I Tried Everything And Then Finally…

We hear this story all the time:

“I tried everything! And then finally…”

Finally, the solution is found.

Finally, the right diet and exercise plan kicks in.

Finally, your perfect partner arrives in your life.

Finally, the gate that seemed locked is opened.

And maybe part of us thinks,

“Jeez, if only I’d tried this sooner…”

But to me, the important part of the story is the first part:

I Tried Everything.

Yes, you did. You tried things and you kept trying and you kept showing up and you persisted even when you were so discouraged you couldn’t even think straight. That’s how a person gets to the “finally” part. By staying on the path and putting one foot in front of the other.

That’s faith in action.

And for those of you who haven’t gotten to the “finally” part of the story – oh, honey – I feel your pain.

Especially when everyone around you has such helpful suggestions. Suggestions like, “Oh, when you stop trying – that’s when it will happen!” Really? Or, “You should try this thing that worked for me/my sister/my neighbor’s best friend in Ohio.” Really?

And maybe you’re even thinking about giving up. And maybe you should.

Here’s one way to get a reading on whether or not you should just give up: make a picture in your mind of you just setting down this burden. Imagine you just taking the whole heavy load and setting it down right there on the side of the road. Imagine taking a few steps down the road away from it.

How do you feel? Relieved?

Then maybe, sweetheart, it’s time to set it down for now – not necessarily for always, but for now.

Or do you feel that welling up of spirit (your parents might have called it “stubbornness”) that says, “I WILL find a way!” If that’s so, then all righty. Pick your bundle up and walk on. And keep trying everything – even crazy things, even the thing that worked for that person in Ohio.

And someday – I guarantee it – you will be able to tell the story of your journey and say, “Well, I tried everything, and then finally…”

So tell me – what circumstance in your life had you trying everything? And what finally worked? Or are you still in it? What have you tried? What are you thinking of doing next?

How Do I Schedule/Focus My Time

Here’s a great question I’ve gotten a bunch recently — it gets phrased different ways, like…

“What would a daily schedule look like for me as an independent artist?”- K.

“How to complete things and avoid being overwhelmed?” – J.

“Should you focus on one goal or several?” – Daddio

“Help! How to plan so I’m not just responding to the urgent?!” – C.

“Guidance on sticking with one project while so many new ideas call for action”- K.

Here’s my answer: I wonder if this is actually a problem for you.

Or to put it another way….

Here’s my other answer: What result are you seeking that you are currently not getting?

The thing is, creative people have a lot of weird ways of getting things done. Ways that look completely bananas to the outside world. It’s like we’re the rheumy-eyed uncles who drink and smoke and say rude things and somehow end up living healthy as a horse until the age of 102. We’re an anomaly.

Not knowing the details of your work or your habitual pitfalls, it’s hard for me to give you specific advice, so I’ll just pull back the curtain and let you in on what I do:

I don’t really keep a regular schedule. I work when I want to work, or when it’s needful for me to work, and I goof off the rest of the time. I spend an inordinate amount of time learning, reading, listening to audios, and a shocking amount of time just having conversations with people I find interesting. I’m not very good about setting time limits or about “balance” in my life — whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I often go through long weeks when, much to my frustration, it seems like nothing is happening. In those times I remind myself that every field must lay fallow.

At other times I’m scheduled up to my eyeballs and I’m an absolute whirling dervish of productivity.

I pretty much always DO do the following:no electronics on Sundays

no electronics in the bedroom
generally I’m done by 7pm and then I’m off all night
walk or swim every day
meditate every day
make a list each morning of the THREE things that MUST get done that day
keep a running list of the bajillion of other things that need doing
keep a “genius” folder for great ideas that I’m not ready to move forward on yet

I find that I work better when I have a few big projects going simultaneously. But “a few” meaning 3-5… not 12-30, you know?

Otherwise, I’ve learned to trust myself and to go with the flow. Some days I’m craz-zay-zee productive. Some days I go back to bed at 11am. Some days I write, some days I do the money stuff, some days I plan long-term, some days I putter and piddle the whole day away.

Now, I know a lot of very successful people who lead far more regimented lives than this, and I admire them.

