Tiny Buddha

Tag: choices

  • Afraid to Say No Because You Might Miss Out on a Big Opportunity?

    Afraid to Say No Because You Might Miss Out on a Big Opportunity?

    “What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.” ~Unknown

    Are you afraid of saying no in your professional life because you think you’ll miss out on a big opportunity? I’ve learned that a quick yes can sink a lot of ships. God only knows I’ve taken on too much at times because I feared I’d miss out on something life changing.

    We view opportunities as golden nuggets that are few and far between, so we snatch them up before someone else does, even if they don’t really excite us. But many of them are nothing more than fool’s gold—a superficial resemblance to what we actually want.

    It’s just so damn hard to pass on something that sounds promising like a new role at work, a chance to join an exciting new project, or an invitation to pitch your business idea (even if it’s hats for cats). And we’d be stupid to say anything but yes because it’s now or never, right?

    This is a sh*t storm brewing up a triple threat of overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overloaded, when all those exciting opportunities start feeling more like burdens.

    Grace Bonney is an author, blogger, and entrepreneur who knows a thing or two about this struggle. Bonney wrote The New York Times bestseller In the Company of Women, a book featuring more than 100 stories about women entrepreneurs who overcame adversity.

    Bonney had this to share on saying no:

    “The biggest fear most of us have with learning to say no is that we will miss an opportunity. An opportunity that would have catapulted us to success, or that will never come again. And most of the time, that simply isn’t true. I’ve found that the first part of learning to say no is learning to accept that offers and opportunities are merely an indication that you’re on the right path—not that you’ve arrived at a final destination you can never find again. If someone is choosing you, it means you’re doing something right. And that is the biggest opportunity you can receive—the chance to recognize that your hard work is paying off. And if you continue to do good work, those opportunities will continue—and improve—over time.”

    I know what she’s talking about because I used to put myself in this situation at least once a year. I would ignore this lesson and believe that this time would be different (and it never is).

    I remember one time I was sitting on the edge of my bed feeling like I had been kicked out of an airplane without a parachute. I could hear a violent whoosh sound in my ears as my boss picked up. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to come in today, I’m…”

    It was too late. I was already freefalling. I was experiencing my first panic attack. I couldn’t finish the sentence. The tears started coming as I blurted out, “I’m sorry, I’ve taken on too much and it’s hitting me all at once.”

    I was in a full-time job I loved, I had returned to school to become a certified coach, and I was attempting to start a business. As if all of that wasn’t enough, I’d also accepted an invitation to kick off a new innovation team because I thought it would look good on my resume and I was afraid I might never get an opportunity like that again.

    It’s sad to say, but my partner was left with a burned-out, easily agitated shadow of support. In an attempt to give us a better life, I had made life miserable.

    I sucked all the fun out of these exciting opportunities by pushing myself to a limit that clearly wasn’t sustainable.

    But then I did something magical. I started to say no.

    From then onward, I used three questions to help me filter possible opportunities in order to gain clarity.

    What does this opportunity mean to me?

    Why is this opportunity important to me?

    What does this opportunity give me?

    Answering these questions helped me see that I’d put zero thought into a lot of stuff I was saying yes to because I was trying to create a “successful” life.

    But I knew what I wanted my days to look like and what “success” actually meant to me. And more importantly, I understood that success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.

    My north star of success is freedom. Having the freedom to invest my focus in the things that matter to me. Which means I need to do less so I can enjoy more.

    Now I’m not willing to accept an opportunity unless it truly excites me and I take something else off my plate. I’m unwilling to sacrifice my values. I trust that bigger and better opportunities will continue to come my way (if I keep improving and honing my craft).

    This gives me a measuring stick I can reference before I take on any new opportunities. Because a big part of saying no is the power it gives you to go all-in on something awesome when it comes across your plate (without being overcommitted, overloaded, and overwhelmed by sh*t you don’t care about).

    Bonney shifted my thinking of how I view opportunities. Rather than see an offer as a one-off that I need to jump on, it’s a sign that I’m on the right path. If someone wants to partner with me, it means I’m doing something right. As long as I continue to do what got me noticed in the first place, the opportunities will continue and improve in the future.

    Life is too damn short to be overcommitted, overloaded, and overwhelmed by a schedule of projects and people that bring you no joy. In the words of philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

    Don’t see saying no as letting people down. You’re actually letting people down when you say yes, but don’t have the capacity or the enthusiasm to knock it out of the park. If you won’t say no for yourself, say it for the rest of us, because the world is a better place when you’re working on things you love.

  • Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works

    Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works

    “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” ~James Clear

    If you pull up any popular motivational video today, you’ll probably hear things like “Set big goals!” and “Aim high and don’t stop until you get there!”

    After watching a video like this, you may get inspired and start mapping out your plan to leave the 99% in the dust.

    And typically, because you’re riding a wave of motivation, you’ll write out these monstrous, Mount-Everest-like goals. These goals paint a picture of your life that is so exciting that you can’t wait to wake up and get to work the next morning. But when you roll out of bed and take a look at the goals you set the day before, reality hits you like a truck.

    Instead of being motivated to take action, you feel a massive wall of internal resistance. You want to take action. You know you need to take action. But for some reason you just can’t force yourself to muster up the discipline necessary to make progress.

    So instead, you choose the path of least resistance. You retreat to the comfortable and the familiar, and then decide that you’re going to wait “just one more day.” One day turns into two, two days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months.

    But luckily, time heals all wounds, and six months later you get another surge of motivation and try it all over again. This is where most people find themselves in life—stuck on the self-improvement hamster wheel.

    How do you stop this vicious cycle? What’s the best way to facilitate lifestyle changes that you actually stick to?

    How Big Goals Ruined My Life

    When I was a sophomore in high school, I had ambitions to become an NBA basketball player. Despite the fact that I was 5 feet 6 inches tall, had below average quickness, and could barely jump over a stack of books, I was determined to prove everyone wrong.

    At this point, I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so my wonderful mother would get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive me to my school gym early enough to get up shots before class. To make a long story short, I was cut from the team a few months into my sophomore year, and my NBA aspirations died right then and there.

    When I was a freshman in college, my focus had shifted to day trading the stock market. Once again, I had complete confidence that I was going to turn day trading into a full-time income. And once again, I was wrong. The $1,000 I had deposited into my Robinhood account disappeared in about two months, leaving me with no financial flexibility to invest into my dream of becoming a full-time day trader.

    During my sophomore year of college, I made the biggest decision I had ever made in my life up to that point. Despite having good grades, I decided to drop out of school and start my own marketing agency. Let me tell you, that phone call with my parents is undoubtedly the most emotional conversation I’ve ever had in my life.

    I even distinctly remember my own cousin telling me, “I think that you’re going to regret this decision for the rest of your life.” Still, I was unbothered, because I knew in my heart that I needed to give this a shot. A month after telling my parents I wanted to drop out of school, I was on a flight back home to California.

    Yet again, I found myself in a familiar spot—just a kid following his heart with some colossal goals.

    Filled with passion and drive, I set myself a goal to build the agency to $50,000/month in revenue by the following year. To reach that goal, I committed to at least two hours per day of prospecting, and another two hours of educating myself on the real estate marketing industry.

    By now, I think you can see where this is going. For fifteen months, I worked at trying to achieve my goals, but the highest monthly revenue target I was able to achieve was a measly $6,000/month. Despite desperately wanting to taste wealth and success, I had failed yet again.

    It was at this point in my life where I really took a step back and engaged in deep reflection. After all, I had just been following the wisdom that successful people had been preaching for decades—set big goals and don’t stop working until you accomplish them.

    Was it me that was a failure or was it my system? Why is it that so many people including me continually set big goals that they never accomplish? Pondering these questions drove me to explore the world of self-development.

    The Power of Identity

    I had always been passionate about self-improvement, but I had never really delved into the science and research behind what actually facilitates true behavior change. My research eventually led me to reach two life-changing conclusions:

    • Setting big goals does more harm than good for people who want to change their lives.
    • True behavior change occurs when you commit to small, seemingly insignificant shifts in your daily behavior.

    After spending hundreds of hours combing through research on habits, behavior change, and neuroscience, I finally had the “aha” moment that shifted my entire perspective on life. The fatal problem with setting big goals is that they focus on the outcomes we want to achieve as opposed to the type of person we want to become.

    The most powerful force in the human body is the desire to be consistent with who we’ve been in the past. Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last, which is why big goals are often so hard to accomplish.

    You may have a goal to build a million-dollar business, but if your identity is that of someone who procrastinates on important work, it’s unlikely you’re ever going to hit that goal. You may have a goal to lose weight, but if your identity is consistent with someone who eats fast food regularly and lives a sedentary lifestyle, you’ll continue to be pulled toward actions that sabotage your weight-loss goals.

    You may have some new goals, but you still haven’t changed who you are. I wanted to build a marketing agency even though I was the type of person who procrastinated and refused to get out of my comfort zone. It was the inability to change those underlying beliefs that ultimately led to my failure.

    How to Achieve Your Biggest Goals by Thinking Small

    If big goals aren’t the answer, then what is? The key is to focus on who you want to be as opposed to the outcomes you want to achieve. You need to become the type of person who can reach the standards you have set for yourself.

    Your identity emerges out of your daily habits. You don’t come out of the womb with a preset identity. Whoever you are right now is a direct result of the daily habits that you’ve developed up to this point.

    In order to start forming new beliefs about yourself, you need to start building new habits. The formula for changing your identity is a simple two-step process:

    • Figure out the type of person that you want to become
    • Commit to small changes that align with your ideal self

    First off, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be. When setting goals, most people are guided by the question “What do I want to achieve?” Instead, try asking yourself, “Who is the type of person that can get the kind of outcomes I want?”

    Instead of setting a goal to lose fifty pounds, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can lose fifty pounds?” Instead of setting a goal to build a million-dollar business, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can build a million-dollar business?”

    The beauty of focusing on identity change is that your success is no longer tied to arbitrary targets. Let’s say that you set a goal to lose fifty pounds in six months. As you pursue this goal, you start walking every day and improve your diet. At the end of six months, you step on the scale and you’ve lost thirty-seven pounds.

    Did you achieve your goal? Nope, you’re thirteen pounds short. However, what if your goal was simply to become a healthy individual? Did you achieve that goal? Absolutely!

    Once you’ve figured out what kind of person you want to become, the next step is to commit to small shifts in your daily behavior. Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. This is the principle that guided my life for nineteen years.

    Through constant trial and error, I’ve realized that true behavior change is the product of small, incremental changes compounded over time. We tend to dismiss the effectiveness of small actions because they don’t make an immediate impact.

    If you walk for two minutes per day for a week, you’re not going to see the number on the scale move much. If you meditate for sixty seconds for a few days in a row, you’re not going to turn into the Dalai Lama. However, what you will do is to give your brain concrete evidence that you’re a different person.

    James Clear puts this beautifully when he says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does evidence of your new identity.”

    Once you’ve nailed down your desired identity, come up with a daily habit that you can perform no matter how you feel. When you set big goals, your brain tricks you into thinking that the present level of motivation you feel will carry over to when it’s time to take action. By focusing on shrinking your daily targets, you’re taking motivation and willpower out of the equation.

    Here’s a few practical examples of this concept in action:

    • Meditating for ten minutes per day becomes meditating for sixty seconds per day
    • Walking for thirty minutes per day becomes walking for two minutes per day
    • Reading for thirty minutes per day becomes reading one page
    • Journaling for fifteen minutes every night becomes writing one sentence
    • Writing 1,000 words per day becomes writing fifty words per day

    It really doesn’t matter how successful you are right now, all that matters is that you’re on the right path. Once these small habits are solidified into your daily life, you’ll have mastered the art of showing up and acting in alignment with your desired identity.

    Since your brain now has some new evidence, you’ll be able to stretch yourself and gradually aim higher. That’s the true power of small habits. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the positive effects of your habits multiply as they become a part of who you are.

    So, the next time you get motivated to change your life, forget setting huge goals. If you do this, the power of your identity will loom large over you and prevent you from taking action. Harness the power of small, incremental change.

    Have the courage to set the bar low enough and aim at targets that you can actually hit on a daily basis. Solidify this small habit into your life, and then do the same thing with another habit. And then another. And then another.

    Soon enough, you’ll become someone unrecognizable.

  • If You’re Trapped Under a Pile of “Should” and Tired of Feeling Unhappy

    If You’re Trapped Under a Pile of “Should” and Tired of Feeling Unhappy

    “Stop shoulding on yourself.” ~Albert Ellis

    I was buried under a pile of shoulds for the first thirty-two years of my life. Some of those shoulds were put on me by the adults in my life, some were heaped on because I am a middle child, but most were self-imposed thanks to cultural and peer influence.

    “You should get straight A’s, Jill.”

    “You shouldn’t worry so much, Jill.”

    “You should be married by now, Jill.”

    “You should get your Master’s degree.”

    I could go on forever. The pile was high, and I was slowly suffocating from the crushing weight on my soul.

    What’s so significant about age thirty-two? It’s when I decided to divorce my husband of eighteen months (after a big ole Catholic wedding) and ask my parents for money to pay the attorney’s retainer. This is a gal with a great childhood, MBA, and a darned good catch for a husband.

    From the outside, our life looked charmed and full of potential. We’d just purchased our first home, were trying to start a family (despite suffering two miscarriages) and were building our careers. What no one else saw was the debilitating mountain of consumer debt, manipulative behavior, and my intuition’s activated alarm system… sounding off in reaction to the life I’d built and was, for all intents and purposes, stuck in.

    My intuition was done with the low-level warnings. She was sick and tired of being ignored, so she sounded the big one—an alarm that demanded action instead of lip service. I still tried challenging her; what she had presented me with was asinine.

