, working in service of others’ creativity at the expense of my own. Half-done writing projects were whispering in my ear, calling me back to them, asking me to forgo my pleasant but aimless wandering in favor of a strategic path of my own.

    So I did it. Earlier this year, I walked away from teaching with the goal of finding a job that leaves space for my writing to flourish. It was a decision both scary and exciting. And even though I’m still learning to have the courage not to settle for any job I can get simply because it feels safe, I know I made the right move.

    Thankfully, my spouse and some very wise friends have kept me accountable to holding out for what will move me forward on my journey. As they encourage me to make space for my destiny, despite all the risks, I am beginning to see the value in identifying and prioritizing my own dreams and desires. I think I’m finally starting to believe in my own potential—or at least believe that exploring it is worth an honest try.

    It can be very comforting to take on the role of being the agreeable one. There’s no risk of rejection or failure when you’re happy to do what everyone else is doing, and when you’re willing to take whatever life hands you without holding out for more. What if more never comes?

    Taking the time to consider what you really want for yourself is scary because it can feel like a good opportunity might pass you by. But the other side of that is the fact that you can just as easily miss out on something better because you decided too soon, because you didn’t have the faith that you’d actually be able to achieve what it is you really want.

    So be flexible, yes. Be open-minded. Be selfless where it counts. But don’t make a habit out of letting other people make decisions for you. Don’t live your life settling for what’s in front of you just because it’s there.

    Take the time to learn what it is you want to do with your life. Chart a course toward it, and go. Get somewhere in particular, or as close as you possibly can. Practice being picky. This is your life, after all.

  • How Letting Go of the Need to be Special Changed My Life

    How Letting Go of the Need to be Special Changed My Life

    “Our society has become a conspiracy against joy. It has put too much emphasis on the individuating part of our consciousness—individual reason—and too little emphasis on the bounding parts of our consciousness, the heart and soul.” ~David Brooks

    When I was in elementary school, I avoided group projects like the plague. When given the choice to work alone or as part of a team, I always chose to work alone.

    When I joined a new class, club, or sport, my parents inquired how I measured up against the rest.

    “So what do you think, Hail?” Dad would ask me. “Are you the fastest on the team? Did you get the highest grade?”

    In the years that followed I formed clubs, climbed to leadership roles, and sought only the most competitive opportunities.

    Later, I became fully self-employed as a coach. I had no colleagues—only clients. In my mid-twenties I moved to the Pacific Northwest in the name of novelty and exploration, leaving behind a thriving, New Jersey-bound network of extended family.

    I received a great deal of positive feedback for these decisions. I was succeeding, bucking social convention in favor of self-discovery, and family and friends described me as “brave,” “inspiring,” and “motivated.” I operated by a set of values that included fierce individualism and self-expression.

    This tale is as old as time among members of my generation. We’re the generation of digital nomad-hood, “Van Life,” and working from home. We value mobility. Wellness blogs laud alone time as the pinnacle of self-care. We spend hours each day on social media, seeking validation of our uniqueness and our worth.

    In The Second Mountain, NYTimes Bestselling Author David Brooks posits that this individualistic ethos is a backlash against the moral ecology of the 1950s, which emphasized group conformity, humility, and self-effacement. Since the 1960s, our culture has increasingly pushed back against collective identities, labels, and experiences, opting instead for boundless self-actualization.

    On one hand, I’m viscerally grateful for our culture’s modern emphasis on individualism. Women, especially, have waited centuries to receive cultural support to pursue our dreams and self-actualize. Likewise, as someone in recovery from codependency, I understand the critical importance of honoring my needs, my desires, and my choices. After all, it took years to break free from the shackles of people-pleasing and self-censorship.

    However, at a certain point, hyper-individualism stopped serving me and began hindering me. When my own specialness became the orienting principle for how I saw and interacted with the world, I lost touch with the belonging, trust, and community that culminate to form a rich and meaningful life.

    Individualism Gone Too Far

    As children, our caregivers and teachers celebrate us when we win awards, place first, and stand out. These celebrations become proxies for love—a love we have to work hard to earn.

    In adulthood, I hoarded my specialness, terrified that being “one among many”—in my career, in my lifestyle, in my heart—would leave me purposeless. I vested great effort into my hyper-individualism because I subconsciously believed it was the only way to feel seen and valued.

    I rarely fathomed the benefits of being a contributor, a member of a group, or a vessel for a greater moral or spiritual cause. I balked at “teamwork” and “service” because they threatened to rob me of my self-assigned elevated status. In fact, I judged those who advocated such ideals. These people have no identity, I scoffed. No dreams of their own. 

    Though my hyper-individualistic life had many socially sanctioned perks—I developed powerful leadership skills, special occasions found me swollen with pride, and my Instagram following climbed—I grappled with:

    Isolation. When I singularly prioritized my personal goals, personal time, and personal life, I didn’t have any allies. I was a lonely team of one. Though I made commitments to people and causes, I could be unreliable, self-centered, and flighty when better opportunities arose. I assumed that others would be the same. This left me with a sense of loneliness and skepticism that underscored even my most treasured connections.

    Detachment. A life dictated by hyper-individualism is a life detached from true connection. I often felt like a free-floating satellite, certain that no community—geographical, political, artistic, you name it—could give me as much joy as the pursuit of my goals.

    Anxiety. When our identities are based on being special, life is a relentless uphill climb. We will never be enough; we must constantly strive to be better, try harder, and achieve more. Under such circumstances, self-compassion is a distant possibility. Instead, anxiety becomes our daily companion, the soft whisper that erodes opportunities for peace and contentment.

    Finding Balance

    Throughout my years of hyper-individualistic thinking, I never realized that when we devote parts of ourselves to others, we benefit—really benefit—in return. The benefits of service and community aren’t just fluffy incentives for inspirational posters. Purpose, belonging, and a deep sense of trust arise when we willingly commit ourselves to other people, other causes, and other definitions of a meaningful life.

    I began to understand this truth when I befriended members of a group whose guiding principles espoused service, humility, and community. Upon first exposure to these ideals, my entire being revolted. These were the contrived, sing-song “values” that I’d spent my life trying to avoid.

    I spent months in a state of schism. On the one hand, I didn’t see how an other-centered life could serve me; I wasn’t taught to. I could only imagine how it would crush my identity and distract from my dreams. My ego was terrified. I wanted to hightail it out of there.

    But something kept me there, bearing silent witness to my discomfort, eyeing this community with curiosity. My new friends seemed anything but identity-less. In fact, they seemed embodied, peaceful, and genuinely happy. Their lives were not dictated by the ever-changing highs and lows of daily successes. They emanated groundedness and seemed to lack the existential woes that plagued most members of my generation.

    In retrospect, I believe I stayed because a part of me—a deeply hidden and deeply human part—was lonely, tired of the narrowness of my world, and craving something more.

    One night, something happened. My desperate, exhausted ego relinquished its grasp on my hyper-individualism. It was as if a switch had flipped within me. I felt a sudden, fierce desire to entrench myself in commitments to communities, to people, to a moral philosophy I could call my own. I felt like a wide-eyed, open-hearted child asking, “What now?”

    I don’t know exactly what happened that night— but since then, my values and philosophy have shifted with no effort on my part. Here’s what I’ve noticed:

    I feel more deeply connected to the people around me.

    Before, I spent most interactions with others noticing our differences. Disparities in age, experience, privilege, and values felt as palpable and prohibitive as walls. Now, I find myself noting similarities and relating more deeply to others’ experiences. Their stories penetrate the walls of my heart because I’m not hyper-focused on myself. My eyes well with tears at narratives of tragedy and stories of joy. Rich wells of empathy have taken up residence in me.

    My anxiety decreased dramatically.

    I no longer spend my days driven by the compulsion to overachieve or “prove” my value. My worth no longer depends on being special—and it’s liberating! Instead of being swallowed by a self-referential whirlwind, plagued by decision fatigue and perfectionism, I’m able to slow down, interact deeply and meaningfully with others, and relax into the comfort of my communities.

    I’m more curious.

    When specialness was my orienting principle, the only information I wanted to consume was related to my personal growth and my goals. Letting go of hyper-individualism allowed me to feel more a part of the human race and more a part of this Earth.

    Now, information of all kinds fascinates me. I get a kick out of watching Blue Planet, going to lectures on helicopter parenting, and reading memoirs by Midwestern farmers. None of this information is directly relevant to my experience, but it doesn’t matter. I’m intrigued by what the world has to offer.

    I know that everything’s going to be okay.

    Relinquishing my hyper-individualism helped me understand that I’ll never be truly alone. Now that I’m willing to commit myself deeply to others, I experience newfound depths of intimacy, trust, and safety. Even if I suffer a tragedy or loss, I will have a thick web of people to support me. I know this to be true because I would do the same for others.

    When I began this journey, I was certain that if I let go of my fierce individualism, I’d become amorphous and mundane. Instead, I became more deeply entrenched in the world around me. It has been an incredible gift.

    We tend to understand self-actualization as learning how to feel our feelings, comprehend our values, pursue our dreams, and express our highest selves. I believe that that’s true—and I believe that there’s more. Once we feel embodied in our own identities, I believe that the utmost manifestation of self-actualization is commitment to something greater: love for other people, overarching values, or warm communities.

    Letting go of the need to be special allowed me to see, with clear eyes, the abundance of connection, compassion, intimacy, and community all around me. It helped me begin to experience the world in its fullness—not as a leader, a facilitator, or a director, but as a member, participant, and recipient of its daily miracles.

  • Everything Seems to Be Falling Apart… Because It Is

    Everything Seems to Be Falling Apart… Because It Is

    “A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because its trust is not on the branch, but in its own wings. Always believe in yourself.”  ~Unknown

    If you’ve ever stopped and thought, “What the hell am I doing?” or “How did I end up here?” believe me when I tell you that you are one of many—including me.

    Feeling lost is stressful enough, but what about when we disappoint ourselves more than anyone around us? What do we do when we have no sense of direction or purpose, and dwindling confidence in ourselves?

