Month: June 2014

Meet yourself where you are.. now and later..

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Hello friends,

I come to you once again to say.. meet yourself where you are. I have said this before, but its so important I thought it bore repetition. For example, I want to give a Ted Talk by this time next year.

That is scary saying out loud and then here I go putting it in black and white but there you go.

I can hear you saying, that sounds great Jennifer and you are awesome and all but how do you plan to do it?

Great question and I am glad you asked.

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel, if someone has already done it, read about what they did and if possible get an audience with them to find out the nuts and bolts

2. Do your own research. For instance, did you know that Ted speakers do not get paid, the prestige is what you are after and of course the opportunity to go viral for all the right reasons.

3. Work backwards. Some of the best advice I have ever gotten is from a noted director who said to me, when I asked him (quite the upstart am I) “What is your best advice for directing a play?” He said plan your schedule backwards, Opening Night is August 22nd. work backwards from there.

4. Be patient and curious about what you discover along the way to your goal. You may find that your goal changes or leads you to a new goal. Case in point, Healthy living for me has led to 5K pursuit I never even thought was in my reality and now I have done three of them.

5. Get accountability partners or someone you trust to help you stay the course or work on your goal.

Sometimes that can be you… Let me explain, there is no time. Let me sum up-

You can write a letter to yourself and have it delivered in the future- It’s kind of awesome to think that the motivated you of today can help propel future you forward!

http://www.futureme.org/

Think about it!

 

The way it is….

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Dear Readers, I try my best to be positive but there are times when even this Pollyanna gets down.

Today is one of those times. I won’t share much except to say that we all have things in our lives that no amount of positive things that you say, do, or think about it will ever change what it actually is. Reframing is the only option. Harder than it looks to be sure, and I am struggling with that right now.

Sometimes facing that reality and giving up the fantasy of what you wish were true is the hardest part. Having an active imagination makes that job 10 times harder. 

Try as I might, things will not resolve to my satisfaction so I have to put on a happy face and focus on what I can control and change how I look at it and see it for what it really is.

I promised to be authentic with you when you followed me, so for today, this is the way it is.

 

Reframe and Reclaim

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JenReframe

Rejection, no matter what your field, sucks. For the purposes of this post. I will approach it from the field of the actor.

The five stages of grief look a little like this.

Denial- “I must have heard the message wrong. I nailed that audition, they must have mixed me up with someone else.
Anger- “How dare they not cast me. I am awesome.”
Bargaining- “Well maybe they wanted to cast me but some political machinations got in the way”
Depression- “why even try? Look, I went for it and didn’t get it. I must not be good enough to get that part. They must know something I don’t”
Acceptance- “I didn’t get the part”

I realized something during this last cycle of Grief. Its all in how you frame it. For example, the picture you see here is me eagerly anticipating my po-boy sandwich and how excited I am to eat it. I choose to remember that feeling and not how I felt after it turned out to not be so good (didn’t think that was possible) and the fun I had with my husband later in the day.

Further, I choose to remember that he was willing to take that picture not that he hates to take pictures and refused to be in my pictures.

I think a lot of people would say that I live life looking through rose-colored glasses. I actually do see life the way it really is, I just choose to frame it through a rose-colored lens.

All of us have something in our past we are unhappy that happened to us. It is vital to not let it define you. So I say this to you. Reframe and Reclaim it as a learning experience or take something away from it that makes it yours, not something that happened to you. Happen to it. Take it back.

Think about it!

Your dream is a lot bigger than you are…

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Dear Readers, Thank you for reading my blog. I know you don’t always comment but I know many of you are reading it and have met a few of you lately who have taken the time to tell me how much it helps you to know I am working out or working towards my goals and in turn it helps you to take one more baby step towards your dream.

Kermit the Frog said it best “Well, I have a dream too, but it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy. It’s the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with. And I found a whole group of friends who have the same dream, and that makes us sort of like a family.”

It struck me today how much it helps to have people to share a dream with and the more people you tell about it the more people can and WILL support you. As for the ones who don’t well they are just mad that they didn’t go after what they wanted. That’s about them, not you.

Make sure you ask for help and tell lots of supportive, positive people about what you are up to. They might surprise you with what they have to offer to help you get to where you are going.

Think about it!