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Ever feel like your head is going to explode? That’s how I feel this morning.
I am well rested from my recent trip to Austin and hanging out with Barbara Winter and now I can’t stop thinking.
It started on the plane ride home. The flight was way too bumpy to read my Kindle.
(I get motion sickness very easily.) So, at 10,000 feet I pulled out my iPod
and closed my eyes. That’s when it started. Between resting and listening, the ideas started to pop like warm popcorn kernels. I kept jotting half formed ideas down. Ideas about everything. I started to see a glimmer of clarity for 2010, something I’ve been missing.
This morning, after a great nights sleep, I was able to pick up where I left off with one big difference…since I was no longer tired, the ideas were coming faster and more furious than I could write. Pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, whatever was handy at the moment, I was jotting ideas and full page outlines down. Some half formed, some fully formed ideas.
I haven’t had this ‘my head is going to explode’ feeling in awhile. I’ve missed it. It is such a high, when I feel all is right in the world, time seems to stand still while at the same time passing without me even noticing it, when I feel like ‘yes, I can do this!”, and when at my core I know I am one with the creative universe.
During a brain break to make a pot of mid-morning java, I realized why this feeling has been missing and how I can get it back more often. Other than my trip to Minnesota in November right after I resigned from my day job, and one breakfast, business meeting, all I do is sit in my home office and work. That’s not really cutting in, if you know what I mean. What will work, has worked, and will always work is to get out of the house, engage with people, especially people on the same wavelength, change my environment, take a trip with purpose, take a class, go to the library, attend a meeting – whatever – just get out of the house!
It’s kind of like Julia Cameron’s
Artist Dates. To be creative you have to change your environment once in a while and engage the world on a different level. I’ve known this for a long time. I don’t know how I could have forgotten it.
But, whatever I call it, I know one thing, I’m getting out of the house more often! A brain is a terrible thing to waste.
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Stepping outside my comfort zone this week was actually a lot of fun.
I had all the steps covered, just like I wrote about on Tuesday, but I was still very anxious. So, I added one more little trick…
I decided that for one day I would be an actress and let go of any self-consciousness. I wouldn’t think about what I looked like, or how I sounded. I would walk and talk, ask questions, take notes, make observations and interact with the hotel staff and management as if I was someone they couldn’t wait to do business with.
Guess what, it worked.
Just like an actress though, I was well prepared for my role. I had done my research, I knew what I was looking for and what I wanted to ask. Plus, I had company. Barbara Winter was with me. And, if I do say so myself, we made quite a team.
As things continue to move forward I’ll keep you updated.
Tonight, though, I am relaxing and just hanging out. This is the reward part of stepping outside your comfort zone, and it is just as important to the process as all the others.
The reward, overall good feelings you get and the boost to your self esteem, all make stepping outside your comfort zone fun, and an almost addictive activity.
Moving outside your comfort zone doesn’t have to involve giant leaps of faith. They can be, and should be, tiny little steps that keep building your confidence until one day when you are ready, and have a solid foundation, to make a bigger leap.
This week I am preparing to move outside of my comfort zone again and it got me to thinking abut how I actually do this, especially since I have been doing it much more frequently lately.
As part of my business I want to share my knowledge with others. One way to do this is to present workshops and seminars. Over the years, taking small steps, I have moved outside my comfort zone of speaking in front of people by starting with teaching small employee in-services (15-minute lessons), with just a handful of co-workers and slowing building up to presenting at national conventions in front of hundreds. Starting small and taking baby steps by teaching small groups of people I knew helped me to one day share my knowledge and present to hundreds of people I’ve never met.
But, I can’t sit around and wait for people to invite me to teach and to speak. And, this is where moving outside of my comfort zone comes in – planning my own events.
Even saying it causes my stomach to knot up.
So I decided to look at how I’ve moved outside my comfort zone in the past, share this information with you in the hopes that you could apply them in your own life and use an example from my own life this week to demonstrate the steps.
