Tag: life

One chapter begins as another ends…

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I was casting about for some pithy way to start this post and hit upon this quote

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

― Frank Herbert

I have several friends who are moving into the next phase of their life – going to graduate school, getting married, adopting kids, fostering kids and having kids and changing their career to name but a few.

These are all exciting things to happen but do not come without a level of stress- I learned in college all about “eustress” which is defined here-

  1. Eustress is a term coined by endocrinologist Hans Selye. The wordeustress consists of two parts. The prefix eu- derives from the Greek word meaning either “well” or “good.” When attached to the word stress, it literally means “good stress”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I don’t know about you but I don’t generally think of stress as associated with good things but isn’t that the ultimate in reframing a situation? I am a big fan of that phrase and practice because let’s face it there are lots of situations in life that are not as we wish them to be, so in reframing you can paint it with the brush you like instead of the brush you have. For instance, I can look at today like, man I am tired and don’t want to go work out today, or as my good friend Jessica says, I have the “opportunity” to be tired because I am busy living a life I love and I have the “opportunity” to work out because my body is a working, breathing instrument that I am blessed to have working for me.                                                                           

Is that a little “being pollyanna” or viewing the world in “rose-colored glasses” YOU BET.. and most of the time it’s how I choose to view my life. Mark me, this does not exclude hard circumstances and real-life difficulty, but there are real opportunities every day to look for the happy rather than the annoying aspect of a given situation.

For example, I could look at my friend going to graduate school and moving away from Austin to become a professor as very sad and focus on the fact that he is moving away.

Yes, there is a level of sadness that goes with it, but I choose to focus on all the students he is going to impact and help live more enriched lives and the things they have yet to experience in his as yet unfilled classroom. This also gives way to the opportunity to stay in touch whether that is by email or even (gasp) a paper and pen letter.

Perhaps we could all stand to have a change like that. What chapter do you need to bring to an end to get YOU to your NEXT chapter?

Think about it…

Step outside your comfort zone.. its not as scary as you think!

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Dear Readers,

I have signed up to do a 10 mile walk/run at the end of March and I am scared but I am doing it. Between now and then I need to run longer and faster but work myself up incrementally, I know that I can do it but it seems a daunting task at the moment. I got sick right after my birthday which impeded my progress but I am back on it now. I will work out tonight no matter how late it is or how tired I am when I get home. I know that sometimes you have to let that go and sleep instead of work out or sleep in instead of working earlier like you planned but there is also something to be said for accountability and the fact that I have told the 1087 of you following my blog that I will do it means that I have to.

A note about that, I started this blog 3 years ago and it astounds me that I have that many followers. Lots of people have a lot more and lots of people have a lot less. It’s not a measuring stick, but a factoid. If I am going to accomplish my goal of world domination it is nice to know I have that many people’s rapt attention.

I tell you this because I think it is very important we do things that scare us – To paraphrase the great director Baz Luhrman- “Do one thing every day that scares you” — I am not talking about crossing the street without looking both ways or purposely doing something you know will endanger you. I mean step up to do something that scares you because its “unfamiliar” and “unknown”. You will never truly know what you can accomplish until you try. If you don’t believe me, try it and see and then argue with me about how I was wrong. Even if you don’t succeed, you have lived a little more fully than you did the day before. We all hear those platitudes- “Seize the day” “Do one thing a day that scares you” but what do we really DO about it? Well I will tell you beyond the 10 mile walk run, I have volunteered to do a work presentation which may not seem scary but I have not done one before so I am scared and it represents a major step as well putting myself out there for an even bigger opportunity all in aid of getting to my Ted Talk.

It’s scary to type but there it is in black and white. Ted Talk, I will do a Ted Talk.

In the world of doing the baby steps I inquired and found out that you can’t even apply to give a Ted Talk till Summer 2016. I was disappointed, a big part of my “but I want it now” and the total impatience that does not go with delayed gratification but as my darling husband pointed out, this gives you time to be perfect. Well, if not perfect at least the most prepared. One more thing about that, I started realizing that if I have a long-term goal like that I need to go from that goal and work backward and develop a game plan for “getting there” much like my “steps to a marathon” coming up in March!

Think about it!

1. What represents stepping outside your comfort zone to you?

2. What is something you say that you want to do but never take any steps toward? (mine was learning French as an example)

Date Night with a Stranger

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Dear Readers,

If you have read my blog for any amount of time, you will know I am unabashedly in love with my husband. He is my Prince Charming in every sense of the word, I love him in a besotted way. I could go on and on and on… and often do!

My birthday was this past weekend and among many things we did was a movie night/date night. I got a free movie because it was my birthday (go me!) and we are on a budget so he also used a coupon for 2.00 off so because of that, we were in two different lines and he used this opportunity to pretend not to know me in the ticket line. At first, I thought, this is so cute, and was ready to give it up, but he kept flirting and pretending not to know me, so we made up names and peppered our conversation with little snippets of things only we know after being together for 7 years. The great thing about this is that we switched personas and pieces of each others story. That first brush of the hand near the popcorn was truly electric and it felt like the first time all over again. As a lifelong fan of “revisionist history” and “time space stories” such as Back to the Future, it was fun to play pretend especially because the longer we played the more I became convinced that we end up together in any timeline!

It was fantastic and I highly recommend you do it with your partner, because its very exciting to flirt with someone who already belongs to you!