    “But I can’t divorce him. We just got married. What will everyone think? I’m so embarrassed. I should have made better choices. How did I end up here? I did everything right, right? I should suck it up and stick it out; that’s what good Catholics do. This is kind of what life is, I guess… kinda sad, but it seems to work for most everyone else. Ugh, I wanted this… now I’m, what, changing my mind?”

    The alarm was not going to shut off until I sat long enough with those notions to yield honest answers. That was some tough sh*t to sit in. And even tougher to plod through. But it was better than being buried under it.

    This was my first lesson in “There’s only one way out of this mess.” There’s no express lane, no backroad, no direct flight. This ride resembled the covered wagon kind. Bumpy, hot, dirty, and uncomfortable as hell.

    I relented, listened, and tapped into the hidden reserve of courage I didn’t know existed within me.

    The time had come to quit living according to the “should standard” everyone else around me had subscribed to. The time had come to accept this curated life was not the one that would yield happiness for me. The time had come to turn up the volume on this newfound voice and assert to myself (and everyone else) that I was cutting my losses and trusting my inner compass.  

    The time had come to stop shoulding myself.

    Shoulds were my grocery list, my roadmap for life. How was I going to do this adult thing without my instructions???

    I’d already managed to clear a huge should—hello, divorce—and after that, with every should I challenged, another paradigm crumbled. I began to notice shoulds all over the place. After that, my awareness of intention got keener, and I could sniff out the subtle shoulds like a bloodhound.

    SHOULD: When are you having kids?

    CHOICE:  I do not want to have children. (Remember I miscarried twice with my first husband. I was checking boxes on my adulting grocery list. Honesty yielded clarity.)

    SHOULD: He’s too old for you and he has four boys of his own.

    CHOICE:  He is my person. His sons deserve to see their father in a healthy, happy relationship. I can show them love in a new, different way.

    SHOULD: You’re making great money in your job. Why walk away from your amazing 401(k) and great benefits to risk starting your own business?

    CHOICE:  I want to build a life I’m not desperate to take a vacation from. I want to live, serve others, and know when I’m at the end of my life that I chose it and made the most of it.

    Deleting the word “should” is a big first leap in taking ownership of your life. By altering your vocabulary in a simple way, you naturally become mindful of the words you put in its place. Instead of “I should….” substitute with “I choose to….” Instead of “You should…” try “Have you considered…?”

    Keep track of every time you say or hear “should” in a day. Then spend time with each one and get toddler with yourself. Ask why. Ask it again.

    Who says you have to get married or have kids or work a job you hate that looks good on paper? Who says you have to look a certain way or do certain things with your free time that don’t appeal to you? Why are you restless in your life? What idea keeps popping up, begging for your attention? Are you living your truth? What’s in the way? What pile of shoulds are you buried under?

    I get it. We’ve been programmed by our culture and our family traditions to follow the path, stay on course, climb the ladder to success! It’s the only way to be happy, they say. It’s the only way we’ll be proud of you, they insinuate.

    We’ve been indoctrinated with this thought pattern and belief system, and it seems impossible that we have the power to choose otherwise. We have the opportunity, the autonomy, the choice to rewire our iOS and make it what is ideal for ourselves.

    Overwhelm is natural; the antidote is to start small. Find one piece of low-hanging fruit, take a bite, and taste how sweet it is. For example, say no to an invite if you’d rather spend your time doing something else. Allow yourself to do nothing instead of telling yourself you should be doing something productive. Or let yourself feel whatever you feel instead of telling yourself you should be positive.

    Feel how nourishing it is to choose yourself. Experience satiety in your soul. Release restlessness and replace it with intention guided by your intuition.

    Do that and you’ll never should again. Or maybe you will—who says you should be perfect? At the very least you’ll think twice before letting should control you, and you’ll be a lot happier as a result!

  • One Question for Anyone Who’s Stuck in a Rut: What Do You Believe?

    One Question for Anyone Who’s Stuck in a Rut: What Do You Believe?

    “You become what you believe, not what you think or what you want.” ~Oprah Winfrey

    What do you believe? During the forced stillness of the pandemic environment we’re all living in, this is a question I’ve been faced with more intensely than ever. In particular, I’ve come to question what I believe about myself, and how that impacts every element of my life.

    Coming out of years of self-help for social and general anxiety, a long-standing eating disorder, and several dissatisfying personal relationships, I had to come to question what these external realities reflected back to me. For what you believe about not only your life, but more importantly, yourself, will show up again and again, and yes, again, until you’ve finally addressed the root of the problem.

    In my case, my lack of self-value resulted in many dysfunctions and setbacks in my personal and professional world.

    My deteriorating self-image led to my eating obsessions, a lack of confidence exacerbated anxieties, and the low value I placed on myself was most likely written all over me, judging by the way others showed disrespect toward me in personal relationships.

    Not only was I devaluing who I was, but I also operated from a place of being closed off to others, afraid that if I showed my true self I wouldn’t measure up to their expectations.

    This all came to a head when COVID-19 emerged and led to a global lockdown. Going off of numerous negative relationship experiences, I visited a doctor to discover I had a pelvic floor condition called vaginismus, which results in involuntary vaginal muscle tightening that makes sex and physical exams like pap smears either impossible or extremely painful.

    I spent the next four months going through physical therapy to heal my body from this condition, breaking off a new relationship to focus completely on my own journey. It amazed me how the mind and body go hand-in-hand; my muscle tightening felt like a total embodiment of years of being closed off to others and remaining safely isolated from sharing my true self.

    As I mentioned previously, prior to being diagnosed with vaginismus I’d spent years healing my mental health problems and gaining strength in my career experience.

    After high school, I was lost in my career path for a solid period of time, making lukewarm attempts at artistic endeavors such as acting and modeling, never fully prepared to take a leap and fully immerse myself in any one field.

    Again, this would require a bearing of my true self that would frighten me just to think about. Not only that, it would mean that I had the nerve to believe I was worthy of attempting a profession that’s reserved for an elite group of “special” people, a group I never considered myself to be a part of.

    I did muster up enough courage to move to Los Angeles, however, where I felt I could start a new identity. My Northern California roots felt outdated, and along with some family I sought to better myself with a fresh start.

    One of my first steps toward positive changes was a hostessing gig at a bowling alley, which forced me to get out of my shell and be more social for a change. I still felt very self-conscious, but the more I worked on interacting with customers and coworkers, the more I learned how much I loved people.

    This further developed when, following a chance Intro to Journalism course I took at Pasadena City College in Southern California, I found a new joy that I wasn’t expecting.

    I began to love writing, and not only that, my favorite element of this new career path was interviewing—something I never thought I’d be able to conquer with the severity of my social anxiety, which prevented me from going into grocery stores at its peak

    Deep down, I started to believe that something different could be possible for me. Maybe I could break out of my old mindset and turn into the person I’d always felt I was inside: someone who loved people, longed for and accomplished successful interpersonal relationships, and stood in her power, unapologetically.

    By January of 2020, I had gained a local job news writing in my home base of Burbank and felt optimistic about the future. After the pandemic hit, however, I went through a time of feeling down during isolation. This paired with the vaginismus diagnosis made me become initially quite frustrated.

    “Why is this happening to me?” I wondered. I had done a lot to overcome other personal issues, but now having to do months of diligent, and sometimes extremely painful, physical therapy felt like a punishment that I didn’t deserve.

    After a short bit of contemplation, however, I had a real and sudden shift in perspective. I simply thought, “I’ve been through more than this in the past. I’ll get through it.” I believed I could, and from that moment on dedicated myself to healing not only physically, but emotionally as well.

    Within four months I made enough progress to end in-person physical therapy appointments, I started blog writing and continued with news writing in Burbank, earned a journalism scholarship over the summer, which I contributed toward my studies, and now have just started my own independent journalism writing website.

    The more I believed that I could accomplish my goals, and the more I felt I was worthy of such things, the more I saw everything in the universe work for me, and not against me.

    Today I continue to improve my self-image, and I have a long way to go. But overall, I feel healed from where I once was.

    I’m pursuing my passions, now unashamed to show and share who I truly am.

    I demonstrate a great deal of self-respect in personal relationships, no longer tolerating poor treatment from others who don’t consider my worth.

    My diet and exercise habits are healthier, my vaginismus treatment is complete, and, although I still have to maintain physical therapy exercises, I feel grateful for where I’m at in that regard and in every aspect of my life.

    If you had asked me five years ago, prior to all of this self-improvement, what I believed about myself and my life, I probably would have said I had a promising future ahead, although my actions and interactions continuously showed otherwise.

    This is why I feel I’m at a much more positive place in life at this moment.

    Not only do I propose that I believe positive things about myself, but I now show it through my actions.

    I no longer want respect, I demand it.

    I no longer want to pursue my goals wholeheartedly, I now do it as much as I can every day.

    And not only do I dream of expressing the truth of who I am, I embody it.

    So, if you too feel like you’re stuck in a rut in your life, if you feel that the world isn’t treating you fairly, and if you don’t like what the universe is showing you, then I urge you to ask yourself:

    What do you believe? About yourself? Your worth? Your life? Your potential?

    What do you believe about what you deserve, in relationships and in your career, and what you can accomplish if you try?

    How do those beliefs affect how you show up in the world—the decisions you make, the chances you take, the things you tolerate, and the habits you follow each day?

    What would you do differently if you challenged your beliefs and recognized they’re not facts?

    And what can you do differently today to create a different outcome for tomorrow?

    These are the questions that shape our lives because our beliefs drive our choices, which ultimately determine who we become.

  • The Cages We Live In and What It Means to Be Free

    The Cages We Live In and What It Means to Be Free

    “Cages aren’t made or iron, they’re made of thoughts.” ~Unknown

    I recently read Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, and like many who have read it, I felt as if it had changed my life—but not because it made me think of all the things I was capable of (as was the case with many of friends who read it), but because it made me realize how capable I had already been.

    The book on the whole is beautiful and inspiring, but the part that stuck with me the most was the story about Tabitha, a beautiful cheetah that Glennon and her kids saw at a safari park and a lab named Minnie that had been raised alongside Tabitha, as her best friend, to help tame Tabitha.

    Glennon watched as Minnie sprinted out of her cage and chased a dirt pink bunny that was tied to a jeep.  Shortly after, Tabitha, who had been watching Minnie, ran out of her cage and chased the “dirty pink bunny” just like her best friend had just done.

    Born as a magnificent, wild beast, Tabitha had lost her wild by being caged. She had forgotten her own power, her own strength, her own identity, and had become tamed by watching her best friend. But remnants of Tabitha’s inner wild came back to life when she walked away from the pink bunny toward the perimeter of the fence that was keeping her caged in. The closer she was to the perimeter, the more fierce and regal Tabitha became.

    Glennon insightfully notes in the book that if a wild animal like a “cheetah can be tamed to forget her wild, certainly a woman can too.” And that’s when I wondered, had I also forgotten my own inner wild?  Was I spending my time trapped inside a cage when I could be pacing the perimeter instead?

    I beat myself up over that story for days while desperately trying to think of how I could break free of my metaphorical cage so I could find my way to the seemingly elusive perimeter that others seemed to have easily found and were already pacing.

    I questioned why I hadn’t worked harder, pushed further, and done more to create the life I truly wanted, especially when it became painfully clear that the one I was living didn’t fit that description.  And that’s when it suddenly hit me. Like a ton of bricks falling on me out of nowhere:

    I didn’t need to make my way to the perimeter. I was already there. Truth be told, I had been there for most of my life, and it was so familiar to me that I didn’t even notice it anymore.

    As I sat there in the midst of this comprehension, I looked back on my life and suddenly the steps to the perimeter all seemed to fall in place.

    When I fell in a bucket of boiling water at two years old and put aside my own discomfort to comfort my mother who had broken down at the sight of my burned body, I took a step towards the perimeter.

    When I moved to America at the age of seven and couldn’t understand the language and was instantly labeled as “stupid” but kept going anyway, refusing to let them define who I was, I took another step towards that perimeter.

    When I watched my younger sister die of an incurable illness and kept her light alive inside of me by recognizing the beauty of her life and not just the heartache of her death, I moved closer to the perimeter.

    When I said no to becoming a teacher or a doctor—an unfathomable and disgraceful choice for women of my culture during those times—I took another step toward the perimeter.

    When I refused an arranged marriage, again disgracing my family in the process, the perimeter was directly in my sight.

    By the time I took off for law school (much to my parents’ continuing dismay), the perimeter and I were practically face to face.

    For a while I stayed at the perimeter, quietly stalking my surroundings with the same pride and inner fierceness as the cheetah who inspired these ramblings. But I now realize I was never meant to stay at the perimeter—I was always meant to go beyond it.

    Until I did, I would remain trapped inside my own inner chaos. And the calm I was so desperately seeking would continue to evade me. That inner restlessness that just wouldn’t go away, that indescribable lack of fulfillment and the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach… those were all signs that I was ready to move beyond the perimeter. I was ready to uncage more than just myself—I was ready to uncage my soul.

    That’s why I was repeatedly drawn back to certain people, programs, and even books. I was ready to free myself of all restrictions and for that matter, all perimeters.

    The process hasn’t been easy. And at times, it has been beyond lonely. But it has also been rewarding, deeply healing, and transformative at the same time. And perhaps most importantly of all, it has allowed me to understand that in one way or another, we are all here to break free of the cages that have encased most of us for the majority of our life.

    Some cages are imposed upon us by the thoughts and ideas of those around us, and other times we put ourselves into them, willingly. So we can avoid discomfort, pain, suffering, change, growth, and our own rebirth.

    Sometimes they can even be helpful, but other times they do nothing but hold us back. The steel cages often tell us who to be, where to live, what we “should” do for a living, how to behave, and even who to like or dislike.

    Often, the cages come in different colors, shapes, and sizes. Some are made of gold and filled with expensive toys and bribes to keep us from going outside of them.  Their allure is simply too hard to resist for some people, even though they are often accompanied by gold shackles.