    I haven’t yet figured it all out, but that’s just fine. That’s the point exactly, that we don’t have to figure it all out right now. You can be hurting and healing at the same time, they’re not mutually exclusive.

    I found myself in what would be one of the darkest moments of my life at the ripe age of twenty-five. My girlfriend of five years and I split up as I was planning to propose, an F4 tornado destroyed my hometown, and I quit a successful job in advertising all in a matter of months.

    The truth is, I wasn’t happy in my relationship (even though I told myself I was over the years and through a myriad of fights). I wasn’t truly happy in my career. And I was missing a lot from life in general.

    So I took a hard look at myself—twenty-five, single, jobless, and feeling empty. Not empty in the lonely sense of the word. Empty in that I would wake up in the middle of the night and not see her next to me. Empty in that all my peers were on life’s highway setting goals for themselves, breaking them, and setting new ones thereafter.

    Every opportunity that I had been afforded, I took advantage of and excelled in. But I never found that one thing that fueled the fire in my heart. I don’t think I ever discovered my passion. By twenty-five, surely I must have been getting close, right?

    Many of my friends knew exactly what they wanted to do from a young age. Deep down, I envied that. To know my purpose was what I longed for. So why was I not one of those that automatically knew?

    I don’t yet have that answer, as you might’ve intuited, but I have found two things to be true thus far:

    1. Yes, some people know what they want early in life. But they are the exceptions to the rule.

    Many successful people we know today found success later in life. Stan Lee started the Marvel Universe at thirty-nine, Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of the Species at fifty, and Grandma Moses began painting at seventy-eight years old.

    Then there are the countless people you’ve never heard of—and probably never will—who found meaning and passion later in life, or found it, lost it, then found it again.

    2. Maybe we are meant to do more than one thing.

    It’s our understanding of success that helps us define when we’ve reached it. Rather than think of success as one destination, we can choose to see it as the car ride from spot to spot, each equally exciting.

    So how do you recover when you feel as though life took you, chewed you up, and spit you back out? You don’t… at least not really.

    I stumbled upon a great quote a few days ago that read, “When people say recovery, you typically think of returning to how you were before. But there is no going back. You do not merely recover, but reinvent yourself. You become something completely different from what you were before.”

    I read that over and over until I felt the wisdom shiver itself into my bones.

    Many times we take a step back from situations to recover, when in fact what we may need to do is reinvent ourselves if we can no longer return to what we used to be.

    It’s not a negative thing, to reinvent who you are. In fact, it’s one of the most liberating experiences you will ever have. You just have to let yourself.

    If you’re anything like me, you are your own biggest critic. And although this can help us keep ourselves accountable, it can prevent us from broadening our horizons. We internally set limits for ourselves based on past experiences, thinking that we can only go as far as we’ve already been. When you learn to let go of the things that no longer serve your purpose but only hinder you, then can you truly soar.

    Let yourself gain new talents and explore new things outside of your comfort zone.

    Sometimes it’s important to let go of the oars and simply float the river. So often we try and paddle upstream when in reality we’d be better off letting the river guide us downstream, to where we haven’t been before.

    Think back to every missed opportunity that you were disappointed with. Many (if not all) of those so called missed opportunities were actually guideposts. Even the accomplishments that didn’t last served their purpose. They were not meant to last, they were only meant to change you.

    What if I would’ve gotten married? I would have never had the opportunity I have right now to move away to Colorado and explore new horizons.

    What if that Tornado wouldn’t have hit my hometown? I used that as a chance to rebuild my home from the ground up, when I wanted to remodel anyway.

    And if I had stayed in the security of advertising? Sure, things would be financially stable, but instead I chose to finally pursue my passion for teaching.

    So yes, every single experience in life is an opportunity for growth, whether it lasts forever or not.

    I had a baseball coach in high school who would always say, “We learn more from the games we lose than the ones we win.” I carry that with me to this day. Maybe it’s because we analyze more when we lose, or maybe it’s because it forces us to change our game plan for next time. But trust that next time, you’re starting from experience, not from zero.

    So trust that when everything seems to be falling apart, new things are coming together. But you have to be open to embrace them. Simply float the river. The point of life is not in the destination, it is in the journey. But we are led to believe that life is serious and that it must be leading us to some grand destination.

    I’ve found that life is more like a dance. No dancer points to a spot on the dance floor and says, “That’s where I must end up at.” The whole point of the dance is the dance.

    So I’ll leave you with three things that I’ve found help me on this journey I find myself on:

    1. Name three good things about your day.

    At the end of each day, speak aloud three good things that happened. They don’t have to be grand, just the little wins we often overlook. I helped my friends move, I beat my time in the mile, etc. These help remind me that in the middle of the storm, there are still accomplishments in the day and things to be thankful for. That, in turn, can change your mood and set the tone for tomorrow.

    2. Exercise and eat healthy.

    How you feel is tied closely to the food you consume. Make it a point to eat healthier and to exercise. This won’t only improve your mood, but also your self-confidence and overall health.

    I’ve found that whenever life throws challenges at me, one constant that I can count on is the gym. When I’m working out, nothing outside of those four walls matters. It’s my escape, if you will.

    3. Keep a journal.

    Although life is about the journey, having a sense of direction can anchor us when we’re feeling lost.

    Write down what you want (out of your next relationship, out of life, etc.). Jot down your thoughts, fears, and feelings as you sit with uncertainty and find a way forward. Journaling is cathartic and can help ease much of the pain. It can also help you feel a sense of progress. One of my favorite things to do is to look back on old entries, which can help me see how far I’ve come.

    So no, this isn’t the end for you. You will survive and you will look back one day and be so proud of yourself for doing what you thought to be impossible. How do I know? Because if you’re reading this, you still believe in yourself. You still have hope that there are exciting new chapters left to be written, even if you don’t yet know what to do, or how.

    As I stated at the beginning, I don’t have it all figured out just yet, but that’s okay. I don’t know where this journey will lead me, but I know it will be exciting and filled with adventure. And in the process, I hope that you too, will find whatever is it that fuels that fire in your heart. Don’t give up, don’t give in.

    So yes, ultimately everything seems to be falling apart, but I’m finally starting to see that it’s because something better is coming together. Trust your journey, and even if the branch breaks when you sit on it, your wings will help you soar to new heights.

  • What Helped Me Reclaim the Creativity I Loved as a Kid

    What Helped Me Reclaim the Creativity I Loved as a Kid

    “Absolute attention is an act of generosity.” ~Simone Weil

    When I was a child, I used to write poems as presents for my parents on birthdays and holidays.

    I’d sit quietly and think of what I wanted to say. Then I’d try to turn that into musical language. I’d write those words on the page, and then I’d draw a picture to go with it.

    It didn’t occur to me to even ask whether my parents would like my poem or not; I just assumed they would.

    Then I got older. I stopped giving my parents poems for presents. I stopped writing poems.

    I didn’t write poetry again until I was in college, and then I began to wonder whether my poetry was “good.” Were my poems “good enough” to get me into the advanced poetry workshop? Would they dazzle the teacher? Would the other students like them?

    I paid more attention to the way the words sounded on the page than to what I actually was saying. The depth was covered up by surface. And after all, I wasn’t sure I wanted to really bring my depth to the surface for other people to see.

    I didn’t write poetry very much again until I was pregnant with my first child. Then what was inside me—literally—was calling my attention. I started to put it on the page.

    But there was still this concern about whether what I was creating was “good enough.”

    I’ve been dancing with that “good enough” question for many years. I see now that that question is not just about my writing, but about myself, about my own interior life, and about the relationship between that interior life and my external life: Can my depth come out on the surface? Is my surface appropriate for my depth? Will I be seen, appreciated, understood? And how can I develop myself to the best of my potential, showing up and not shying away from who I am and want to be?

    Now, many years later, I’m a creative writer and a creative writing teacher, and I see my students similarly worry about whether their work is “good enough.”

    I often tell them that their concern, that comes out in relation to their writing, is really a deeper question of how they approach themselves.

    I tell them that, yes, the writing for so many of us brings out these insecurities, uncertainties, and learned patterns of thinking about ourselves that otherwise would lie buried. But that the writing doesn’t create those insecurities, uncertainties, or learned patterns. They’re there within us—and all around us.

    From the time we’re little, we’re given messages about what it means to be a worthwhile person: people are expected to act a certain way, to look a certain way, to speak a certain way.

    For women, our bodies often bear the brunt of these expectations about our physical selves: are our bodies “good” enough, thin enough, pretty enough, light enough, curvy enough, straight enough…

    And for women and men, our writing often comes to be the place where our intellect is valued: our writing is judged in schools; our expression is given grades. We measure ourselves against others.

    But if we’re always being judged—in body and mind—there is no space to be and to become.

    The question of whether we are “good enough” comes from feeling judged, and this restricts us. We experience ourselves as lacking, and a sense of lack leads in turn to our not being able to inhabit our full selves, to our making poor decisions and to living in constricted ways.

    So what happens when we put aside our judgment and allow ourselves to be with ourselves and with our creative voices?

    What helped me overcome my worry about being “good enough” (or mostly overcome it) is being a mother and seeing what it’s like to love my children unconditionally.

    When I am with my children, it never occurs to me to ask whether they are “good” or “good enough.” Those questions seem absurd and meaningless.

    I know that my children were born—as I believe all children are born—as wonderful light beings, miracles with unimaginable potential and unique personalities and gifts. They are, like all people, uniquely themselves.

    I also know that my children were born with the capacity to grow in countless ways. And this potential to grow and learn never stops.

    My children are “good” but that does not mean that they were born good at walking. They needed to learn, as we all do, how to walk. They needed to crawl and then learn how to pull themselves up, needed to learn how to take one step and fall down and then another. At times, also, my children, like all of us, learned how to be more self-aware, how to say they were sorry, how to think about how their actions impacted others.

