February 21, 2012

are you leaving enough space for your life in your work?

some celebrating - photo by liz kalloch

If you are an entrepreneur-self-employed-part-time-creative-consultant-activist-full-time-trying-to-find-your-calling-and-your-raison-d-être it’s not all about the marketing plan, the biz plan, the to-do list, the connections, the working it, the social media-ing, the never ending must-dos. It’s also about fun.

Fun, you say? But I’m trying to get a business off the ground so I can make the living of my dreams; so that I can leave the place I’m working at now; so I can keep things status quo and so I can be happy and fulfilled and not feeling like I am being crushed like a bug by boredom and fatigue in that 9-to-5 gig I left, or am trying to leave. {wow, I feel out of breath, what about you?}

{breathe in, breathe out} Yes, fun and joy and lightness and ease are just as important as the work, because I’m guessing if you’re anything like me, though I love my work, I didn’t sign up for my own gig so that I could work all the time.

It may be your life’s work, but remember to make sure there’s enough space for your life in your work.

Some reminders, suggestions, and prompts for all of us:

  • Celebrate all your quirks, all the silly things that make you you, all the things that got you to where you are right now, to the person you are right now.
  • If you have a work schedule that is solidly in place, mess with it. Turn it upside down. Start with what you usually end your day with, or start with what you do in the middle of the day. Keep yourself on your toes.
  • Instead of pushing yourself through a problem, a glitch, or a roadblock, take a break for some perspective: call a friend, go for a walk, stare at the sky, take a nap, play with your cat (or dog, or stuffed teddy bear) and know that you will solve whatever it is if you give yourself some space to breathe.
  • Skip {or run} when you could could get there walking. {Take a cue from your 3 year-old self.}
  • Keep yourself inspired by whatever means necessary. Spend a moment to recollect and then write down all the feelings and thoughts that you can remember having when you first realised you wanted to be who you are and do what you’re doing.
  • Ask yourself this: Who am I if I am not working? And also: Who am I when I’m working?
  • Go to your go-to people. Go to them a lot. Talk. Skype. Meet. Talk. Listen. Understand. Share. Laugh. Gather. Talk. Listen. Repeat. Often.
  • For one day throw out your to-do list and make it up as you go. Take some notes and remind yourself how that went.
  • Ask your go-to people to be your memory, and when you’re feeling lost, ask them to remind you of who you are and why you are doing what you do. Think of them as life-lines, because they are.
  • Make some part of your workday about play: Clean off your desk and leave a sticky note paper with a smiley face on it, paint the cover of the folder your tax papers are in, make a playlist of songs that you can sing along with while working. I think you get the idea.
  • We human beings are a mix of a lot of things: serious, silly, loving, competitive, insecure, certain. The list is potentially quite long, so I’ll leave it at that… What I’d like you to do is list some of the things you’d like to see yourself being more of, and then start to put those same qualities into your work. {NOTE: Please make this list, while also NOT dissing yourself for any qualities you’d like to see less of; keep your focus on the things you’d like to see more of.}
  • Celebrate your work and life successes in whatever ways are meaningful to you; just mark the occasions. Sometimes these successes happen at moments when we feel we are too busy to stop, and we think we’ll go back to acknowledge them. Truth be told, we rarely do. Stop to acknowledge, even if it’s five minutes worth of lighting a candle and calling your mum.
  • Make ridiculous, idiotic faces at yourself in the mirror. It diffuses a variety of blah, icky, stressful situations. Very quickly. {Yet another cue from your 3 year-old self.}
  • Check in with yourself semi-regularly, and ask: Am I still doing {or moving towards doing} what gives me joy and purpose and expresses who I am in this life?

Whatever it is that you are working on, working towards, working for, remember to remember just why it is you’re doing whatever it is you do and keep your life and your work happy and light. You can have some deep and intense too, just keep some joy for the side.

We’d love to hear any of your own queues for keeping the moments light and buoyant. How do you keep remembering why you do what you do?

Filed Under: action, creating action, creative thinkers, Plot Notes Tagged With: , , , , , , , 10 Comments
January 30, 2012

returning to self and life’s simple pleasures

January 2012 may be the longest month of my life. Cancer diagnosis at the beginning of the year, when one tends to be in starting over and setting intentions mode, is an odd parallel to live. Still, it has been in many ways quite wonderful. Cancer forces one to take stock of what is important and to pay attention to now.