    Others are sparkly and filled with all that glitters. The shine is so intense that their occupants don’t even know they’re in a cage. They’re so fixated with the glitter that they spend their entire lives confined inside and never even realize they’re no freer than the people they’ve been looking down on as being “trapped.”

    And of course, there are some who live in small, dark, and dingy cages that they desperately want to escape but dare not try to because they’re so convinced that it’s safer, easier, and more comfortable to just stay.

    Those are the people that are so afraid of their own power and the taste of true freedom that they probably wouldn’t leave even if the cage door was opened for them.

    And then there are the brave. Those that are truly courageous and have no desire to be confined by any cage or any limits. Those are the people who will do whatever it takes to break the cage so they can set themselves and all of humanity free.

    Those are the people who are roaming beyond the perimeter and have uncaged far more than their physical body—they have uncaged their very soul, and along with it, the many lifetimes of memories, wisdom, and truth it holds inside.

    Those are the people I want to run with. Those are the people I want to call my tribe. Those are the people that, when I meet them, I’ll know I have found my home.

  • The First Thing You Need to Do If You Want to Change Your Life

    The First Thing You Need to Do If You Want to Change Your Life

    “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    There are two ways to live life.

    One is a more reactive approach, where you fight back when you encounter challenges in your personal or professional life. The other is a more proactive one where you are mindful of the trends within you and around you and ready with your surfboard whenever a big wave hits!

    The only difference between the two is awareness.

    Awareness empowers you to make conscious choices based on an understanding of yourself and the situation, to notice what your choice created, and to then choose again. This is why awareness is powerful. By becoming aware, you are snatching control back.

    Merely observing your thoughts and behavior can spur positive action.

    Big words. How am I so sure?

    Just by tracking my sleep, I was able to gain insights into what aids my sleep and what disrupts it.

    When I started tracking my food, I realized calories don’t matter but macros do. I then changed how I consumed food.

    Journaling allowed me to observe my mental chatter and learn from it. It made me aware that most of my anger and frustration stems from lack of sleep, food, or water.

    Tracking my finances made it easier to make tough calls with my spending.

    I didn’t make these changes overnight. They took days and months of being aware before the changes actually happened.

    Awareness is knowledge. Knowledge gives you power. Power makes it easier to change.

    In the absence of awareness, you react mindlessly to your surroundings because all you have is the movement of thought. Your reaction will then depend on your past experiences and conditioning.

    If in the past, you dealt with stress by eating, you are going to reach for your favorite snack. If your past experience taught you to raise your voice to get heard, you will easily shout when you are being ignored.

    You start to believe what you are experiencing is reality when actually you are experiencing the narrative your mind created as a reaction to what is going on around you. Without awareness, you confuse what is happening in your mind with reality. You are at the mercy of the conditioned mind.

    “Awareness is all about restoring your freedom to choose what you want instead of what your past imposes on you.” ~Deepak Chopra

    Most of us are clueless about why we do what we do, how we present ourselves, and how others perceive us. And we get stuck in negative patterns as a result.

    Here are some ways you can improve your awareness so you can improve your life.

    Practice self-reflection.

    This allows you to take a step back and ask probing questions of yourself. As Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

    Ask yourself: Why did I react this way? Why is this making me sad? Why am I so against this viewpoint? Where did this belief come from? 

    Doing this will allow you to make stronger connections. It will make your convictions stronger and give you the fuel to argue your viewpoint in a civil manner. It will also make you aware of your bad habits and thought patterns.

    For instance, self-reflection has taught me that I have a tendency to eat unhealthy food when I haven’t gotten enough sleep. I also have a tendency to shut myself off from people when I am angry instead of talking to them calmly. Knowing this about myself, I am able to catch these unhealthy habits and choose healthier responses.

    Journal.

    Journaling is a great tool for self-reflection, since it helps you understand and challenge your thoughts and beliefs, and it’s also an incredible stress reliever. It acts as a brain dump. Think of this as a parking lot for your thoughts. Just like your back feels lighter when you take off your heavy backpack, your mind will feel lighter and less stressful once you dump your thoughts on a piece of paper.

    You can do this once a week, once a day, or even once every fortnight. All you need is a diary and a pen to get going. Trust me, nobody is so busy that they cannot take five minutes in a day to journal.

    Take personality and psychometric tests.

    Whereas a personality test can give you insight into why you do the things you do, a psychometric test can help you asses your skills, knowledge, abilities, and characteristics. I am not a big fan of these, but there are scores of free tests available online. You might find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with the results, but they will give you some food for thought.

    Since they’re all based on some sort of questionnaire that you answer, I would recommend taking more than one to get a broader understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, and behavior patterns.

    Ask for feedback.

    There is a catch to this one. You need to be willing to take the feedback someone gives you without being offended or getting into an argument. If you can ask probing questions from them to dig deeper, even better!

    If you are uncomfortable with people pointing out your mistakes and shortcomings to your face, you can ask through email. This way you have time to digest what people write before responding and will be less likely to react defensively.

    Step out of your comfort zone.

    Once you become aware of your limitations, the next step is to push them and face your fears.

    I used to hate talking to large crowds or presenting in front of people. Nothing made me sweat faster!

    Since I was aware, I decided to tackle this by joining a student organization in college where my role was to go to different classes and present about the organization in efforts to recruit more students. It wasn’t easy, but within a year, I wasn’t sweating anymore!

    For you, this might mean setting a boundary with someone after recognizing your habit of letting people take advantage of you or applying for a job you’ve been interested in after recognizing that you usually hold yourself back with fears of not being good enough.

    This is how awareness changes your life: when you not only recognize what you’re doing and why but consciously choose to do something different.

    —

    Awareness makes you stronger. With awareness, you are able to bounce back faster after adversity. You are conscious of your insecurities and shortcomings. You have gone through the cycle enough times to understand what triggers them and how you can recover from them.

    For example, in my case, when I am feeling sad and depressed, I know I can recover if I take a nap or go workout. It helps me shake off the bad mojo.

    Awareness allows you to empathize with people. You can relate to the other person because you know the signs, having experienced them yourself. It becomes very easy to step into the other person’s shoes instead of judging them. In fact, it will come naturally after a while.

    Your agility increases because of your awareness. You can pluck yourself in and out of any situation when you want and are able to adapt and pivot as needed on much shorter notice. In other words, you are able to move, think, or act quickly.

    The pursuit of self-awareness also leads you to your blind spots. It uncovers the unknown and makes it known, so at least you are aware of it, even if you are not able to act on it right away.

    When I look back, I have been blessed to have experienced many moments of awareness discovering things either by myself or because someone in my trusted circle caught it. I am pretty sure when you look back, you will also be able to spot those moments where your transformation first began because of the awareness bringing it to light.

    The wheels of change begin to move with the first sign of awareness.

  • The Joy of Not Getting What We Want

    The Joy of Not Getting What We Want

    “Remember that not getting what you want Is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

    Let me tell you a story. I first read it in a book on Taoism, but I’ve seen it in at least a dozen other places since then, each with its own variation. Here’s the gist:

    There’s this farmer. His favorite horse runs away. Everyone tells him that this is a terrible turn of events and that they are sorry for him. He says, “We’ll see.”

    The horse comes back a few days later, and it brings an entire herd of wild horses with it. Everyone tells him that this is a wonderful turn of events and that they’re happy for him. He says, “We’ll see.”

    The farmer’s son is trying to break one of the new horses, it throws him, and he breaks his leg. Everyone tells the farmer that this is a terrible turn of events and that they’re sorry for him. He says, “We’ll see.”

    The army comes through the village. The country is at war and they are conscripting people to go fight. They leave the farmer’s son alone because he has a broken leg. Everyone tells him that this is a wonderful turn of events and that they’re happy for him.

    The farmer says, “We’ll see.”

    Now let me tell you who I was when I first heard that story. I was twenty-three or twenty-four, trying to get off of drugs and stop drinking and turn my life around in general. I had recently rolled my car out into a field, lost my wife and most of my friends, and had moved to West Texas to start over.

    I was smart enough to know something had to change, but I wasn’t quite smart enough to know how, so I tried to do what I thought smart people did—I started going to the library.

    I initially got into a bunch of weird stuff like alternate theories about the history of the world, cryptozoology, and things like that. Not really the change I needed.

    One day I went to the library looking for a book about the Mothman, but Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time was sitting in its place. I didn’t know anything about this book or the things it talked about, but the title was cool, and libraries are free, so I checked it out.

    It’s hard to exaggerate how much this book revolutionized my view of the universe and my place in it. It was thrilling to recognize how much there was out there that I didn’t know. Atlantis and Bigfoot were replaced by quantum mechanics and string theory.

    I eventually stumbled onto The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav, rearranging my worldview again. Having grown up in a pretty strict evangelical home, any sort of eastern philosophy was completely outside my frame of reference. This led me to begin studying Taoism and Buddhism, most specifically Zen Buddhism, and to the story I started this post with.

    I started to recognize that I had a mind, but I was not my mind. Meditation showed me how this mind was always grasping and wanting and reaching out for different things. It was a craving and aversion machine.

    It wasn’t long before I realized that it wanted these things solely for the sake of having them, and that none of them were all that important. I just wanted what I wanted because I wanted it.

    This changed everything.

    I had spent the previous fifteen years running from one thing to another in order to avoid anxiety, fear, anger, and depression. I did this through drugs and alcohol and taking crazy risks with my life. These things have consequences.

    These consequences came as car wrecks, jail time, hospitalizations, and a long string of destroyed relationships. I was so captivated by my wants that I was running through life with my eyes closed, blindly chasing them, with predictable results.

    Realizing that I was not my mind gave me a sense of objectivity about the things I wanted and the things I did not want. It taught me that I didn’t have to be so attached to having or avoiding things. This let me stop running.

    I learned that getting our way is overrated. Once we recognize this, we are much less susceptible to the whims of a flimsy, fragile, and fickle mind.

    Why We Have No Business Getting What We Want

    There are three primary reasons we need to be careful about being too invested in getting what we want:

    • We are emotional creatures, driven by things like hunger and a bad night’s sleep.
    • To a great extent we’re wired for short-term thinking. Immediate benefit often outweighs long-term consequences.
    • We experience time in a linear fashion, so the future is completely unknown to us.

    Let’s take a look at these.

    Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired

    I often encourage people to memorize the acronym HALTS to use when making decisions. It stands for hungry, happy, angry, lonely, tired, stressed, and sad.

    These are all common emotional states, and they are all terrible times to make a decision. We’ve all heard the advice not to go shopping while we’re hungry, and there’s a reason for that—it’s good advice. You will buy more food than you need, all based on how you feel in that moment.

    I’m not sure I’ve ever seen good decisions come from these emotional states, unless luck intervened and let the person off the hook. It all makes sense when we think about it.

    Anger shuts down the best parts of out brain. Situations go from bad to worse and from worse to unfixable when we decide to address something in a moment of anger.

    When we are sad the entire world seems bleak and it feels like it will never change. This is okay, unless we make long-term decisions based on the idea of an ominous, crushing world.

    Stress makes even the smallest things feel overwhelming. We cannot make good decisions when making our bed or going grocery shopping sound like monumental tasks.

    When we’re lonely we’re likely to let the wrong people into our lives just because we need someone. This opens us up to toxic, manipulative, and malicious people.

    Our brains are slow and sluggish when we are tired, and our decisions are, unfortunately, rarely our best.

    Even the so-called positive emotions aren’t safe. I know I have overcommitted to things on days when I was happy and feeling a little bit better than normal.

    When you take all of this together, it helps us to see that the things we want are flimsy and that they change depending on our mood. The things we want become a lot less important when we realize that we might only want them because we had a bad night’s sleep, or we skipped lunch.

    Short-Term Planning

    Our immediate responses are rarely oriented to the long term. This makes sense, since most of the things our body needs are immediate—food, sleep, protection, sex, using the bathroom, etc.

    The problem arises when we focus on meeting these needs to the exclusion of the things that are good for us long term. I wasn’t stupid—I’d always known that the drinking and drugs were a problem. The problem was that rational James was usually outvoted by crazy James.

    I had good intentions, and they held so long as I wasn’t around any of my temptations. My long-term planning was solid until short-term fun was in front of me. It was infuriating to watch my resolve and dreams go out the window over and over again.

    As I mentioned above, our wants are flimsy when we begin to explore them. Why do you want chocolate? Why do you want a beer? Why do you want to go on a walk? Why do you want to go to Disney World?

    We have all sorts of answers for these questions:

    Because I deserve it.

    Because I need to relax.

    Because it’s a nice day outside.

    Because Disney World is the happiest place on earth.

    These don’t really hold up when we examine them though.

    Why do you deserve it?

    What does it mean to relax?

    What makes it a nice day?

    What makes Disney World the happiest place on earth?

    If we keep going, we always arrive at the realization that we just want to feel good one way or another. We want to feel good for the sake of feeling good. While there’s definitely nothing wrong with this, it is ultimately baseless, and we cannot let it drive our lives.

    Not feeling good is a part of the human experience. You’re going to get sick, you’re going to have days that are not as good as other days, you’re going to have a headache sometimes. These things are unavoidable.

    The things we want right here and right now are rarely the best things for us long term. Because of this, long-term planning requires intentionality and energy. It may be inconvenient but it’s true.

    We Can’t Predict the Future

    As a kid, I remember thinking it was weird that we couldn’t remember the future. If I could remember what happened yesterday, why couldn’t my brain go the other direction?

    This is one of the primary limitations of our species, and the most important reason that we shouldn’t hold the things we want too tightly. We don’t know how anything is going to turn out, including what will happen if we get what we want.

    I used to drive through Lubbock, Texas, once or twice a year to go skiing. Lubbock is a city out in the desert, and while I have come to love it here, I don’t think anyone would describe it as beautiful.