    We all have room for growth—throughout our lives. We all have room for greater awareness and more skill. But as we mature and grow as people, our essential “goodness” does not change.

    I try to take the same attitude towards our creative acts: of course, we can learn how to be more skillful writers. But each of us is also born a creative being with a unique creative voice, and more skills will enhance the voice, but won’t essentially change what it has to express. Furthermore, our work is an expression of that voice that is appropriate for who and where we are at the moment that we create.

    As a poet, I needed to learn the skills to take my inner world and put it more effectively on paper. I learned from reading others and from having others read and comment on my poems.

    As I wrote more poems, my poems got more understandable, more moving, more skillful. But I don’t think I was ever asking the right question when I was asking whether my poems were “good” or “good enough.” Because that question was like cutting the life force off that was full of life and growing

    Similarly, as a teacher, I can help my students have more skills. I can show them writing that inspires them and that they can learn from; I can give them tools to use in their pieces. But it’s never my job to judge them or to suggest that their creative expression isn’t worthy.

    We are all creative beings. Not everyone is given legs to walk, but everyone is given a unique story and a unique perspective and a unique voice. And who are we, any of us, to say that one story is “good enough” and another is not? Would we ever say that one birdsong is worthy and another is not?

    Perhaps some people will like my poems. I know some will.

    Perhaps some people will not like my poems. I know many won’t.

    But I don’t set myself up waiting breathlessly to be “liked” or not. I set myself up to do my best work and to accompany myself, whether I fall down or walk across the room.

    When my children were little, I delighted in the freedom with which they played, danced, drew, sang. I want them to be able to be themselves as fully as adults, and to love themselves in the process.

    And I want that for all of us, even for myself. For I know that if I want something for my children, then I need to be able to at least try to model it, otherwise what message am I really sending?

    I tell my students: you might not write your most captivating poem this time around, but if you cut off your breath, then you will never will write at your full potential. So take a risk: go for it, and keep trying. Read, write, learn from what you love and engage fully, and keep listening inside and allowing the process to move from the inner to the outer without judgment.

    I started writing as a gift to my parents, but now I write as a gift to myself—and to the world.

    For me, poetry is an act of love, attention, and presence. When I show up fully and listen, then I can create a passage from what is larger than me through my interior self and then out onto the page.

    “Absolute attention is an act of generosity,” the philosopher Simone Weil wrote. When I pay attention to the world around and within me and to the language that I use that is an act of generosity and grace—to myself and to the world and perhaps, also, I can hope, to some of my readers.

  • What I Did When I Felt Lost and Purposeless

    What I Did When I Felt Lost and Purposeless

    “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”  ~Lao Tzu

    About a year ago, I came across an e-course titled “Find Your Purpose in 15 Minutes.” I found this course during a time when purpose was something I was actively looking for. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure what to do next, and without anything to work toward I was looking for a new motivation to pull me forward.

    The e-course I stumbled upon represents a society increasingly concerned with fulfilling its destiny. There is an unsettling pressure, particularly from the self-help community, to live a life of purpose. And when I couldn’t find my destiny, let alone fulfill it, a sense of failure washed over me.

    Now, I cannot tell you whether it is possible to find your purpose in 15 minutes, because I never purchased the e-course. But I can say it is entirely possible to find meaning in a purposeless life.

    The Appeal of Purpose

    Purpose can provide an answer to the question “Why am I here?” It can give you a sense of direction and drive forward in life.

    Some people might find purpose in meaningful work, using their skills and talent to serve the needs of the world. Others find purpose in raising a family, caring for loved ones, or being an active member of their community.

    Having a purpose will make you feel like you are doing what you’re supposed to do. Like you are living out your life’s mission and making a contribution.

    In a world where most of our basic human needs are met, I suppose it’s no wonder that we are now looking to become more deeply fulfilled. When you no longer have to struggle for mere survival, it’s only natural that you pause and ask yourself what it’s all for.

    The Problem with Purpose

    Living a purposeful life sounds wonderful, and I’m not here to devalue anyone’s purposeful existence. Rather, I would like to remind those that haven’t found purpose yet that life can be meaningful and fulfilling without it.

    The problem with purpose is not at all the actual purpose, but rather our intense attachment to finding it. Doing work we love, contributing to the world in a meaningful way, and leaving our mark has become such a prized endeavor that I can often sense a deep existential worry creep into conversations with my peers.

    For example, I’ve noticed that many of my friends feel angsty when they don’t know what to do next in life or when they aren’t sure if their current endeavors are what they’re meant to do. I too have felt uncomfortable with the fact that I am not serving the world in big and meaningful ways.

    We seem to collectively feel that if we don’t have some grand end-goal to fulfill we are somehow failing at life. And with this, we are passing on the opportunity to create a meaningful life without having a purpose.

    The Alternative to Purpose

    This is where I would like to offer an alternative. Not to purpose itself, but to the glorification of purpose and the frantic gold-rush that we have embarked on to find that one thing in life that will bring us meaning and fulfillment.

    I do believe that living a meaningful life is important. Having no sense of why you are even on this planet can feel restless at best and nihilist at worst. But instead of anchoring yourself in finding purpose, I suggest you anchor yourself in values instead.

    Personal values are guides that can help you navigate the road map of life, even if you don’t know where you’re heading. More importantly, they’re a lot easier to find than purpose.

    Think of a few people you admire. What values do they exemplify? Courage, empathy, ambition? If you look up to anyone, it’s most likely not because of their achievements, but rather their character, which has helped them reach those achievements. What in their character would you like to improve in yours?

    Personal values allow you to live anchored in what is meaningful to you, whether that’s serving others, being brave, or taking radical responsibility for your life. Values, unlike purpose, allow you to infuse meaning into every present moment rather than only finding meaning in one noble cause.

    If you value kindness, for example, then living from a place of kindness can transform mundane daily activities into opportunities to be kind. A boring job can become a playground where you practice your kindness. And an annoying family member becomes your opportunity to show up with compassion and consideration.

    My Journey with Purposelessness

    I used to navigate life with a sense of urgency, always moving forward in an attempt to fulfill my mission in life. I would set goal after goal, convinced that once I had achieved them a sense of meaning would arise.

    But as I worked through the common milestones in life, the meaningfulness never came. So I would continue to set new goals, certain that I just hadn’t found the one thing yet that would make me feel whole.

    When I was stuck at a major crossroads last year, I slowly shifted my focus from finding my purpose to adding meaning to the everyday. A year later, I still don’t know what I am meant to do in life, but I am content to live in the question for now. To sit with purposelessness.

    In the meantime, I find meaning in cultivating my character by living out my values. Personally, I value courage, tenderness, and depth at the moment, so I use everyday activities and challenges to put these values to practice.

    The value of tenderness, for example, encourages me to soften my inner self and stay open to life in the face of hardships. I try to cultivate this part of my character by always being compassionate with others, particularly those who challenge me. I also practice tenderness through self-compassion, allowing myself to be weak and vulnerable at times when staying strong is not the compassionate option.

    I live a life of courage not only by doing things that scare me, but also by truly listening to what my heart wants and speaking my truth. Nurturing courage has faced me with some nerve-racking situations, such as quitting a job that no longer fulfilled me, but rising to those situations has given me the strength to forge a life that feels true to who I am.

    Lastly, I try to cultivate a sense of depth in my life. Rather than scrolling through Instagram, I often spend hours getting my teeth stuck in an interesting book. And rather than traveling the world, I have made it my mission to revisit old favorites over and over again. To get into the nooks and crannies of a city I know well, sucking out the last little marrow from its foundations, offers me a deeper way of traveling not found in weekend getaways or exotic backpacking trips.

    Nurturing these values has given me the chance to see each and every moment as an opportunity to grow and develop my character. While I’m figuring out the why for my life, values keep me on track with the how. And, unlike purpose, I can swap out and play with my set of values as much as I’d like.

    Perhaps one day I will stumble upon my purpose. Or perhaps I will look back on my life in old age and finally recognize that I had been living my purpose all along, and finally understand what it was all for. But for now I am simply curious to experience life as it unfolds, finding meaning along the way by anchoring myself in values.

    If you’re currently feeling a little lost in life, then know that it is okay to sit with that feeling. Know that it is okay to not fix away this feeling in 15 minutes. And know that if you simply show up every day with an open mind and unfold your soul into the tapestry of possibilities, your path will be full of meaning and wonderment, even without that illusive thing called purpose.

  • How to Live a Life You Love (Even If Others Doubt You)

    How to Live a Life You Love (Even If Others Doubt You)

    “Not all those who wander are lost.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien

    I will always remember those words.

    I had just decided to ditch my old life. Instead of pursuing a cushy career as a lawyer, I wanted to create a business as a freelance writer because it felt like a fulfilling thing to do.

    “You’ll never make it work. You’ll regret your decision,” a loved one told me.

    Those words pushed my buttons. I felt scared.

    What if I would regret it?

    Was I stupid, even delusional, for thinking there was an alternative to living a pre-planned life with a secure nine-to-five and a mortgage?

    Maybe I did think too much of myself, my abilities, and my potential? Maybe I was setting myself up for disaster?

    How to Find the Courage to Live a Life You Love

    Doubt is everywhere, isn’t it?

    People around you expect you to live your life in a certain way.

    Go to a good school, get a job that pays a comfortable salary, buy a house…

    And if you don’t? If you break the norm and live life differently? Whether that’s driving around the country in an RV, becoming a full-time yoga teacher in the Himalayas, or starting a passion project…

    Let’s put it this way. You will see a lot of raised eyebrows and hear a lot of surprised questions and doubtful side-remarks.

    I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Comments like:

    “Why would you want anything other than what you already have? Don’t be so ungrateful.”

    “There is no way that will work out.”

    “Are you sure this is the best thing to do? Wouldn’t it be better to just stick to where you are now and see how it pans out?”

    The problem with constantly being questioned by everyone around you?

    Well, let’s take me as an example. When I heard those doubtful words (and many like them), I took them to heart.

