Mandy

Self Identity

What is your identity? Recently, a good friend and I have had a few discussions about our self-identity and how influential that identity can be in the choices we make. Sometimes we might not be aware of how we came to this sense of identity though, and I am a big believer in trying to understand the whys behind what we do and how we think. It can be detrimental to our life journey if we don’t.

So, who are you? Some people might not be as clear about their sense of identity as others, but if I told you to fill in the blank on the following question, what would you say: “I am ______________.”

Personally, for years if someone asked me that question, I would say, “I am a writer.” That was my strongest identity of myself.

When I was a teenager, I identified as a writer because I wrote all the time and had a dream of becoming a famous writer. But when I got into college and then after I left and life continued on, I wrote less and less and less. Over time, I identified as a writer less and less, and this is because I lost the courage to believe I could make it as a true writer, as a well-published author.

I let my fears hold me back from pursuing who I really wanted to be and that created conflict and unhappiness in my life. I took a job proofreading legal documents, which I didn’t enjoy or find fulfilling. Sometimes I would write in my spare time but not consistently. I let my identity slip farther and farther from me until I practically lost it altogether.

It was an unhealthy pattern of behavior that led to me often feeling adrift and discouraged with the course of my life. Even as things in other areas improved as I hit my thirties, I still felt this nagging sense that something was missing from my life. I was missing purpose.

My friend, on the other hand, has always locked her identity into her work. She would reply to the above question with this answer: “I am a hard worker.” She has been working full time since her early teens and she grew up with the conviction that it was incredibly important to be useful and to help out in her family’s business. It doesn’t matter the exact work she is doing per se, but what matters most to her is that she is working hard and pushing herself to give 110% on the job, always.

Lately though, this identity has been creating friction in her work-life balance and she is questioning what steps to take to bring that balance back into alignment with her biggest priorities.

When we are at our best, who we identify as will be what we spend our time doing—but only if we have the courage to believe in ourselves. For years, I was too afraid to step into my identity and my friend was too afraid to step back from her identity.

The greatest discovery I made over time was this: we can choose our identity—our identity does not choose us. Yes, there are a few people who, like me, knew from a young age what they wanted to do with their lives (and there are a few who actually live out that identity in adulthood, unlike I did throughout my twenties), but the realization that really freed me was the fact that I could choose to change my self-identity.

I had to take a look at my life and ask the hard question: Do I still want to be a writer? And if so, why? Yes, I had that dream at thirteen years old, but I am no longer thirteen years old. People change, interests change, goals change. And that is okay.

None of us should try to force ourselves into identities that no longer align with our core values, desires, and goals. But we also shouldn’t shy away from who we want to be because we are afraid of failure.

I find it interesting that my friend and I came at this concept of self-identity in such different ways. I kept pushing farther away from my sense of identity and that caused me to feel adrift and disappointed; she clings very hard to her sense of identity but that has caused her to feel overwhelmed at work and unable to be fully present in some other areas of her life.

It is very possible that you haven’t experienced either extreme, but chances are you have experienced a struggle with your self-identity at some point in your life. We humans tend to have a hard time making good choices that will lead to us creating a fully fulfilling life for ourselves. Usually, we sabotage ourselves in one way or another.

I want to examine some of the pitfalls that can come with us focusing too much on identity.

We don’t have the courage to pursue the identity and goals we believe will make us happy. Example: I’m not good enough to become a real writer or I’m not smart enough to become an attorney.
We are worried about what people will think or say about us. Example: She used to be a financial planner making six figures and now she is a travel writer making a third of that—what is she doing?
We do something because of family pressure. Example: My dad was a doctor so I need to become a doctor and follow in the family footsteps.

Or perhaps we don’t even know why we do what. For example, some people choose a major in college, get a job in that field and don’t really even question if they are experiencing joy in that field until they are already five or ten years down the road.

I think it is important to ask ourselves when our sense of identity has helped move us forward, but also when it has hindered us and held us back.

Are there certain aspects of your identity that you cling to that might be unhealthy? It could be that you identify as a procrastinator or as overweight or as disorganized. These probably all fall into the category of a sub-identity (though perhaps not), but they are just as important to examine.