And if you are NOT getting the results in your life that you want, well….you may want to try imposing some more structure on your day. BUT ONLY IF YOU KNOW YOURSELF TO BE THE KIND OF PERSON WHO RESPONDS WELL TO STRUCTURE. You know what I mean?

But make sure you do it in the way that works for YOU. So if you’re all energetic in the morning, schedule your hardest tasks for then. Eat your broccoli first, as it were.

And if you know that you only write well without interruptions, then for heaven’s sake, turn off your phone when you sit down to compose.

So my message is this: Put Down The Whip.

You don’t need to be better than you are.

You’re a strange bird, and you’re going to have to surf your schedule in whatever way seems right to you.

My guess is you probably don’t have to work any harder than you do already, but you may have to learn to work smarter. And that may mean saying “no” to people who are time-sucks, turning your back on household tasks and keeping your focus on your highest-income producing activities.

Please let me know how it’s all going with you

Do Less Stuff

I get this sort of question a lot:

“Help me get my 15 minutes! Life is so busy. The kids, dog and husband need so much! I’m going crazy.” – K.H.

“Do you know how to squeeeeeeeze a few more hours out of a day? LOL – C.C.

Here is my not-kidding answer:

DO LESS STUFF.

That’s right. You heard me.

Do less.

And here’s an exercise to show you HOW to do that:

1) Write down all of the activities that you typically do in a day, like, say…

drive car pool
laundry
pay bills
make phone calls
write
work out
get the mail
read
work with clients
play with the kids
plan upcoming travel
coordinate volunteers/charity work
grocery store
cook supper
watch TV

2) Now, put an asterisk next to the tasks that ONLY you can do. Using our previous list that would be something like:

write
work out
read
work with clients
play with the kids

3) Find some way to get those other items off your plate.

You may need to hire someone, you may be able to simply ask some of the other grown-ups in your life for help. Teach the kids to do the laundry and get a co-chair to work with the volunteers.

Yes, you will have to get over some of your perfectionism – nobody else is going to do as good of a job cooking dinner or sorting the laundry as you do. But guess what? You have bigger fish to fry.

Your creative life is never going to take precedence over your quotidian life unless you make it happen.

Let me say this one more time:

The work that only you can do, you must do.

The work that anyone can do, someone else must do.

And if you’d like some help strategizing & executing, please consider working with me one-on-one and fill out my VIP Application here: http://bit.ly/VIPapp

Let me know how it goes for you, OK?

Why Is It So Awful When Everyone Thinks You’re So Wonderful?

“I love your work…”

“Wow, your life is so perfect…”

“You changed my life…”

Sounds great, right? All that praise and approval?

Isn’t that just what you’ve always wanted?

So why do you have a horrible, sinking feeling in your stomach?

There are quite a few unexpected thoughts and feelings that can arise when you begin to be a successful public person:

“I’m a fraud.”
“Everyone thinks my life is perfect and it is SO not perfect – I feel awful.”
“Why is being so popular so exhausting?”

Don’t worry – you’re not crazy. You’re just dealing with a very wonderful problem.

Here’s the link to the blog post I created about this topic for the wonderful people over at CreateHype.com:

http://createhype.com/why-it%E2%80%99s-so-awful-when-everyone-thinks-you%E2%80%99re-so-wonderful/

And here’s the free audio event I recorded about this topic:

Download
I’d love to hear your thoughts….

As Things Begin…

As Things Begin, So They Go…

It is my experience that when a project or relationship begins with missed communication, confusion and weirdness, it almost never gets better. Keep a weather eye out for the Flakes, Bananas and Flim-Flam Artists and when you smell something sour, GET OUT.

(Be gracious, of course, but GET OUT.)

On the other hand, if things start out all groovy, flowing, fun and easy – don’t wait for more evidence. Seal the deal.

Our first impressions are not always spot-on, but you may have noticed that they’re a lot more reliable than our “logical” I’m-doing-this-because-it-makes-sense-despite-my-niggling-reservations-about-it decisions, yes?

Here’s to trusting your instincts today!