    I subconsciously started believing them and created what in psychology is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you believe something about yourself, that influences what you do and, consequently, your results.

    For example, if you internalize what others say about your choices, you won’t believe you can succeed. And that means you won’t, because you’ll never even get started.

    But here is the good news:

    You can get past all that doubt. You can find the courage you have within you to not only take a step forward but also to live life fully without looking back. Here’s how:

    1. Find positive examples around you.

    Think about someone who has succeeded at what you want to do—someone with a similar background, resources, skills, etc., or even fewer advantages.

    If they have succeeded, why couldn’t you?

    Let me tell you a secret (shh, no one else will know!):

    If someone else has done it, you likely can, too.

    I realized this early on.

    While, yes, the people around you might not understand how you can succeed, it’s enough that you do.

    This was a tool I used to stay confident and focused whenever someone told me (or hinted) that I should give up on my dream.

    I sought out and thought about people who had already made it happen.

    People who weren’t so different from me.

    If they could do it, I could, too.

    2. Send love and light to everyone around you.

    In Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert gets the following advice to get over David, her ex:

    “Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it.”

    One of the biggest insights I had was that people don’t doubt us because they want to hurt us.

    No. Instead, they’re probably concerned about us.

    After all, if all their life they have only seen one thing work, it’s hard to see past anything but that way of life.

    Or maybe they’re projecting their own fears and insecurities on us.

    The thing is:

    We love security above almost anything else.

    If you defy that security, it makes you odd.

    So when they doubt you, it tells you nothing about your own abilities, but everything about their own fears and insecurities.

    However, their words can have a purpose. Maybe it’s to shatter your ego a bit so that you can come out of it stronger. Or it’s to give you a few bumps along the way so that you won’t get comfortable and take things for granted.

    Whatever it is, use the advice that helped Liz live in peace to get past their words.

    Send them love and light, then drop it.

    3. Words don’t define you. You do.

    Here’s the thing:

    Other people’s words define you only if you let them.

    At the end of the day, you create your own reality.

    Words are just words. You might say someone is “too straightforward,” but someone else might be appreciative of that person’s honesty.

    I can’t tell how much this helped me move past all the doubt.

    Yes, there were people expressing their subjective reality.

    But it didn’t have to be mine.

    I realized that I get to define who I am and what I’m capable of. And so do you.

    For example, if someone told you that you are “too emotional,” that doesn’t mean that you are too emotional or that being emotional is even a bad thing. That’s just their perception based on their unique set of beliefs, experiences, and projections.

    So how do you remind yourself of what a miracle worker you are?

    Write down all the things you appreciate about yourself. They could be qualities you like or nice things others have said about you.

    Every morning, look at that list.

    Someone that awesome has a high chance of succeeding with whatever they choose to do, right? Or at the very least, that person will learn, grow, and have one hell of an adventure.

    4. Become that supportive person you want in your life.

    If you’ve been allowing doubters to hold you back, it’s time to start letting supportive people into your life.

    People who cheer you on and make you believe you can do everything you want to do, and more.

    Well, it can all start with you.

    When I started offering encouraging words to others, I began attracting people who gave appreciation back.

    The most striking example was when I emailed someone whose writing I had found online and enjoyed. I told her how much I appreciated it. She wrote me back and thanked me… and we’ve been friends ever since! Not only that, but she’s had an incredibly positive impact on my life by being extremely supportive and encouraging.

    That’s it. These four steps helped me get past doubt, find my courage, and live life as I want to live it.

    Today I’m able to work and live anywhere and live a flexible and (in my definition) free life. I couldn’t be happier that I stuck with my decision.

    What’s that one thing you’re keeping yourself from doing?

    Practice these new mindset shifts daily. Soon enough, you will find that courage you have within you to live life exactly the way you want to live it.

  • It’s Not Selfish to Want to Thrive, and I Now Know I Deserve It

    It’s Not Selfish to Want to Thrive, and I Now Know I Deserve It

    “To create more positive results in your life, replace ‘if only’ with ‘next time.” ~Celestine Chua

    I’m twenty-nine-and-a-half and I’ve finally committed to pursuing my dreams of becoming a singer/musician/songwriter, actress, and screenwriter.

    But most importantly, I finally feel allowed to live the life I want to live.

    I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression on and off since I was fifteen. My coping mechanism always looked the same: isolating myself in my room, listening to music, and making up stories or music videos to go along with songs. I loved to refine these little scenes, repeating the songs over and over again for hours.

    Sometimes, the highlight of my day was when I got to go back to my room and listen to that song again—when I got to go back into my dream world.

    I didn’t realize then how much I preferred this dream world to my own reality. I’d become disengaged from my friends and family. All I wanted was to go home to my imagination.

    Recently, I learned of the term “maladaptive daydreaming,” a mental condition in which a person is in a state of intense daydreaming that distracts them from their actual life. Some say this condition has roots in OCD and ADHD/ADD.

    I’m still unable to confirm if I had this or not. But I do know that daydreaming was a coping mechanism I was heavily dependent on to keep my mood up. Because otherwise, my reality always depressed me.

    I had dreams of singing on stage, writing insightful scenes, and creating beautiful films. But it all seemed too selfish. Like I shouldn’t feel allowed to “indulge” in my fantasies. Also, it felt self-centered. How dare I want to be the center of attention?

    When I finally woke up and got tired of my daydream state, I instantly regretted how much time I had “wasted.”

    I would try, obsessively, to make up for this time by scheduling productive activities in my planner. They were reasonable, too: Exercise for just thirty minutes. Read just ten pages of that book you’ve had on your shelf for three months. But no matter what activity I tried to start, I always ended up back in my comfort zone: my dream world.

    At first, it was just hours at a time that I lost when I had originally wanted to do my homework. Then it was weekends when I had planned to start a new hobby. And then weeks, months, and years passed. I mostly existed in my daydreams. Reality was just that other thing I had to do during the day.

    Somehow, I still managed to maintain a somewhat normal-looking life on the outside. I actually worked great jobs in marketing and nonprofit, exercised a lot, and generally stayed healthy. I took quite good care of myself. Most of my reality wasn’t too hard. But I still didn’t love it.

    I only did what made me appear “together” and “secure.” I didn’t live passionately.

    When I was around twenty-six, I finally took a first step toward what I really wanted to do by signing up for singing and acting lessons and starting to learn screenwriting. However, I was still holding back. Why? I still didn’t feel like I deserved it. It still seemed selfish.

    Also, people made me anxious. I grew up in an Asian household where gaslighting was the cultural norm, so I was extremely sensitive. I hated being teased and felt fake whenever I hung out with my friends. I didn’t like engaging socially or presently for too long because I felt like I was losing myself.

    Only later did I realize that many other people were like this. But back then, trying to find solace in anything outside of my dream world just didn’t feel safe. I preferred to daydream a life where people were easier to digest.

    At about twenty-eight, I started to get weird digestive issues. It started with gastritis, a condition in which the stomach is inflamed. It didn’t seem too bad and I thought it’d go away after taking medication. Then came the kicker, the persistent fireball that demanded I pay attention to it: acid reflux.

    If you’ve experienced chronic acid reflux, you know the struggle. Doctors can’t seem to find a consensus as to the best cure.

    I cut down on spicy foods, acidic foods, the usual suspects. This barely seemed to help. Everything seemed to trigger it. I was freaking out every other night before I went to sleep. What if this never stops? How much damage has this done to my throat? Will I eventually get throat cancer?

    And the hardest question I had to face: Will this damage my vocal cords? Will this deter my singing?

    I had been taking voice lessons, as I was told I had a lovely singing voice, and I was doing well, but I shied away from performances.

    Now that there was a risk of not singing to my full capacity, I finally wanted to pursue my true potential. I couldn’t just dream it anymore. I had to take action, while I had the chance

    For about a year, I pushed my doctor, nutritionist, GI doctor—anyone who could find a cure—to help me. They kept treating me like I was stupid. I was simply anxious. That’s all, right? They kept telling me it was just stress, but the condition worsened.

    I then developed a bacterial issue in my small intestine as a result of the medication that was supposed to help stop my acid reflux. Then I found out that my gallbladder wasn’t working properly.

    I was furious. I cried to my parents every night. I was terrified to eat anything. In addition to avoiding acidic foods, I cut out gluten, dairy, and foods that would give me bloating (which was, well, quite a bit). I basically had a panic attack every time I ate.

    Was this punishment? Was this really all a result of the anxiety that had festered and grown after years of running away from life to my dream world? Had I neglected myself?

    Then came my twenty-ninth birthday. I hated my birthdays. They were just another marker of another year I had wasted not living fully. But I decided then that this year would be different.

    So, I made my plans again. And of course I had false starts and re-starts, but I’ve kept at it. I went to therapy. I took acting classes and humiliated myself (in a good way). I signed up for a singing showcase. My singing voice, despite the bit of damage done so far, has sounded better than it ever has before. And I’m starting to make friends I feel comfortable with.

    It was alarmingly apparent that my doctors weren’t treating me right, so I began telling them off, realizing in the process that I was fighting for my best reality. I was demanding to feel deserving.

    I now know I don’t just deserve to live healthy; I deserve a life where I thrive. It is not selfish. It is vital to one’s well being.

     I’m now working with an integrative health doctor who has recommended natural remedies and all but entirely cured my health problems. I also credit myself for a large portion of that. I do daydream still, but now I utilize it as a motivator for my creativity instead of retreating into my mind as a way to avoid life.

    I’m grateful for all forms of my existence—from my imagination that has the beautiful capacity for daydreams, to my physical body that does everything it can to heal itself.

    I often wonder, though, why did it have to take a threat to my vocal cords for me to finally start singing? And why did I have to become sick before I could appreciate my body’s capabilities and start taking care of it?

    Maybe I had to be shaken awake from my daydreams before I could start living fully and making my dreams a reality. I had to learn it the hard way, but I now know this to be true: We all not only deserve to thrive, we need to thrive in order to be our best, healthiest selves—but only we can make it happen. And it starts with believing we’re worthy and pushing ourselves to take a chance.

