The only way I actually remember all the things that I have accomplished thus far in my life is by keeping a list. I have an official document that is entitled “Awards and Accomplishments” that is probably about three pages long at this point. I only look at it when I go to add something new or send it out with and a resume or application for an award but I’m always surprised when I look at how much I have actually done.
I always feel that I competing with time, every human’s most precious asset. I know in my mind that it’s a race I could never win but yet in still I have tried. I think sometimes that I am so behind in life I need to do more, accomplish more. But a good friend reminded me once that - I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now. The challenge is to remind yourself of that when you feel a little under the gun, and you wish you had more done. After careful contemplation of how I could possible do this I came to a very simple answer - Celebrate the moments of your life.
As I scroll down my growing list of awards and accomplishments I could probably count on one hand the number of times that I have actually taken time out to enjoy whatever it was that I achieved. Most of the time, before I would actually have the award in hand I was already on to thinking “Well, what’s the next thing I can do”. I don’t think that many of us take the time that is necessary and really spiritually required to take in, even the small successes.
My biggest break threw was a few years ago when the guy I was dating for six years decided he wanted to break-up. We had stopped seeing each other once before and I went through a lot before I got over it. I realized at that moment that I had a choice to make. I could go through the same thing again or I could change the way that I looked at things. After talking with a friend I decided to have a break-up party. Yes, you read it right, A break-up party. I called some sister friends over and served pink chocolate and strawberries, wine and a host of other treats. We talked about life, our futures and relationships but there was no male bashing allowed.
This was a time to celebrate; a moment that I could have looked at a bad situation, had actually been a blessing. It forced me to realize all the positive things that were happening in my life. I was just about to start business school, I was running my own business, and I really had a lot of great things going. The party turned out so great the Philadelphia Inquirer got word of it and wrote a story about it!
Taking the time to celebrate the moments of your life doesn’t always mean when something good happens because some people feel that those times are few and far between. But celebrate it all, because it’s yours. Don’t wait for friends or family or any one at all. In fact if necessary have a private party and invite the person that means the most, You. Everyone won’t always recognize your accomplishments or see them in the same light and frankly they don’t have to. But you do.
A life is so precious and even though we all may not have yet achieved our highest earthly goal just know that as long as you stay the course you’ll get there. In the meantime, Party On!
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Food for your Thoughts
The Brain is not set up to fail it’s set-up to succeed but you must feed it the right information. When you start putting in thoughts that allow the brain to determine answers, than it will tell you how to solve your problems. But when you start putting in negative thoughts, fears and hesitations you will arrive at a point of feeling stuck, not knowing what to do or how to solve the problem.
Many people are secretly self- sabotaging. It’s the little things on the daily basis that we let ourselves down on that allow the bricks of fear and failure to build up. Having a book that you really want to read or finish reading, that you somehow haven’t had time to do yet, but it’s regularly on your mind, is an example of sabotaging. The fact that you are putting off something even that little and that simple that’s important to you is ceasing your growth.
The funniest thing happened when I was teaching a workshop to a group of entrepreneurs that want to start fashion related businesses. One of the ladies taking the class only showed up to the first session and not the remaining two. She later e-mailed me and said that she missed the other two sessions because her job offered her some over-time so she decided to take it. It was one of the funniest things I ever heard. Here she was taking a step toward something that was really important to her, what she really wanted to be doing. But she stopped before she got started because of what is probably the largest thing that has been holding her back from achieving her dream in the first place, her need for job security.
I remember arriving in London in the fall of 1997 it was the middle of fashion week and I wanted to attend. I went down to the tents and tried to convince a stoutly bloke at the gate that I was a buyer from America and so he should let me in. He kindly told me that without my credentials (a business card) that I simply could not be admitted. I told him that I left everything back at the hotel in Uxbridge (a suburb of London) and it was just too far to go back and get it. He still refused me, and knowing that I didn’t really have any business cards anywhere, it was time to come up with plan B. I took myself down to the quick copy which was like a Kinko’s of London and rented a computer for 30mins and made myself a business card, and had it cut and was ready to go.
