It seems like big trips to new places are one of the most common sinkholes of excuses. You got the idea into your head that it would be fun to see the castles on the Rhine in person and then suddenly it’s ten years later and you still think it would be fun but you haven’t done anything more about it.  I know that’s true for me and while I’ve managed some of the trips I’ve wanted to undertake, some others have been hanging on the list a little longer than I would like – who knows what adventures I’ve missed by spending more time with the excuses than planning the trip.

Here are the ones I know I’ve used in this arena:

• I can’t afford it – self-explanatory but it’s still an excuse
• Help will not be available – I’ll have to pay full price AND get stuck in a foreign country
• It’s too big (there’s a lot to plan and coordinate)
• I’m scared
• I have too many other projects
• The timing isn’t right (this will be so much easier next year…)
• I don’t know what to do (where to start, where to go?)
• It will require too much risk (safe is boring but…)
• I don’t have any experience (yes, that is the point but it’s also scary)
• I’ll compromise because I’m not confident enough to fully commit (such as going someplace where I won’t have to face driving on the left…)

That’s quite a list of powerful excuses – but they are standing in the way of fabulous adventures.

Next week: what I’m planning to do about getting more travel in on a regular basis

• Holding Myself Accountable

• Garden: Mother Nature has been conspiring against me lately but I’m on track with my committments
• Photography: Behind this week a little
• Jewelry: Definitely behind and will be the focus of this coming weekend to catch up
• Treasure hunting – the weather did not cooperate so there’s been a slight postponement
• Family and friends – doing ok
• Romance – releasing my inner Frenchness which I’d been misidentifying as flaws
• Chores – making progress, not completely there yet but progress
• Losing weight – getting more exercise and refining the diet this week

Technorati Tags: achieving dreams, common excuses, traveling solo

Maybe you are also one of the people that needs multiple interests going to be happy.  Jewelry design is my second career passion joining photography. I could wish investment banking were a passion instead of ‘artistic’ pursuits but maybe that will come in due time.  For now figuring out how to juggle everything without letting the excuses get the upper hand is critical.

Excuses I’ve used here are legion:

• I’ll do it tomorrow (when the garage will be less dark and cold)
• I don’t know what to do (how do you market something no one has seen before?)
• It will take a long time (compliments do not pay the mortgage)
• I don’t have the right equipment (actually this can be true, the secret is drawing the line between need and want)
• I don’t have any experience (I didn’t go to school for this…)
• I’ll lose interest before it’s profitable (ok, it hasn’t happened yet but surely there’s a limit to the designs I can come up with)
• It’s too big (there’s the making and the marketing and the selling and so on)
• It’s not my nature (how come teenagers can pay for college with just glass beads?)

Have you noticed that the more important the goal the more excuses it generates?  It takes work and patience to peel back the layers.

Next week: getting jewelry made, no matter what

Holding Myself Accountable

An interesting week overall – here’s the summary:

Losing weight: ok, not as much exercise but a doctor visit that revealed low iron levels; sometimes it’s not the excuse that keeps you down.

Photography: Really taking action!  an exhibit call, a new gallery proposal, and a charity event

Gardening: I like the new plan – vegetable garden is turned over, everything is fertilized and Spring is here.

True Love: I’m a little stuck – still working on my thought process and planning to do some re-reading for inspiration and the next step.

Treasure Hunting: I’ve got the tide tables for the whole year printed out and highlighted for weekends with low tides – it’s an at a glance plan for the weekend.

Technorati Tags: achieving dreams, common excuses

Too often we think we can’t accomplish something grand like what we hear on the news because we can’t see that it began as something much more simple. Every great novel or movie script or mechanical invention because with something simple like a sentence that probably isn’t even part of the finished product. Have you made a start?

Olympic National Park, Juliet Chase, all rights reserved

Technorati Tags: achieving dreams, meditation images

I think my brain is starting to hurt from all the new things I’ve taken in this last week. On the plus side I finally got my merchant application in so that I’ll be able to process credit and debit cards at shows – it will be a miracle if it goes smoothly because neither I nor the bank representative knew how to fill out the form; it was a myriad of new vocabulary that wasn’t explained anywhere. Luckily, I’m fairly certain they want my business so it should come out all right in the end.  Also in preparation for the upcoming craft show I was dropping things off in parts of the city I’ve never been to before and which Google maps was also unfamiliar with (as in the directions were wrong!) Now that that’s done, I can concentrate on actually making the jewelry to sell which is starting to get urgent.

My education has also included reading case files and meeting people for my volunteer case which is good to get started but has left me with a few nightmares, not to mention pondering the state of our society.  I try to stay focused on there being far more people that try to stop the abuse than that actually commit the abuse.  I’m glad there are people that want to be in law enforcement, but for me personally, reading their reports is hard enough – things can get a bit graphic.

To counteract the bad taste from dealing with that stuff, I went and found a recipe for pumpkin pancakes which make for a truly amazing comfort dinner when paired with maple syrup, home-made cranberry sauce and a glass of red wine:-)

And lastly with some trepidation, I decided to take a risk and see if a website profiling the ‘soulmate’ predicted for my by a psychic would make any difference at all to my love life, the one area that I’ve been neglecting for some pretty common excuses.  I can’t decide if I’m more nervous that nothing will happen or that something will. A lot of ‘what if’s’ have floated through my mind in the last week on this one, but I’m sticking with the premise than when you don’t know where to start, doing the first thing to come to mind that sticks there is a the right place.  That doesn’t mean that I’m not still too worried about what people will think;-) Past time to start letting that kind of mentality go.  You can check it out at http://insearchofedmondsguy.com

Technorati Tags: achieving dreams, learning new things, Personal Growth, solopreneur, taking risks, the way to happiness

Dreaming can be delicious, all the possibilities and potential are there at your fingertips to pick and choose and switch out in day dreams.  That’s how I’ve felt about treasure hunting in Florida – maybe I’ll find emeralds, maybe silver coins, maybe a gold box full of jewels (someone really did find one of those!).  Now after about three years of imagining what might happen, I’m going to find out and while that’s exciting, there’s a certain sense of loss to it too.  I don’t feel ready, haven’t honed my metal detecting skills, etc.  And there’s that knowing that I’ll need to find new daydreams on the other end which is fun too, but I get attached to my old standbys.  That’s been a big part of this past week, both treasure hunting and art sales – another ‘what will happen’ adventure.

I’ve put some time into studying what I need to do and how to go about doing it most efficiently.  Now that I know I’ll be doing a jewelry sale at the end of November, reality is setting in on what I need to get done before then so there is going to be considerable time spent out in the garage with the torch including today.  I dug out some fabric to make a cover for the folding table and things like that. I’ve also started cleaning out my email inbox by getting rid of some of the automated messages that I always delete without reading.  It’s a pain because I had to go find my logins for each but now I’m getting slightly less mail to have to sort through.

Overall, it’s felt like a slow week; hard to get started in the morning and things like that but I think it’s really that I’ve been thinking through all these different ventures.  I’ve put a little bit of time into getting the yard ready for winter, too – taking in the hoses, cleaning out the flowerpots and things like that. It’s not much fun, but things do look better!

Technorati Tags: achieving dreams, adventure, Personal Growth, solopreneur, the way to happiness