January 8, 2013

My Birthday Wish: Allowing Internal to Influence External

“Birthday cake” by Dan Taylor – click for info

I never understood people who don’t celebrate or remember their own birthdays.

I deem my birthday, January 6, as a national holiday. A celebration of life.

True story: 28 years ago, I was born 3 months premature.

My mom was at a local hospital ready to deliver me and they told her that if I was born at that particular facility, I would, in fact, die because they didn’t have the technology available to keep such a premature baby alive. She had to be rushed to a more advanced hospital an hour away.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always appreciated, acknowledged, and honored my birthday with reflection, gratitude, and hopeful expectation for the future.

In the spirit of my birthday, I always write up my goals for my New Year. I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember.

A couple of years ago I started my “#x#” lists. My “#x#” list is a list of things I want to complete by my next birthday. This year, my 29X29 list includes personal, business, and spiritual goals I want to complete by January 6, 2014.

I can honestly say, my most rewarding accomplishments for my 27th year were all spiritual.

Hands down, internal challenges and work are infinitely harder and more rewarding that anything external.

Resolutions, whenever you make them, shouldn’t always be about changing your existence, but about valuing and honoring your current existence.

For 2013, for my 28th year, I challenge myself to continue to grow spiritually, emotionally, and creatively. To do the internal work that will ultimately influence my external existence.

I challenge you to do the same.

What internal shifts and growth will you nurture this year in order to positively influence your external path, goals, and accomplishments?

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January 2, 2013

Make 2013 your best year yet

SG Tooling Around - Make 2013 your best year yet

As you’ve probably worked out by now, I could talk all day about productivity tips.

You can make all the productivity hacks in the world, but if you’re using your freed-up time on yet more useless busywork, you’re not going to get anywhere.

Are you ready to step up your game and make 2013 your best year in business? I know I am! Let’s get started.

Define your goals

The new year is a great time to sit down and figure out your goals. What do you want your day to look like twelve months from now? Think about your life goals not just your business goals, as one will impact the other. Maybe you want to:

  • Launch a wholesale line by August and be carried by at least five local and national boutiques.
  • Create a tutorial using your hand-dyed yarns featured in Mollie Makes this year.
  • Maintain a consistent blogging schedule three times a week.
  • Take a three-week holiday every summer.
  • Reduce your crazy hours to school hours by the start of the next school year.
  • Open a retail store within three years.

You’ll notice that they’re a mixture of short-term and long-term goals and that they are specific and have deadlines.

If you’re struggling to see the big picture because you’re down in the trenches, ask yourself these questions:

  • What did I enjoy last year and want to do more of? What did I not have time for and missed doing?
  • What did I not enjoy and want to do less of? What wasn’t working?
  • What was I always complaining about to my spouse/cat?
  • What are some things I was dreaming of ‘if only’ I had the time or money?

>Write down all of these goals and when you want to achieve them by. Now it’s time to turn each of these goals into projects.

Create projects

Do you think Napoleon put ‘Invade Russia’ on his to-do list for Thursday? Of course not, so why do you have the mammoth task of ‘Open online shop’ on yours?

I know you don’t have a whole army at your disposal, but the principle is the same. Break it down into single, actionable steps. Suddenly the step of ‘Research web developers’ is much more manageable and you’ve taken your first step in opening your virtual doors.

If you have spending goals, such as investing in a new sewing machine or taking that three weeks off, the first step might be to set up an automatic debit every week into a savings fund. You can thank me later.

Longer-term goals will require a bit more thought and may involve several projects. For example, if you’re planning to go on maternity leave, you might want to hire and train an employee now, create a wholesale line so you don’t have to do craft fairs with a newborn, and set up a fulfillment house so orders can be shipped without you.

Next, enter your projects and tasks into a program such as Zendone or OmniFocus and assign a date for each step, working backwards from your deadline. You’ll then be able to track everything from single little to-dos to your large-scale projects and view according to context, date, project, person, or ‘next actions.’

Plan it well and things should turn out better than they did for ol’ Bonaparte.

Find the time to do it

“That’s all well and good,” I hear you grumble, “but where am I supposed to find time to work on my three-year goals when I’ve got work to do now?”

While we all have times in business (and life) where we have to go into survival mode and just focus on the urgent stuff (like getting your orders out for Christmas), this shouldn’t be the norm.

You need to make time for the important tasks, not just the urgent ones. Don’t be afraid to…

  • Shut down your email and turn off notifications.
  • Get up early so you can work uninterrupted by calls, emails and family/co-workers.
  • Use a weekly schedule to make sure you’re creating time for everything you need to do.
  • Batch your tasks such as email, bookkeeping and social media.
  • Use a timer to focus your work – try the Pomodoro Technique.
  • Treat it like a real business - if friends call you up during the day to go out shopping what do you say?
  • Jot your ideas down using Evernote so you don’t forget them, then get back to whatever you were doing.
  • Switch off your phone if you really need to finish something (that’s what voicemail is for).
  • Make an appointment with your work – if something come up, say you’re busy.