  • It’s More Important to Be Authentic Than Impressive

    It’s More Important to Be Authentic Than Impressive

    “The most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” ~Pema Chödrön

    All my life I’ve chased after success, as I was encouraged to do from a very young age.

    When I was six, my father got me my first proper study desk as a gift for getting into a ‘good’ school. The type of desk that towered over a little six-year-old—complete with bookshelves and an in-built fluorescent light. In the middle of the shelf frame stuck a white sticky label inscribed with my father’s own handwriting in two languages. It read: “Work hard for better progress.”

    Little did I know those words would set the tone for me and my work ethic for the next twenty years—until I finally began to question them.

    Hard work became my ‘safe space’ whenever I felt insecure. When I struggled to make friends at a new school, felt rejected, or felt like I didn’t belong, I would put my head down and drown out my emotions out by working hard. It became my coping strategy.

    My younger self didn’t yet have the emotional resources to deal with moving around, changing schools, and facing social rejection. When it became too painful, it was much easier to stay in my head than to feel vulnerable with my heart.

    So, whenever I struggled to fit in at school, I just worked harder with the misguided belief that if I did well, then I would be celebrated. If I became impressive, then people would finally accept and like me.

    And of course, my parents encouraged this behavior. I was rewarded for my hard work and I got good results for it too.

    But outside of my home, nobody seemed to care about my results. I still wasn’t fitting in at school. I still didn’t have many friends. My strategy didn’t seem to be working.

    So I worked even harder.

    By the time I graduated from University, I had completely bought into society’s definition of being ‘impressive’ without even questioning it once. If it was a prize everyone wanted, I wanted it too.

    My definition of being ‘impressive’ expanded to include looking good, dressing well, staying fit, and making good money in a highly-competitive field, even if I had zero passion for that profession.

    By then, I’d long forgotten the reasons why I wanted to work hard to be impressive in the first place, other than “That’s just who I am.”

    I was drifting further and further away from my true self, and I didn’t even know it.

    For the next ten years, I spent a lot of my waking hours working as a financial analyst, studying for more degrees and certification, and chasing after the next shiny thing so I could sound even more impressive to others. Plus, I was making a decent income while doing so. Tick.

    While on the surface I ticked a lot of those “impressive” boxes I had set out for myself, on the inside I felt emptier than ever. On the outside I looked successful, but on the inside, I felt like a complete failure.

    What Happens When Your True Self Calls You to Come Back

    Cracks started to emerge both in my work and in myself. It became challenging to fully show up for work as I increasingly asked myself: “What am I doing here?”

    A soft inner voice whispered, “It’s time to get out of here, you’re not meant to be in finance. What are you doing here?” So I began questioning what I was doing with my life. I mean, if not that, what was I meant to do? I’d invested so much of my time and energy into my profession; I couldn’t just change directions. And who was this voice anyway? Where was it coming from?

    My fake enthusiasm became harder and harder to keep up. This sinking feeling became more visceral by the day, and the feeling of not belonging in my workplace became increasingly obvious.

    Yet I swallowed those feelings down with gritted teeth and kept pushing. Because what else was I meant to do if not keep persisting?

    When I suddenly got fired it was an abrupt wakeup call. I needed to challenge everything I believed in and confront those big questions I’d put off answering for so long: “Who am I really?” and “What am I really about?”

    What I Learned Through My Four-Year Journey of Self-Discovery

    I spent the next couple of years immersing myself in a whole range of subjects that covered different angles on self-knowledge, in an attempt to answer the question “Who am I?”

    For most of my seeking, I was still trying to find answers as if they resided outside of me. I was still trying to find where I belonged professionally.

    But what started as a business journey quickly morphed into an inner-transformational journey that became deeply personal.

    This deep inner work allowed me to reconnect to my internal guidance system and my true self once more.

    Through this process I was able to take a good look at myself, confront my shadow side, heal my wounds of rejection, and forgive everyone involved, including myself.

    As I’ve come home to my true self, I’ve realized a few things about the cost of chasing impressiveness:

    When we chase after something external, we lose self-connection.

    When I heard that soft, loving voice inside my head, it was a small glimpse of spiritual awakening. It was a momentary connection to my inner mentor’s light that seeped through my deep dark fog of disconnection.

    We all have our own inner mentor, but we have choose to listen to it instead of trying to be who we think we’re supposed to be.

    When we trust others more than we trust ourselves, we can end up giving our personal power away.

    If we believe that the answers we seek lie outside of ourselves, we can forget to check in to see what’s true for us each individually. The more weight we put on other people’s opinions, the less we trust our own inner knowing.

    People can only speak to what they know based on their own perspective, background, and life experiences. When we allow other people’s opinions to overpower the choices our true selves would otherwise make, we end up giving away our personal power.

    I’ve found that it doesn’t matter how many well-meaning opinions we get; we need to find what resonates with us the most by checking in with our inner authority—which means going against what we learned growing up, when we were trained to ignore our inner voice and do what we were told.

    The pursuit of ‘impressiveness’ is a hunger that can never be satisfied.

    When we keep chasing after ‘impressiveness,’ we are in fact on a hedonic treadmill of always wanting more. As soon as we achieve one thing, we fixate on the next. We keep wanting bigger, better, and more.

    As soon as we attain or do something, suddenly what we have isn’t good enough anymore, and so we must now keep up. We fall into the comparison trap. The external goalpost keeps moving. We keep looking over our shoulders to see how we’re tracking against everyone, and it becomes a tireless pursuit of keeping up with the Joneses with no real end in sight.

    Every ‘win’ is temporary.

    We mistakenly see ‘impressiveness’ as proof that we’re worthy of love.

    When we chase after ‘impressiveness’ we’re really chasing after validation, approval, and a sense of belonging. We think, “If I can be impressive then I can be accepted.” We want others to look up to us, praise us, and ultimately, love us.

    However, the pursuit gets dangerous when we buy into the false belief that we have to work hard in order to prove we are worthy of love; that we need to become ‘impressive’ through our accomplishments and produce tangible proof of our worthiness.

    I’ve noticed that a lot of high achievers, like myself, have bought into this belief, possibly due to the achievement-oriented upbringing we were exposed to from a very young age.

    The danger is that it can become an acquisition addiction, and an arms race to get more degrees, more cars, more houses, more shoes, more toys, and so on.

    We can become addicted to buying ‘cool’ things to impress other people, or work ourselves to the bone just to get those long lists of accolades instead of recognizing that we are inherently worthy of love. Regardless of what we have or have achieved.

    We risk losing our individuality.

    When we chase after external validation and approval, we compromise who we really are in exchange for more respect, more likes, more kudos from our peers. We showcase a more curated, ‘acceptable’ version of ourselves to the world, and we hide other parts of ourselves that we think might be rejected by others. Even worse, we end up chasing after things we don’t even really want.

    Some of us inherit strong beliefs about what ‘success’ means and some of us strive toward pre-approved categories of impressiveness as defined by society, without checking in once to see whether these pathways to ‘success’ fit in with our true selves.

    In the end, we lose our individuality—the essence of who we really are.

    It requires self-connection to recognize what is true for us versus what is conditioned into us. It requires even more courage to step outside of these pre-approved paths to ‘impressiveness’ and live a life that aligns with our true selves.

    How to Reclaim Your Authentic Self

    I’ve discovered that breaking free from the illusion of ‘impressiveness’ and reclaiming your true self is really a constant two-step dance between recognition and courage.

    1. Recognition

    To reclaim your authentic self you have to recognize that you have disconnected from who you really are in the first place. Your achievements, your accomplishments, all the cool stuff that you own, and even your toned physique—they’re not who you really are.

    2. Courage to be your true self

    We have to have courage to stand in our truth and be our authentic selves. Recognition alone is not enough. For many of us, it’s the fear of disapproval that holds us back from stepping out of those curated, pre-approved categories that we have created for ourselves, and fully owning who we are, in all our beautiful, strange glory.

    My wish is that this becomes your permission slip to fully step into who you really are and own it. Being your true self requires tremendous courage, but it’s worth it. And having the courage to fully embrace your true individuality in all its quirkiness? That’s impressive.

  • Never Forget That You Have the Power to Choose

    Never Forget That You Have the Power to Choose

    “If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Dedicate today to the power of choice. Your choice. You can’t choose everything that you experience in life, but what you can choose is mightier than any circumstance, outcome, or other person’s opinion.

    Where you focus your mind, how you use your words, and how you treat yourself and others are all up to you. One chapter at a time, you write your own story.

    We all have the power to choose what we absorb and what we release. We ultimately decide what we share, what we keep, and what we let go. How long we stay mad and how long we wait to reach for hope, when we say yes and when we say no, and how long we say only what others want to hear are all up to us. Whether we see the world with gratitude or resentment begins with a choice.

    It’s not that anyone chooses pain, though. I can’t think of a single person who’d choose despair or insecurity. No one elects shame to be their shadow. Not even boredom is a choice. We just forget our power sometimes or maybe underestimate the power of our intentions.

    For me, forgetting is a quick slide into control or fear. Every doubt, complaint, and fear leads me directly to more to doubt, complain about, and fear. The pressure builds. Tension rises. And even then, as much as I hate to admit it when I’m steeping in it, I have a choice.

    I can choose how closely I pay attention to my thoughts and how I respond to what I feel. Even if hours go by, days, years, it’s never too late to make a different choice. 

    My husband will be the first to tell you that I can hold on to things. I spent months holding on to a comment a friend made about my writing. I mentioned to her that I felt stuck on a project, and she told me, “It’s not it’s like real work. You don’t actually have to do it.”

    I was seething when she said this but didn’t say a word about it to her. I’d let the comment go for a few days, saying “it’s fine,” but as soon as her name came up? That was all I could think about.