    Lubbock has some dubious honors. We have been voted most boring city in America, worst weather in the world, and I recently read that we have the worst diet in the United States. Our poverty and violent crime rates are roughly double the national average, and we score high on things like child abuse and teen pregnancy.

    I always swore I’d never live in a place like Lubbock when I would pass through here, but moving here twenty years ago saved my life. The place that I loved, Austin, I brought me to rock bottom. it was only a matter of time before I was dead or in prison.

    On the other hand, the place that I swore I’d never live has given me a college education, a family, and a successful business—all things that I thought only existed for other people. I honestly shudder when I think what my life would have looked like had I not moved.

    There have been smaller examples along the way. I was working at a CD store and loved it, but one Sunday corporate came in and said they were shutting the place down. They gave me a two-week paycheck to help them pack the store up and move it out. It was that abrupt.

    It sucked, but this led me to working at hotels, where I was able to get paid to do all my homework and still have time to read for fun. I burned through all the Russian classics, made all A’s, and got to spend a lot of time with my son when he was little. I will always be grateful for that.

    Before opening my practice, I was working at a private university. For someone with sixty-plus jobs in their life (my wife and I made a list), working on a college campus was amazing—it was the first place I saw as a “forever” job.

    When things went bad, they went all bad and it was obvious it was time to leave, but I was comfortable. I ignored some problems I should not have been ignoring, and it caught up with me. By the time I left I was burned out and sick all the time.

    This catapulted me into opening my own business because I didn’t really see any other options. I’d never seen myself as being responsible enough to do this, and people told me I didn’t have the head for it.

    Six years later, my business has been super successful and afforded me more freedom than I could ever imagine, but even this wasn’t the end. I recently closed my office to stay home with my kids, another twist I couldn’t have seen coming.

    We are trapped in linear time, so we don’t know what’s coming right around the corner. Holding on to one thing or another as the right thing or the thing we “should’ have often causes us to miss the amazing things right in front of us.

    Accepting What We Get

    My life has been a series of hard lessons brought about by my self-absorbed, entitled, and foolish choices. They have all, in one way or another, taught me one thing: I don’t know what’s best, so a majority of the time I don’t have any business getting what I want.

    Things like someone shelving a library book in the wrong place, corporate closing the place I worked, and moving to a city I actively disliked have brought about the best things in my life. I would not have chosen any of these if I’d been given the choice.

    We are emotional, shortsighted creatures who have no access to the future. Learning to cultivate acceptance for the things outside of our control often opens up amazing paths for us. I know it has for me.

  • When You’re Confused About What to Do: How to Find Clarity

    When You’re Confused About What to Do: How to Find Clarity

    “Nothing in the world can bother you as much as your own mind, I tell you. In fact, others seem to be bothering you, but it is not others, it is your own mind.” ~Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

    Do you ever feel confused about what to do and unsure about how to find clarity?

    Maybe an unforeseen event, like a layoff or breakup, knocked you into a mental spin. Or perhaps you’re muddling along, with no clue where you’re going.

    Confusion can leave you helpless, indecisive, and afraid. And not knowing what to do only adds to your mental chaos.

    I’ve been there, lost, irresolute, and undecided in life. But, amid my mid-life confusion, life-changing trauma blasted all that mental mess aside and made way for a greater worry—leukemia.

    Yet, surprisingly, cancer guided me toward mental clarity and calm.

    But don’t despair. You don’t need a tragedy to create inner lucidity. Because here’s the three-step method that I discovered to transform confusion into mental clarity.

    Slow Down for Mental Clarity

    Your first step is time.

    A few months before my leukemia diagnosis, I anguished over a career shift. Well into my forties, I heard an invisible clock ticking and pressured myself to make the perfect decision.

    Instead, I only stressed myself. The confusion never left me, and I never arrived at any conclusions.

    Then leukemia halted me physically, forcing me to slow down. Self-isolated, with a weakened immune system, I found myself with an abundance of time. And I used that time to sort out the mess in my head, a mess that suddenly seemed futile.

    I learned that important decisions require contemplation, and contemplation requires time. Only the space to reflect will sort out your mental ramblings.

    So, be kind to yourself and give yourself the time to get clear on what’s clouding your head.

    Depending on your situation, you might need a full day in a relaxed setting to analyze your options and weigh the pros and cons. You could take a week or two alone in a meditative, spiritual, or agnostic retreat vacation. Or you can take a sabbatical.

    The greater your decision, the more time you’ll need.

    Be an Observer

    When you distance yourself from your thoughts, you can better decipher your mind’s turbulence.

    Because physical space isn’t enough. You need more mental space, too.

    Often, as you multitask your hours and days away, you fill your mind with busyness. And a monkey mind only tightens your mental bind.

    So, your second step to mental clarity is to begin noting and observing your thoughts without judgement. How? With mindfulness, which is excellent for both mental and emotional clarity.

    To prevent my mind from wandering to dark places during my frequent hospitalizations, I practiced deep breathing exercises, focusing only on my breath. And that breathing technique forced me to stay present.

    I made fast progress into mindfulness and spotted repeated thought patterns. I realized my confusion didn’t stem from my indecisiveness over a career change. Instead, it masked a profound dissatisfaction with how I was living life. I lacked direction and purpose. So even if I had changed jobs, it wouldn’t have eliminated my mental chaos.

    When you observe your thoughts, the key to clarity is to note them for what they are without criticizing yourself. I noted my thoughts as “fear” or “worry” or “dissatisfaction,” which helped me to understand and accept them.

    Once you let go of your internal critic and accept your present mindset, you cut through your haziness to reveal your true mental and emotional states.

    Trust Yourself, Not Your Confusion

    “You are not your mind.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Once you step away from thoughts, you realize you and your mind are two separate entities, and you don’t have to believe it.

    When this realization sinks in, you can untether yourself from the thoughts that hold you back.

    You’re not confused because you don’t know what to do; you’re confused because you’re telling yourself limiting stories about what you can do. Deep down you know what you want, but limiting fears, beliefs, and assumptions are making you question yourself. And many have no basis in reality.

    For example, you might strive for perfection because you fear making mistakes. And perhaps you fear making mistakes because you’re convinced others can love you only if you’re perfect.

    The ultimate step is to challenge your beliefs to achieve both mental and emotional clarity.

    When considering a career change, I dismissed writing as a possibility. I kept pushing that solution away. And I never questioned myself.

    Yet my battle with leukemia gave me time and presence of mind to challenge myself.

    And what did I discover?

    I never considered writing as a career change because I didn’t believe in my capabilities.

    Because I didn’t believe in myself.

    Only then did I understand my confusion: the lack of self-examination created all of my mental and emotional upheaval.

    With no judgment and no shame, I accepted that limiting belief, hidden in the corners of my mind for ages. And I realized it wasn’t true.

    So, I let it go.

    Are you telling yourself you’re a failure or that you’re not good enough? You won’t know until you begin with some thoughtful questions.

    To help you challenge yourself, try this 4-question technique from Byron Katie:

    • “Is it true?”
    • “Can you absolutely know it’s true?”
    • “What happens when you believe that thought?” (what are your reactions or emotions?)
    • “Without the thought, who would you be?”

    Your answers will most likely surprise you, but also free you from stagnating beliefs.

    When you create space, live in the present, and question your confusion, you will discover mental clarity.

    Conquer Confusion with Mental Clarity

    These three sure-fire steps will lead you on a path to more clarity.

    And, over time, you will be more adept at preventing confusion as you stay present and aware of the mental traps. And each time you get snagged on confusion, you’ll know how to free yourself from it.

    So, take back your power, make better decisions, and live a more courageous life thanks to your newfound mental clarity.

  • How Are You Trading Your Time, Energy and Life?

    How Are You Trading Your Time, Energy and Life?

    “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    We all make trades in life.

    We trade our time. We trade our energy. We trade our hard-earned money. We trade our attention.

    Many of us move through life in constant motion, never stopping to reflect on where that motion is taking us. If it’s helping or hindering us. If the trades we are making daily are letting us live our best lives. If the trades are giving us more quality time with those we care about most. If we can turn up for them fully engaged, energized, and enthused.

    Or are we turning up for them tired, distracted, and frustrated?

    The trades we make in life take a toll on us physically, mentally, and emotionally.

    Trading My Time, Energy, and Enthusiasm for Status and a Corner Office

    Like many of us, I spent part of my life chasing the corporate dream. You know the stuff—more money, more responsibility, catchy job title, more kudos.

    But an interesting thing happened along the way. With each new pay hike there was always someone earning more. Each job title change got stale quickly. More responsibility often came with a lot more headache and often more politics (something I have a low tolerance for). Progress never really felt like progress for long. I always felt like I was hitting a glass ceiling.

    I noticed these feelings and wanted to understand them, so some personal reflection and introspection followed. I came to I realize I felt this way because I was pursuing things I thought I should chase rather than things I really wanted to chase. A simple but powerful distinction.

    The corporate grind, hustle, and ‘networking your way to the top’ is a well-established path, but It’s also someone else’s path. It never really fit for me, and the deeper within a corporate machine I tried to embed myself, the more I realized I was seeking something else. More than that, I needed something else. This model was always going to be an ill fit for me.

    So, this is the part where I tell you I decided to chase my dreams and live off my ‘passion project.’  Well, not exactly.

    I make the decision to set myself up as a company of one, me. No longer would I have to wait years for a ‘directorship’; I was now director of my own ship. Thankfully, I have a skillset and experience that others find valuable and have been able to make a living since (nearly ten years as I write this).

    This time hasn’t all been champagne and roses. I’ve had some very barren periods where I thought I might need a new plan. Countering that, I have also had very rich periods full of rewarding work, clients, and healthy paychecks.

    Is this my job a dream job? No. There are other potentially more fun ways to earn my living (writing full time, for example). And knowing that you must find your own work focuses the mind and is inherent with a degree of risk, so it’s definitely not for everyone. You also need thick skin for this line of work.

    However, my work does give me a degree of freedom and flexibility that I really appreciate (allowing me to take off and travel for long periods for example). Within reason, I get to decide the work I say yes to. I also rarely have to be in the office ‘showing my face’ and punching a clock day in day out. I can work from home, from a coffee shop, or somewhere else. My output gets measured, not how often people see me in the office.

    These aspects (freedom and flexibility) are particularly important to me. More so than job titles and corner offices.

    My work provides me an intellectual challenge that I appreciate. And occasionally, I get to work with some very cool people, learn lots, and make some meaningful change.

    There can be gaps between clients and projects at times, but when I am engaged, I earn well (by most people’s standards). This pays for the adventures and travel, so is enough for me while also being a fair price for the people I work with.

    To be clear, there’s also nothing wrong with working for others. In fact, whether you work directly for a corporate entity (employee) or are self-employed (like me), we are all serving someone. We are not all carved out to be entrepreneurs or self-employed, and that’s okay. Find your own fit and embrace it I say. There are many ways for us to earn our living.

    My point is that I am aware of my trades and I am mostly happy to make them. If that changes, I will need to make a new plan.

    Broader Lessons

    While my example involves becoming a company of one, to support the way I want to live my life, that may be the opposite of where you are and what you need.

    Your trades might be aligned to finding a corporate job where you get a paycheck and pension and someone else finds the work. That’s fine, your trades need to be trades you are willing to make.

    What I am advocating is that we have an awareness of the trades we are making in life. That we become aware of where we are spending our energy, time, and efforts. Essentially, aware of where we are spending ourselves.

    This is a powerful prism through which we can objectively view everything we do.

    Yes, sometimes we will have to make trades that may not be our first choice, but we can do so intentionally. Realizing there is a greater good or longer-term goal in play.

    Equally, we may realize we are making trades we would rather not, trades that are taking more from us than they are giving back, and we can then take action accordingly.

    Questions We Can Ask Ourselves

    We can keep the trades we are making front and center in our minds by asking some simple but searching questions of ourselves.

    Are the trades we are making worth the energy/time/effort/money we are spending on them? Are we likely to see a return on our investment?

    Are the trades we are making helping us get closer to our goals?

    Are the trades we are making beneficial to our relationships? Are we present and available for the people we care about most?

    Are the trades we are making leaving us energized?

    Are the trades we are making aligned with our moral code?

    Are the trades we are making giving us the best chance of living a good life?

    If not, maybe we should be making different trades.

    Be aware of where you are making trades in your life. Make them selectively. Give them your full attention and handle them with the care they deserve.

  • Don’t Waste Your Limited Time and Energy Regretting Your Past

    Don’t Waste Your Limited Time and Energy Regretting Your Past

    “It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.” ~Jackie Joyner-Kersee

    We as humans have an incredible ability to help each other in times of need. When things get rough and life gets hard, we tend to come together, step up to the challenge, and provide assistance. Our selflessness shows, and it’s amazing to see everyone work in harmony.

    Need proof? Just look at any natural or man-made disaster in this world, and you’ll see it. We are a species that shows calculated compassion, unlike any other living creature on Earth.

    But as much as we come to help one another, we rarely extend that same compassion toward ourselves. This is especially true when crisis hits us internally; we find it nearly impossible to show ourselves compassion.

    Why is that? Why do we have such a hard time with it? It’s a hard question to answer, but I believe it stems from one simple thing: We have really high expectations for ourselves, and it’s almost impossible to live up to them.

    When someone looks at us from the outside, they can only judge us on our actions. But from our own internal perspective, we judge ourselves based on our thoughts.

    There’s no better example of this than when you fail to take action on something you’ve been wanting to do for a long time. You let fear, uncertainty, comfort, and excuses talk you out of doing it. And looking back, it eats you up inside.

    And naturally, you get upset. I can already see the internal dialogue: “How could you let that happen? You idiot! Why didn’t you do it? Ugh, come on.”

