Putting Your Sucky Situation Into Perspective

Time has a funny way of putting things into perspective, and giving clarity to some super-sucky situations. I’m sure we’ve all heard the irritating phrase, “time heals all wounds” at one time or another, and generally when we least want to. But there is some truth to the cliche.

I’m sure everyone can think of a situation that happened a few years ago that SUCKED while it was happening. But, NOW, you understand the benefits of it happening, see why it had to happen, and so forth.

Perhaps it was a relationship breakup. Yes, it hurt while it was happening, but now you look back and think oh-my-goodness THANK GOD I’m not with that douche-bag anymore!

Or maybe it was a challenging experience that really, really sucked at the time, but it helped to turn you into a more disciplined, or grateful person. (The whole, going without to appreciate what you have thing.)

An example from my own life could include the recent years I spent in college. I was a full-time student at a challenging university, and I had to work 3 to 4 jobs WHILE being a full time student. No joke- I honestly worked about 60+ hours a week for a large portion of my student career.

It was hard. It was really friggin’ hard and it was oh-so-tempting to give up sometimes. But now that that period of my life is over, I’m thankful I did what I did. I’m glad I went ahead and took that internship job (which toppled me over to 4 jobs when I was in my final semester), because that job turned into the full-time gig that I still do today. I’m also thankful that I signed up for the student newspaper gig  right before that, because as many hours as the position required, it gave me lots of good experience. That experience is what helped me land my internship job… and you know the rest. ;-)

See how that works? We never know how things are going to turn out for sure, and yes, we’re going to make some bad decisions along the way. But even those decisions can turn into life-lessons that help refine us into better people.

So I want you to consider what is really sucking in your life right now.

Maybe it’s a a friendship going poorly, maybe finances are tight, maybe you’re struggling with a project at work. Whatever it is, delve deep and focus on that one sucky thing.

Then, I want you to envision yourself looking back on your current situation a year from now, 3 years from now, and 10 years from now.

What will your currently difficult situation teach you? How will it help to shape you as a person? What will you end up being grateful for? What will you be relieved happened even though you were resistant to letting it happen at the time? Try to be really honest with yourself here, and do your best to step into your future self, and gain some of that perspective usually reserved for the passage of time.

Experienced any revelations? Please share them in the comments below!

What situation are you dealing with right now, and how has envisioning how you’ll remember it in the future changed your perspective? You guise know I love hearing from you!

Eliminating “Just”

“Just” can be such a limiting word.

“I’m just a mom.”

“I just make scarves.”

“This is just another day.”

“It’s just a job.”

“He’s just a writer.”

“She’s just an adviser.”

 

Eliminate the “just”s, and eliminate your limitations.

“I’m a mom. I am the most important person in someone’s life.”

“I make scarves. They become reminders of my love for whoever I give them to.”

“This is another day. Anything is possible.”

“It’s a job; another step on the way to my dreams.”

“He’s a writer. He feeds souls with words.”

“She’s an adviser. She motivates, empowers, and propels.”

I don’t just make jewelry. I create art that women can wear. My pieces will help you express your unique individuality, stand out from the crowd, and receive plenty of positive attention and compliments.

Do you think in terms of “just”? How much of a difference would it make if you were to break the habit?

Enjoying the Here and Now

Setting goals is awesome. Setting goals with specific dates of fulfillment is even more awesome. It’s awesome-er.

Planning for the future motivates us and fills us with hope. It gives us the push we need to get to work and get shyte done.

Reflecting on the past helps us to consider what mistakes to avoid, and what good choices to repeat while we work on those future-goals.

But what about the here and now? The part we are currently living, but don’t often think very much about?

It’s great that you are working on your goals, but don’t forget about right now. By this, I don’t mean that you should stop working on those goals, but I do mean that you should enjoy your journey as you head in that direction. Too many of us hold off on happiness, on congratulating ourselves, until the work is finished and the goal is complete.

You have plenty of reasons to be happy right now. You may not be at the level of success you are aiming to be at by next year, but you are getting there, and that is most certainly something to be proud of and to celebrate.

You’re on a journey. Enjoy every step. Reward yourself for the progress so far, and give yourself permission to be happy now.

Creating White Space for Your Life

Graphic designers have something of a love affair with white space. We drool over the blank areas within a composition as if they were made of milk chocolate and lightly salted caramel. It’s the white spaces that make the design, really. Of course we love it.

Uh… Megan, what’s a white space?

In case you’re unfamiliar, I’ll give you a brief lesson of design. White space doesn’t necessarily have to be white, but it refers to the negative areas within a design without other elements demanding our attention. It’s the white space that draws our focus towards what’s important. For example, check out all of the beautiful white space in this design:

White space, almost as good as chocolate.

Or this design, where the white space isn’t necessarily white:

The white space in this design is actually a pale yellow, but I think you get the idea.