They ways in which we identify ourselves and relate to ourselves are incredible important. If you see yourself as overweight or disorganized as a person, you will make choices that align with that identity and you will never change that image or the behavior that got you to the place of being overweight or disorganized in the first place.

I’ve heard many people use phrases like, “Well, that’s just who I am” or “I’ve always been that way” and I’ve used them many times myself. But these phrases are tied to our self-identity and we actually have the power to change our identity.

Most of the makeup of our lives is comprised of choices. Choices that we make over and over again until some of those choices feel like a part of who we are. Some have been happening so long that we don’t remember when they started.

If you identity yourself as overweight and say to yourself, “This is just who I am,” I would encourage you to examine the choices that brought you to that mindset. Were you fed too much unhealthy food from a young age? Did you start stress eating as a teenager when that boy you liked was mean to you? Did you overeat in college because you felt like you could get away with it and only packed on the pounds after you got married and had two kids and now it feels impossible to lose them?

There is a transition where our choices eventually become the identity we take on, which is why it is so important to examine our daily choices and parse out how they play into our sense of self.

Our minds are the most powerful tool we have and the mind is what shapes our thoughts about ourselves. We need to start asking ourselves not who we are at this moment but who we want to be. We can choose to become anyone.

You can choose to become a cyclist even if you haven’t been on a bike in twenty-five years.

You can choose to become a writer even if you have never written in your life.

You can choose to become a stellar gardener even if you have never owned a single plant in your life.

It is a choice. You can start making new choices today to become a new person.

Take a few minutes today and find a quiet place to think. Ask yourself who you want to be. Ask yourself what self-imposed identities are holding you back from becoming the best version of yourself. We can each choose who we will become, and that means the possibilities are endless.

Learn From Those Closest To You

Who are your mentors?

I have always been a shy, reserved individual and the biggest roadblock to me finding good mentors over the years has been my own reluctance to seek out relationships with those I believed could mentor me. This is a problem of my own making and I see that more clearly than ever now, but as I’ve been thinking about this topic of mentors it makes me realize two things:

I can change my behavior and reach out to find mentors now.
Even though I might not have had “traditional” mentors (i.e., a person at work I had lunch with who gives me advice and guidance regarding work and life), I have had numerous people in my life over the years who have been wonderful influences and mentors. I just didn’t see their contribution to my growth at the time.

I am going to imagine that most of you have at least a few people you know who you could envision being of some help to you, who could mentor you. If you do, I encourage you to reach out to them and ask to take them to lunch and pick their brain for advice and insight. We grow by surrounding ourselves with successful people, those who are farther along in the journey than we are.

It is not just in the work place that we can find great mentors though. If you don’t have someone in mind with whom you can begin a mentor relationship, I would encourage you to look at your circle of friends and family for a start. Think about someone in your circle who has an awesome talent or trait you admire. Granted, this might not be a mentor relationship in the typical sense, but I believe we can also grow by learning from the strengths of those closest to us, often more than we realize.

For example, my youngest sister is amazing when it comes to organization. She is that person who has a specific place for everything in her home. When you go into her pantry, she has her noodle boxes stacked perfectly and her sauces lined up in a row like little soldiers. She also has two babies under two, and while the house definitely has more toys and baby paraphernalia now, she still manages to keep things organized at a level that amazes me.

She is someone I could go to if I needed help organizing my home and life. Organizational skills are an important and sometimes underrated expertise, but without them every aspect of life can be more chaotic and stressful.

Or take my mom. She has spent years studying nutrition, homeopathy, and healthy living. She is a vegan and has led numerous cooking classes through her church over the years. She walks a few miles every day and knows the names of countless plants and herbs, many of which she uses as natural remedies and in her cooking. She is in her mid-sixties and says that she feels more vibrant in many ways now than she did in her thirties, thanks to her healthy lifestyle.

My mom is someone I could go to if I desire to learn more about healthy cooking and living. We often take our health for granted but when we aren’t healthy, it has a profound affect on our physical, mental, and emotional state. Understanding how the body works and how we can keep it in optimal shape is incredibly important.