    Then, and without fail, something else happens: Regret creeps in. This is the moment you start asking yourself hypothetical questions. “What if I had done that? Where would I be right now? What would my life look like?” I know what this is like because I’ve been there. And to this day, it can still be a struggle for me.

    I question my abilities at times, and my lack of action. At its worst, it feels like my life has been defined by my inability to take action. Almost like a chain reaction of missed opportunities, one after the other. As a result, I’ve wasted a lot of energy regretting a lot of things.

    Don’t Waste The Limited Energy You Have

    It’s not any kind of breaking news that time flies. We know this. There’s even a popular quote that conveys this sentiment: “The days are long but the years are short.”

    Yet we don’t really understand just how true it is, until the time’s gone. In fact, as I sit here right now, it’s crazy to think just how fast the last decade has flown by. Yes, even when most days seemed really long. Funny how that works. I’m sure you can agree with me here.

    So there you sit, thinking about the eighty-five things you regret not taking action on over the last twenty years of your life. Maybe it goes back even further. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you only regret some things you didn’t try in the last few years.

    Either way, you let the regret stew like a pot of beef that’s been slowly simmering in a Michelin star-rated chef’s kitchen. That’s the best way I can describe my regrets. Hey, if anyone needs a great recipe for regret, let me know: I’ve become a master in letting it stew in the crockpot for months, even years. You’re probably with me on that one.

    But here’s the problem: We only have so much energy every day to put toward our growth. In other words, it’s a finite amount. Every morning, we start with a defined energy level. A lot of it has to go toward running our daily lives; things like work, family, and daily responsibilities drain us of a large amount from our tank.

    After all of what daily life has to take, you’ve got just a bit of energy left. Unfortunately, some of the leftovers have to go toward unexpected things in life on occasion. Things like minor crises, a change of plans, a mild argument with someone, you name it. So now, you’ve got even less left in your tank. This is the crucial area where it can go one of two ways:

    1. We use that small amount of remaining energy fulfilling our passions and growth, or
    2. We use that small amount fighting things we can’t change.

    I’ve experienced extremes on both ends, and I can tell you right now the latter does you absolutely zero good.

    As I round into my mid thirties, I can tell you a number of occasions where I put myself in hot water with regret. I’ve said things I shouldn’t have. I’ve taken steps that, looking back, were obviously not good ones (but helped my growth). I’ve been in the wrong relationships, wasting time (but gaining invaluable insight into who I am).

    I’ve also regretted not making some things a reality. One of the biggest regrets was not moving to a different state when things were easier. What do I mean by “easier”? Well, I had my entire family residing in the same city I was in, including my parents. I had a good job, but one I could easily take elsewhere. I had a bunch of friends, but I had no big responsibilities tying me down.

    The problem? I was also scared, so I talked myself out of it. I was happy to be close to family, friends, and continue at my job. Time went on, and as much as I still thought about it, I didn’t make any big moves.

    Then, my dad passed away, leaving my mom, his partner of over fifty years, alone. And just like that, I suddenly became the only man around. I took on a bunch of responsibilities to help where I could, including being a rock for my mother. Am I glad I was able to provide that assistance? Of course. With absolutely no regrets.

    But did I regret not getting a chance to explore and live in a different city, years prior to him passing? You bet. But anytime it creeps up, I realize one important thing: the best time was twenty years ago, the next best time is now.

    It’s never too late to try something you’ve always wanted to. There’s never a perfect time for it, either. I foolishly tried to have 356 puzzle pieces all fitting together before I made any kind of step. Unfortunately, this is pretty normal. We as humans want to make sure things are lined up perfectly before we make any kind of bigger move.

    But I’m here to tell you it’ll never line up quite like how you want it. If things are in pretty good order in your life, take the action you’ve always wanted.

    Let Go Of Your Past

    More importantly, stop wasting your time regretting your past. Maybe you haven’t (yet) done something you’ve always wanted to do. Maybe you have done something you wanted, but it didn’t work out like you wanted and you wish you could go back and do things a little differently.

    In either case, it’s important to understand the past is just that, the past. There’s a reason your car windshield is so large in comparison to the rear view mirror. You have to be looking forward to drive, and only on occasion do you look backward, before focusing again on what’s in front of you.

    All of us, no matter what our backgrounds and our current situation, are here to learn. And learning happens through failures. Sometimes, failures are inaction. Sometimes, failures are action-gone-wrong. What’s more important than the result is learning from the situation and knowing things can always change going forward. Always.

    Remember, you have a finite amount of energy every day, and you want to use the little bit you have leftover on yourself, not others. This could go one of two ways: beating yourself up, or putting it toward your future and self-growth.

    I would personally choose the self-growth route. Getting mad at yourself is a fruitless endeavor. Instead, use that energy to make the moves you crave. The moves you know you want. The ones you know you need (hello, gut!).

    It’s never, ever too late to experience things and learn from your past. A new city. A new career. A new partner. A new outlook on life itself. Regret won’t get you there. But realization will.

  • Trust Your Intuition: If It Feels Like a No, It’s a No

    Trust Your Intuition: If It Feels Like a No, It’s a No

    “You will never follow your own inner voice until you clear up the doubts in your mind.” ~Roy T. Bennett

    One evening my husband and I decided that we, along with our daughter, would go together to a neighboring town about thirty minutes away the following morning. He had an errand to run, and I was going to take our daughter to a nearby playground.

    The morning arrived, and as I thought about it, I had a wave of feeling/thought that said, “I don’t really want to go,” or maybe it was more like, “I’d rather just stay around here because that would be more fun.” All I can say is that there was an inner nudge that told me not going would lead to a happier outcome.

    Instead of going with my gut, though, I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the playground, and when she said yes, I let that change my mind. (She’s four! Of course she wants to go to the playground!)

    We piled into the car and headed to the highway. Before you get any ideas about this being a horror story about a car accident or other life-altering incident, let me assure you that nothing terrible happened. Just something that showed me I need to keep up my practice of listening to that inner voice we all have.

    We dropped my husband off and went to the playground. It was fine, I guess, but sort of frustrating: My daughter played for maybe five minutes before asking to go to the bathroom. After that, she said she was ready to leave the playground and have a snack in the car. It had been all of fifteen minutes.

    We got back in the car and drove to the spot where my husband was. After fifteen or twenty minutes of us waiting for him in the car, he came out, kind of a in a grumpy mood, and we debated who would drive back home.

    I have a story about not wanting to drive when my husband is in the car. I tell myself he makes me self-conscious and I’d rather just have him drive. I was already in the driver’s seat, though, and he didn’t seem to care either way, so I stayed where I was.

    As soon as I started backing out of the parking lot he told me to watch out. He was worried about me hitting someone. I got annoyed, but kept going.

    When we got to the road, I had to make a tricky left turn. It’s a spot where people are coming from all directions, and there happened to be a police officer waiting to pull out across the way from us.

    I was about to go, but a car came quickly around the bend. I felt like I was out too far and started to back up a little, then my husband said, “What are you doing!?” That did not go over well with me.

    I got a little hysterical, feeling trapped. I couldn’t make the turn, I couldn’t back up, and my husband refused to switch places with me because he thought the police officer across the way would be suspicious.

    I ended up yelling and freaking out, even dropping an f-bomb, which is so not the way I want to act, ever, but especially not in front of my kid.

    I finally made the turn, then got off the next exit and asked my husband to drive. Sitting in the passenger seat it hit me: My inner voice said I’d probably have more fun staying close to home, and I realized it was almost certainly right.

    The trip to the playground was a bust, my daughter and I had to spend a bunch of time in the car (half an hour both ways plus the time waiting for my husband) to do basically nothing, and my husband and I ended up having a bit of a blowout.

    I couldn’t have predicted how the day would go, but I knew in the morning I felt like taking it easy, and instead, I put myself in situations that had the potential to be stressful.

    It’s not that anything awful or life-altering happened; it was just a clear example of how going against what felt right, what felt like the most fun, ended up being not the best choice for me. And I was particularly annoyed because I’ve been dedicating time and attention lately to listening to my intuition.

    Overall, though, I have been getting better at tuning in and heeding the advice of my inner guidance. Here’s what I’ve done over the years to get better at it.

    I regularly check in with my body.

    My body is so much smarter than I am. She knows when she’s had enough to eat and she knows when a situation isn’t the right one for me. Experiences that don’t align with my innermost desires result in me having a tight feeling in my chest or a churning feeling in my stomach, and if things go on long enough, I’ve been known to manifest physical symptoms that send me to the doctor.

    I once ignored my intuition about taking a job. I only lasted there a year, and I was sick constantly. It’s rare for me to get sick at all, so this was just a confirmation of what I’d worried about from the beginning. The body knows, even when the mind isn’t willing to acknowledge it yet.

    I started looking at what made me feel light and happy.

    Like the body, emotions are an incredible guide for showing us where to turn next. If something makes you feel alive and excited, then go in that direction! If something makes you feel low-energy and sad, it’s time to change course.

    I look for the next right step instead of trying to figure out a thirty-year plan.

    Our minds want to have all of the answers right now, period. If you feel excited about a new and completely different career path but your mind can’t figure out how it can earn you a living, you may shut it down completely, ignoring your intuition and probably squelching your happiness.

    These days, I just try to figure out the next right step, the one for this moment, rather than trying to see how it will play out when I’m eighty. Sometimes the next right step is for me to go to sleep instead of thinking about it anymore!

    If I’m frazzled and worrying about a million things that are work or business related, I slow myself down and ask what has to be done right now. The answer is usually something simple, like answer this email or take a break for lunch and come back when I feel refreshed. If you take it moment by moment, it truly slows things down and simplifies them.

    I do the thing that makes me feel good whenever possible.

    It might seem counterintuitive, but it’s often much easier to get done what you need to when you follow the path of what feels best. For instance, one evening I needed to write a blog post, but I just wasn’t feeling it.

    Instead of forcing myself to do it, I made some art and watched some TV. After maybe an hour I felt jazzed up and good, and it was incredibly easy (and fast!) to write the blog post.

    I ask questions with the intention of getting an answer.

    Instead of walking around all day thinking “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do,” I now make a point of asking, either in writing or in my head, “What’s the best thing for me?” It takes practice, but you’ll get answers, even if they’re subtle.

    I can hear you wondering, “What am I supposed to do when I have to do something, but my intuition says it’s a no-go?”

    I’m the mom of a young kiddo, and even though I don’t always feel like getting up with her at the crack of dawn, or peeling the skin off her apple, or watching that episode of a cheesy cartoon with her one more time, I usually still do it.

    Time with her at this age (and in general) is fleeting, and to combat the feeling of obligation I remind myself that I chose this life. I also check in to see what I can do in any given moment to make sure I’m getting some feel-good time for myself. I think it’s important for her to see me enjoying my life and making choices that support my well-being.

    I know there are lots and lots of obligations we feel tied to, but I believe if your intuition is telling you over and over again that this is not right for you, you must start to listen and let it go.

    Perhaps you feel you can’t give up this obligation right this second, but how can you move away from it? How can you take on more of what feels joyful and right for you and less of what feels burdensome and heavy? Just do it a little at a time, if that’s what feels best.

    I’m really passionate about this subject, and it’s because I have seen how much my life has improved by going with my gut. I’ve also seen what happens when I don’t, even if it’s minor like the incident I described.

    When I see and hear other people struggling with decisions or doing something big (like getting married!) even when it doesn’t feel quite right, I want to reach out and hug them and tell them that going with their intuition will always pay off in the end, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense in the moment.

    You already know the answer; you just have to listen.

  • You Aren’t Stuck in Life: Commit to Change and Get Started

    You Aren’t Stuck in Life: Commit to Change and Get Started

    “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” ~Mark Twain

    We all have big dreams, big goals, and big ideas on what we think our life should look like, or how we think life will end up.

    Some of us meticulously plan out our lives, envisioning and letting ourselves daydream as we think about all the stuff we’d love to accomplish. I’d wager that our plans include some pretty big things in life that would make us feel pretty proud.

    The problem is, a lot of us have trouble reaching the potential we’ve set for ourselves. Time kind of flies by, and we end up looking back and wondering what went wrong.

    Well, one reason stands out like a sore thumb: We never really get started doing the things we truly want to do. We’re all guilty of it, and that includes me.

    I’ve cooked up dozens (literally dozens) of ideas or things I wanted to try over the years. How many did I actually try? Far less than dozens; let’s just say the ratio isn’t exactly working in my favor.

    Now, as time has gone by, I’ve been able to explore more of them. But as you know, some of them got shelved for good. I probably don’t even remember half of the things I wanted to try and never did.

    Why did I not try? What was the reasoning behind it? Why did I lack the forward motion necessary to at least attempt something and see if it sticks? I, like you, are fully aware that not everything we do will end up being a calling in life. But you won’t know until you give it a shot.

    To help you better understand this idea pertaining to a lack of motion, one must take a step back and realize that life, in a very big nutshell, is a series of decisions and actions. These two components are crucial for our self-growth and success in life and unfortunately are not mutually exclusive.

    Without making a decision and following it up with action, we could spend our entire lives stuck in the exact same place.

    If you make a decision but don’t take any action, not much will happen. On the other hand, if you take a bunch of actions without any decisions driving them, you’ll aimlessly float around.

    Being stuck in the same place or floating around aimlessly sounds torturous, doesn’t it? It is, and a lot of people must be living real-life nightmares. I had to wake up from my own years ago.

    Good or bad, where you are in life at this very moment is a reflection of all the past choices you’ve made. Some of us will read that and smile, maybe even give ourselves a little nod of appreciation if it’s good. On the other hand, a fair number of us will probably have a hard time digesting it.

    If you aren’t quite where you thought you’d be, I’d like to start by just saying that it’s perfectly okay. Most of us aren’t really where we thought we’d be, and we’re still giving it our best shot.