Now, watch what happens when we fill up the white space with other elements:

Ew, this looks gross. Plus, the text is hard to read now.

Lesson #1: White space in design helps us focus on the important elements of the design.

Lesson #2: White space in our lives helps us focus on the important parts of our life.

You just knew I was going to get all deep and sentimental on you, didn’t you?

The same white space principal applies in life as it does design. If we are intent on filling up every spare minute of our time with something, we won’t be able to focus on the important things. Instead of always trying to be busy for the sake of being busy, schedule yourself some white space. Leave a few time slots in your daily schedule with nothing filled in. Use this time to meditate, read, think, and focus on what’s important. Use this time to visualize your goals and consider whether or not your daily activities are helping you achieve them. Leave some time for yourself to breathe, to relax, and to recharge.

White space can be a beautiful thing.

Talent is Only Half the Battle

You could have skills, mad skills. You could be the best and the brightest and the most brilliant. You could have all of the talent in the world and there will probably still be others of a far lesser degree of talent who will maintain a much higher rate of success.

Why is that?

Because, like it or not, talent isn’t everything. It’s not even half of everything. There’s a lot of frikin’ work that needs to be concentrated on elsewhere in order for your talent to succeed.

For starters: success takes a lot of work. It takes pressing on past the point where your initial enthusiasm runs out. It requires a lot of huffing and puffing to get over the hump that will feel like it’s lasting forever and only getting steeper. It requires a gross amount of dedication and the ability to handle a lot of let-downs.

The Highs and Lows of Striving for Success:

Getting Started	The Long Middle Period	Getting Closer	Success!
0-20%	20-60%	60-80%	80-100%
Yay! I’m excited to do this!	Holy crap this is a lot of work.	All this work is actually paying off!	Time to celebrate!

The long middle period (the 20-60%) is when most people give up. This is where our natural tenancy towards laziness kicks in and the excuses start. Suddenly, there isn’t enough time to work on those projects you had been so excited about to begin with. Sometimes even, you start to feel that jittery excitement about a new project, so you give up and the ones that have gotten difficult, leaving them to sit unfinished and abandoned.

Generally, the long slug towards success occurs when we realize that our talent isn’t enough. A bright idea isn’t enough. We have to work at our goals, market our products, network with others, and much more on top of all that. We despair when we start to realize that simply making awesome goodies isn’t enough. Turns out, we have to work our arses off to get those goodies seen and sold. This is the point where many of your peers will throw in the towel. They will give up on their goals simply because the path to achieving them turned out to be a lot more difficult than their initial daydream had implied.

Here is where you must press on. Because if you are willing to stop the excuses and do the hard work, you will climb over the hill and see the other side. If you have it in you, and I believe that every one of us does, you can pull yourself forward. You can trudge on, towards accomplishing your goals and beyond.

How to Decide What’s a Big Deal

There’s this woman I work with, who, is generally a very nice individual. She is easy-going and open… until someone takes her parking spot.

We have a very large parking lot across the building where we all work. No one really has designated spots, they just start to feel “claimed” after certain people have been parking in them for awhile. Sort of like the desk you sit in on the first day of class, which automatically thereafter becomes “your” desk.

One day, in a fit of rage over her parking spot being taken, this co-worker asks me, “What would YOU do if someone parked in YOUR spot?”

My hesitant response: “Uhm… I would park in the next spot over.”

I didn’t want to belittle her concerns, but… seriously? It’s just a parking spot. Not like there aren’t several others to choose from only a few car-lengths away. I just don’t understand all of the wasted energy being wasted on something that isn’t a big deal.

Unless you count how much I stress over keeping my nails painted nice, or getting the dishes done before company comes over, or head-desking over a later-noticed grammatical error on a Facebook page status. Come to think of it, there are a lot of meaningless “parking-lot spaces” I worry over. I can even take a wild guess that a lot of you have some too.

Taking a step back, looking at the big picture, what are some of the silly things you stress over? That extra 5 lbs? Not showing up on the first page of your Etsy browse category? The reach status of your Facebook posts? Let’s take a moment to realize together, that there are a lot of silly things we worry over, which may be distracting us from some of our bigger goals and dreams.

What do you worry about, that isn’t REALLY that big of a deal?

Waiting for the Guarantee

There is no guarantee that you will succeed. There will never be one. You can wait, and wait, and wait for your window of absolute certainty, but it will never come.

I know it’s scary, but sometimes life requires the courage to take risks. You need to embrace the possibility of failure.

If you never take a chance, you will never see success from your efforts. That is the only guarantee.

What Would You Choose

• If you had to do one thing for the rest of your life, what would you do?

• If you knew for certain that you would not fail, what would you try?

Now you know what I’m going to ask next: Why aren’t you working towards THAT?