I went back to the tent with my credentials this time broad and confident. I showed the gentleman my card which said I owned a boutique called “Nina Foire” (don’t ask me where I got that from I just wanted to sound important) and he kindly stepped aside to let me in. I just hit the bricks - without thinking about it twice I went and made the cards. Looking back on it now, I feel that it was a little crazy. Who knows what could have gone wrong if the card didn’t look real enough but the only thing that I ever put in my mind was – how can I get into fashion week? Certainly, with the right food for thought my brain processed and gave me the answers. Can you imagine your possibilities of your mind, if we just took the care to eat this well all the time?
Many people are secretly self- sabotaging. It’s the little things on the daily basis that we let ourselves down on that allow the bricks of fear and failure to build up. Having a book that you really want to read or finish reading, that you somehow haven’t had time to do yet, but it’s regularly on your mind, is an example of sabotaging. The fact that you are putting off something even that little and that simple that’s important to you is ceasing your growth.
The funniest thing happened when I was teaching a workshop to a group of entrepreneurs that want to start fashion related businesses. One of the ladies taking the class only showed up to the first session and not the remaining two. She later e-mailed me and said that she missed the other two sessions because her job offered her some over-time so she decided to take it. It was one of the funniest things I ever heard. Here she was taking a step toward something that was really important to her, what she really wanted to be doing. But she stopped before she got started because of what is probably the largest thing that has been holding her back from achieving her dream in the first place, her need for job security.
I remember arriving in London in the fall of 1997 it was the middle of fashion week and I wanted to attend. I went down to the tents and tried to convince a stoutly bloke at the gate that I was a buyer from America and so he should let me in. He kindly told me that without my credentials (a business card) that I simply could not be admitted. I told him that I left everything back at the hotel in Uxbridge (a suburb of London) and it was just too far to go back and get it. He still refused me, and knowing that I didn’t really have any business cards anywhere, it was time to come up with plan B. I took myself down to the quick copy which was like a Kinko’s of London and rented a computer for 30mins and made myself a business card, and had it cut and was ready to go.
I went back to the tent with my credentials this time broad and confident. I showed the gentleman my card which said I owned a boutique called “Nina Foire” (don’t ask me where I got that from I just wanted to sound important) and he kindly stepped aside to let me in. I just hit the bricks - without thinking about it twice I went and made the cards. Looking back on it now, I feel that it was a little crazy. Who knows what could have gone wrong if the card didn’t look real enough but the only thing that I ever put in my mind was – how can I get into fashion week? Certainly, with the right food for thought my brain processed and gave me the answers. Can you imagine your possibilities of your mind, if we just took the care to eat this well all the time?
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Who's Game is it Anyway?
Often in life we are playing by the rules. What rules do you ask; the one's that were set by some person or group of people somewhere along the way. Rules exist in our business life, spiritual life and social life and it seems sometimes that we just have to deal with it. One of my favorites is the concept of the American work week, the fact that a group of people at some point agreed that everyone should work from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday with really only one true day of rest. I would love to know who was in the room when this idea was brought to the table but even more importantly who are the zombies that signed up for it.
Can you think of a time that you were in a relationship or friendship with a person where you were playing by their rules? It didn't start off that way but a combination of your willingness to please and their gently overpowering personality and slightly archaic thinking have swooped you into a way of doing things differently, that you have now subconsciously subscribed to. In the shuffle of it all, meat-eaters become vegans, club goers become home bodies, independent thinkers become brown-noser's and monogamous relationship have’s become open-daters. But whose Game is it anyway? Well, that all gets lost as time goes on, and sometimes so does who you really are. After days and months and years of playing by the rules that someone else created, you forget to actually stop and live your own life.
You know the saying if you don’t stand for something than you will fall for anything. Surely, it’s true. I remember my days of playing super Mario Brothers, I would pass one board and advance to the next however, it was still super Mario. The only thing that changed was the levels of complexity. I was able to get to a higher level because I stayed grounded with the basic skills that it would take to win. So, change the game, set your own rules, and declare your expectations. Because or whether or not it's your game, you are unequivocally the most valuable player in your life.
