focus on the happy

At times, it's really important to remember the things in the world (and my life) that delight me. Especially when winter seems to be taking forever and the city is gray and dreary. And life seems less pleasant than I want it to. This helps.

Here are just a few:

1. accidentally writing "pimportant" instead of "important"
2. brioche
3. hipbones
4. raisins
5. hem
6. just making a train
7. plaid (the word, not the design)
8. story people
9. President Obama
10. the feeling of sudafed kicking in
11. the heffalumpish sound I made when I fell down on the escalator*
12. the dog this morning with legs barely longer than the two inches of accumulated snow that was bounding through the drift like he was a husky in the tundra
13. whatever they're cooking downstairs
14. dogs that walk themselves
15. clean sheets
16. moments of improvisational genius when the world just feels right


*I didn't enjoy falling down the escalator; that hurt. But the "oomphf" that escaped me (quite loudly, in fact) was entertaining. And not sexy.

finding more free time

"I'm just too busy."

"I can't get things done because my schedule is jam-packed from morning to night."

"I don't have time to make change."

Want to believe these things about yourself? Or would you like to find out if you have time to make some changes? I happen to know from my own experience that there is plenty of time tucked away inside a day. "So trust me," I say. "Believe me!"

(And then hundreds of very busy people tune me out because I tell them to rely on my experience instead of their own.)

Luckily, I know about a great tool to show people their hidden time: the Life Log.

I first read about about the Life Log in Fearless Living by Rhonda Britten. She says, "When you write down in black and white exactly what you do all day, you end up with a clear picture of whether you are frittering away your life on low-priority activities out of fear, or whether you are bold enough to use your time wisely and well in order to go where you were meant to go."

The exercise is simple, really. Every half hour, you record in a journal what you did in the previous half hour. It can be simple, like "work" or "eat," or it can be more complex, like "worked on outline for 2pm meeting" or "ate cake because I felt crappy." (Not that I know anyone whose done that...) You're recording this for you, so the shorthand only has to make sense to you, but you should be as honest as possible in this record so any patterns that exist can start to reveal themselves.

Once you've done this for a week, divide your life into categories (the categories from the Wheel of Life are a good place to start) and then apply a category to each of the half hours you've recorded. Tally up the half-hours, and you'll begin to see where you spend most of your time... and where there might be more time to be had.

Not finding any time? Hmm, are you being brutally honest about how you're spending your time? Are the changes you're trying to make a high enough priority for you? What else might need to shift in order to find the time you need to make those changes?

The Wheel of Life

When I first started working with my own coach, he taught me to create a Wheel of Life so we could see where I was and where I wanted to be in the various areas of my life. It's a great tool to periodically check in on, and it reminds me to aim high in the most important areas.

Luckily, I recently found a website that will help you generate your own Wheel of Life. If that's too high tech for you, go ahead and draw a circle on a piece of paper, and then subdivide it into ten areas:

1. Home/Physical Environment
2. Partner/Love/Relationship
3. Health/Fitness
4. Growth/Learning
5. Career/Business/Work
6. Money/Finance
7. Family/Friends/Social Relationships
8. Community
9. Fun
10. Spirituality

Then, on a scale of 1-10, rate your satisfaction in each area. With 1 being the center of the circle, draw an arc in each tenth around the level you rated that area. (So if you rated Home a 5, you'd draw the arc in the middle of that section.)

Once you're done, you can see how well your "wheel" would roll... which might just give you the motivation to make some changes in the most troubled tenths.

An added exercise? Define what a ten in each area would look like!

Secrets of Six Figure Women

Here's an interesting list of characteristics, taken from the book Secrets of Six Figure Women, by Barbara Stanny, which I heartily recommend. She says you should try to whittle the list down to five values you couldn't live without. I managed to get it down to about 11, but had a hard time after that.

Go ahead, you try it.

Achievement
Adventure
Beauty
Being free
Being generous
Brother/Sisterhood
Charity
Comfort
Community
Creativity
Dignity
Discovery
Family
God
Growth
Happiness
Health
Honesty
Honor
Humility
Independence
Individuality
Influence
Integrity
Intimacy
Justice
Kindness
Knowledge
Leadership
Learning
Leaving a legacy
Leisure
Life partner
Love
Making a difference
Parenting
Patriotism
Peace
Physical activity
Power
Retirement
Security
Seeing the world
Self-discipline
Self-esteem
Service
Simplicity
Spirituality
Strength
Success
Time alone
Truth
Using my talents

If you show me yours, I'll show you mine...

lesson learned

I have a theory:

Everything happens for a reason. And the key to making the most out of life is focusing on learning the right lesson from your mishaps. [although that word, "mishap," is one of those words that distracts me. Shouldn't it be pronounced "Mis-shap?"]

