Monthly Archives: April 2013

Just Who do You Think You Are?

21 Sunday Apr 2013

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I’ve been collecting adventure stories from women over the past year or so, and a frequent theme is one of personal transformation. Not the kind that involves turning their entire life upside down. More like ‘I thought I was this kind of person and discovered I was actually this other kind, too’. The ‘too’ being important because they expanded their self-image, they didn’t make some kind of wholesale switcheroo.

This is pretty cool stuff. Monica discovered, after three decades as a nurse, she could be a highly successful CEO of a manufacturing company. Nicole discovered she wasn’t just a straight-up business person, she is also a talented painter. Rachel discovered that she is even more of a knockout as a ginger than she was as a blond. I discovered I can belt out rock and roll just as well as I sing Bach.

Practically every day I hear about someone else who’s expanded their own sense of ‘just who they think they are’. If you have stories, please send them to me! I’m creating a book, using this collected wisdom, to help everyone have the courage to do the things they’ve always wanted to do but haven’t yet dared.

Planning’s Evil Twin

11 Thursday Apr 2013

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Ever notice how planning to do something feels a lot as though you’re actually making it happen? And how, once you’ve been in planning mode for awhile, it becomes a great excuse for not taking the final, scary leap off the edge and into action? I both love and value planning – I think it make success much more likely in most things – but it does have this shifty dark side.

Procrastination is planning’s evil twin.

You’ve examined your big adventure. You’ve made an impressive to-do list. But you want to wait for a perfect day to start. Monday might be more convenient; the beginning of the week has a freshness to it that makes everything seem more possible. No, wait, actually after your mother visits is the best time. Or maybe once Jimmy has finished his exams. Or when you get back from the family vacation to Aruba.

The evil twin in action.

If you want to make an action plan turn into real, live action, start the moment you’ve finished your plan. That very moment, start in at it with some small thing. Then do something else – whatever – the next day. And the next day. And the one after that.

As Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project (http://www.happiness-project.com/) says: Put it in your schedule, or it will never happen. So true, Gretchen! Some of the best advice I’ve ever heard.

Constipation and Unfulfilled Dreams

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

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I was speaking awhile back with a woman who is very good at making her dreams happen. She said “Unfulfilled dreams are like little points of constipation in our lives”. I found this very eloquent.

But it occurred to me that this phenomenon doesn’t always make us rush to take action. It often just leaves us feeling, well, perpetually constipated.

Dreams are slippery fish. We have a vague notion of some lovely thing, and an even more vague notion of how to make it come true. Maybe it feels scary and risky. The constipation occurs when all this vagueness leaves us with an impression that it’s impossible to achieve, even though we don’t have any hard evidence. We lust after it hopelessly and kick ourselves for not being able to make it happen. What an incredible waste of energy.

Being of a practical mind, this waste bugs me. Here’s a thought: what if you were to examine, now, what it takes to make your dream a reality? What is it really made of? What will it do for you? What are the actual risks and obstacles? How could you overcome them? Once you had done that, you’d be able to say, with conviction, one of three things:

  • Wow, I can do this thing and I’m going to start on it right now, OR
  • Wow, this thing I’ve been harbouring is actually not worth it to me considering the price I’ll have to pay in time, money, energy or whatever, OR
  • This dream is great but I can’t do it right now.

The first one is what we all want to be able to say, but the second and third answers are equally liberating. They’re all answers that allow us to stop wasting energy.

If you go through this planning process and discover your position is ‘not right now’, here’s what you can do. Put your dream, with all its beautiful details, into a box. Pull it out again in 6 months, a year, five years – whatever makes sense – and ask is it time yet? until it is. In between those moments, ignore it. It’s not gone, it’s not dead, it’s just patiently waiting, while you spend your energies on things that are more important right now. 

And you get to kiss that constipated feeling goodbye.