Debt and Life-Balance- Guest Post by Sunny!

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Today’s Guest Poster is Sunny!

She blogs about living on a budget and getting out of debt with the help of Dave Ramsey* at http://www.debteliminationexperiment.blogspot.com/.

My husband and I have been on the Dave Ramsey plan since the summer of 2012, we got married in April of 2012 and were doing well budgeting but wanted some insight into paying off our loans quickly. If we had not taken student loans we wouldn’t have any debt because otherwise we live very frugally. On the flip side, if we hadn’t taken out student loans we would probably be working minimum wage jobs for the rest of our lives. We are from a small mining town in Missouri where there are more people than jobs.

He moved to Chicago to study Computer Programming and Design, I moved to Tennessee to study Sign Language and Theatre. We now reside in Knoxville, TN.           

We bought into the notion that “student loan is good debt, it’s an investment in your future.” Which I guess is partly true but we “did stupid” in that we chose to go to private (very expensive) colleges. We both worked a few hours a week while in college but not nearly enough to offset our student loans.

We are now living like no one else, in a tiny ugly apartment, driving 2 cars that are old enough to be in high school, and throwing 45% of our monthly income towards our debt. That is unless Murphy comes knocking!

Sometimes we don’t follow the program exactly, we did go on vacation this year. It’s going to take us 3 years to get these loans paid off so we budgeted one of our snowballs to go to the beach. Since we have such a long time to go we don’t want to get burnt out and just give up entirely.

Overall on the program we’ve learned a lot and still have a lot of learning to do I suppose! Our families think we are weird, I bring my lunch to work in my Doctor Who lunchbox almost every day. I’d say we’re moving in the right direction!

Like this post? Sunny blogs at: http://www.debteliminationexperiment.blogspot.com/

*Dave Ramsey is the national talk show host who talks about “Common Sense for your Dollars and Cents-

Want to know more about him or getting out of debt?

http://www.daveramsey.com/home/

Playing to your Strengths-Part 1

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What do you do well? What energizes you about your work? This video takes a look at what can make your day better your interaction with customers better and what can overall make your life better and by extension give you better work/life balance. We can all do better jobs of being good people. What can you do today to make work/life better? Think about it!

Creativity? Piece of cake!

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My cakeballs are important. I don’t make them often, and especially now that we are doing paleo 95.4% of the time cake balls are usually not on the menu. So it is special when I make them and my husband is always telling me how good they are. I love that man.

 I was reminiscing about when I was taught how to make them. I was a newly engaged lady and in preparing to be a wife I thought, well I am 34 and probably should learn to cook. I did learn a few things about roasting a chicken and cooking some casseroles but the one that stuck the most was the cake balls. For those who don’t know, they are little drops of heaven covered in icing and sprinkles. Utterly decadent and sweet, my favourite thing about them is that you can eat just one and feel satisfied. Unlike a slice of cake or pie, you don’t feel guilty after just one.. however after 6 or 7, well you are on your own.

I remember thinking at the time, I am not creative so this is going to be hard. You know what I discovered? That I, through my own thoughtless words had perpetuated my lack of creativity and it was just recently that I discovered this. I am in fact very creative, its something that makes me a good storyteller, speaker and coach. No one has ever told me that I was not creative, I decided that on my own and continued to believe this falsehood. No more. Just the other day, someone asked me, “Are you creative?” and my knee jerk response was to say, No. but I stopped myself and said,

“Yes, I am very creative”

What lie have you told yourself over and over? What truth do you need to embrace?

This is a question I have asked myself and others since reading Jon Acuff’s book START. This book is all about questioning the beliefs you have about yourself over which cause you to get in the way of your own success.

What truth do you need to embrace about yourself? It’s time to START

 http://www.thestartbook.com/?ectid=ja.lt.jm8

Choose Integrity and Excellence in all things.

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We are the product of our decisions. It can be as simple as, I choose to get up to go to work today, or I choose to call in and take a “sick” day.

I choose to eat an apple, or I choose to eat a doughnut. One will cause you to be in great health and one will cause you continuing health problems including heart disease and obesity. I know its hard to believe just one doughnut could do all that, but continued consumption of really unhealthy foods lead to bad health and if you are anything like me one doughnut usually leads to two.

I choose to do my work and not be distracted by Facebook, Twitter and the like. A simple decision like this can boost your productivity because as much as you might think it doesn’t really matter, and everybody does it why can’t I, your word matters and when you go to Facebook on company time, you are breaking your word to your employer to stay vigilant to the task at hand. (the people who use Facebook for work, have it even harder because you have to use Facebook professionally while avoiding the “personal use” trap.  

On the flip side of this, we could all be a little more “mindful” on how we spend time in life, not just at work. How often do you text and drive thinking I will just send this one text, and I am at a red light so it is safe. NO it is not and besides that, if you are driving and texting you miss out on the lovely view on the roadside like the guy who waves at every passerby on my commute home next to St. Edwards, He is happy as a clam, just waving. How often do you ignore your friend who you spent weeks coordinating with to get a coffee date to take just one call or read one text as it comes in? The caveat is emergency calls of course, but stop and think, what constitutes an emergency to you? Are you letting the immediate become an emergency? 

How often do you just go through the motions of your day and not really appreciate traffic. Yep, I said appreciate traffic. Its your life, and its moving very quickly, be sure to keep your word to yourself to have a great life which means really living it!

What will you do to be more mindful today?