Stepping Beyond Your Fear
I stood alone at the base of the granite rock face. I’d hiked over 1,000 miles, but nothing I’d encountered was as challenging as the trail in Maine. I was more than a little afraid. If I was going to climb over this rock, then I would have to do it on my own.
I had come this far and I wasn’t going back. I took a breath, cinched my pack straps and folded my poles. Now, I could use my hands. I climbed forward, one foot at a time. I grabbed for roots when I could and I trusted my shoe wouldn’t slip on the tiny ledge of rock. Little by little I climbed, up and down, over and over. Twenty days later, I made it. I stood atop Mt. Katahdin, the highest point in Maine.
I had no choice but to pull myself out of my fear. Each time I find myself stuck in a scary place, I go back to that moment to rediscover how I can learn and grow.
Start with one small step. Let yourself make the smallest step you can. Confidence grows by taking action. Small steps over time add up. Once you’re moving you can make adjustments to your path.
Review your successes. Find the part of your problem that looks like something you’ve tackled before. When I gazed up that steep rock in Maine, I realized I had already learned everything I needed to know. I had climbed every mountain on the AT since I began the trail. Recognize how your accomplishments have given you the skills you need for your new challenge.
Widen your perspective. Back up and see the big picture. Whenever I reached a viewpoint on the trail, I stopped to see how far I’d come. Three summits away, I could see where I had breakfast. Step back from your project for a broader view. Even better, go for a walk to clear your head.
Envision the completion. Take a few minutes each day to envision everything working out perfectly. Be detailed and specific. Add in sights, sounds, smells, color and emotion. Relish the feeling of success. I pictured standing at that Katahdin sign many times when I was still huddled in my tent miles and miles away. Allow yourself to savor the moment. Then get back to your journey.
Gather your allies. Ask for help from those who know you best. They’ll remind you why you’re meant to achieve the goals you’ve set. The support I received via letters, calls and Facebook messages from friends and family during my 2,000 mile journey was invaluable. Your friends and allies will give you energy and renew your hope. They see your capabilities and believe in you.
When you’re facing a challenge, know your fear will not disappear. Once you realize this truth, you will be free to move forward and accomplish your goals. Georgia O’Keefe said it best:
“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”
6 Ways To Live More Wild And Precious, And They Don't Require Shopping...
More Wild and Precious!
Oh my goodness - it's December - last month of 2014! You want to embrace life fully. You want to do and be all those amazing things you see online, on TV, in books or magazines, in the inspirational quotes in your friends' news feeds.
But life sometimes gets in the way. Sometimes you're just tired. Maybe you don't like your job. Or you struggle with kids or relatives. Or you're scared to take that big step and make a major change.
I totally get it. I've made it my top priority to live my wild and precious life, and I still get scared, overwhelmed and tired.
I put together a simple list of what I've been doing to live more wild and precious, and none of it requires holiday shopping! If you need a break from all the emails about sales and discounts that make you feel like you're missing out, click here for a spot of clarity and a reminder of what's truly important. Bonus! Learn the story of our wild and precious chant and spontaneous W&P hand sign! And our hashtag #wildandprecious!
What's inspiring me - Going solar and getting insulated!
As a green business owner with LIfeCity, I've made it a priority this year to make our 1800s home more energy-efficient. And it feels amazing to do it! We now have solar panels (through Joule Solar) and we're about to get our raised home's wood floors insulated, which is super-exciting because when it's cold out, our current floors are about ten degrees higher than the temperature outside, so that makes for a chilly house! We also have a new Nest thermostat - it's so smart it's like there's a person handling our heating and cooling all the time. We can adjust the temperature from our phones if we want- amazing!
If you really want to live green, you need to look at the energy efficiency of your dwelling. It's not glamorous and it takes some investment and work at the front end, but once it's done it's done and then you see big benefits quickly. So if you've been putting off going green in this area like we did, consider making it a priority. I am so looking forward to non-freezing floors! (Links are not affiliates - but I wish they were! )
Inspiration For Your Path - connecting with your soul, positivity that works, and prioritizing self-care.
