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Oct 03 2019
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The Power of…the Setback

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It is terrible to feel like you’ve failed. Sometimes you blame yourself, allowing feelings of self-loathing to wash over you while you agonize over what you’ve done wrong, what you could have done better, what you should have been able to accomplish. Sometimes you know it’s not your fault, and you rail against someone else — or something else — in a desperate attempt to feel better through blame, all the while feeling angry bile rise inside of you.

Whichever of these paths you choose in a particular instance, you are guaranteed to feel even worse. Failure feels like the end of something, and a bad one at that. It’s natural to feel badly about it. But if you allow yourself to engage in feelings of blame — either towards yourself or someone else — you are bound to feel even worse.

Forgiveness, love, and the knowledge that failure is only failure if you don’t learn from it, is the only recipe for moving through it — and indeed rising above it. Forgiving yourself and others for mistakes made isn’t the same as giving a free pass. Loving yourself and others for errors made isn’t the same as loving the error itself. And learning from your mistakes is certainly not the same as dwelling on them.

When we allow ourselves to see fully whatever failure we perceive to have had, we can recognise that it’s not the end of the story — it’s just a setback in the larger narrative. And there is so much power to be found in setbacks.

Frankly, setbacks are character-building. When we genuinely believe we did everything ‘right’ in a particular situation, we have to make the conscious choice to see the upside of the downside. In these scenarios, allow yourself to be grateful for the gift of the lesson — that you don’t always get what you want just because you technically did everything that was required of you. When we know we didn’t do everything ‘right,’ we have still have to make the conscious (albeit painful) choice to see the upside of the downside. In these scenarios, allow yourself to be grateful for the gift of that lesson, too — that you know how to do it right next time.

While no one wishes for setbacks, we do grow because of them — or at least we can if we allow ourselves to. We become stronger, wiser, more thorough versions of ourselves. And there’s our power.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 03 2019
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The Power of…the To-Do List

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A to-do list is a powerful thing. You won’t always stick to it by the letter, and in fact often you need to remember to be flexible and let yourself deviate from it, but it can offer some needed structure to a busy life. We all have a thousand things going on at once in the 21st century. They might not be huge, stressful things every day. But we still have a lot to do.

Nothing is un-doable, but if you can’t remember to do it, then you won’t, and even the smallest thing on a list that goes undone can have negative ramifications on your day. When we have too much to remember to do we can become uncentered, and ungrounded. From that place, it’s almost impossible to show up for life fully and joyously. So give yourself the gift of a list — a little bit more power and agency over your life.

Not everything on your list is always going to be the easy stuff. Sometimes it is the huge, stressful stuff that you need to tackle. Sometimes, the biggest thing on the list is: HOW DO I EVEN GO ABOUT STARTING TO MAKE THIS LIST?

Let’s say you are in a new job and you suddenly find yourself needing to learn a whole new skillset. You know you don’t have the training or the knowledge yet to do what you need to do effectively. You’re not even totally sure where to begin getting this training. You’re not even totally sure what it is you are supposed to learn. It’s a scary feeling, and fear is pernicious.

There is only one thing to do: you need to do some homework and make a plan. Enter, the to-do list! 

We are going to go old school basic now, so bear with. No rolling your eyes!

For example, if you work in marketing and suddenly your job entails social media and graphic design, find out who out there is doing something similar well. Research what other people or companies are marketing the same thing as you, and deep dive into what that looks like. Isolate the things that seem to be working well, the components of their strategy that look interesting, the parts that you know are good but you don’t know how to do, the parts that look good and you do know how to do, the things that you think should be done differently, even if you’re not completely clear on what that should look like.

  1. Write each of these things down on the left-hand side of a sheet of paper.
  2. Like a pro and con list, on the right hand side of the sheet of paper write down if you know how to do whatever it is that you have noted: Yes, no, or sort of.
  3. Now take a second sheet of paper out and on the left hand side write down only the things you don’t know how to do, or only sort of know how to do. On the right hand side, note down if you know how to go about learning how to do these things: this is just yes or no.
  4. Take out a third sheet of paper and on the left hand side write down all the things you don’t know how to do yet, but know how to go about learning. On the right hand side, write down what you need to do to begin your training. For each thing it might be different – Ask Jamie; Buy that book on Amazon; Signup for that weekend intensive course on social media strategy; Take an online course on how to work Photoshop and Illustrator; Watch those instructional videos.
  5. On a fourth sheet of paper, rank in order (to the best of your ability) which things on the left hand side of your first sheet of paper are most time-sensitive, most important, whether you know how to do them or not, whether you even know how to go about learning them or not.
  6. Open up your computer and start a new Word document. This is your to-do list. Copy down everything from your fourth sheet of paper, in that order.
    1. What you know how to do, let the task stand alone.
    2. What you don’t yet know how to do but know how to go about learning, put a dash next to and note down the corresponding action — Ask Jamie; Buy that book on Amazon; Signup for that weekend intensive course on social media strategy; Take an online course on how to work Photoshop and Illustrator; Watch those instructional videos.
    3. What you don’t know how even go about learning, put in bold.
  7. Save the document (but keep it open in front of you) and go back to paper. Write down everything that is in bold on your to-do list. Don’t reread the list once you’ve written it.
  8. Put everything aside and walk away from your desk. Allow yourself to breathe and take a break, and remember that the very act of making these lists was a huge step forward.
  9. Now you can go back to your desk. Take a look at the list of things you wrote down in Step 7. How do you feel? Do you feel still anxious about what you have written down? Do you feel hopeful that the list is actually quite small? Do you have any sudden inspiration for places you can go to learn these skills? I’m willing to bet it’s a bit of all three. But I’m equally confident that even if you still feel a bit anxious, you feel leaps and bounds better than you did before this exercise.