Can you think of a time that you were in a relationship or friendship with a person where you were playing by their rules? It didn't start off that way but a combination of your willingness to please and their gently overpowering personality and slightly archaic thinking have swooped you into a way of doing things differently, that you have now subconsciously subscribed to. In the shuffle of it all, meat-eaters become vegans, club goers become home bodies, independent thinkers become brown-noser's and monogamous relationship have’s become open-daters. But whose Game is it anyway? Well, that all gets lost as time goes on, and sometimes so does who you really are. After days and months and years of playing by the rules that someone else created, you forget to actually stop and live your own life.
You know the saying if you don’t stand for something than you will fall for anything. Surely, it’s true. I remember my days of playing super Mario Brothers, I would pass one board and advance to the next however, it was still super Mario. The only thing that changed was the levels of complexity. I was able to get to a higher level because I stayed grounded with the basic skills that it would take to win. So, change the game, set your own rules, and declare your expectations. Because or whether or not it's your game, you are unequivocally the most valuable player in your life.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Does Your Mindset Match Your Skill Set?
So often we find ourselves in the same situations over, and over, and over. Why? Essentially because directly or indirectly we choose to be there. We never learn the lesson. I recently had a dream that someone was deceiving me and miraculously a few days later it came true. The crazy part is the situation unfolded almost exactly the same as it did in the dream. Was it really a coincidence? Well, we all think different things about such words. My dream very well may have been just a coincidence but it felt soo real that when I woke up I was literally heart broken.
When things go wrong on some level I know it's going to, before it happens. We put ourselves in the same situations because we feel that this time around it will be different, this time I have it under control. Well, h e l l no you don't. All you really have is the experience from the first time it happened and if you learned the lesson that the situation was meant to teach you, than you will surely run, forest, run in the opposite direction this time around. It's the intuition that we have that gets ignored. Recognizing a sign, a warning, a bad feeling, is a skill but does your skill set match your mindset?
Many people never reached their full potential due to fear of success, fear or failure, even fear of trying to just do something different from the pack. Poor thinking steps in the way and creates a barrier between you and the you, you deserve to be. Our hopes go into things that will almost always fail us, people, false assumptions and monuments of excuses. I personally never believed in the idea of mentors or heroes because people will let you down. I like the idea of isolating the good qualities in a person and making them your own. In this way you some how leave behind all the crap that makes a person human.
So, how can we sharpen our minds? Perhaps, it begins by listening to your intuition and trusting yourself and what you know in your gut but most importantly by having faith. Of course, it's easier said than done. But let’s begin today by embarking on a journey that was so eloquently portrayed in the great words of snoop doggie dog when he said "get your mind right, shortie, get your mind right".
When things go wrong on some level I know it's going to, before it happens. We put ourselves in the same situations because we feel that this time around it will be different, this time I have it under control. Well, h e l l no you don't. All you really have is the experience from the first time it happened and if you learned the lesson that the situation was meant to teach you, than you will surely run, forest, run in the opposite direction this time around. It's the intuition that we have that gets ignored. Recognizing a sign, a warning, a bad feeling, is a skill but does your skill set match your mindset?
Many people never reached their full potential due to fear of success, fear or failure, even fear of trying to just do something different from the pack. Poor thinking steps in the way and creates a barrier between you and the you, you deserve to be. Our hopes go into things that will almost always fail us, people, false assumptions and monuments of excuses. I personally never believed in the idea of mentors or heroes because people will let you down. I like the idea of isolating the good qualities in a person and making them your own. In this way you some how leave behind all the crap that makes a person human.
So, how can we sharpen our minds? Perhaps, it begins by listening to your intuition and trusting yourself and what you know in your gut but most importantly by having faith. Of course, it's easier said than done. But let’s begin today by embarking on a journey that was so eloquently portrayed in the great words of snoop doggie dog when he said "get your mind right, shortie, get your mind right".
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