I just finished reading The Untethered
And if you'd like a quick lesson on creating affirmations that really work, check out my recent spot on The 504 TV show with Sheba Turk, and see how we have fun with lemons.Click here to watch!
http://www.wwltv.com/videos/news/local/my-54/2014/11/12/18932905/
Happy December, take care of you, and don't forget to notice the sky and the flowers! Wild and precious, wild and precious!
Want to Dare Greatly? Then be willing to be perfectly imperfect
I was recently on TV. You can watch it here:
We taped the segment four days before it aired. That gave me a lot of time to go through a giant rollercoaster of emotions. Right afterward I felt fantastic. I did it! How cool! It was fun! I didn't sweat too much or fall over or stumble over my words. I didn't let fear of something new get in my way of doing it.
A few hours later, I got hit with what Brene Brown calls a "shame storm." Oh my goodness. People were going to SEE this! They might not like it. They might think it was silly. Maybe I looked awful. Maybe I was slouching. Maybe people would laugh. Who am I to be on TV giving advice about to-do lists? Maybe I'm giving life coaches a bad name. I do so much more with my clients. Are people going to think this is all I do? I wanted to hide. Literally crawl under the bed. Then my logical and shaming-in-a different-kind-of-way self kicked in. "It's not that big a deal. Why are you freaking out over something so minor? There are people with real problems, you know!" I zoomed through this up and down rollercoaster of emotions all weekend.
Finally, it aired. And it was fine! More than fine! How silly of me to get so worked up!
I bet you've ridden a similar emotional rollercoaster, especially when you've chosen to "step into the arena", as Brene Brown says. When you've put yourself out there in a way that could be seen - and potentially judged.
A lot of people just skip it. It's too much. They stay on the sidelines, comfortable commenting on everyone else but not jumping into the fray themselves. It feels safer. Maybe they'll step out when they've lost 15 pounds, or dealt with the clutter, or learned a little more - they're not really enough of an expert yet.
But the world needs us to step up now. Even if we don't feel ready. Even if we aren't perfect yet. The truth (you already know this) is that you're never completely ready. And you're never, ever going to be perfect. And you're definitely never going to lose all fear. So what do you do? Here are four things to remember when you're looking for the courage to jump into the arena.
1. First, love your body. (love others’ bodies too!) Quit analyzing your turkey neck or your cottage cheese thighs or your poofy stomach. Love that your body gets you from here to there, or allows you to read, taste, touch and smell. Love your fingertips, or your eyes, or your pretty toes, or your cute kneecaps. Appreciate others’ bodies too – they are the real deal. Give yourself the challenge of finding something beautiful about every stranger you meet – young or old, big or small.
2. Give yourself a break. (give others a break too!) You don’t have to get everything perfect every time. You don’t need to present a flawless self. It’s exhausting. Yes, meet your deadlines, do your work, but lighten up when and where you can! And for the love of all that is holy, don’t spend too much time on Pinterest! Just make the cupcakes/write the blog post/finish the project.
3. Tell the truth to yourself. (tell it to others too!) If you don’t want to do something non-essential, don’t do it. If you don’t want to go somewhere, don’t go. If you don’t like something, don’t like it. Let others have their truth too. I practice this all the time in the hustly-bustly always-something-fun-happening world of New Orleans. Sometimes I really prefer to stay home and sit in the grass with the cat and a book. Sometimes the way I "dare greatly" is to do way more nothing in a world full of people doing a lot of something.
4. Let yourself feel, even the less “acceptable” feelings. (let others feel too.) Hey – sometimes you just feel bad. Sad. Mad. Scared. Notice it. feel it. Let yourself feel it. Go mope around for a while. Cry. Take a nap. Hide under the covers. Let others feel their feelings too.