How To Make Perfect Choices – Every Time

How to Make Perfect Choices

Nags Head Easter 2011 - photo by Samantha Bennett

And the voice said, “Quit thinking you’re doing this wrong…”

I woke up very early on the Saturday before Easter and took a beach walk. The sky and the sea were the same shade of ever-lightening gray, and there was no one else in sight. As I walked, I prayed, and the voice came to me and said, “Quit thinking you’re doing this wrong.”

I stopped.

“Quit thinking you’ve screwed up. You are leading your life in precisely the right way. Your life is unfolding perfectly.

Not the way you’d planned, I know –

But still: diamond-perfect.”

And I started thinking about all the choices, events and situations that we revisit over and over in our minds, and how all that revisiting is stealing valuable energy and mind-space and creativity from NOW.

So I devised a few questions to help unlock a few of those…oh, “regrets” seems like a strong word to use…but the life choices that you still think about and feel sort of bad about.

Step One: You Have Learned Your Lesson

Perhaps you have a lot of these regrets and you really feel them getting in the way of your leading your best life. Or maybe you only have a few, or one or two. But all of us have at least one.

So pick an event from your past that you wish had gone differently. Could be anything:

A trip you didn’t take.
An apology that you bungled.
An opportunity squandered.

First, what is the Life Lesson of that event? What is the “moral of the story?” What behavioral change do you continually reinforce by dwelling on this?

That you are free to choose adventure over safety?
That you need to speak your heart?
That you can lean into the future rather than hanging back?

Good. So, how are you doing with that Life Lesson? Have you got it? Are you sure?

Think of three examples from your life where you have demonstrated an increased ability to be adventuresome, to heart-speak, to lean – or whatever your Lesson was.

I believe that you have learned that lesson. You may give yourself an A+ (or, for those of you who’ve studied with me, you may give yourselves a “C” 😉 because now, in the same way that you no longer have to recall the lesson of “how do I tie my shoes?” or “how do I safely pull my car into the driveway” because you’ve done it a million times, you may now assume that Lesson is part of you. It is part of your unconscious competence. It’s in your bones now, and you can’t unknow it.

So maybe you can afford to be a bit less vigilant, hm?

Step Two: You Did Not Act Alone

Let’s return to that troubling memory for a minute, and let me ask you a question:

Is it possible that you are over-accepting responsibility for this event?

Really.

Give it some thought.

Were there other people involved who also bear some responsibility for the way things went down? Could someone else have helped you out a bit more than they did?

And I don’t mean to say that anyone ought to have done anything differently – after all, those other people are leading their lives just perfectly, too – but I want you to notice that you did not act in a vacuum.

How inexperienced were you at the time?

Did you have all the information you needed? Are you giving yourself a hard time because you didn’t know then what you know now? Can you see the ridiculousness of that?

Now write down the name of someone else who might’ve had a hand in this decision or event of yours.

And write down one piece of information that you have now but did not have then.

Do you see that this maybe was not all your fault? That you were a part of a larger set of circumstances? Could this new perspective maybe help you put down the whip for a minute?

Step Three: Do You Still Desire That Alternate Future?

Finally, answer this: how do you think your life would be different if you had, in fact, behaved differently?

Complete the sentence, “If I had/hadn’t done XYZ, I would now ________________.”

What goes in the blank? Be a painter? Be married? Have lived abroad? Still be friends with…?

Good. Breathe that in.

Do you want that still?

If the answer is Yes, then what is one small (less than 15 minutes, easily within your budget) step you can take today to bring in this thing that you still want?

And be realistic with yourself – maybe you can’t move to Paris today, but you can buy some geraniums and a small photo of the Tour Eiffel to put on your desk. You can start a penny-jar to save up for a plane ticket, yes?

Or maybe you think you would’ve been a famous textile designer now, so you’re going to spend 15 minutes researching new silk-screening technologies today.

Make it fun – a celebration – an experiment, even!

And perhaps you realized that you really DON’T want that thing anymore. How marvelous! Take a moment to celebrate that you “do not want what you haven’t got!”

And so maybe you are so glad that you didn’t marry that person, you decide to buy a special bottle of wine or imported soda pop or special after-dinner tea to commemorate your freedom from that choice.

Because you are here for the joy. And to spend even one moment criticizing yourself for something that could not have gone any differently than it did is a waste of your light.

And the world needs your light.

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