The No Excuses Project: The imperfect garden
March 10, 2010 by Juliet Chase
Filed under No Excuses Project
Although I have a secret yearning for a lush and perfect cottage garden like the kind you see on estate travel shows I also know that’s requires more patience than anything else. At the same time there is weeding, fertilizing and pruning that needs to happen to get it there. Getting the bare minimum done happens but along with that I discover that I’ve been using excuses to avoid doing more – every time I think a task will take four or five hours I find that I’ve accomplished most of it inside an hour. How much more would happen if I estimated the task accurately? Even though my garden isn’t critical to work or love I consider it a key part of my home environment – a messy garden is no different than leaving clothes on the floor. It’s unsettling and leaves me feeling critical of myself. It should be something that is joyful, not guilt inducing.
Most definitely my number one excuse is ‘it will take a long time’ followed by the timing isn’t right – usually because it’s raining or I will need to clean up to go somewhere later. Not a long list of excuses but powerful ones in my personal arsenal.
Next week – the strategy to being a better caretaker
Holding Myself Accountable
So how is it working? I think I’m doing a little better:
- Photography – I’ve got a rough draft of my first book essay, which is 600 more words than existed last week
- Weight & Exercise – while I haven’t fit in the exercise consistently I’ve done some and I’ve got the month’s food prepped in the freezer. Now that meals are just a microwave away I should free up that 30 minutes in the evening for moving
5 tips on how and when to label yourself
September 17, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Health and Happiness
Labels are tricky things. The world might well be a better place without them, however conversations would drag on forever. If you’ve ever watched someone converse in sign language you may have seen them spell a person’s name letter by letter and then create a spacial reference point so that they can refer to that instead of painstakingly spelling the name each and every time – that’s what labels do, create a common reference point so that we can get on with what we are trying to say. The downside is that they tend to stick and there’s no language on earth that has enough words to be completely accurate.
1. Do spend some time thinking about what labels you apply to yourself and whether they describe the person you want to be. Get rid of as many as you can and rewrite the labels that are useful but don’t fit perfectly.There’s a lot of advice out there on never labeling yourself however there are some that are a good idea – are you single or not? are you an adult?
2. Be confident in any labels you do use – be ‘independent’, not ‘trying to be independent’. There’s a wealth of power in claiming it.
3. Don’t label yourself unnecessarily. Your Facebook page probably doesn’t need any labels whereas your LinkedIn page probably does.
4. Take the time to find the right words and be open to relearning words you already know. Words change over time and our early understanding isn’t always complete. For whatever reason I grew up defining the word ‘artist’ to mean a painter or a sculptor. I have no idea why, but that was my internal definition. So when I went hunting for a career label that would describe jewelry design,writing, photography and other creative pursuits I was stumped. Until it occurred to me to look up the term again – the first definition on Dictionary.com is: a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.
Look at that, I’m an artist! One word to describe all those things. Even though it’s a broad term it will do for filling in the blank on websites and forms.
5. Don’t exclude essential parts of yourself, just to conform to what’s normal or expected. Watch this
Gap ad with Eisa Davis, who juggles more than one passion simply because it’s essential and doesn’t pick just one. She definitely fits the definition of what Barbara Sher calls scanners although that’s another label I don’t particularly like because scanning implies a lack of action.
Words have power, choose wisely!
How to broaden your perspective by changing just one word
April 28, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Health and Happiness
I can’t take any credit for this one; I recently read it in The Art of Possibility and didn’t think much about it at first. The simple concept suggested using ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ when joining two clauses. It was a brief section in the book and I noted it mildly as I read on. A few days later I started to realize just how often I use the word ‘but’ in a conjunctive sense. For example:
- I want to drive to Alaska, but I also want to see the Greek islands
- I want to make money blogging, but I need to pay the bills now
- I want a loving relationship, but I appreciate some of the things that go with being single
These sound innocent enough except that I really use the word ‘but’ frequently. Ouch. At first I didn’t even think that I’m limiting my options by doing this; more of setting a priority or qualifying the desire until I sat with these sentences having rephrased them with ‘and’ instead:
- I want to drive to Alaska, and I also want to see the Greek islands
- I want to make money blogging, and I need to pay the bills now
- I want a loving relationship, and I appreciate some of the things that go with being single
It doesn’t imply that I can do anything simultaneously or suggest anything impossible. Yet there’s a subtle difference between the two sets of sentences. Maybe there’s a solution out there that involves both Alaska and the Greek islands that I wouldn’t find if I were only looking for one side of the equation. I don’t know yet. What I do know is that the second set seems infinitely more open to possibility and the potential for abundance. It doesn’t deny one thought or desire in favor of the other; it makes them more equal. So while I work on reducing my use of the ‘b’ word, try it for yourself and let me know if it makes a difference for you.