I would love to discuss Brene's book, Daring Greatly, with you! Let's help each other gain some courage and have some fun in the process!
In town? Join me for real coffee and chatting about the book on a Sunday morning in October - October 6 to be exact. Details here. Out of town? Join me for virtual coffee and chatting about the book on that same Sunday evening, 7p.m. Central. Details here (scroll down past the wordless walk pics!)
SIMU - it's worse than FOMO!
Have you heard of FOMO? It stands for Fear Of Missing Out and I've seen it mentioned in at least a dozen places in recent months. Apparently, we're all way more susceptible to this now that we can't just see what the neighbors are doing, but instead we're plugged into everyone's life and their pretty photos of their cocktails or dance party or beach vacation or whatever. And Instagram filters make everything look so arty! While we plug into social media and all the rest of the media out there, instead of enjoying where we are, we wonder why we're not in Bali, or climbing some mountain in South America, or at that cool new restaurant that everyone is talking about. And we get all full of anxious chemicals. So we're usually instructed to unplug for goodness sake and pay attention to whatever we're actually doing. And/or take our own photos of cocktails or babies or cats or mountains - and enjoy how pretty they look on Instagram too! (At least this is what I do - I love an arty Instagram photo!) But there's something just as insidious as FOMO, at least for me. I call it SIMU and that stands for S#%t I Made Up. Or Stuff I Made Up if you prefer. And this is something I used to do to myself (honestly I still do it sometimes!) without any help or cocktail photos from anyone else. I would create gigantic lists of stuff that had to get done. I would come up with plans to do way more than is actually possible for someone like me who also likes to nap. And then I would fill up with anxious chemicals when I'd only do ten percent of it. I'd wake up stressing about how I was gonna get it all done and go to bed stressing about what I didn't do.
This wasn't stuff I had to do - it was Stuff I Made Up! In the world of self-help we can really make some serious lists of everything that's going to edify us and make us better people. But the truth is, none of it was crucial. If i didn't feel like yoga class one day, so what? If I didn't feel like writing in my journal, so what? If I didn't feel like blogging, the world would not stop. Slowly, slowly, I've been learning to stop stressing about self-imposed made up stuff, and get clearer and clearer about what it is that I actually want to do. Sometimes I want to practice yoga. Sometimes I want to blog. Often I want to write. I always want to read!
In the 21st century first world, pretty much everything we stress about is made up. By us. Fabricated. Most of what we tell others we're so busy doing and preparing for and overwhelmed by is purely by choice. We could survive, and potentially thrive, with way less. Sometimes the fabrications are created by society and culturally ingrained so they feel real, but they're still made up. Which means we have a choice.
I'm choosing to give up some of my SIMU in order to be able to savor whatever I'm doing in the moment. There is magic in what is happening now. Especially when I pick something to engage in that I love, that challenges me or piques my curiosity. Something I really want to do, not what I think I'm supposed to want to do. Something related to my own desires, not societal expectations.
And then I pick that thing and show up. All the way. All senses present. Instead of half there because my mind has drifted off to some other place in the past or future. Whether it's sitting in the grass doing nothing, practicing my French (still loving that!), writing a blog post or making a pie, I'm there. I might take an Instagram photo though- and make it all arty... :)
How about you? Have you discovered some SIMU recently that you don't feel like doing anymore? What would your summer feel like if you dumped the SIMU every day that you just don't want to do? Would that give you more time and space for the stuff you really care about, the stuff that you keep putting off?
If you want to chat about this further, come join my class tonight called Pie in the Sky -it's all about bringing back the fun and getting something done this summer, and one strategy is to dump your unwanted SIMU. And if you're reading this blog post way after the fact, the class will be recorded, so you can get it anytime!