I’m personally guilty of this. Between the bills, and the immediate needs, and the lack of time… I tend to work on projects that pay sooner rather than later. I need to stay afloat, as we all do. But what would I do if I knew I could not fail? What would I do if I had to choose only one thing to be for the rest of my life?

I would write. I would write novels and they would be delicious and fulfilling and terrifying and it would be wonderful.

How long has it been since I’ve indulged in writing fiction? Too long. So here is my kick in the pants to get my own butt in gear. For 2013, I will begin outlining a novel, or two, or three. Because sometimes you just have to get started in order to get the ball rolling.

What’s your response? What would you do?

Please share in the comments. Lets talk about making our dreams happen.

Does the Internet Make You Feel Lame?

There are so many inspiring, beautiful, and perfect images on the internet! A quick scan of Pinterest will offer you an array of Instagram filtered glaces at flawless manicures, adorable frosted cupcakes, and beautiful models swirling in refined evening gowns. Even if you side-step over to Facebook you’ll get cropped images of your friends hanging out and having fun, smiles all a-gleam, beautiful vacation snapshots, happy families, and glamorous self-portraits straight from the home bathroom-studio, complete with carefully applied eye-liner.

The problem with all of this is we are only seeing everyone’s BEST portrayal of their lives and businesses. We don’t get to see the part during the vacation when everyone is exhausted and cranky from the long drive. We don’t get to glace over the unedited, reject portraits taken before the good ones. We don’t get to see images of when those two best friends aren’t getting along, or when that craft project screwed up halfway. You won’t find hair tutorials on Pinterest that fall flat, or be able to sample those cute-looking cupcakes to know if they actually taste as good as they look.

This is just ridiculous.

Don’t let all of the online-perfection make you feel like your life isn’t good enough. Most of the content on the internet goes through a filter and is hazed over before being placed online. It may all look so wonderful, happy, and glamorous, but that’s because we are only seeing one side of it. People will post pictures of their wedding and their honeymoon, but not their first fight as a married couple. You’ll see sweet images of newborns, but not of in-progress labor or soiled diapers. Know that every person’s life has picture-perfect highlights, and imperfect experiences that help us grow and learn. Keep this in mind whenever you peruse the world of the internet and start to feel that sense of envy creeping in.

When It’s All Too Much

I am most frustrated when I’m overwhelmed. I doubt anyone enjoys that feeling. It’s probably not what The Black Eyed peas were referring to with their hit “I’ve Got a Feelin’…” (That’s my guess, anyway.)

So how should you handle it? Throw shyte? Yell at your spouse? Emmit every curse word imaginable when that case of beads pours all over the goddamnmothereffingshytesucking floor?

Okay, so those are probably just a few of the things I you SHOULDN’T do. Something else you should avoid is giving up altogether. It’s the procrastinator’s crutch: there’s too much to do, so why do any of it? As tempting as this can be sometimes: don’t fall into this trap.

Instead, identify exactly WHY you are feeling overwhelmed, and consider what on your “to do list” actually lines up with your priorities. In other words, figure out what you really NEED to do, what you WANT to do, and what it’s okay to omit altogether.

When we set up impossible goals for ourselves in the first place, we’re bound to get burnt out and overwhelmed. So let’s take a look a looks at those goals, the ones you came up with while fantasizing about being Superwoman…

A major presence on EVERY social network. No wonder you are pulling your hair out. Pick a few, ditch the ones you don’t really care much for anyway. (Hint: no one uses MySpace anymore.)

5 blogs. Are you kidding me right now? One is good. In fact, one will be BEST because you will be able to focus more energy on it, making it better in the long run. You don’t need a separate blog for your book reviews, one for your recipes, and one for your crafting business. Chances are, your readers will be interested in all of your hobbies, so keep ‘em in one place for your own sake as well as theirs.

Promising same-day turnaround time on custom and made-to-order items. Did you realize you were going to get MULTIPLE requests for these AT THE SAME TIME when coming up with this goal? You probably didn’t. Set your turnaround time with a buffer for when this happens, especially during busy seasons like the holidays. Besides, you’re customers would rather be pleasantly surprised if you finish their order early, rather than later than promised.

Mess leads to stress. (I confess, this is something I need to work on.) A messy work area will contribute to your feelings of stress and being overwhelmed. When you’re in a hurry and can’t find anything, or don’t have the space to work, every small task will take that much longer. It’s worth it to take the time to tidy up after each work session.

Finally, make sure you’re making time for fun. When running a business, you’ve probably quickly discovered that days off no longer exist. While this may be true, be sure you are reserving some YOU time. I generally set aside Friday and Saturday evenings. If you have to, schedule a couple of days/evenings that work best for you. Get out and see a movie. Stay in and read a book. Visit a friend you haven’t seen in awhile. GO SOMEWHERE. DO SOMETHING. It’s worth it and you’ll feel more fulfilled for it too.

What’d I miss? What tips do you have for dealing with the overwhelming days? Please share, I’d love to hear them!