    There are generally two reasons you aren’t at your “ideal” place. A small chance is that life gave you an obstacle course with things completely out of your control; in other words, life got in the way temporarily. But there’s a bigger possibility you aren’t where you thought you’d be: you just flat out didn’t pursue something. And it was likely out of fear.

    In other words, you didn’t really ever get started.

    The Good And The Bad News

    Let’s start with the bad news: You never got started, and now you’ve wasted some valuable time moving toward your goals. Your life isn’t really playing out like you thought it would, and you feel somewhat stuck with your current habits, lifestyle, relationships, career, and other things.

    Pause for a moment and take a deep breath, as this might have hit closer to home than you’d prefer.

    Good, you’re still with me.

    Now let’s transition to the good news, because it’s actually really good:

    You’re never stuck, and while the best time to start something was yesterday, the next best time is now.

    You, yes you, have the ability to create the life you want, but it requires you to make moves. And while you may have fallen short previously, it doesn’t mean you will fall short going forward.

    Here’s the bottom line: your past does not dictate your future. Your past habits and lifestyle do not have to determine your lot in life.

    The Idea Behind Starting

    You’ve probably heard the quote “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Well, it sure is true. Because really, is anything built in a day?

    Was your house fully built on top of a piece of land in a day? Was that skyscraper completely erected in a day? Did you apply for, interview, and start working at your job in the span of twenty-four hours?

    Things take time to build. Let’s say you’ve been wanting to switch careers because your soul has been sucked completely dry. You planted the career switching seed a while ago, and you’ve been letting it marinate for far too long.

    Yet you haven’t made any moves, and in the meantime, nothing has changed. Does this sound familiar? I found myself in this exact position years ago. I was miserable at a job I didn’t enjoy. I wanted to change, but I got scared of the unknown and didn’t make any changes.

    Years passed by before I got a kick in the pants and decided to take a change. It took getting laid off, but it was the best thing that happened to me. I decided enough was enough. It was time to ultimately change my entire career, and also start exploring other smaller avenues on the side.

    But unfortunately, I didn’t really know the one thing I needed to do professionally in order to be more fulfilled. I knew what I didn’t want to do (hello old career), but I also didn’t know what I wanted to do.

    I began formulating. Writing goals. Crafting some business plans. Attending meetups and networking around areas I found interesting. It was through this meetup that I came across a three-month program being offered in a particular field that I had once tinkered with in high school, but walked away from.

    And voila, I am now in my new career. You can put the pieces together, but I took a leap and joined the program. Fear and all. I was scared, but now I am in a field that is 180 degrees from my previous one. And all it took was attending a meetup. Funny how life works.

    Self-doubt and fear are the two biggest barriers in our quest to make moves. A third, and less talked about one, is pure overwhelm: seeing where you are and looking where you want to go leaves you exasperated.

    This is where movement comes into play. You take steps, however small, toward your visions and goals. You make sure you’re moving forward.

    And here’s the cool thing: The force that you apply, in other words the actions you take, can be extremely small and still produce positive results. This is the idea of micro-movement.

    What does this mean? If you’re scared to make a move because you’re overwhelmed by the end result of where you think you need to go, it’s really important to realize one big thing: your collection of small steps equals big results.

    No one takes a leap of faith and accomplishes life’s biggest goals in the same breath. Life rewards those who take consistent, measurable action, while enjoying a dose of patience and commitment.

    Putting All The Pieces Together

    Most people have an idea of some higher-level goals they’d love to accomplish in their lives. Be it personal, health, finances, career, relationships, or all five, every single one of us has fallen victim to overwhelm and the paralyzing nature of fear.

    But a few things are happening in your favor.

    Namely, the universe is here to aid you in your dreams and desires if you let it.

    It just requires a few things:

    • A decision made internally to change
    • A desire to take the steps required
    • A realization that micro-movements forward are perfectly normal
    • Actually making moves
    • A dose of patience and commitment

    Then, the laws of motion will help you take care of the rest because you’ll have built movement and momentum.

    You aren’t stuck in life. You are capable of making a lot of power moves.

    The key is just getting started.

  • How to Pick Your Best Idea (Especially If You Suffer from Idea Overload!)

    How to Pick Your Best Idea (Especially If You Suffer from Idea Overload!)

    “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” ~Scott Belsky

    In virtually every human pursuit, from personal growth to the arts to business, ideas and the execution of those ideas is what drives us forward.

    And when it comes to ideas, there are basically two kinds of people:

    • Those who struggle to come up with what feels like good ideas
    • Those gifted with a ton of ideas, but who struggle to pick the right idea to pursue

    And because struggling stinks, the good news is that no matter which of these two camps you’re from, what follows can help you.

    As for me, I come from camp #2. Ideas come to me in waves, and when the waves hit they’re like tsunamis. I’ve got the debris—dozens of notebooks and countless sticky notes, napkins, even birch bark with my barely legible notes about the idea on them—stuffed in manila envelopes to prove it.

    My problem, however, used to be that when it came time to work on a new thing—in my case a new article, video, book, or business, for example—I’d review all my ideas and feel… CONFUSED AND OVERWHELMED.

    Because there were actually many ideas scribbled in my notebooks and stuffed in my manila envelopes that were good. And how on earth do I pick just one idea? Especially if I was going to be investing significant amounts of my time and energy into it.

    Sometimes this overwhelm led to my inertia. Walking away entirely and not getting anything done for hours, days, even weeks on a few occasions because I was stifled by the choices.

    More often, this overwhelm lead to me choosing something, starting it, then abandoning it, because this other idea actually seemed better after all. Until I’d abandon that, too, for the next better idea. And so on.

    If ideas that I started but never finished were worth money, I’d be a billionaire.

    Ugh.

    I finally realized I had to step back and figure out the healthiest approach to pick the right ideas to pursue. And to make a really long story short (a story involving extensive research, lots of trial and error, journeys to wizards in far-off lands, fighting ogres, and more), here’s what I discovered.

    It’s Not Just About What You’re Good at or What You Know 

    When it comes to choosing the best ideas to pursue, some common advice is to pick what you’re good at or know about. And okay, that’s well-intentioned.

    However, I’ll bet you’re good at a lot of things.

    Just like I’m good at a lot of things.

    For example, I am good at showering, arguing with customer service agents, and carrying many bags of groceries from the car at one time (it’s an ongoing dangerous quest of mine to try to carry them all at once no matter how many there are).

    I’ll also bet that, like me, you could become knowledgeable about and good at other things, with a little to a lot of effort depending on the thing, if you really wanted to.

    The problem with this advice is that it encompasses such a wide range of possibilities that it’s usually little help at narrowing down your best ideas. And many if not most of your ideas likely fall under the umbrella of things you already know or are good at anyway.

    It’s Not Just About What’s Profitable or What Other People Want

    If you’re in business, or you’re working on something that you want other people to desire in any way, these common criteria for choosing your best ideas certainly matter.

    However, they should always be a secondary part of the choosing equation. If you just choose to pursue ideas that others’ want, but that you personally aren’t fired up about doing, the result is always mediocre at best (if you’re somehow even able to complete execution of those ideas in the first place.)

    Far more important is the most important criteria you’ll discover below.

    It’s Not Just About What You’re Passionate About

    It’s also common advice to pick the ideas you are passionate about. But while this gets closer to the most powerful factor, this advice can also be too vague to actually help you narrow down to find and pick your best ideas.

    Because again, like the advice to do what you’re good at, you are likely passionate about many things. And most if not all of the ideas you do have are all related to what you are passionate about anyway. It’s kind of like being handed a big plate of different cupcakes, all of which you love, and being told to choose the one you love. Really? Well-intentioned, but not necessarily helpful.

    It’s About What REALLY BUGS THE HELL OUT OF YOU

    This, I have discovered, is as magic as it gets for both discovering and picking the best idea to pursue.

    As you may be surprised to see, all the best ideas—those with the most inherent energy in them to drive you forward to making the ideas a reality—start with this question: What really bugs the hell out of you?

    There are, of course, many different phrasings of this question that may ring more for you, depending on who you are, such as: What would you most love to improve, within yourself or out there in the world? Or, what really effing pisses you off?

    And to help you fully understand why this is so powerful, let’s use you as an example.

    Let’s say you are very interested in your personal growth. You read blogs, magazines, books, and more on the topic.

    And you’d just love to feel less anxiety, boost your self-esteem, overcome procrastination, less lonely, make more money, and … and… and…

    BOOM!

    Those are all separate ideas you have. And while your desire to execute on all of them is admirable, it’s also a recipe for failure at all of them. Because you are human, and you cannot possibly achieve all that. You’ll likely bounce around all these ideas, sometimes for years, and not apply yourself to actually achieving any one of them.

    So instead… ask what aspect of yourself really bugs the hell out of you the most. Sure, you’d like to improve in every area of improvement there is, but what particular area most gnaws at you? What one thing would you most like to improve about you?

    Whatever you answer, that is the personal growth “idea” you need to pick and focus on.

    Asking this one big question works in every professional and personal area of life where you are trying to generate the best next idea to work on. Here are some more examples:

    “Computers are great, but what bugs the hell out of me the most is that they look so ugly and their operating systems are confusing! Here’s my attempt to change that—I think I’ll call it the Apple!”

    “It bugs the hell out of me that there’s so much negativity pouring out of mainstream media. It makes the world seem like such a dark and helpless place! So out of all these ideas I have, I’m going to choose to create a documentary film about little-known people who are working hard to reveal what is good in the world and empowering people!”

    “The whole house needs to be cleaned. But that disaster area called the garage bugs the hell out of me the most, so that’s what I’m going to work on today.”

    Or in the case of me and this very article you are reading: “It bugs the hell out of me that so many of the individuals and organizations I work with are stifled by ideas, like I was. Because that means so many great ideas that could help our world aren’t even being created. So I’m going to share with them the best way I’ve discovered to develop and pick the best ideas!”

    Whether you feel like you’ve got no ideas, or a thousand ideas to pick from, pinpointing the zig that you most want to zag is simply the most powerful way to generate and choose that best next idea to work on.

    Not only will it provide you the most motivation to keep working at it, but if your idea is to be experienced and/or purchased by others, chances are great that:

    1. Many out there are just as bothered by that thing that bugs you the most, and will embrace your solution.
    2. More than any other idea you could pursue, your energy and drive will shine through those ideas you pursue with this as your #1 criteria.

    Make a List. Check It Twice.

    Consider making lists of the things that really bug you.

    (Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be a complete list, there’s no such thing. The beauty is that it will never be a complete list, because the world and your brain will happily keep serving up new things to bug you, which is something to actually be grateful for!)

    Go ahead and categorize them by the different areas of your life.

    Make one for yourself, where you might add things like your excess body fat that drives you nuts, your guilt at cheating on a spouse, your pain at being cheated on, or your anger at a cruel parent.

    Make one for social issues, where you might add things like the polarization in politics, the boring buildings being built these days, people talking on cell phones in a theater, or even the ugly shoes most women are wearing.

    Make one for your work, your home, and any area of your life as you see fit.

    Then check it twice. Or three times.

    Check it to see which of these problems really, really bug you the most. If you have a huge stash of ideas like I do, match your “Bugs the Hell Out of Me” lists against these ideas.

    Which most excite your senses? Which ones most make you want to leap out of your chair and do something?

    In each area of your life, in whatever mediums you work in, you’ve now got a clear road map of the best ideas to pursue. (If you are in business, for example, you can now further narrow down by secondary factors such as how profitable it might be, much it will cost to develop the idea, etc.)

    So the next step is to go do it!

    Drive that frustration with so many boring buildings into planning the next Taj Mahal. Pour the pain that comes with being cheated on into a quilt. Develop a sensor that automatically silences all cell phones in theaters (please!). Choreograph a dance that shows us, directly or abstractly, what happens from so much political polarization.

    This is a very powerful way to both create and pick your best ideas and drive them to completion. Please share it with others, because we need more great ideas that become a reality. And please share your thoughts on this with me. =)

  • Don’t Judge When You Don’t Know the Options They Had to Choose From

  • Why We Feel the Need to Explain Ourselves and Justify Our Choices

    Why We Feel the Need to Explain Ourselves and Justify Our Choices

    “You are responsible for your intention, not your reception.” ~Amy E. Smith

    I’ve realized that I put a lot of energy into trying to explain my decisions. Sometimes those explanations are an honest attempt to connect with another person or to step a little further out of hiding. Often, they are a result of my own self-doubt and desire for people to like me.

    For example, I feel an obligation to say yes to any invitation or request I receive. Sometimes I’m glad to agree, other times I’d prefer to do something else. It gets tricky when the thing I’d prefer to do seems unimportant.

    Wanting a quiet night at home doesn’t seem like a valid reason to decline an invitation to go out. So I come up with all the reasons I can’t go—I’m exhausted and maybe feeling a little sick and I have a lot I need to get done the next day and… and… and…

    For some reason, “because someone asked” is a sufficient reason to say yes, but in order to say no I feel I have to prove that I have an abundance of important and inescapable circumstances getting in the way.

    Recently I had a conversation that prompted me to think more deeply about when, how, and why I choose to explain myself to others. I was explaining my choice, but for very different reasons.

    I had decided to step down from leading a discussion group and agreed to meet with the woman who would have to find my replacement. I didn’t have to explain why I was leaving. I could have given a generic reason or declined to give any reason at all.

    Instead, I chose to offer a fuller explanation. I was quitting because I felt like I had to hide part of myself in order to meet the expectations of the role. I didn’t want to keep hiding who I was and, for me, an important piece of being more visible was offering an honest explanation of why I was leaving.

    In this instance, explaining wasn’t about caretaking her feelings or making sure she would still like me. It was about saying what I really thought and felt instead of letting her continue to think I was who she imagined me to be. Even if she didn’t understand or was disappointed in me, I wanted to be seen.

    We offer (or don’t) an explanation of our choices for a variety of reasons. We can be motivated by fear, guilt, or self-doubt. We can also be honoring ourselves and others.