    I can go even further back than that. When I was about six, a little boy on the bus called me a hag. It may seem like a small thing for first graders to tease each other, but I cannot tell you how many ways that one comment has worked its way into my self-image since then. At times I thought it was hopelessly stuck in my psyche. And still, thirty years later, I somehow made the choice to process and resolve that memory.

    It’s never too late to choose.

    When I remember the power of my intention, no matter how long it takes me, I come back home to myself with deepened perspective and goodwill. My choices soften the anger, fear, and sorrow I once felt. Remembering my power to choose restores the gentleness in my step and words. I see a completely new world around me. 

    From that place of remembering, all the positive, empowering choices available to me emerge from the mental fog. I can choose to ask a question, solve a problem, or call for help. I can choose to take a walk, meditate, have a snack, water the flowers, or count my blessings.

    Each positive step leads to more and more positive choices.

    So many things are out of my control, and I’m learning to let go of wanting it to be otherwise. I understand now that this only happens through my choice.

    I’ve historically wanted to follow a plan, not go with the flow. And I’ve depended on those plans going off without a hitch to feel safe.

    Here’s an example: When my husband mentioned finding a new job a few years back, I wanted to know all the details. No, I wanted more than that. I wanted to be so involved in the process that I knew exactly what was going on. When he didn’t get a new job, I wanted to know why and what this meant.

    Of course, life doesn’t work that way, and by hanging my security on details I couldn’t control, I gave away my own power.

    When I could acknowledge that pattern, I opened myself up to choosing differently. If I want more certainty, I can choose to look for the things I trust like my values, strengths, and the learning process rather than the things that could go wrong. If I want to feel more at peace, I can choose to speak to myself with more kindness not more criticism. Above all else, I can choose to have my own back no matter what.

    What I’m learning from this is there’s so much to be deliberate about and so many ways to choose.

    You can choose to set a small boundary when you’re exhausted from keeping the peace.

    I choose to be true to myself. May my honesty restore what’s been depleted.

    You can choose to broadcast loving-kindness when you see the images of suffering in the news.

    May all beings be safe from harm. May all beings return to peace. May all beings find freedom.

    You can choose to acknowledge our shared human experience when you feel most alone.

    In this moment, I remember that in my joy and suffering, I am connected to all of humankind. 

    And when you’re on top of the world, you can choose to bask in it.

    I dedicate this moment to the deep gratitude I feel. I choose to delight in this joy today. 

    There’s always something you can choose. So, choose soothing, however you’re able. Choose to look for things to feel good about. And if nothing else, choose to be as intentional as you can. Always with acceptance for the part of you that forgets. 

    Starting now, starting small, remind yourself of your power to choose. Here’s how:

    Begin with yourself. 

    Offer whatever you have on you right now—your beating heart, your breath, your hands, your eyes reading these words—to your power to choose. With that power, dedicate this moment in time to your health or happiness, to a new story, or anything that resonates with you.

    I dedicate this breath to my happiness. 

    I dedicate this day to my health. 

    With every word I read, may I remember my power to choose.

    From there, if you feel inspired, add on to it with another choice: Take a positive step that supports your health and happiness. Make plans to do the same tomorrow.

    If no step calls out to you, that’s okay. Smile and thank yourself for this choice all the same.

    Next, focus your power to choose on someone you love. 

    For just a moment, offer whatever is within reach to them. 

    I dedicate this hour to the people I love the most. May the beating of my heart bestow health, happiness, and security upon them.

    Again, build on this intention with a choice if it feels right. Pick up the phone, lend a helping hand, or send a quick text.

    If no action is needed or accessible now, that’s okay. Smile and imagine them receiving your dedication all the same.

    You can extend your power to choose as far out as you like. 

    Dedicate every step you take crossing the street to the well-being of all passersby. Then, add on as appropriate with another choice. Smile at them. Make eye contact. Mentally send them positive wishes for their day.

    Devote your commute today to bringing harmony to a challenging relationship. If it feels accessible, make another choice. List their positive traits. Name one way you could respond differently. Forgive if you’re able and willing. If nothing else, choose to be alert to how your attention feeds your internal experience of conflict and choose to nurture something new.

    With your power to choose, give a voice to your deepest wishes for the planet and all who inhabit it. Go as big as you like.

    I dedicate my words today to the message of love. May all who I encounter receive this message and help me spread it through their words. May this message proliferate and reach all beings.

    I send my love to the planet. May I aid in the purification of the air, the restoration of our oceans, and the health of all creatures in whatever way is available to me today.

    And then, take whatever action presents itself to you. If no action is available, that’s okay. Smile and know that you’ve strengthened your power to choose all the same.

    If a choice resonates with you, stay with it. Work with it for as long as it feels right. It could be a day, a week, a month, or more. Expand on it with more choices as is appropriate for you in your current situation.

    Pay attention to what happens as you practice this. Perhaps you’ll notice new ideas flowing more easily. Maybe you’ll feel motivated to take a positive step you’ve put off for a while. If all that happens is feeling more awake and empowered, then it’s well worth the effort!

    No matter what arises in your day or in your heart, remember there’s always something you can choose. May we all remember the power we have.

  • How to Free Yourself from the Burden of Your Potential

    How to Free Yourself from the Burden of Your Potential

    “Changing directions in life is not tragic. Losing passion in life is.”

    We all have natural talents, and in some cases, we may have devoted years to honing our skills and turning them into a career. As we’re on the road to achieving our goal or fulfilling our potential, there may be this invisible weight that starts to bear down on us.

    That’s because there is a burden of potential. The burden is that fear that we’ll never reach our full potential, and the obligation and pressure we feel when we don’t want to continue on the path we’re on.

    Sometimes we tie our sense of self-worth to making this one dream come true, because we’ve told people that we’re trying, and we don’t want to seem like quitters or failures if we consider changing course. That fear can keep us glued to the track, even if we have a sense that we would be happier doing something else. It can be hard to believe there might be more than one way to reach our potential and live a satisfying life.

    My Own Struggle with The Burden

    I moved to Los Angeles to become a stand-up comedian.

    Once I got over my initial fears of getting on stage, the fear train just kept on coming. (This is one of the few forms of transportation that shows up with any consistency in LA.)

    The problem was that I was not a lost cause. I have memories of making packed rooms laugh and getting positive feedback from not only my friends but other comedians whose careers I had followed. I had potential.

    Did that mean I had to keep trying? Even on the days I bombed, or no one showed up because I was performing at an art gallery/coffee shop at 1am? Did I have an obligation to fulfill this potential?

    At the time I was getting into psychology and seriously considering changing tracks and becoming a therapist. I was afraid I was abandoning my dream and my potential. But my own therapist at the time reminded me that my own unfolding into my potential wasn’t done. I could be just as creative being a therapist as I could when I was doing stand-up.

    At the time I kind of rolled my eyes internally and prepared myself for the slow descent into mediocrity. I probably said, “Oh yeah, that’s a good way to look at it” while my doubts lingered. But now I know she was right.

    Though I still feel “in process” on my path, I’ve not only increased my creative output, I don’t feel that I’ve compromised on my dreams at all. Every day isn’t easy, and doubts still creep in, but I feel much more at peace with my choice.

    So how do you release the burden? Here are a few things to consider if the weight of your dream feels more like a shackle.

    1. Pick the path you won’t mind walking for a while.

    We all have heard the old adage “Life is about the journey and not the destination.” It’s frustrating but true. Nobody knows when their life might change or when they might reach their goal. Between the big achievements, there’s the slow meandering of everyday life. Pick the life you can love between the big achievements.

    What I loved about stand-up was the creativity, finding humorous ways to point to larger truths, and having a voice. What I didn’t like about stand-up was open mics, late nights in bars, drinking, most male comics (sorry, but there’s a lot to this for another article), and constant financial insecurity. So basically, most of it outside of being on stage. I didn’t like the day-to-day.

    You need to at least get some joy from the in-between stuff.

    These days, I like my day-to-day. Even on the days something “big” isn’t happening, I love that my day is filled with interesting conversations and making my own hours and being in bed by 10pm. Every day certainly isn’t perfect, and I still struggle some days but overall, I can do this for a while, in between accomplishments.

    2. Allow your dreams to evolve.

    Sometimes, we can get so attached to a certain idea of success that we don’t allow our vision to expand as we change and grow. If you play basketball, you might dream of playing in the NBA. If you are a dancer, it may be Julliard. But those aren’t the only ways to a happy life. In fact, there have been enough biopics to show that reaching the pinnacle of success isn’t always the path to happiness.

    In the Netflix show Losers, they show how a big upset or “loss” could lead to an even more successful outcome, one the athletes at the time couldn’t have imagined for themselves (like boxer Michael Bentt, who goes from defeat and despair to a successful Hollywood boxing coach for movies like Million Dollar Baby). “Success” seemed like a trophy, but it can morph into this whole wonderful life you couldn’t have predicted for yourself.

    3. Question why you have this dream.

    Sometimes a dream may not even be ours. It could be something our parents wanted to, but never did accomplish. It could be something we think society wants us to be, or we’re seeing someone else’s life and thinking, “If I could be like him/her/them, then I’d feel great about myself.”

    We need to investigate our chosen path and make sure we chose it for ourselves. Working with a mentor, coach, or therapist can help us look under the hood at our life path and see if it’s really where we want to go.

    Ultimately, it’s about learning to hang out between your ideas for your life and where you are now and understanding that how you feel now is the biggest indicator of how you will feel then. The accomplishment won’t be what makes you happy. The goal is to cultivate happiness wherever you are so it will be there wherever you end up

  • Why My Passion Died When I Was Living the Dream

    Why My Passion Died When I Was Living the Dream

    “Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert

    In my twenties I achieved what many young musicians dream of. I got signed to a major label, I got to work with great people in beautiful studios, and I got to travel the world, playing my own music.

    Living the dream, right?

    Many things were great, but many things were eating me up, as well. The work was all-consuming, and over time my passion faded. I started to long for something else.

    I needed a new dream and a new passion. So I left my band and I left my passion for music behind me for good. Or so I thought.