I spent much of 2011 searching and absorbing information. Some I needed, most was just padding. I searched and searched as if there were a magic solution, a formula to tell me how best to live and prosper. I knew deep down there was not, but still I searched. I wanted it to be easy.

What I have learned as I faced my diagnosis is, it is easy. It is easy if you let it be.

Definition of EASE: the state of being comfortable: as a- freedom from pain or discomfort; b- freedom from care; c- freedom from labor or difficulty; d- freedom from embarrassment or constraint. Naturalness -”known for his charm and ease of manner.” An easy fit.

If we are doing our true work and living authentically, it will be with ease, naturalness. Not that challenges don’t arise, or mistakes get made, but an overall sense of ease will accompany a life lived from the heart. My cancer woke me up to that part of myself I had buried. It still shone through in my art, but in my life the spark had gone out. I found no joy in cooking, or in caring for my things. No depth in my daily interactions and tasks.

In the end the simple things are the deepest.

I have been having various side effects from pain medication and treatments that have forced me to slow down, thus I have taken up my knitting with a new appreciation. Rather than just a way to fill time and relax, I am noticing the texture and subtle color shifts in my work. What a simple and elegant thing, creating a piece of fabric with yarn and needles.

I have also taken an interest in food and cooking that has been latent for some time. It turns out cancer is dramatically effected by diet, and I am committed to do all I can to beat it. Being winter, albeit a warm one, soups have been a real pleasure these past few weeks. Soup, chili, and shopping for fresh ingredients. When was the last time I enjoyed shopping for food, planning a meal?

The thing that has most dramatically changed is my attitude towards my “stuff.” For the past few years I have been complaining about the excess I’ve accumulated and not done much about making it go away. There is that expression about getting your affairs in order when facing death, but I have found even the possibility of death to be motivation. I realize it doesn’t matter so much if I make a couple bucks on eBay, or if every worthless trinket finds a perfect home before hitting the garbage. It is cluttering my life and it must go. I feel so much less attached to the outcome. Every day I tackle a drawer or a pile, a shoebox, or a closet. Just stuff. Let it go… When I do leave this life I want what remains to be easy.

I was visiting with a friend yesterday and explaining all this. I said to her, “You know, this is who I always was, I just lost my way.”

So I say to you, reader:

How many ways are you forcing a lifestyle that is not you?

Is your craft business or day job draining or feeding you? How about the dinner plans?

Finally, where my art business is concerned, I see there, too, I have been playing it falsely. Buying biz plans that don’t suit me and not using them. You know what I mean. Next time Let’s talk about aligning the dollar with living authentically!

From the Heart,

Filed Under: Conversation Starters Tagged With: , , , , , , , 22 Comments
September 7, 2011

the importance of under-scheduling

Montana Landscape from Courtney Grigg

Montana Landscape from Courtney Grigg


I get stressed out easily. I wish it wasn’t so, but that’s the temperament I was born with. I also tend to try to do too much and bite off more than I can chew. These two qualities make perfect ingredients for a bi-weekly freak-out cocktail.

When I over-schedule myself and think that I can cram productive activity into every waking minute I find myself feeling tyrannized by my calendar. I have a constant, nagging feeling that I’m ‘off track’ and not doing enough. I can’t enjoy the spontaneous moments and events that life brings and find myself snapping at my husband.

There is a great German word for this kind of thing: Selberschuld. The literal translation is ‘self-guilt’, what it means practically is: It’s your own damn fault.

And it is. Each week I have to remind myself anew to leave some ‘air’ in my calendar. I am only one person (for now) and it is just going to take time to get all the things done that I want to accomplish.

The ironic thing about all of this, is that I find it helps me to be more productive. One way to get your inner resistance monster into high-gear is to create an over-managed, over-scheduled, unrealistic plan.

When I try and do one to two really important tasks a day and then a little maintenance stuff, I find I’m much more relaxed and that I end up doing stuff that I wanted to do but didn’t plan for anyway.

Funnily enough, I find the work I do in the times when it isn’t on the ‘official plan’ is actually fun because there is no ‘I have to’ feeling associated with it.

I’m (slowly) learning to get just enough of the ‘must do’ stuff on my calendar, but allowing space for work to be fun or for no work at all. I’ve got a suspicion that this is a big part of learning the art of working joyfully, not just efficiently.

Filed Under: Steal This Process Tagged With: , , , , , , , 12 Comments