What are your business goals for this year?

I hope some of them are now looking a bit less scary and more achievable!

(P.S. I’m off travelling for a few weeks, but please chat amongst yourselves and I will chime in when I return at the end of the month.)

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December 31, 2012

New spin on an old favorite; New Day’s resolution

image by dsheridanphotography - click for more info

Happy New Year!

This is the time we think about the year to come and imagine all that it could be. In fact, this time last year I invited you to set an intention for the year. I love this practice, will be doing it myself, and invite you to do so as well.

But I also want to suggest another spin on the New Year’s resolution tradition, especially if you have a history of not upholding them or losing enthusiasm for a commitment that long.

Why not set a resolution for a single day?

Adopt the ole “one day at a time” approach, and let that intention guide your day. Much like setting an intention for a yoga class, a short-term day-long resolution can be focused and specific to your needs of the day.

With a New Day resolution, you have the opportunity to frame each and every day as you please.

And your resolution doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you. Some daily intentions I’ve set have been play, enjoy, rest, push, soak, and edge.

And like a New Year resolution, you may break a New Day resolution. But you don’t have to perfectly excute your resolution in order for it to have a positive affect. It’s just a touchstone to help guide you, and no one is handing out grades.

What is your New Day resolution for today, this new day? Share with me in the comments.

Gathering light,

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December 19, 2012

Those Monsters in the Mirror

As the year comes to an end it is time to set new goals for the new year, but I also start looking at what I have achieved this year. You know all those goals I set this time last year? The ones I mostly didn’t reach?

I didn’t get the library of patterns written, I didn’t develop a big wholesale business, and I didn’t even run a half marathon in under two hours.

I am a failure. 

But what happens when I look at it without all the drama? What can my failures tell me?

My biggest fail was time. I simply imagined I would have a lot more of it than I did. I had a newborn, a 2 year-old, and a kindergartener, and the combination was a huge time sink. I also didn’t manage my time very well. I procrastinated. I generally think that procrastination is a symptom, not the disease itself, so I ask what would have happened if I was very successful this year? I probably would have killed myself with work. I procrastinated instead of admitting to myself that I was not able to handle that kind of commitment. Wholesale is still a goal, and I did get a few accounts, I just need to be realistic about what I can really handle.

Why didn’t I get a fat catalog of patterns written? It was because writing patterns is hard. It twists my brain around in knots and leaves me mentally exhausted. I cannot write a pattern each week and take care of everything else. So instead I am making a more modest goal of releasing a new pattern every month, and promoting it better. Volume is not the goal, quality work and sales are.

And why didn’t I break two hours in the half marathon? All of the above.

I exhausted myself with all my faux working and didn’t take enough time to train.

Realising all of this — that I did not fail because I am a failure, but rather it was a combination of over ambitious goals and bad management — helps me see clearly what I can achieve, and start the new year with better goals and without those monsters in the rearview mirror.

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October 22, 2012

Who Are Your Possibility Tracks?

Wall Decals Quote World of Possibilities - Vinyl Wall Art

World of Possibilities wall art by singlestonestudios – click on image for info

Author Marsha Sinetar refers to them as characters that help us build possibility tracks, Barbara Stanny calls them way-showers. Whatever their label, they’re people who have done – or are doing – what we want to do.

Fictitious or real, these role models help us “mentally construct images of what we want and use these as rough sketches for the behaviors and attitudes we need” (Marsha Sinetar, To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love). In short, they show us what’s possible.

I love the term possibility track; it’s been spinning in my head since I first came across it. I interpret it as a person’s chosen path, successes, attitude, lifestyle or parts of, that I (or you) would like to emulate. I also use it to refer to the actual person as in “Yeah, she rocks! She’s one of my possibility tracks.”

I group possibility tracks into two categories: literal and figurative.

Literal possibility tracks relate to a specific line of work, goal, or cause that we are interested in pursuing.

Primarily vocational in nature, they refer to people who are doing something we’d love to do ourselves. Adding our own flair to the mix, we want to be like them when we grow up.

Figurative possibility tracks are the folks whose stories inspire us because they go for gold.

They commit to their dream or cause and do what needs to be done. We may not share their specific vocation, but we aspire to their level of commitment and action.

Possibility tracks give us hope and push us to stretch. They’re living proof that through commitment, action and usually with a bit of serendipity thrown in, dreams and goals can be met. After all if they can do it, why couldn’t we?

Who are your possibility tracks?

Whose path, behaviors or successes would you like to emulate?

Even more importantly, why?

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