    About a year ago, I found myself walking home from work, listening to music, and little ideas started to pop in my head—an idea for a drum beat, little fragments of melodies.

    Maybe I should write these down just to see what happens, I thought to myself. I dug up my old music making software and started to play around with it.

    I found an old song from the depths of my archives that I’d left unfinished years before. I started to add my new ideas into it, and to my surprise, I finally finished the song.

    Then I thought I’d try writing a completely new song. I was very happy with it, so I wrote another. And then another.

    I felt excited and invigorated. The entire world became a source of inspiration—a catchy slogan on a T-shirt, an interesting photo in a magazine, a silly synth sound on an old record. My notebook was soon filled with scribbles, notes, and musings.

    But a small voice in the back of my mind was complaining.

    What was I trying to achieve with all this? Surely, I was done with music. I had no interest in going back to what I had so definitely put behind me all those years ago.

    I had a new life, new focus, new people around me. I could not see myself touring again. I didn’t harbor any dreams of being a rock star anymore.

    Even though I really enjoyed the act of making music again, my rational mind felt confused and reluctant.

    My mind kept producing every single reason imaginable why I should stop this music nonsense here and now: I was too old, I was too busy, I had other plans, it was all pointless and a waste of my precious time.

    But the songs kept coming. The process felt easy and fun. I had never written songs as effortlessly before.

    I was enjoying the process of writing songs enormously. These new songs made me ridiculously happy. I was proud of them and I felt that it would be a real shame if I tried to stop them from coming out.

    So I stopped listening to all the noise in my head and realized something else instead: When stripped from external expectations, I was free to experience the simple joy of doing.

    When I stopped thinking of what I should achieve with this music, I re-discovered the passion I had for it in its purest form. Doing for the joy of doing.

    And it brightened up my entire world.

    I realized that the passion had always been there, but it had gotten muted by my need for achievement. Striving to “make it” had distracted me from the passion itself, so much so that I’d started thinking it wasn’t there anymore.

    If you’re wondering what happened to something that you used to be so passionate about, and how to reignite the spark, here are a few thoughts from my own experience.

    Don’t try to achieve anything.

    The world is so saturated with talk of success, which we often define in the most simplistic terms of money, power, fame, looking hot, owning stuff. Is that really what it’s about to you? Is that the real fuel of your passion, or is it something that you think your passion should give you in order to be valid?

    Strip away the need to achieve anything specific or reach traditional success, and focus solely on the joy of doing.

    Don’t listen to your inner critic.

    We are our own harshest critics. It’s easy to look at other people, especially the ones we admire, and dismiss our own efforts as useless. Don’t judge yourself or what you’re doing. Don’t try to compete. Just do what makes you happy. If you enjoy yourself, you’re not wasting time.

    Make time.

    Your passion is probably something that no one else is asking you to do. Everything else in life demands your time and attention first. Make sure you carve the time to do something just for you, even if you only have fifteen minutes. Your passion is valid and it deserves your time and attention.

    You’re not too old.

    The world is infinitely more diverse than what society makes us believe. We’re conditioned to feel we are too young or too old, too big or too small. And never enough.

    You may be older now, and in many ways a different person too, but you have all the life and the wisdom that you didn’t have when you were younger. If you’re older you also know yourself better. You don’t need to be a certain age in order to do what you enjoy. You just need to make time and do it.

    —

    What if you didn’t need anyone’s permission or validation or money? What if you stripped yourself from all expectations, forgot your disappointments, and silenced all the noise in your head?

    What if you didn’t expect praise, success, achievement? What would you do then?

    Your passion is the thing that makes you come alive and makes you happy there and then. It makes life more interesting and worthwhile. It has nothing to do with external expectations, and it’s not about a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

    When I reconnected with my passion for music, I realized that as a younger person I was too busy focusing on achieving a big dream and all the rewards that I thought it would bring me.

    In the end that dream was weighing me down.

    What started as a joy had turned into a grind. What filled me with excitement had turned into bitterness. What felt like a dream come true had become the source of my misery.

    The following break and disconnect was necessary so that I could reset myself.

    Then the passion came back despite my reluctance and doubt. And once I let it back in I saw it with new eyes.

    It’s not about the end goal, it’s about enjoying the process.

    It’s not about the “one day” but the life you live every day. It’s not about the praise you will receive, but the joy you will get from doing it.

    That’s why it’s called a passion.

  • When You’ve Lost Your Passion for That Thing You Once Loved

    When You’ve Lost Your Passion for That Thing You Once Loved

    “Do it with passion or not at all.” ~Rosa Couchette Carey

    If you’ve ever had a passion for something, you are probably well aware of the peaks and valleys that are natural side effects of pursuing the thing you love most.

    Whether it’s music, writing, sports, fitness, or anything else, sometimes you lose sleep because the thing you love keeps you up all night, and some days you just feel tired and uninspired. There are ebbs and flows in following your passion, which is completely natural and healthy.

    But what happens when the “valleys” stay valleys? Maybe you have a few days when you don’t feel excited. When the thing you once loved feels more like a job than something you look forward to doing. Then, maybe those few days turn into a couple of weeks. Maybe even a couple of months.

    As time passes, you start feeling sad and frustrated. The activity (hobby, career) that once was a burning fire in your heart no longer is. You may even begin to feel guilty for not feeling love for that thing anymore. After all, you did love that thing before. Nothing about it has changed.

    You may become frustrated with yourself, wondering what’s wrong with you for not feeling excited about something that brought you so much joy in the past.

    What began as a strong, bright, and hopeful fire is now a much smaller flame. You try to fan the flame, attempting to make it bigger and trying harder to bring it back to its former glory. But you end up becoming more and more tired as it becomes clearer that the fire is dying. 

    Some passions become a part of who you are. They become etched into your being, your identity, and your sense of self. So once that passion fades, a moment of panic may set in. You may feel anxiety or deep depression at the thought of no longer doing that thing that once defined you.

    As a professional dance instructor, I’m thankful to say that I have been able to turn the thing I love into a career. However, I went through my own peaks and valleys in dance.

    My personal dance journey has gone something like this:

    Walk into a ballroom dance studio one night. No dance experience or intention of becoming a dancer whatsoever. Attend the social anyway, just for fun.

    Dance with one of the dance hosts. Dance with others. Dance the night away. Feel happy and inspired. Fall in love with whatever this new feeling is.

    Sign up that night to take ballroom dance lessons. Train in dance for five years. For those five years, forgo everything else that regular early twenty-somethings do to focus solely on my passion.

    Leave my old studio to accept a teaching opportunity at a new studio. Begin making a living doing the thing I love.

    At this point, I feel happy. I don’t feel the burning passion that I felt when I was training and dancing just for myself and my own enjoyment. But it’s okay. I feel satisfaction in knowing that I am helping others to feel that same passion, which gives me a sense of fulfillment.

    I continue teaching at that studio for two years. Little by little, I begin feeling drained. I convince myself that it’s “natural” to feel drained all the time, that it’s just part of the job.

    Coworkers tell me that it’s “not supposed to be fun.” I try to find humor in it. I continue teaching. Slowly, I no longer enjoy it. I no longer want to dance. I no longer feel good about teaching others how to love dance when my love for it isn’t genuine.

    One night, fate steps in. I visit another studio to dance socially, just for fun. Just for myself.

    I feel renewed energy. I see dancers who are much better than I am. I feel humbled and challenged.

    I decide to start working here. Initially, it gives me a new feeling of hope and excitement. However, just like anything else, passion needs to be sustained from the inside—if it comes from outside factors, it can only last so long. Which is exactly what happens.

    Just like before, I begin to feel slowly uninspired. I long to feel something. But I don’t understand why I don’t. I feel sad. However, this time, I don’t deny it or fight it. I realize that I need to do some inner work. I need to figure out whether I should hold on or let go.

    When passion fades, it can be a very difficult thing to accept. It might seem almost impossible to take a step back from that former passion. You may feel a loss of identity and wonder who you are without it, regardless of whether or not it inspires you anymore.

    But from personal experience, I can say that stepping back, even just temporarily, is one of the best remedies. When something you once loved leaves you feeling bored, stressed, or uninspired, it’s often a clear signal that some inner work and reevaluation need to take place.

    Don’t be afraid of your gut feeling. When something no longer brings you the joy it once did, it’s often the soul’s way of saying, “It is time to take a break.” 

    For those of you who become so emotionally and spiritually intertwined with the people, places, and activities you love most that the very thought of taking a couple of steps back sends you into an identity crisis, I am here to say that I understand. I know the discomfort.

    But your soul knows better. Your innermost self knows when it’s time to create a little space.

    And here’s the good news: By giving the thing you loved some space, you are allowing one of two things to happen:

    One: You are giving yourself time to recharge and recover. Sometimes, this is all you need. You may have simply needed a little time off to get inspired again, and you may return back to that passion at a later time with inspiration, energy, and clarity.

    Or two: If you don’t return back to your first passion, you are creating room for a new joy to eventually take its place. You’re giving yourself the opportunity to explore other hobbies and interests. And if you don’t find the “new thing” right away, don’t panic! You will. Your heart knows. It may take time, but you will be guided, once again, to that new thing.

    For me, it turned out that I needed to take a different approach to my dancing.

    For one thing, I needed to focus on my strengths as a dancer and dance teacher rather than compare myself to those around me. Comparison had left me with feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, which, in turn, made me not feel much motivation for dancing in general. I realized that I felt much happier when I focused on my strengths, as well as my own growth and progress.

    Secondly, I realized that I needed to spend more time dancing for myself. Not teaching group classes or private lessons. Not hostessing. Just going out and dancing. When I danced for myself, I felt joy again. I felt full of passion and purpose.

    This led me to realize an important lesson: You can only give as much love to something as what you currently have inside of you. If you don’t feel happy on the inside, how can you expect to make others feel happy and excited?

    Self-care and balance are essential elements in pursuing anything that you love.

