Re-doing is still doing

Are you one of the people that would far rather be trying out something new rather than refurbishing an old one? Like a skill, a project, a website. I suspect that’s typical of many, and even more so of those that head out into the land of self-employment and entrepreneurial endeavors.  Unless you’re a flipping something like houses or .coms  sooner or later you’re going to have to revamp what you’ve done and keep repeating the process.

I’ve hit that stage on a few things and it’s hard to believe that a website I sweated over two years ago, getting it just they way I wanted it, is now outdated and needs to be revamped.  Truth is, it should have been done at least six months ago.  It doesn’t really matter how much I did or didn’t put into it, customers don’t know and generally don’t care – I’m sure a few would be sympathetic but not to the point of buying!

The trick is not to see it as broken, or in need of repair but rather necessary maintenance that keeps everything moving forward at optimal speed, if not the left most lane than at least somewhere in the middle.  It really is as important as tackling something new and exciting – at least that’s what I’ll be telling myself this weekend:-)

Technorati Tags: entrepreneurship, getting things done

How rejection can work in your favor

I spent all of Wednesday afternoon feverishly putting together an application package for a call for artists for a new cancer center.  And I spent the morning waiting anxiously for the email with the instructions! Normally this wouldn’t put me in a panic but I’d only just found out about this opportunity and the deadline was two days away.  As I wrapped up the last of the bits and pieces I realized that there is no way I could have gotten it in on time if I hadn’t sent my best work out before (to no avail.)  All those rejections meant that I had images already vetted (this version is slightly better than this one) and edited in Photoshop so that all I had to do was some resizing and printing.

I don’t know that the response will be more positive in this case, but I’m sure I gave it my best shot and I know that all that time I put into prior submissions wasn’t wasted after all. It can sure feel that way when the ‘No, thanks’ arrives or even worse, there is no answer at all.  I’m coming to believe that there is no such thing as wasting time if you are following where your heart leads. Cross your fingers for me that my future lies in health-care art!

Technorati Tags: persistence

Uninspired and moving forward

It’s not exactly writer’s block – I’m just feeling a lack of a topic here!  And that in itself is a subject because it happens to all of us at some point and in all sorts of tasks.  I thought about my choices: go and eat and hope that inspiration will strike, skip this post and hope nobody will notice, stare at the screen until something happens or what I’m doing which is closely related to stream of consciousness.  I don’t have time to put it off and yet nothing major has happened.  I thought about writing about balance but if I sound preachy in my own head, I’m unlikely to write it better so thinking I should save that.

I think these dips are natural – I just came off a weekend of intense stuff and trying to fit a lot in and I know I have that coming up again in a few days. In my new era of no excuses I decided that moving forward even if it feels awkward was the best plan.  I’m not entirely convinced. Doing the boring little prep tasks or future chores is my way of powering through them; things like making ear wires for earrings (not inspiring work but it needs to get done at some point) or catching up on laundry so that when inspiration does hit, it’s less of a conflict. It’s all good:-)

Technorati Tags: feeling uninspired, lack of motivation

Do romance and dreams make goals more successful?

For some reason the Voyager spacecraft have been popping up on my inner screen lately.  I’m old enough to remember when they were launched in 1977 and the wonder of the golden records.  The thought that anyone would even try to introduce Earth through pictures and music! A lot of the ’70s is worth forgetting, but not those. They didn’t have a website back then which left a lot to the imagination, but now you can see some of the pictures (awfully focused on reproduction!) and the music scores; you can even listen to the recorded greetings in various languages. It’s a romantic idea even if it’s guised as science.

I’m not sure if the scientists really expected either spacecraft to make it out of the solar system; it’s been 32 years and they aren’t there yet and they’ve stayed in communication long past anyone’s expectations.  On the picture above they are somewhere between Pluto and the purple band beyond – power and communications will cease in the next fifteen years. So were the golden records part of marketing? I don’t know -the Cold War seemed to be enough of a motivator for funding in those days.  I would like to believe that they were made a part of the spacecraft as a tribute to possibility, something that Carl Sagan (who got to head up the selection team for the contents) was more of an advocate for than most.  And I think that’s why they’ve lasted so long – they were built for more than just one specific mission (explore Jupiter).  They were designed to adapt to the ‘and then’ and to adapt to the expected like radiation while leaving room for dreams of encountering an intelligent species.  We’ve lost the knack for that as things around us get increasingly disposable.