It is funny how we have people in our lives that have a wealth of knowledge or skill that we don’t have and yet we often don’t take advantage of it. We don’t reach out and say, “Teach me,” or “Can I get your advice?”

Reaching out to an expert in your industry or a leader in your own company will never be a waste of time. (Even if they say they can’t meet with you, the very act of you reaching out to them will give you more courage to try again with someone else.)

But don’t overlook the wealth of resources that might be even closer to home.

You don’t always have to go to a financial expert to get help making a budget and sticking to a financial plan (although I am not in any way discouraging this—going to an expert can be very beneficial, especially if you have more complex financial concerns). Perhaps your best friend is great with money and loves to track her spending and has an Excel spreadsheet for her own budget. Talk to her and see if she can help you create one for yourself. Ask how she deals with financial hiccups and if she has any good books to recommend on budgeting.

You don’t have to take your manager out to lunch to learn about all that her position entails and how you can work your way up to that position yourself. Again, of course this would be beneficial in many ways, but it isn’t the only way you can improve your job skills or learn how to become a manager. Perhaps one of your coworkers or a friend at your church used to be in a management position that is similar to the one you are seeking and you can take them out to lunch. Or you can check out books from your local library on business management and leadership.

If you have the opportunity to have a mentor, definitely go for it. And certainly don’t just wait around for a mentor to come to you—that will rarely ever happen. You have to seek out and pursue the growth you desire in as many avenues as possible. But if you don’t have the opportunity for a traditional mentorship at this moment in time, look around you and consider the people in your life that you admire the most. Reach out to them and ask if you can pick their brain about their area of expertise. Growth happens when you have a curious mind and are eager to learn from the strengths of others.

Time Management

My baby only naps in half hour increments most of the time. I have tried a lot of tactics and read a lot of information on how to increase his naptime but nothing has worked as well as I’d like. Sometimes he will take a good hour and a half nap, but most of the time his naps are short. I usually have just enough time to get in a short workout or wash a few dishes or write a few lines. I was three lines into this paragraph when he woke up this morning.

This is why time management is so important for me. It feels critical that I learn how to become more efficient with my time or I will never keep up with this blog.

I struggled with time management long before having my baby. But I find it interesting that we can be so disciplined in certain areas of our lives and not in others. For example, in college I never turned in a paper late; in fact, I never once pulled an all-nighter to complete an assignment on time. My assignments and papers were usually done days in advance of the deadline. I liked being in school. I liked the structure and I enjoyed looking over each syllabus to plan out how I was going to get through each course.

That is why it was baffling to me that I struggled so much with time management after I finished college.

Over the years I have come to realize that becoming an effective manger of your time means knowing what is important to you, but also understanding what scares you. You have to figure out what compels you (pushes you forward) and what terrifies you (holds you back). You have to recognize the purpose behind your choices and the implications behind the ones you veer away from.

You also have to learn how you operate best and then set in place habits that optimize your natural best ways of operating. For example, some people might like to read first thing in the morning while others might like to exercise first and still others might like to write in a gratitude journal or meditate. You need to learn what works best for you.

When I was in college, I was compelled to turn my papers in on time for a few reasons: I genuinely enjoyed the subject matter I chose as my major (English) and was generally energized by school; I was scared of my dad’s wrath if I didn’t perform well (he didn’t expect perfect grades but he did expect good grades obtained through persistence and hard work); I was fearful of disappointing people and appearing lazy. The first reason I listed definitely was the strongest reason, which is worth noting because I think it is always better to be pushed by positive reasons rather than negative ones (and quite honestly, if I hadn’t genuinely enjoyed my classes, I don’t know if the second and third reasons would have been strong enough to ensure my success in school).

The point is to step back and begin to understand the purpose behind our choices. If we can parse out what is most important to us, we will begin to give those priorities more of our time, and thus become more effective with our time.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day but if we are not mindful, those hours will fritter away faster than we can catch them and we will be left feeling frustrated and empty.