    So if your passion is currently causing you to feel burnt out, tired, or stressed, don’t be afraid to give it some space. Don’t feel afraid to take a few steps back, breathe, and focus on something else for a little bit. Everything will be okay.

    By letting go, you are allowing the universe to work its magic and fill that void—either with renewed love and energy or with a new passion that you would’ve never imagined.

  • What to Do with All the Feels That Pile Up in Your Heart

    What to Do with All the Feels That Pile Up in Your Heart

    Straight whiskey. That’s my drink of choice, or at least it’s one of them.

    Some nights I’ve kicked my heels up with a glass and sipped it slowly simply because I thought it sounded appealing.

    Other nights I’ve clutched my glass in a shaking hand with a sense of internal restlessness I couldn’t attribute to anything specific because I had no idea what I was feeling, or why.

    And on other nights still I have known what I was feeling and I’ve consciously chosen to drown it with Jim Beam, the buzz in my brain and the warmth in my chest distracting me from what I didn’t want to face.

    I thought about this recently after listening to an interview with Sarah Potenza, a singer/songwriter who you may know from season eight of The Voice.

    In the fourth episode of Next Creator Up—a podcast I’m producing with my partner in many things and show host Ehren Prudhel—Sarah talked about her experiences with body shamers and naysayers who convinced her she didn’t have what it takes to make it in the music industry.

    Though her whole interview spoke to me, because she has a larger than life personality and she’s all about self-acceptance, I was particularly drawn to what she had to say about releasing her pain onstage.

    Not only have her scars served as fuel for her music, the act of performing provides a sense of catharsis that makes her feel whole and at peace.

    She even noted that if she hasn’t performed in a while she feels like going to a bar and drinking—presumably because without an outlet to release her feelings, she’s tempted to stuff them down. But it’s clear from how she described it that releasing her feelings is a far superior option, and it doesn’t come with a hangover.

    “Performance, for me, is so much love but also so much anger. There’s so much passion on the stage in everything I’m doing that it just gets all of that out of my system. I scream it out, I sweat it out, I cry it out, I sing it out, I shout it out. It’s all out there whether it’s the love, the joy, the hate, the anger, the peace, the sorrow, everything. And I just throw it up all over everything, and I feel sated.” ~Sarah Potenza

    For me, it’s complicated. And I don’t mean it’s hard to explain. I mean the song, by Avril Lavigne.

    It’s among my top-five karaoke choices because I can spit the words out rhythmically as if with a machine gun larynx. I jump and belt with a guttural roar, and it’s like all the weight of the day drains out of me, one “fall” and “crawl” and “break” at a time.

    I’m loud and limber and alive, adrenaline pumping through my veins, washing away all residual pain in the intensity of the moment. I shout and it soothes me. I sweat and it cleanses me. It’s release and relief; it’s passion and peace.

    And when it’s over, all my emotions splayed out before me like tiny dust particles in the air I can’t see but know are there, I feel not empty but open. Open to joy, open to connection, open to possibilities, open to love.

    No glass of whiskey, however satisfying, has ever done that for me. In fact, it’s often done just the opposite. It’s closed my heart and filled me with sadness, as downers generally do. I lose control, the world in front of me blurred not beautified, and I feel not awakened but numb.

    I don’t want to feel numb. I want to feel sated not sedated.

    It’s easy to forget this, or to remember but deprioritize the things that make me come alive. They don’t feel productive, they’re not profitable, they don’t move the dial on my long-term goals. They may even feel frivolous, like wasting time, when I have so many other things to do.

    But I can’t do any good in this world if I’m a walking, ticking time bomb, ever-ready to scatter the shrapnel of my misdirected emotions.

    I need an outlet to work through it all—to feel, to heal, to release.

    We all do, every last one of us.

    We all need something that energizes us, fuels us, calms us, and soothes us, whether it’s creative or physical or both.

    And we need to do it regularly, as if our lives depended on it, because in a way, they do.

    Sure, we can exist in the world with feelings left unprocessed and unexpressed, but we’re only truly alive if we’re free. And we can’t be free when we’re repressed.

    So sing that song, belt it out, even if you’re off key. Dance as if no one’s watching, or someone is but you just don’t care. Paint, write, run, climb—do whatever gets you into a state of flow, and throw yourself so deep into it you lose track of time.

    Get out of your head, get into your heart, let yourself get everything out.

    And do it without guilt. If it heals and recharges you, it’s not wasting time. It’s making the most of it.

    —

    If you’re interested in checking out Sarah Potenza’s interview, you can find it here (and you can find all other interviews here). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

  • Find Your “Rat People”: The Best Advice for People-Pleasers

    Find Your “Rat People”: The Best Advice for People-Pleasers

    Deadly Women. I like Deadly Women.

    Allow me to rephrase: I don’t have an affinity for murderous ladies, and I’m also not a fan of murder as a practice. I am decidedly pro-loving people and anti-killing them. And yet I enjoy the show Deadly Women and watch it with my sister, who shares my interest in true crime, whenever I’m home.

    I don’t share this with many people. Why? Because it’s weird, or so I’ve thought. Maybe it’s more that it’s tough to explain.

    I wouldn’t want people to judge me or somehow think less of me because I’m drawn to documentaries and books that dig deep into the psychology of criminal minds.

    I wouldn’t want anyone to assume I’m dark, twisted, and sadistic.

    Why am I making this bizarre confession? I recently started thinking about the little things I’ve never publicly shared after listening to an interview with writer and designer Paul Jarvis.

    As you may recall, I’m currently producing a new podcast called Next Creator Up, with my partner in many things and show host Ehren Prudhel.

    This week’s interview focuses on the idea that less is often more, both in general and specifically in business. And there’s a lot of emphasis on deciding for ourselves what it means to live a successful life.

    While the whole interview spoke to me as a creative person, a minimalist, and an entrepreneur, I keep thinking about this story he told in the beginning about finding his “rat people.”

    Paul has pet rats, and he unabashedly shares his affection for them even though he suspects 99% of the population find them dirty and disgusting.

    He posts pictures of them on Instagram. He’s dedicated books to them. And he could care less if some people think this is weird. Because 1% of the population gets it, and he’s okay with speaking to just that 1% when he shares his love for his rodent family.

    He wrote an email newsletter about this many years back, using this story as an analogy for finding the people who’ll get our creative work, and it ended up being one of the most popular emails he’s ever sent out.

    The message: Find the people who will appreciate what you do and love you for it, and ignore the ones who don’t. They don’t matter. They’d never support you, so stop trying to win everyone over and focus on connecting with the people you don’t have to try hard to please.

    Be okay with the majority of people not getting what you like and what you do. In fact, don’t just be okay with it; relish in it—because it’s far better to be supported by a few who really see and appreciate you than to be accepted by many who don’t and never will.

    Mind.

    Blown.

    If you google me you will find a lot about my work in the self-help world. If you follow the digital breadcrumb trail, you may come to see me in a particular light. And I have to be honest, I’ve wanted to be seen in that light. I’ve wanted the majority of people to like me and see me as someone who cares and aspires to help people.

    It’s not that those things aren’t true. It’s just that they’re not the whole picture. I’ve unintentionally fed into a certain persona in an attempt to appeal to the majority, as this is what I’ve always done, in all aspects of my life.

    I’ve tried to be all things to all people. I’ve tried to be palatable to all. I’ve aspired to be the human equivalent of pizza, because I want to be loved, and who doesn’t love pizza?

    While it feels good to imagine most people see the best in me, I don’t want to be only partially seen. And I don’t want to limit what I’m able to do and create based on this narrow idea of who I am and what I have to offer.

    I don’t want to forever pigeonhole myself because I only share certain parts of myself. I want to wave my freak flag high—no f*cks given—and be okay with the fact that many of you might think it’s too big, too bold, or too eclectic.

    And yeah, I wrote f*cks, which I know some people find offensive. Sorry not sorry. I’m literally terrified to publish those words, but oh how f*cken liberating!

    I swear, a lot more when speaking than you’d imagine if you read my writing.

    I like true crime.

    I read celebrity websites.

    I enjoy tarot card readings, even though I don’t believe anyone can predict the future, and simultaneously write about the power of staying in the now.

    I spend too much money on expensive facials.

    I love an excuse to wear a costume and would be totally into King Richard’s fair and steampunk, though I’ve yet to delve into either.

    And as for my creative work? I want to break through the walls I’ve built around myself over this last decade and expand beyond the world of self-help.

    As you may know, I’m an aspiring filmmaker. But I also want to paint—not landscapes or anything peaceful, but weird, Tim-Burton-esque images that are more interesting and surreal than beautiful and serene.

    I want to write stories about quirky people and dysfunctional family dynamics—think Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine.

    And I also want to write a murder mystery someday, either a novel or film. Something dark and compelling and intriguing. Something I’d watch with my sister when the Deadly Women marathon’s over.

    And this means I’ll need to be okay with the fact that my work will only speak to some. Which has probably been true all along; it just hasn’t felt that way.

    So going forward, whenever I’m tempted to water myself down—to serve you the cheese version of my pizza instead of the vegan wild mushroom pistachio pesto with tofu chèvre—I’m going to remind myself of the following:

    I don’t need everyone to like me. Just the few who genuinely appreciate me once they see me for who I really am.

    I don’t need everyone to like what I like. Just the ones who share my unique brand of weird and want to tangle our freak flags for a while.

    I don’t need everyone to like what I say and write. Just the ones who get what I’m getting at and would never ask me to tone it down or rein it in.

    And I don’t need everyone to like what I create. Just the ones who are drawn to what I want to draw with the messy palette inside my mind and my heart.

    So my rat people, where are you? And if you’re not my rat people, who are yours? What’s your brand of weird? And what do you want to do and create?

    —

    I realize not all Tiny Buddha readers are interested in creativity, but I know you rat people are out there! If you’re a creative trying to make a living off your work, I highly recommend checking out Paul’s interview. It’s jam-packed with tips and insights that can help you do what you want to do and live your own version of success.