So if you took a frequently requested goal like ‘quit your job and live by the beach’ and added ‘and then’ and another ‘and then’ and maybe a ‘what if?’  would it change your perspective at all?  Would you do anything differently then you are doing now?

Technorati Tags: achieving goals

How to break an addiction to lack or resentment

Have you ever known someone that wanted something for so long that when it came into reach they acted like they didn’t want it even though they still talked about obtaining it?  Like a chance at a college education or a military family finally retiring to one place or a foster kid getting adopted.

It all boils down to fear, primarily fear of getting what you want. We worry that the object of our desire will not live up to our expectations or that the process of getting it will be more than it is worth or that we wasted time in dreaming of it when we should have been focusing on something else.

The sad part is that there isn’t much that others can do to change this because so much of the dialogue is internal. The person going through it has to decide that they want to pursue their dreams, the rest of us just have to exercise more patience than normal and be vigilant not to validate any of the fearful thoughts. Don’t say ‘I had a horrible time in college’ or ‘I never used my degree’ ! 

If you’re the person going through this:

• Get into a daily habit of meditation or just spending some time with your feelings without judgement
• Research and read books and websites about trusting yourself
• Take small steps but also set yourself a timeline
• Hold yourself accountable, don’t wait for others to do it for you
• Notice when you aren’t being objective about yourself or results – if you’ve gone without what you want for a long time you are likely seeing things as much darker than they really are. Find yourself a neutral point of comparison before you decide that nothing ever goes right.

Technorati Tags: fear of getting what you want, getting what you want, resentment

When you’re ready to stop, do just one more thing

Yesterday was one of those days filled with a lot of non-critical errands and tasks that all needed to get done relatively soon.  I have a lot of days like that – any particular task could get put off for a day or two without dire consequences yet they add up to become overwhelming.  It’s also pretty easy to stop when you get tired under these circumstances.  Sometimes that’s the right thing to do and sometimes you can find that you have untapped reserves with the right approach.

So yesterday, that’s what I did.  When I got to that point of ‘well, maybe that could wait to tomorrow…’ I got up and did just one more thing on the list – since that was making an apple pie from the rapidly spoiling apples I’d picked earlier in the day, maybe it would have been healthier to wait.  However, it turned out I wasn’t that tired after all – as the pie crust got made and chilled, the apples peeled and sliced and the whole thing baked. And yes, it was delicious! It turned out I could manage to bring up boxes from the basement too. Strangely enough, doing just one more thing turned into doing about three or four more things.

I am so much more productive when I take this approach you would think that it would be easy to make it a habit. It isn’t. But I keep hoping and trying.  And it keeps working – whether it’s stuck energy or not knowing where to start, somehow doing just one thing seems to move me back into the flow.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, getting things done, Importance of Motivation

Lemons to lemonade 2.0

I love it when things come together in a way that says what I’m trying to say, but so much more effectively than I do!  I found a story today that does just that.  It’s a tale of one man, Dave Carroll,  taking a bad and frustrating experience with an airline and turning it into something that will move his career light years ahead of where it would have been without the kick of motivation and yet in a way that is authentic instead of ‘designed’ by marketing professionals. Not to mention that the airline is finally ready to talk…

While we’re not all musicians, we all have creative gifts that could be used to create something powerful in the wake of bad customer service (or anything else.)  I’m as guilty of giving up after reaching ‘the wall’ as the next person – the nonfunctional $2,000 Dell laptop in the closet speaks to that. Once the gamut of customer service was run, what else could I have done with that situation?  Or could still do? Maybe I’ll make a found art sculpture from the cracked mother-board…:-)

Note that it was over a year from the incident to getting his first video out there so sometimes it’s just as much about persistence as creative vision; once the fires of righteous anger die down something else has to take it’s place.  No swear words required; just the muscle to juice the lemons.

Here’s the music video that is part one of the solution:

And here’s the story behind it all.

