I love turkey as much as the next person (ok, it’s all about the stuffing and gravy) but I’m not so fond of mob mentality sentiment.  I’m a little suspicious that what people say in public that they’re thankful for is a little different than what they might write in the sand of a deserted dessert island. I’ve been to enough painfully awkward holiday dinners to know that not every family is the stuff of pure gratitude.  I think there’s a little of that ‘if I say it with enough enthusiasm I might believe it’ so I prefer to keep my soul searching a little more private.

Two years ago I started a tradition of writing a Thanksgiving message and putting it in a bottle and into the ocean.  The contents remain private except to those that might find the bottle (and yes, one of them has been found.)  I don’t even keep a copy for myself so that it truly goes out with the tide. I’ve been sitting here thinking about whether I wanted to take this into a third year or give it up. It takes some effort to get to a beach and it seem a little silly doing this every year.

I’ve decided it’s worth continuing simply because the act of writing private thoughts with the idea that it might be read by a stranger requires a greater degree of care than just simply jotting a quick list in a diary.  There’s a ritual that feels important in choosing the glass bottle, wrapping the message carefully and sealing it with a cork. Too much effort to say that I’m grateful for my family or my health. Of course there’s a lot that I’m grateful for but maybe not so many that I feel strongly enough about to consign to the ocean.  I’m healthy, but I’ve always been healthy so it doesn’t seem remarkable enough to talk about. I’m sure I don’t feel as thankful about that as a cancer survivor would – we all perceive the world through our personal experiences. So each year I think about what I would feel most lost without.

What makes you glad to be alive? Is that different from what you might tell a reporter? I hope that all of you find some time today for quiet reflection and your own traditions that leave you feeling more connected with your spirit, rested, and moving through December with grace and joy:-)

Technorati Tags: intuition, letting yourself go

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to get information when the knowledge holders are a closed community.  It’s not the same as the cool kids’ lunch table but it can feel like it.  For example, the travelling artists that sell at festivals – they might want to be helpful but if they’ve survived this far they know better than to say ‘yes, it’s been a great weekend and I made $10,000 (all of which is within five feet of me) to a complete stranger.  And another example being treasure hunters that aren’t all that keen to share the spot where they finally found some bounty after twenty years of looking and particularly not with someone that hasn’t even put forty hours in yet.  So you could whine about the unfairness of it all, or try this approach:

1. Put the time in – acknowledge to yourself that you are an outsider and have yet to earn your stripes.  Go to art shows, show up at the golf course with your metal detector, even if you don’t know what you’re doing.

2. Ask for help but limit yourself to just one question; the most burning and critical one I hope.  Nothing looks more manipulative than “here, show me how to do it” until the whole project has been done in demonstration. It worked on my dad when I was a kid but I’d be embarrassed to try it now.

3. Follow the rules, but don’t follow blindly.  If it’s illegal to metal detect in state parks, don’t do it.  But just because everyone else you see walks in straight lines doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try a zigzag.  If nothing else people will start asking you about it and you’ll get some conversation going.

4. Pay it forward – there is always someone more ignorant than you, offer help to others now, don’t wait until you’re sure you’re an expert.

5. Develop your intuition and trust your gut.  Most people are genuine but some are not.  If a hot tip doesn’t ring true, ask around and go with your instincts.

Technorati Tags: intuition, learning new things, self-esteem

Some say that happiness is working through a challenge, not relaxing on the beach. And I admit to a certain state of bliss when working on a project as it goes from ignorance, confusion and chaos to something vaguely resembling the goal. That’s pretty much where I am now in my life project – still chaotic but beginning to take shape which is probably why I’m taking some pretty big financial risks to keep investing in the ‘project’ of me instead of being my usually fiscally responsible self and finding an outside job in addition. This week marked the first no going back on taking out financial reserves. Suze Orman and I are never going to see eye to eye but then I could never survive with just one pair of earrings. I know what convention would say I should do, but I can’t quite bring myself to pursue it, at least not this week!

As I’ve been working on the No Excuses Project, I’m beginning to see what a huge role excuses have played in putting ‘being safe’ in front of dreams.  Sometime around high school I realized how much talk there was in my family of ‘someday’ and exciting projects, trips,  and businesses. None of which ever materialized and I vowed that I would not become that. I haven’t, but I’ve let it influence me just the same and have been somewhere more in the middle of that spectrum then where I truly want to be.  Of course I could be entirely wrong and have some serious crow to eat in a year or so but….  I’d rather find that out for sure, I guess.

On a more tangible level, I’ve gotten prints made of my photography and gotten those posted on Etsy. Between clearing error messages on the temperamental printer I worked on going outside of my comfort zone when it comes to writing sales copy.  I would much rather say ‘red hibiscus’ and leave it at that but I know better – still it’s struggle!