    There isn’t a straightforward answer to the question of how much to explain and when. While there may be some truth to the idea that we don’t owe anyone an explanation, there are still plenty of situations when explaining is the right choice for us.

    Becoming more aware of the reasons behind my urge to explain myself helps me make better choices about how much to share. Here are some motivations I’ve noticed. What would you add?

    We’re trying to control the other person’s response.

    It’s uncomfortable to be around someone who is angry or hurt or disappointed. If we’re giving someone information we fear they won’t like, it’s tempting to pile on explanations. We believe if we can give a compelling enough reason for our choice, we can ensure the other person will see things our way.

    If we have a good enough excuse for declining their invitation, then maybe they won’t take it personally and be hurt. If we have enough solid reasons for our choice, maybe they won’t be mad that we didn’t follow their advice.

    Maybe if we can make them understand, then they will still like us.

    We’re trying to ease our own feeling of guilt.

    Choosing something another person might not like can prompt feelings of guilt in us. When we feel guilty about our decision, we often turn to explanations and excuses to convince the other person and ourselves that we have a very good reason for choosing the way we did.

    Many of us believe, whether we realize it or not, that other people’s wants, needs, and feelings are more important than our own. We believe saying no or declining an invitation is selfish or rude. We think that in order to be kind, generous, and likable we have to be unfailingly agreeable and accommodating.

    We’re insecure about our own choices and want the other person to validate our decision.

    No matter what we decide, there will likely be someone who doesn’t agree with our decision. It doesn’t matter if the choice is around career, education, parenting, wardrobe, reading material, cleaning supplies, diet, or paint color. While it doesn’t feel great to have people disagree with us, we’re less impacted by their opinion if we are confident about our own choices.

    On the other hand, if we are unsure about our decision, we often look to others for reassurance. We over-explain in the hope that the other person will understand and come around to our point of view. Often, it’s not really about the other person changing their mind as much as it is about needing external approval for our own choices.

    We want to foster a closer, more open connection with the other person.

    Sometimes we choose to honestly share what’s going on for us with the people we care about most. We take the time to be clear about our reasons and intentions in order to increase depth and authenticity in our relationship.

    In this instance, we are not as concerned about making someone see things our way. We’re trusting them to support us whether they agree with our decision or not. Our explanation is not a form of persuasion or manipulation but a sign of respect and a chance for the other person to get to know us better.

    We have been hiding.

    Some of us have a habit of staying silent in order to not disrupt others’ good opinion of us. If we stay quiet, others will often fill in the blanks about who we are with their idea of who they think we should be. It can feel safer to let them think they know us—they might not like us if we share more of who we really are.

    But there are times when the divide between who we are and how others see us becomes too great and we’re no longer content to stay hidden. We may be tired of feeling disconnected and unseen or want to practice more visibility and integrity.

    As we take steps toward greater visibility, people may pushback against the change. We might try to explain for one of the reasons above—to try to ensure they’ll understand and still like us. We might, instead, decide to be open and honest about who we are and where we are, whether or not anyone else understands.

    So how do we know when and how much to explain? Every situation is different and there’s not an answer that’s always right. Taking a closer look at the reasons behind my urge to explain is key but identifying our real intentions can be a challenge. The following questions can help us explore our motivations from a few different angles.

    How will I respond if they don’t like my explanation?

    How we are impacted by the possibility of an unfavorable response can give us a clue about our motivations for explaining. Imagine the other person disagreeing with your explanation. What will you do?

    Will you rush to explain again, more thoroughly and clearly? Will you feel guilty and change your mind? Will you be proud of yourself for being honest whether or not you would be understood?

    As a note, the emotions you experience about their response don’t necessarily indicate that what you chose is right or wrong. You can feel sad, frustrated, or hurt by the other person’s response while also feeling proud of your decision and the way you handled yourself.

    What does it mean about me if they don’t agree with my decision?

    This is where we can gain insight into some of our biggest fears. If we believe their disagreement means something bad about us, we might feel compelled to explain why they should see things our way—even if it means exaggerating or only telling part of the truth.

    If, on the other hand, we can see that their disagreement doesn’t necessarily indicate whether our decision was right or wrong, then we can be more confident that any explanations we choose to give are motivated by connection or respect.

    What do I hope my explanation will accomplish?

    Whether you’re hoping for deeper connection and understanding, to avoid something you don’t want to do, or to win approval, getting clear about your goal will help you understand your reason for explaining.

    Are you looking for reassurance about your decision? Do you need to step into greater visibility? Are you trying to decline an invitation without hurting anyone’s feelings?

    Try to look below the surface answer. For example, if you hope your explanation will change someone’s mind, asking yourself why that’s important to you may reveal another motivation.

    What if the situation were reversed?

    How would you feel if the person you invited assumed they needed to make up lots of excuses to keep you from getting upset with them for declining? What if someone was hiding their opinions and preferences and needs in deference to yours? What if they depended on you to validate their ideas when they couldn’t trust themselves?

    We tend to hold ourselves to a different standard. Switching roles can help shake up our assumptions and give us an opportunity to treat others as we would like to be treated.

    So what do we do?

    Explaining doesn’t come with a set of rules, but here are a few thoughts that are helping me make choices about when and how to explain.

    Get clear about your intention. Why do you really want to explain? Who do you want to be in this situation? Remember, you don’t have to agree to be kind.

    Keep it simple. Longer explanations don’t necessarily bring greater understanding. What is the most important thing you want the other person to know?

    “Thanks so much for thinking of me! I won’t be joining you this time, but I hope you have lots of fun.” Isn’t that way simpler (and kinder) than a string of excuses or agreeing with resentment?

    This takes practice. Our explanation habits won’t change overnight. Take the time you need to get clear on your intentions and think through how you really want to respond. It’s ok to let the other person know you’ll need to get back to them later.

    You likely won’t get your explanation just right every time—I don’t think any of us do. Be gentle with yourself. See what you can learn for next time and keep practicing. Remember, you don’t have to be perfect.

    I’d love to know, what are the main reasons you explain your choices? What helps you offer explanations out of respect (for self or others) instead of fear? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

  • We Can Choose Different Ways Without One of Us Being Wrong

    We Can Choose Different Ways Without One of Us Being Wrong

    “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

    Many of us are committed to a journey of change and personal growth. While these are traits to be admired and celebrated, they can also have a darker side. We can become a little militant and dogmatic when we’re on our journeys.

    As we focus on our attempts to make changes in our own lives, our views can start to narrow and become very black and white. We become so tuned into what we are doing that we forget there’s more than one way to do just about anything.

    We seek out others that agree with us to back up ‘our views.’ This may be part of our primal wiring to be part of a collective. We seek a tribe.

    Being part of a tribe can be intoxicating. Being with people that share our passion is exciting. It’s great to have a common goal or view and be able to talk about our passions with others that really get it. We’re all in this together.

    Being in a tribe can also distort our perspective. Only seeing and hearing a biased view. Ironically, we can lose objectivity as we seek clarity. Becoming more rigid as we search for methods and hacks.

    Or maybe we enjoy citing this study or that to ‘prove’ our point. Using science (bad science oftentimes) as our weapon of choice to make ourselves feel and sound knowledgeable.

    Both these traits can lead to us becoming dogmatic, thinking our way is the only way.

    A Personal Example or Two

    I notice this habit of falling back on dogma for a good reason—I do it myself.

    An example would be my approach to exercise.

    I choose to keep myself strong with my own bodyweight (calisthenics). The ability to use one’s own body through space is impressive to me and I feel it’s the ultimate expression of strength. Not everyone shares this view of course. Many others enjoy hoisting large amounts of iron or swinging a kettlebell.

    As I have deepened my own practice of bodyweight training and enjoyed the benefits it brings, I have also found myself judging the way others exercise at times. Shaking my head at people in the gym I perceive to be doing something silly or dangerous.

    Another favorite, quoting from a famous fitness authority or studies to hammer home a point, perhaps how repeated loading of the spine with weights can have negative connotations. Or how balancing on a bosu ball has little carryover to anything other than balancing on a bosu ball.

    Why do I do this? I’ve chosen my route, why do I feel the need to judge the way others choose to exercise? I’m certainly no expert.

    Another example would be my journey into simplicity and applying 80/20 principles to my life. Several years ago I realized I was accumulating more in my life. More things that didn’t really matter to me or speak to me on a spiritual level. Life felt more complicated than I wanted it to be.

    In response, I started to make some changes. It’s a journey I’ve documented previously on Tiny Buddha. The upshot of these changes has been that the quality of my own life has improved significantly. There is more focus and clarity in my life.

    Along the way, as I’ve traveled further down the rabbit hole of simplicity, I find myself casting a weary eye at others oftentimes. Judging them for complicating things, or not grasping the power in simple, or for not saying no to commitments they have no capacity to keep.

    None of this is useful to them, none of it is useful for my internal energy. Yet, still I have to fight this pull to judge. Justifying it somehow as me now knowing better. How arrogant and self-righteous this all sounds as I write the words, and for good reason—it is.

    Your Journey is Your Journey

    No need to complicate things. Personal journeys should be personal. Let’s be clear, we’re not in competition and even if we are, it’s with ourselves.

    You can call yourself a minimalist if you like, but owning less than your neighbor doesn’t automatically make you a better person.

    You can call yourself a mindfulness advocate and commit to daily meditation, but not everyone needs a formal meditative practice to be mindful. Equally, not everyone with a daily meditative practice is mindful.

    You can choose to strengthen your body by lifting your own body if you like, but it’s fine if someone else chooses to push weights or rocks instead.

    You can choose to follow a Paleo diet without bashing vegans, or vice versa. People can, and do, thrive on many diets as the Blue Zones around the world already prove.

    You can choose to follow a religion that calls to you, but you can do that without damning someone else who follows a different faith.

    You can choose to do all of this quietly in your own way. Or you can choose to share what you are doing with others in the hope of inspiring them to join you, or support you on your journey. If you share, let’s drop any degree of superiority or smugness. No need to hide behind dogma or use it as a weapon to fire at others.

    Follow your passions in life, embrace them, and really enjoy them, but be aware that others are just as passionate about their passions. Leave the dogma behind and remember, there are many routes to the top of any mountain.

    Note: This post is as much a reminder to myself as it is to you. I hope to rid myself of this affliction to hide behind dogma at times. If you notice me doing it, please feel free to remind me of these words. 😉

  • Sometimes the Safe Path is Not the Right Path

    Sometimes the Safe Path is Not the Right Path

    “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist. I loved to draw, especially, and even took art classes on the weekends when I could. For fun.

    Obviously, being an artist isn’t a viable career (or so everyone in my life told me in subtle and not so subtle ways), so instead of going to college to delve deeper into drawing or painting or sculpture, I went the safe route: art teacher.

    Well, after a few semesters I decided I didn’t want to be an art teacher, so I went another safe route: graphic design. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy graphic design that much, most of the technical/pre-press stuff was way over my head (and interest level), and I turned down the one full-time job I was offered after college.

    Since I was only twenty-one, adventure seemed appropriate. I moved to Vermont to work at a ski lodge, I drove cross-country, I lived in a tiny apartment in Montana, and then I lived in a tent for a while. It was awesome.

    After that I went back to the safe stuff. I worked in an office here, I worked as an event coordinator there, then back to another office job.

    I don’t want to make it seem like I’ve always just automatically chosen the thing that felt the safest, the most conventional, since the travels of my early twenties, because I certainly haven’t.

    I quit a “good” job because it made me miserable and I wanted to get trained as a life coach.

    I quit another well-paying job (that made me absolutely batty and went against all of my core beliefs) in order to stay home with my daughter, even though it seemed like there was no way to afford to do so. (We made it work.)

    I started making art again, with real gusto and zeal, even though it doesn’t really make any sense beyond my own deep desire to do so.

    Recently, though, I faced what feels like my biggest What-My-Heart-Wants Vs. Take-the-Safe-Path challenge ever.

    After going in circles and wondering if I should bother trying to make art my main “thing,” I decided that I should apply to graduate school to become a school counselor. Because you can’t make a living as an artist, as you’ll remember.

    Counseling has always interested me, I like kids, and I would have the summers off to do the thing I really like, which is, well, you already know this: art.

    I spent a while researching the career and working on convincing myself I’d be able to find a job and that it would be the right fit for me. I applied about six months before applications were due and then pretty much forgot about it.

    That is, until the deadline rolled around. I knew I’d hear something shortly after February 1st, and then there it was, an email inviting me to a four-hour group interview.

    I can sum up the way I felt about going to this interview with one word: Ugh. I texted a friend and told her if someone else was in my position and felt the sucking feeling I was having, I’d tell them not to go.

    I kept thinking, though, that I should go, “just to keep my options open.” You know, to be safe.

    Before I went, I hooked up with a coach to talk me through some of what was going on in my head. What stands out to me the most about our sixty-minute conversation is that I said going to school felt like the safe option.

    When she asked me what really, truly felt safe to me, in my soul, I said I felt the safest when I was in my living room, art supplies set up, light flowing through the windows, creating something.

    Still, though, I went to the group interview. I was surprised by it; I enjoyed meeting the current students, the professors seemed lovely, and I was impressed with the program.

    I also learned how competitive the program was—of the eighty something people there, only about thirty would get in. I didn’t think I had a chance.

    I was wrong about that. In fact, I was included in the first round of applicants; a top pick. That made me, or at least my ego, feel really good.

    My husband was out of town for work at the time, and we agreed to discuss it when he got back. After a lot of back and forth, I decided to accept.

    I mean, I’d be taking on probably $18,000 in debt, but I’d have an almost guaranteed job when I finished! And I’d have a state pension! And I’d have summers off!

    The other thing? Multiple people who have known me for a very long time told me what a great fit school counseling was for me. I used other people’s excitement about it to continue to believe that this was the right thing to do.