Instead of rushing through each day without a plan, which ends up leaving me frazzled and drained and unproductive, I have started making conscience choices about what I will do with my time based on my priorities.

For example, below are a few of my biggest priorities:

It is a priority that I spend a chunk of time each day with my son where I am fully present and engaged. To accomplish this priority, for at period of time each day, I put my phone away and don’t engage in other activities, like doing the dishes, working on my blog, or vacuuming the floor.
It is a priority that I get in at least 20 minutes of exercise each day. To accomplish this priority, I do this by either exercising during one of my son’s naps, taking a walk with him, or, on really busy days, getting in my lunges and squats (etc.) while I chase him around the house.
It is a priority that I perform an activity every day that contributes to the success of my blog. To accomplish this priority, I generally sit down at the kitchen table as soon as my son is down for his first nap and I will write or edit a post, research blogging tips, take a course on web design, or something along these lines, even if the particular action takes just ten minutes.
It is a priority that I spend a little time working on my own personal development each day. To accomplish this priority, when I am doing the dishes I often listen to educational podcasts or audio books. When my son goes to bed for the night, I also spend a little time reading blogs on personal development, money, and parenting.

Some of these priorities felt unrealistic to me just months ago. Even though they all sound reasonable, I often felt like I just didn’t have the time, but when I began to think about time management in terms of living out my priorities, my perspective on time shifted.

I also now make it a practice to write a kind of Master List for the week on Saturday or Sunday where I put down all the things I want to get done for the entire week. These are activities that need to get done beyond my top priorities. Then each night I look over the list and try to prioritize what I will do that next day. I don’t try to get everything done in a day but I do prioritize at least three things on the list that MUST happen. This not only helps me actually get things done but it also gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Keeping the list of top priorities small each day helps me feel the wins and drives me to want to keep going. If I have ten top priorities every day and only accomplish four, I will feel like a failure. But if I have only three top priorities for the day and I accomplish all four, I will feel like a success. We need to set ourselves up to feel successful because it helps us want to reach for more.

In summary, time management is a developed skill but it is one that we will never fully master until we figure out what our biggest priorities are and then build our lives—and use our time—around them.

Dealing with Failure

Okay, so I made it one of my goals for the month of February to wake up early every morning—at 5am specifically. I wanted to carve out time for myself to focus on personal development and also simply have some quiet time before the busyness of the day takes over.

But full disclosure, I failed at this goal already. Yesterday morning I woke up at 5:45am and this morning I woke up at 7:30am!

My initial reaction yesterday was some frustration that I had hit the snooze button twice and had wasted 45 minutes of precious time, but I still managed to read a few blogs, have a cup of coffee, edit one of my blog posts, and spend a few minutes listening to a lesson for a blog course I’m currently taking.

Honestly, I felt tempted to scrap the whole goal.

Sometimes when we fail—on a small or large scale—our first thought is to give up, to retreat, to simply abandon the project.

As I sit back and examine why this is my first thought, I realize that it is about my ego and my fear probably more than anything else. My ego feels hurt because I failed at a simple task. I feel weak and even a bit silly. And my fear is activated because if I failed at such a simple task as waking up an hour and a half earlier than usual, what chance do I have at accomplishing bigger tasks and goals?

Rather than allow my thinking to stop there though, as I would have done in the past, I realize it is important to step into a growth mindset in moments like these. It is true that I failed to accomplish my set goal for two days in a row now. But the truth does not have to stop right there. That does not have to be the end of the story in this saga that is my monthly goal. It does not mean I am doomed to fail at accomplishing the goal tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

Each day is a new day. I have the ability to make a different choice tomorrow morning than I did this morning.

Each day we have the chance to re-examine and renew our goals and our commitments to ourselves.

On that note, I think it is important to remember that these are commitments to ourselves. Generally speaking, I find it very easy to follow through on commitments I have given to other people, but it is much harder to do this for myself. Perhaps it is because I place a different level of value on myself than I do on other people. If that is the case for you to, I can only say this: we need to stop.

You are incredibly valuable and important. What you want and need is important. Your goals are worth the effort.