As soon as I finish one last necklace this morning, I’ll have the first batch of beach glass jewelry ready for photography. I picked up some sand and pebbles for props yesterday so hopefully I can get that done this weekend and the online shop setup quickly (more copy to write!) It’s taken a lot longer than I anticipated to get this far, as usual!

Technorati Tags: common excuses, Health and Happiness, intuition, investing in yourself, solopreneur, taking financial risks, taking risks, the way to happiness

Although I think grades and test scores have a valid place, I sometimes wonder if we don’t get so used to that mentality in school that we never let go of it in adulthood. It seems like there are a huge variety of places to see our progress or self-perception reflected in the ‘grade’ of salary and raises (or not), reviews, conversations, web site statistics, etc. While these can be valuable indicators, relying on them too strongly over your intuition may keep you from where you want to be. Sometimes relying on your own judgment is required over the perceptions of others and it’s one of the advantages of growing up! Here are five things to be aware of when looking at feedback, whichever form you are either exposed to or seek out:

1. Despite the numerous analogies out there, life isn’t baseball. There’s no specific calendar to know when you can definitively judge the feedback as to when something was good, great, or a waste of time. You might do a favor for someone and not realize until ten years later what it meant to them but because they are still talking about it, you now see just how much it meant. Or this blog – when I post this, if nobody reads it the first day does that mean it’s not of interest? What about the following week? What if 100 people read it the first day but nobody after that? Watching statistics too minutely is unlikely to provide realistic data in the long term.

2. You don’t know what you don’t know about. If someone praises you to your boss while that boss is frantically looking for the presentation that was supposed to start five minutes ago, what are the odds that you’ll ever hear about it? Exactly. Bloggers that check Google stats daily (or more often) because they’re attaching self worth to those numbers only know about the readers that permit cookies or leave comments; the rest are invisible, but not unimportant.

3. The smaller and less varied the sample the less accurate the data is generally. It’s the whole ‘six out of seven doctors surveyed’ ad campaign. Was that seven doctors down the hall from the marketing department or 70,000 personal interviews? If your boss says the majority of your customers are happy/unhappy with your performance, it does make a difference how many customers you have. If that number is very small it doesn’t make the existing ones less important but that feedback may not apply beyond that small group  to the next set of customers you work with.

4. Feedback is more likely to come from those that feel invested, thereby skewing the statistics. I find blogging to be fascinating to watch because it is a constantly changing social experiment. What I’ve noticed lately is that the majority of comments on my other blog are coming from people, organizations or competing organizations that were mentioned in the post. They are all more invested in what I’m saying and how it’s perceived than general readers. If you aren’t a great cook, that’s much more likely to come up in conversation if you invite friends over for dinner (invested) than if you mention to them what you made for dinner last night (not invested.)

5. People don’t read directions. Whether it’s a ranking survey (1-10) or an assessment someone is going to provide different information than was requested because they misread that 10 was excellent or a valid email address is required. Going back up to point number 3 that can change the feedback you see significantly. If you base your feelings or your actions purely on that feedback you could  inadvertently head down the wrong path.

Technorati Tags: intuition

My almost family crisis de-escalated early this week, which is great news but still takes a few days to switch back to life as normal. It’s hard to switch gears, particularly when you don’t quite trust the situation yet.  I’ve continued to try and get as much writing done as possible, partly because once I’m in the groove it’s good to stay there but also to have some extra available just in case.  Even though it’s more work, I’m glad I decided to do more than one blog. It gives me a chance to explore different types of writing, from the personal like this to more  research-based posts; it’s amazing what you find when you have a quest and a time line.  This week I learned a lot about the legal battles in Florida over rights to sunken treasure and how much the web is like the game of telephone – people post their interpretations of laws and before you know it they’re claiming that something is illegal that actually isn’t or vice versa. No different than talking to your neighbor, but curious to observe.

I’ve also been thinking about my No Excuses project. I’m committed to the what, but haven’t yet figured out the how. Something tells me that if I just tell myself to not make excuses I’ll find a way to excuse that before the year is out, so I need to come up with a little more structure, either working specific ones each week or specific goals, or some combination.  Although I’m learning to trust my intuition more, sometimes my interpration of it is way off.  Sunday I picked up my photography from the hospital exhibit and never met anyone from it or had anything develop from it which is what I felt would happen three months ago.  So either it’s a latent development that hasn’t occurred yet, I got it completely wrong, or that experience will impact my decision on something farther down the road.  I think sometimes the significance of something doesn’t become clear until years later, so I’m sticking to following intuition as much as possible.

Technorati Tags: getting things done, going with the flow, Health and Happiness, intuition, solopreneur, the way to happiness