So, earlier this summer I was repeatedly getting cancelled on at the last minute, and it was starting to drive me out of my mind. "Don't you have the consideration," I would shout to my empty shower (in lieu of said cancellers), "to think ahead and make a plan you can stick to?!?!" And I would roil and stomp and do all those things we do when we think nobody else is looking.

I thought (naively) "what lesson could there POSSIBLY be in this crap?!?" and then tabled the discussion with myself, and just kept on trucking.

And then I got stood up. I didn't think much about why that happened, I just thought, "oh poo, a Friday night ruined" and "eh, he sucks" and I went home. Well, last night I got stood up AGAIN, by someone else entirely, under completely different circumstances. (He, too, was a douchebag about it, though, TEXTING me a weak apology and asking me to hang out later if my previous plans fell through. I should have made a plan with him and then stood HIM up! Drats! Next time!) And that conversation I was going to have with myself jumped right up off that table and came waltzing into my brain.

I learned two things:

1. I would much rather be cancelled on at the last minute than stood up; and
2. It is far better to have risked and flopped than not to have risked at all.

to produce or support, that is the question

Dear Hamlet,

Forget about to be or not to be. You know full well that, eventually, you're going to be the King of Denmark. (That is, of course, if nobody offs you before you grow up.) So you've never had the fun of going through the What the Hell Am I Supposed To Do With My Life game. Let me tell you, it's a trip.

Now, I know you're going to say "wah wah wah, poor me, you have no idea what it's like deciding whether or not to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!" Well, to that I say: would you rather deal with a few slings and arrows, or have a job that doesn't totally fulfill you and begin the quest for a new one?

I think thou wouldst not choose the Quest For Thy Future.

Now, you know I've got some daddy issues. Hell, you can probably relate. But I had an interesting conversation with mine the other night about what I wanted to be when I grow up. (By the way: it doesn't in any way, shape or form involve a nunnery, so keep your helpful suggestions to yourself.) He made a very useful distinction in the world of business between producers and supporters.

All my (professional) life, I've been a supporter. First an admin, then a legal sec'y, and now a trainer. (I'm leaving the acting out of it for the moment.) So I have no real idea what it even means to be a "producer," although I understand my father's concept -- someone who delivers a product, whether that's a sale, a presentation, a speech, or what have you. I have always enjoyed my support role, but I see the appeal and allure of the producer role -- producers get a lot more of the kudos and prestige. Supporters get the sense of well being that comes with helping.

My father's convinced I would make a good producer. (I fear that it's similar to how your father thought you would make a good avenger, though, so I'm not going to bring your dad into this for now.) I already know I'm a good supporter. I shy away from the producer roles while imagining the Perfect Future. Is that because I'm not capable of producing? Or simply because I have a natural affinity for supporting?I know not.

It's interesting to think about. I'll wager that there're some gender differences at play here, though I'll be the last one to say that women don't make good producers. I also think it's an issue of confidence being born from experience.

Or maybe I just want to sleep with my mother.

Hard to say.

Anyway, Hamlet, hope you're doing well.

xoxo k8

p.s. Yorick says hi.

my own inner Statler and Waldorf

You know those muppets who sit on the balcony, kvetching about the show the whole way through? They're Statler and Waldorf. And I don't know about you, but I seem to have my own version of them in my head, endlessly muttering about what I'm doing, what I'm not doing, and whether or not I'm doing (or not doing) things I'm doing (or not doing) the right way.

It's annoying.

Anyway, over the weekend, I really socked it to them, and managed to shut them up for a whole afternoon!

I went for a group hike this weekend and found myself in a group where not one, but TWO of the guides were really cute. I chatted with both as the hike began, and discovered that I'd have a really flirty, good time if, when the groups split, I went in their group. However, the non-cute-guide group was smaller and was going to go on a slightly more hard-core hike, and I was drawn to that.

When we were splitting up, Statler and Waldorf started to chatter.

Statler: What's she doing? Is she going on the easy hike just because the guides are CUTE?
Waldorf: I think so.
Statler: I thought she wasn't dating for a while.
Waldorf: She ISN'T!
Statler and Waldorf: Wah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

(Am I unfairly representing their style? I always thought they laughed awfully hard at things that were barely funny.)

Anyway, before the groups got too far apart, I changed my mind, and joined the hard-core group. I'm not focusing on dating right now, I'm focusing on me, and what I want, and who I am, and the choices I make that have to do with me, and not boys. And that meant I was doing the more hard-core hike.*

And boy, did Statler and Waldorf not know what to say to that!

(In the end we all reconvened and hiked back together as a group, and there was some charming chatter exchanged, but I did that with my self-regard rather high, thankyouverymuch. Nothing beats sticking to a promise I make myself.)

*Editor's note: as it is used in this post "hard-core" means "less wussy and more hikey" but in no way implies that I'm remotely a badass.