    But then some weird stuff started happening. Conversations with my husband would often end with him saying, completely unprompted, “I wish you didn’t have to go to school.” Spiritual teachers who mean a lot to me started popping up on my Facebook or Podcast feed telling me things that I needed to know, like how to really follow my soul’s calling.

    I felt like the Universe was trying to tell me that going to school was not right for me, despite seeming like the safe option. I understood that if I went, I’d be giving up what I had dreamed for myself and even my family, and that I’d be one step farther away from listening to my true self.

    So I decided to withdraw.

    I knew I wanted out, but every time I went to send that official email, I got scared. I kept thinking about what I’d be giving up (Stability! A pension! A “real” job!).

    Finally, after a month, I did it. I sent the email from my phone while I was sitting on the floor in the living room, light pouring in the windows, a painting I was working on in front of me. I did it before I could think too hard about it.

    Since then I’ve felt a variety of things. Sometimes fear, sometimes joy, sometimes worry, sometimes nothing much.

    I wish I could tell you that in the month since I withdrew I’ve become a beloved artist who makes money constantly. I wish I could tell you that everything is working out perfectly. So far, though, I’m just practicing going toward what feels good and away from what feels bad.

    I have faith now, faith that I’m following the right path for me. That picking something because it looks good on paper is absolutely not a reason to do something, even if other people tell you it is.

    When I look back on this journey, what I see is a woman who wants what’s best for herself and her family, so is following the steps that she thinks will bring her what everyone else will see as success, and I can’t say I blame her. I’m just glad she changed her mind.

    I want everyone to know that the safe path isn’t always safe, and it isn’t always right, and that only you know what’s the next step, but only if you listen closely. Here are some ideas for tuning in.

    1. Listen to your body.

    I just can’t understate the importance of this one. I’ve known for a long time that bodies are way better guides than minds, but sometimes I lose track of it.

    I knew, for sure, that school was wrong for me because every single time I thought about starting in the fall my body, especially my chest, clenched into a tight ball. A message like that is the body saying loud and clear “wrong direction.”

    2. Stop listening to your thoughts.

    Just as you want to start listening to your body, you want to stop listening to your mind and your thoughts.

    I know, it seems weird, because our brains are supposed to be all rational and smart and stuff, but so much of what goes on up there is completely based on fear. We worry about money, we worry what our family will think, we worry about dying alone. Those fears are just words, and if you let them lead you away from what you truly want, you’re going to be in trouble.

    3. Do it a little at a time.

    If you’re enmeshed in a career or relationship or financial situation that’s been going on for years and years and you have tons of people relying on you, it probably doesn’t feel so easy to just say, “Eh, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

    That’s why you do one small thing at a time. If your body is giving you ulcers because you hate your job so much, but it feels like a fluttering butterfly when you think of taking a photography class, take the photography class. Try one small thing at a time, building toward the life that you really want.

    4. Never buy into the idea that the safe way is the right way.

    If you find yourself thinking anything along the lines of, “Well, that’s boring, but it’s a smart career to get into” or “He’s from a prominent family and would be a smart choice,” run! Or at the very least, slow down and check to see what your body and heart are telling you.

    I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: This whole being human thing is hard. I believe that it can be delightful and joyful and wonderful, but it takes work.

    We have to push against societal norms that tell us we should do things a certain way. We have to get clear on what we want and be willing to pivot when that changes. We have to be flexible; we have to be aware.

    My goal is to choose what feels good for me. I hope that you’ll do your best to choose what feels right for you, too, even if it’s not what other people think is safe.

  • Why No One Needs “Fixing” or Wants Unsolicited Advice

    Why No One Needs “Fixing” or Wants Unsolicited Advice

    Woman chatting

    “People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’re lost.” ~Dalai Lama

    Have you ever felt the urge to fix someone? And by fix I mean observe their circumstances and tell them what you think they’re doing wrong and exactly how you think they should fix it?

    We’ve all done it. We’re all guilty.

    Especially with close friends or family.

    “If he would only listen to me and do what I say then everything would work out just fine!”

    Sound familiar?

    I was having tea with a good friend the other week (let’s call her Sally), and she was relating with much exasperation the story of how her sister was wasting her life in her corporate job when she was SO creative and should be working for herself in a creative role. And then she would be happy (according to Sally). Which apparently she’s not (according to Sally).

    Sally went on further to say (with as much exasperation) that she had called her and conveyed this opinion to her sister. Because Sally felt she was right and that her sister needed saving. Not surprisingly, it was not very well received. In fact, Sally’s sister was pretty miffed. And didn’t take the advice. Or speak to her for ages.

    I’m willing to bet Sally’s sister didn’t even consider the advice. Not for a minute. And not because she disagrees but more likely because she’s offended at being told what to do. After all, she didn’t ask Sally for an opinion.

    And there’s the first problem.

    If someone doesn’t ask for your opinion, they’re likely not open to it hearing it.

    It’s quite simple really.

    When you ask a question it’s because you’re interested in hearing the answer.

    Which means you’re interested in the topic being discussed.

    Which further means you’re going to consider the answer with interest and (hopefully) decide from an unemotional stance as to whether you agree with it or not.

    The opposite applies when an opinion—however well intended—is provided without your consent.

    Had Sally’s sister called and asked for advice, the outcome may have been quite different.

    In my early twenties I remember having tea with my mom and enthusing excitedly about a new business idea I’d had. Now, my mom was from the “old school” where job security was your first priority, and in her world it was safest to find a “nice” job in a “nice” company and stay there until you retire or die (whichever comes first).

    Unsurprisingly, her response to my idea was one of complete skepticism and doubt. Which she verbalized immediately. Very loudly. And critically.

    In those days I didn’t have the awareness I have now. I didn’t see that this was simply her own fears being transferred onto me and had absolutely nothing to do with me. Nope, I reacted. Badly. And took it personally.

    After all, I hadn’t asked her for her opinion. I was just sharing an idea.

    I had expected her to be enthusiastic about my enthusiasm. To be supportive. To trust my judgment.

    Instead, I felt incredibly crushed. And I started doubting myself.

    And I felt a lot of anger toward her.

    But most importantly, I stopped sharing my dreams with her. And over the years I told her less and less. Because I knew she’d give me her (fearful) opinion. For which I had never asked.

    The second problem is, you’re assuming the person needs fixing, that what they’re doing is “wrong.”

    Our journey in this lifetime is our own. We’re the only ones who know what is best for us. And only we have a full perspective of all the elements of our lives and how they serve us.

    Even when we’re facing challenges, they are ours to face down. Our way. And when we see fit.

    Yes, we need to take responsibility for any fall-out, but isn’t that where our growth lies? Making choices and then dealing with the consequences? Good or bad?

    Maybe Sally’s sister is comfortable in her current corporate position. Maybe she feels secure with her stable income. And maybe she uses her creativity in a different way within her current position.

    Maybe from her perspective she doesn’t have a problem.

    My parents had a terrible relationship. At least that’s what I always told myself.

    They argued. Constantly.

    There was little or no affection. Ever.

    I always wondered why they stayed together. Surely they would both be happier apart? This relationship was simply wrong.

    In my view it epitomized the very essence of all the things you shouldn’t do or be in any relationship. And I told my mom this. Even though she hadn’t asked.

    Shortly after they both retired they moved to the coast to be closer to their grandchild. My dad had always been a workaholic and in his career he had travelled a lot. Not surprisingly, this really suited my mom. She loved her own company. Now in retirement he was home. All the time. And followed her around like a puppy.

    She was unhappy. Incredibly so. And would vent this to me at any opportunity.

    From my perspective, the answer was obvious. It was time to end this sham of a union. And I told her just that. With abundant justification and a healthy dose of righteousness.

    It was simple. If she would just Do. As. I. Say.

    But she didn’t. I don’t even think she really heard me. She did what we all do when we get uninvited “solutions” to our perceived problems: She got defensive. Really defensive. About her marriage and my dad.

    And we argued quite aggressively and loudly. And then we didn’t speak for many weeks as we both simmered in quiet indignation. I absolutely believed I was right.

    And yet, now that I’m older and wiser, I can look back and see that in my parents’ world it was right.

    For them.

    It worked.

    For her. And him.

    We can never know how someone else’s circumstances (however bad they seem) will serve them in the bigger picture of their life’s journey.

    We can never know what someone else’s perspective is around an event that we may judge as bad. Or wrong.

    Maybe in their world it’s right. Or good.

    It’s hard (really hard) to watch people we love go through hardship. Our instinct is to help. Or fix.

    But remember.

    In any relationship our only obligation is to show up and bear witness. Unconditionally. That’s all. We only ever want to fix someone because ultimately it’ll make us feel better.

    Why do we feel uncomfortable when someone close is facing challenges? Maybe that’s the question we need to ask ourselves.

    Sometimes feeling discomfort is what provides the momentum that’s needed for that person to make some changes. In their own time. Not ours.

    Trust that their judgment will serve them irrespective of whether we agree with it or not.

    Respect their journey.

    Try it next time you feel the urge to fix.

    That’s your growth right there.

  • Choices, Chances, and Changes

    Choices, Chances, and Changes

    The 3 Cs of Life

  • More Information is Not the Answer; More Action Is

    More Information is Not the Answer; More Action Is

    Man thinking

    “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” ~Bruce Lee

    We live in a world where information is literally at our fingertips, twenty-four hours a day, every day. As wonderful as this can be, it can also lead to a number of challenges.

    With so much information available to us it can be difficult to know which way is up.

    The more we read, the more confused we become.

    One source makes a logical argument for one way to do something. Then we read a completely opposing view that is backed by another logical sounding theory.

    This can lead to us freezing. Like a sprinter waiting too long in the blocks for the gun to go off, we have lost the ability to react. We have lost the ability to go.

    Too Many Choices Can Lead to No Choice

    Too many options and choices laid out in front of us can lead to a strange problem where we struggle to make any choice at all.

    What should be a positive suddenly turns to a negative. We’re worried that choosing means we miss out on something else. Or that our choice will not be the perfect choice.

    Distraction Attraction

    The floodgates of information can cause their own form of addictive behavior. We have become attracted to distracted. Constantly checking for updates and new information. Obsessively checking for the latest word from this expert or that.

    Strangely this constant activity feels like progress. The truth is we’re busy, but we’re not focused. Nothing much is getting done.

    The Answer – Positive Constraints Followed by Action

    Another road that can be taken is one where we deliberately limit our choices. We commit to choosing from a more limited pool of information, then we follow through with a healthy dose of action.

    If this works out well, we stay committed to the choice. If not, we go back and choose something else that will work for us. Importantly, we don’t jump around just because there is more on the table.

    Ironically, limiting choice can improve our chances of actually making a choice at all. We put the mental blinkers on and fully commit to what is in front of us instead of flitting from this to that looking for perfect.

    Personal Experience – Subtraction

    In my own case, I have benefitted from limiting choice in several areas of my life.

    My fitness is something that is very important to me. However, I can read too much on what I should be doing by this fitness expert or that. This can lead to confusion and frustration when these experts contradict each other.

    With my training this has led to me chopping and changing programmes too often and not giving a particular program or exercise time to work its magic.

    Worse, I’ve also tried to perform exercises, or follow programs, that are not a good fit for my goals, just because a particular expert says they are “must do” moves.

    With the above in mind, I now limit the information channels I read—fewer fitness blogs, fewer magazines. Instead, I dig deeper into a few sources that I get most enjoyment/benefit from.

    In terms of my actual training, I have limited my exercise selection down to a small pool of big return exercises that suit my body, temperament, and goals.

    Importantly, these are exercises I also enjoy trying to perfect over the long term, and that seem to do my body good. I find them challenging but equally I am happy to do them again and again, with no sense of dread.

    This has left me enjoying my workouts more, results in less confusion, and provides more focus on the goal at hand—a winning combination!

    An Experiment for You

    If you struggle with too many choices at times, try the following:

    1. Choose from a restricted menu.

    Over the next few weeks, stay focused on limiting choices in one area of your life. This could be the blogs you read, the foods you eat, or anything in between.

    Using diet and the foods we eat as an example, it could mean for the following few weeks you will choose to eat only plant based foods. No meat at all.

    Whatever it is, intentionally limit your choices in this area. Focus on a few options only, the ones that are likely to give you maximum enjoyment or results in relation to others.

    2. Block out distractions.

    Once you have your small pool of choices to work from in your chosen area, block everything else out. This will not be easy initially and will require discipline, but it is essential.

    Carrying on our example above of changing our diet, if we’re going plant-based for a few weeks as an experiment, we will ensure all meat products are removed from our home. We will tell friends what we are doing so others know to prepare us plant based fare only if we visit and, if at a restaurant, we only look at the vegetarian options on menus. Out of sight, out of mind.

    We need to cultivate some selective ignorance for this to work. Ignore the strong temptation to let the information floodgates remain fully open.

    3. Commit.

    Fully commit to your choice. Enjoy it, explore it, and revel in the process of making it.

    4. Review—did it work?

    Is your choice having the desired effect?

    In our example of intentionally reducing food choices to plant-based only, are you feeling better and more energized? Have you lost some fat? Are you feeling and looking healthier?

    If not, it’s time to go back to your limited pool of choices and try something else.

    Maybe in this example we add a fish or meat dish once or twice a week only, start the process again, and re-evaluate. Maybe we try staying meatless longer but adding more protein sources, or varying our foods a little more (more green veggies etc.).

    The important thing is we give our choice time to work, rather than staying stuck in making no decisions or in flitting from one thing to another.

    An Information-Driven World

    The world has been opened up to us with the technology now at our fingertips. That should be a wonderful thing if we use it appropriately. How we use it is up to us.

    Try intentionally limiting choice for a while and see if it helps you get out of the blocks.

    Sometimes less really can be more.