Five ways I stopped letting money get in the way
I run into this situation with clients somewhat regularly. Something having to do with money is the obstacle keeping them from truly living the wild and precious lives they want. There's not enough money, they have a giant mortgage, moving to the place of their dreams (often near water) or going back to school would cost too much, etc., etc. Of course, there are plenty of facts to support their concerns. Some clients have some kind of major debt on top of everything else. And while I wish I did, I don't have a magic wand to wave around to make debt disappear, replaced by giant cartoon bags of money with dollar signs on the outside! (That would be cool, wouldn't it?)
What I can offer are some tools to turn the whole money puzzle around. About ten years ago, I figured out what to do over a series of years and months. A "perfect storm" of books and resources all seemingly magically showed up at about the same time, and I was ready to dive into their wisdom.
Years later, here are the five biggest takeaways that I've figured out that made a difference for us. They might do the same for you!
1. Pay attention. Most spending that we're sorry about later happens when we purposefully stop paying attention. We really don't want to know. Have you ever taken a receipt for a meal or an outfit or a cart of groceries and not even looked at it? Either tossed it away or shoved it back into your wallet? Have you said aloud or to yourself, "I don't even want to know how much that cost." Well, there you have it. Like a scientist doing an experiment, you have to start paying attention to the data and collecting some information, or you'll have no idea what's happening and you can't make a conclusion or analyze your results, or make changes that will work better for you in the future.
2. Stop trying to impress people. I know, I know. You think you don't do this. You're a well-adjusted person who makes choices based upon what you want. You don't care a bit what other people think. Well, perhaps your evolved self doesn't care, but I can almost guarantee there's at least some very tiny part of your brain that's keeping a pretty interesting tally of where you fit in a never-ending comparison game with others. With their cars, or their homes, or their vacations. Or the quality and value of their holiday gifts. Once you really figure out what you want and get off the status hamster wheel to nowhere, you might be really surprised at the number of cartoon money bags accumulating around your feet!
3. Avoid "budgeting". Setting up budgets and deprivational systems that don't take into account the surprise root canal or cat vet emergency or hole in the roof or sink that won't drain or stolen bicycle or car that died completely - these systems are almost always doomed to fail. (By the way, all the examples above happened to us in the past eight months! They will really put a wrench into any budget, let me tell you!) There are other great options (see #1 above) that will work just as well as budgeting and won't make you feel like you've failed when the unexpected expenses for the month add up to more than you'd budgeted for all of your food and incidentals combined.
4. Make it a game. Solving your money issues is so much more effective when you can have fun while doing it! Contests with yourself or family members, charts, challenges, stickers - you'd be surprised how well these types of methods will work. How much fun can you have with just $5? Try that one today!
5. Figure out what's enough for you. You have to master #2 to really pull this one off. This is my favorite and most important step and it will completely turn around your money situation. Figuring out what's enough seems so simple, but you have to realize that there are outside forces all around you sending messages of lack and need, creating wants you didn't even know you had. It's called advertising, and no matter how smart you are, it works. On you.
These are just a few of the things we've learned (you can see they're common sense and don't involve anything creepy or complicated like a pyramid scheme or buying foreclosed properties.) And we have no debt whatsoever. Even our house is paid for. We have enough liquid to live on for a year or more if we really needed to. We have retirement funds. We have a really happy life with plenty of trips and vacations (This year, a conference in Arizona, hiking on the AT for a week, three different beach trips, a mastermind coach weekend, a road trip to the mountains of Colorado, a trip to see family in Baltimore, a fall camping trip, and a New Orleans staycation getaway!) Our fridge is full of delicious and indulgent food. You get the picture.
And we did this with a very moderate amount coming in - at first two teachers' salaries and now just one teacher salary and one entrepreneur income. You don't need to be making six figures or even half that to transform your relationship with money. Give these tips a try and see what happens!
And check out The Indulgent Path to Money Management - a course I offer both virtually and locally a few times a year - if you'd like more support in living a happy life with the money you have.