Technorati Tags: Importance of Motivation, inspiration from unusual sources

5 ways to get traction on that project that never gets done

I have had a home repair project hanging over my head for the last three years.  Ignoring it not only doesn’t make it go away but is starting to make me embarrassed about the front of my house.  It started with the discovery of rot at the base of one of the columns. Since there was a couple of hundred pounds sitting on it, things were starting to lean.  So I geared up my bravery and google and learned how to jack up a column and replaced the base.  Then I found rot in less structural areas because the paint was coming off. So last summer I excavated all of that and stopped any further damage but not before the fall rains started leaving me to wait until this summer to finish it. Also leaving the porch with peeling paint, gouged out holes, and unfinished wood where I’d gotten in a few replaced pieces.  In short it looked like Mothra had visited and then left in disgust.  Ughh! The time it’s taken to deal with a relatively common issue is frustrating.  I’ve not been lazy about it, rather more intimidated.  I don’t love using power tools and I’ve been afraid of what I’d find next.  Which is pretty much the perfect recipe for not getting something done.

The one strategy that definitely doesn’t work is waiting until everything else gets done and there is no other choice.  I am tackling it this week and will finish it soon.  Here are the five things I’m doing to finally get this off my plate and my guilt list:

1. Break it down into small tasks and only tackle one per day.  So on Monday, I inspected everything to see what might need to be redone from last summer and what was still to be done. Tuesday I  cut and nailed in the replacement parts. Today, I’m scrubbing the old paint and going to the hardware store for exterior wood putty.
2. Radically decrease the importance of anything else – the bathroom isn’t getting scrubbed this week and I’ve not been quite as good about blogging as I normally am.
3. Go easy on yourself – a little sleeping in for one week isn’t going to do any damage, particularly if it lets me focus that much harder on the task at hand.
4. Go for ‘as good as you know how to do’ instead of perfect.  The real benefit to an older house that was build soundly but not perfectly is that repairing it doesn’t have to be perfect either.  Some of my corners match what was there and some don’t, because I’m replacing the wood the best way I know how. If I were going for the perfect restoration job, I’d have to stop, learn, and buy equipment to cut the angles that were originally used.  I’m not cutting corners (no pun intended) on the structural integrity but I’m allowing for adequate on the cosmetic side of things.
5. Rewards – incentives work!  All the fixings for making a caipirinha are in the kitchen and I can deal with anything if at the end of day I can sit on the shaded deck with an icy, lime drink in hand.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, facing fear, getting things done

How to give 100%

“I’m giving 110%” or the more conservative ’100%’. It’s a phrase you hear a lot – particularly in reality TV (The Apprentice, The Biggest Loser, etc.)  but what does that really mean?  Not ever sitting down? Staying until 7PM when everyone else went home at 5?I don’t think that’s it at all. In fact that’s just the opposite because it’s more likely to do with worrying about what others think.

This is on my mind because I’m writing this having just gotten out of court; as I’ve mentioned in passing in other posts I volunteer as a child advocate (CASA) and while that means I can’t discuss the children or people involved I can say that there are always a lot of attorneys – heck, I even get an attorney.  This particular court hearing was held because of me, because I was the one party that didn’t want to go along with the other parties involved. That’s really step 1 – Stand for what you believe is right and don’t give in to peer pressure.

When I made that stand, it meant I needed to write a report for the judge and the other parties. I had been advised that I was probably writing this for the file, that the judge was likely to rule for the other parties and that’s just the way it goes.  I believed that advice but I still made that report the best I possibly could, because to do less would be to say that my involvement didn’t mean that much or that I didn’t really believe in what I was saying so I had to write it as though it would be read carefully and acted on. That’s step 2 – believe that what you do makes a difference, even if it doesn’t seem like it at the time.

Did I get what I asked for? No, but it was more than I had been advised to expect, it bought some time and I got a smile from the judge on the bench. It’s not about winning anyway – particularly in this situation when it’s about children, it’s about taking each opportunity given.  What will I do with the time gained by my taking a stand? If I close my eyes then nothing was gained, if I keep them open then new and compelling information may appear. Step 3 is simply to stay alert and receptive – to never count a situation as closed while there is still something you can do.

Faith is the last ingredient – not in a religious sense although that’s not inappropriate if you lean that direction, but in terms of believing that what you need to know, see, or do will make itself known to you. That what seems like a catastrophe may turn out to be the foundation for something great and that human beings are remarkably resilient.

If you add that all up: stand up for what you believe, believe that you make a difference, stay open, and have faith, you can’t help but give your all whether you’re walking into a court room, trying to get in shape, or gunning for a promotion.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, trusting yourself

The economy of happiness

Technorati Tags: happiness in life, how to find happiness, life design, starting a new business

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