Be honest – do you in fact feel better? It’s hard not to at this point. The lists weren’t even really the point of this exercise, though they will of course be of huge benefit to you. The real power of the to-do list lies in the fact that the very exercise of making it forced you not to think too much about everything at once. It’s its own kind of mindfulness training. You stayed present in that moment, worked methodically, were quite literally unable to spin out emotionally because you stayed focused on tiny little tasks rather than letting yourself get mired down by fear and anxiety.

 

 

 

Now I’m going to tell you something: Everything on that list is doable. If you want to do it, you can do it.

Oct 02 2019
0

5 Tips for Mindful mornings

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In the craziness of life today — amidst the hectic commutes and constantly buzzing phone, expanding responsibilities and a twenty-four-hour news cycle – it is not always easy to be present. But to be mindful, to actively center yourself in the present, is more important than ever before. It’s not always easy, or rather, often it doesn’t seem easy. Like any skill, mindfulness has to be learned, practiced, and honed with intention. Every morning is another opportunity to practice mindfulness.

1. Breathe.
It might sound silly, but learning how to breathe properly, how to focus on your lungs filling with air, is one of the most important parts of being mindful. Throughout the day, as any number of stressors might come at you, taking a moment to focus on your breathing is the most fundamental way of staying in that present moment and giving yourself the best chance of working through whatever roadblocks seem to have been put in your way. Practice taking five deep breaths first thing when you wake up in the morning, before you’ve even gotten out of bed. This will ground your morning.

2. Do something for yourself.
We all have different morning routines. For some it’s that first cup of coffee, for others it’s a breakfast bowl outside in the fresh air. Some want to work out before doing anything else, while others want to listen to the radio. Whatever little ritual you have, whatever little morsel of you time that you need in the morning, it is important that you make space for it. Giving yourself what you need increases the likelihood that you can show up for the world around you in the way you need to on any given day.

3. Get organized.
What do you have to do today? Contrary to what you might think, sometimes being present actually means thinking ahead. If you do not give yourself a framework from within which to work, you run the risk of being busy but not productive, stressed but not efficient. You do not want to waste energy, and if you are too exhausted and feel as if you are simply treading water, you are not going to be able to be mindful. So set yourself up with a plan for the day, and give yourself the best chance of success even when curveballs come your way.

4. Meditate.
So now that your morning is fully underway, it’s time to get centered again before going out into the world. You’ve practiced your breathing and you’ve done something for yourself. You’ve gotten organized and you’ve put on your clothes and have gathered your work for the day. But the time (even if it’s only twenty minutes) between when you woke up and when you are walking out the door can still be stressful in itself. So make yourself breathe and focus your mind just before you start your day properly. And remember – you are never too busy to do this! If you are running late, even thirty seconds can make all the difference.

5. Prepare to be flexible.
You’re going out into the world now. The day ahead is full of infinite possibilities, it is true, but things won’t always go smoothly. Remember your morning mindfulness training whenever you feel yourself focusing too much on the problem but not the solution. You might have to be flexible. You might have to recalibrate. But if you stay present, it will be okay. Remember, just breathe – in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out.

Jan 16 2019
0

The Heart Just Wants to Go Home

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The problem with the world is that we’ve lost our sense of reverence — for life, for love, for the earth, for each other, for our families, for God’s universe. We’ve lost a sense of responsibility to anything other than to ourselves, acting too often as though there’s no higher good to strive for than the satisfaction of our own desires. A consumer-driven culture exalts the idea that we can have whatever it is we want, yet that very idea seems to push farther and farther away those things that are what we really want. For what we really want, whether we know it or not, is to love and be loved. Not just to get, but to connect. Not just to participate in our own individual dramas, but to be part of a larger cause, a larger mission, a larger life than just our own.

It’s hard to push against the prevailing winds of self-centeredness today because they usually pose as something other than what they are. But somehow we’ve got to realign ourselves, and realign our culture, with the simple things that make life worth living. Too much speed, too much technology are robbing us of our life force. We have got to head back home, or we will be lost in the forrest of this suddenly all too complicated world. There is more wisdom in the silence than in the chatter, and more hope in the heart than in externalities. The mind wants this or that, but the heart just wants to go home…

 

–Marianne Williamson