1. Desire – have a deep need or desire to grow and change.
It all starts right here. It may be a sense of discontent, a desire to get more out of life or an inner calling to follow a new path. However it starts, the desire to grow and change begins within you and moving outside your comfort zone is how you are going to get there.
I have defined my life’s mission as “to learn, to grow and to share”. I have defined that teaching workshops is part of my mission. To do this I need to get comfortable planning events.
2. Tangible – Have a real world, concrete reason for doing so.
It helps to have a real, tangible task, reason or problem to solve to help move you outside of your comfort zone. It helps to have a reason ‘why’.
With two other people we are planning a multi-day workshop/event for this Fall and includes a timeline and multiple deadlines.
3. Accountability – Tell someone else, or involve someone else.
When you involve someone else your accountability not moves beyond just yourself. Once someone else knows what you are planning to do it puts a little pressure on you to follow through. In addition, for a lot of people, it is easy to meet our obligations to others than ourselves.
I have committed to meeting one of my fellow event planners in Austin this week to visit hotels and potential meeting places. (If she wasn’t going, I might have canceled my trip.)
4. Preparation – plan ahead, decide what you need to make it easier, get organized.
What do you need to feel a little more at ease? Having friends around? Your favorite music? A book? Do you need to be alone to the task you’ve accomplish the laid out in front of you? If you are running a 5k, you need to prepare and train. If you are giving a speech, you need to get comfortable with your subject and practice.
I paid the extra $10 for early check-in/boarding for Southwest airlines. (helps relieve my anxiety about finding a good seat and flying.) I have an itinerary for the three days, with time built into the schedule for some time alone. I am taking my GPS so I don’t get lost in a strange city. I am meeting someone I know. I have my flight, car and hotel reserved. I have a list of questions and an outline of what we are looking for.
5. Reward – it addition to the overall feeling of accomplishment, it is good idea to give yourself a small reward for stepping outside of your comfort zone and to celebrate.
Once you moved outside your comfort zone, and completed what you set out to do, regardless of whether you few the task or event as a success or failure, you need to celebrate and give yourself a small reward. Maybe it is lunch out with friends, or a quiet afternoon alone to do nothing, or getting a massage. Whatever reward you give yourself, make sure it is for you, and celebrates your accomplishment, no matter how big or small.
When I get home on Friday, I am going to take a bath, rent a movie, get take out pasta from my favorite Italian restaurant, stay up late and read a book. This is the perfect reward / celebration for me.
I’ll let you know how it all goes when I return.
I am beginning to enjoy the process of art journaling. I no longer worry of I am doing it right. I just let myself create. I am finding I lose myself in the process and feel a sense of release and calm when I am done.
So, here are a few pictures from my art journal from this past week. As always, a big thank you and giant hugs go out to Connie at Dirty Footprints Studios for inspiring me and encouraging me not to give up.
This one is my favorites. It helped provide peace and clarity…
This day I was feeling a little fractured; feeling pulled in too many directions
Realizing I have the potential to bridge the gap between the left brain and the right brain and to live comfortably in both worlds – the world of logic and reason and the world of intuition and creativity…
I have been thinking about my 2010 theme, dreams and goals for the last few weeks. Actually I started thinking about them the day I quit my job in November. I’ve come to realize that thinking about something for too long just creates more confusion, not clarity and sometimes you have to listen and not think.
Last night I pulled out my 2007 ‘success’ binder. It contains a lot my notes from 2007, 2008 and a journal summary for 2001-2006. It’s pretty thick. It holds printed pages, hand written pages, index cards with notes, post-its, and pictures.
Not much has changed in the last nine years. The fact that my vision of what I want to do (work for myself) and how I want to try and combine all my many interests (most of which have not changed) is very close to the same things I want today reassures me that I am on the right path.
You could say if I knew what I wanted in 2001, why is it still 2010 and they haven’t manifested in my life yet?
The vision was there, although a little fuzzy, and the desire was there, but not the confidence or clarity. What has changed in the last decade is me. I have taken the time to get to know myself better and to feel more comfortable and at ease with my self. I’ve had a wide range of professional experiences and experienced a certain level of success. This has given me confidence, helped identify and hone my natural talents and abilities and taught me about the many things I do not want to do and the things I am not good at.
Another benefit of the past few years was that I could show up, do my job, get paid and still do my side stuff. I lived in two worlds. In the one world I was a loyal, hard working employee, wife, daughter, friend, etc. In the other world I was a dreamer, writer, spiritual seeker, healer and all things most people in my family and immediate circle of friends, co-workers and acquaintances did not ‘get’ or understand.
Over the last few months (after quitting my job) I have felt enormous pressure to give up the ‘woowoo’ personal world and get ‘crunching’ on building my business and generating cash flow.
This is where I hit a brick wall and fall down. I feel as if I am split in half, being pulled in two opposing directions – the internal world related to personal and spiritual growth and the external world of making a living, building a business and meeting family obligations. I’ve always felt split in two, but in the past I could make it work most of the time and live in both worlds. Now I am trying to create one harmonious world where work, play, self and other obligations all wrap together like a beautiful DNA double helix.
Whenever I feel like this the Buddhist saying “chop wood, carry water” floats to the surface and I am reminded that personal and spiritual growth doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It grows out of and in the midst of daily living. And, living includes making a living, building a business and balancing the needs of others with my own needs.
I still have some work to do to bring all of these thoughts and ideas together, but I feel calmer. I am remembering to take it one step at a time, one day at a time, and to embrace the philosophy of “chop wood, carry water”.
The theme I chose for 2010 earlier this year was “grow into my vision”. But, I think my mantra for 2010 will be “chop wood, carry water”.
I’ve been in a rut lately. A BIG one. I haven’t felt well physically, I don’t feel like writing, making my usual lists, or just about anything. Part of it is a lot of behind the scenes family stuff. I also know it happens once in awhile. I get the moody blues. I just have to ride it out.
One thing that is helping me get my spark back is that I am ‘office nesting‘. I am re-creating my work from home nest, my own little sanctuary where I create, breath and play. I was inspired to take a look around my home office by Barbara Winter’s post “An Office That Inspires”.
I put the finishing touches on my home office in 2008 when I was still working full time. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my home office. It’s me. It fits. It’s just missing a little something.
So, I decided to do a little cleaning, organizing, rearranging, sorting, adding a few new things and getting rid of a few things.
I just started. It’s going to take me a few days (or weeks), but I already feel some new energy flowing and emerging.
What I’ve done so far…
- Framed my Vision Board so it is easy to hang (and stops falling down.)
- I bought some awesome Logitech, surround-sound speakers for my laptop to listen to music, audiobooks, movies, etc. (and they were on clearance at Office Max!!)
- Sorted through and discarded numerous piles of magazines.
- Cleaned my desk off, creating a larger space to write, read and draw.
- I have a portable file box for all my business related files and receipts. (Not that I’ve put anything in it yet. Getting this stuff organized is still on my to-do list.
What I am looking to do…
- I need a black, or dark expresso colored bookshelf, 24-36″ high, 36′ wide and no more than 14″ deep. I haven’t found it yet, but I am on a mission. This will sit directly across from my desk to hold all my project and idea binders (which are now piled on the floor in that spot).
- Looking for a black literature sorter (like a mail bin) to sort and store all the magazine clippings, newspaper articles and notes I have for various research topics I am interested in reading more about, studying and writing about.
- Sort and reorganize the books in my office. Swap some out for some favorites that are packed away and make room for some new ones.
- Organize my art supplies.
- I need some new artwork, too. I love black and white drawings or photographs. Maybe a cityscape. This will take some time. I’ll know what I want when I see it.
- I am adding some bird feeders and want to create a bird / butterfly garden in the backyard. Then I just have to open the blinds for a little inspiration.
- And, I think I’ll go back to buying fresh flowers once a week. They just brighten up the whole room.
When I am all done ‘office nesting’ I’ll take some new pictures, or maybe a video and post them.
How about you? Is your home office (or home office / corner of the room) as inspiring as it can be?
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