This is where we can always re-examine our goals and make sure they align with what we really want. Make sure you are setting goals that you actually believe are important, not goals that you feel pressured to make for the sake of someone or something.

Why do I really want to get up at 5am every morning? Once I clarify the reason for my goal, and once I reiterate to myself that it is a goal I actually want, I can set about creating additional strategies for accomplishing that goal.

I want to wake up at 5am this month because I want to have some quiet time to focus on my own personal development and my blog. For me, this will include some the following activities: reading a few of my favorite personal development blogs; reading a personal development or education book; journaling about my future goals; reviewing my daily planner and mapping out my day; editing blog posts; writing new blog posts; listening to my blog course and implementing the strategies I learn about into my own blog; listening to educational podcasts.

Reminding myself of all the reasons I want to get up early actually makes me feel excited about my goal again. Rather than focusing on my two days of failure, I feel renewed in my commitment to continue with this goal.

We will all fail. We will all fail many times in our journey toward our goals, but that is part of the process. Try not to focus on the act of failing but rather the act of getting back up again, and remember why you are working toward your goals in the first place. If you have a strong enough why, you will set aside your ego and your fear and your frustration to press toward your goals. You will stand up a little stronger and a little taller next time, and eventually the failures in that specific area will become less. You will learn how to fight better against the things that hold you back and you will employ better strategies to push you forward.

So today, set a small goal and don’t be afraid to fail at it. Be afraid of getting stuck in a fixed mindset. Be afraid of not trying. Be afraid of becoming stagnate. Don’t be so afraid to fail. If you fail, you can always try again. If you don’t even try, you will wake up one day and realize you didn’t go anywhere.

Monthly Goals

Today is the beginning of a new month. We are already 1/12^thof the way through the year. I’ve always been a reflective person so this causes me to think about what I’ve accomplished in January and what I want to accomplish in February.

Years ago, I used to do more than just set New Year’s Resolutions on January 1^st—I would write out smaller goals for each month on the eve of that new month. Sometimes I would break them down into categories and list out one goal (sometimes even two) within that category. For example, one month I remember listing three categories: “health,” “fitness,” and “personal.” For health, I resolved not to drink any soda for the entire month. For fitness, I resolved to hit the gym four times a week. For personal, I resolved to read one book each week.

To be honest, I haven’t always achieved my monthly goals, but I do know setting them has helped me think about changes I wanted to make in my life. Having goals is one of the best ways to get to where we want to be–they give us direction in a world full of choices. In fact, I would argue that if you don’t set goals in your life, it is very unlikely that you will end up where you want to be. Setting monthly resolutions were very beneficial in pushing me to think about improvements I wanted to create in my life and then act on them and see rewarding results.

With monthly goals, I could start seeing results right away as opposed to the goals I often set for myself at the beginning of the year. (Note that I think both are equally important but the results for each do unfold at different paces.) For example, this month I have resolved to start waking up at 5am every morning. This morning, I woke up at 5am. I already got the desired result of my resolution. Of course, I have 27 more days to go before I truly fulfill the monthly goal, but I got to feel the reward of reaching the goal already today.

My yearly goals tend to be much bigger and broader and those results don’t come in a day. For example, “write a book” has been one of my goals in previous years. This is a worthy goal but I will certainly not be rewarded with the result of a completed book on the second day of the year, even if I wrote all day on January 1^st. I won’t see that result on the third day or the fourth either. It will take months of dedicated, consistent efforts to create a polished book.

I know some people don’t put much stock into New Year’s Resolutions and I do understand the hesitation to make them. Most people don’t stick to their resolutions far beyond the second month of the year. They become too cynical or too frustrated or too embarrassed to keep setting resolutions and not following through on them.

But of course, the problem is not with wanting to set goals. The problem is in our approach to goals. This includes our system to reach these goals, the reasons behind the goals we set, and especially our mindset regarding these goals. But I will delve into that more deeply in another blog post.

Right now I want to circle back to the smaller, monthly goals I used to set for myself and suggest that this is a good way to start practicing the art of goal setting. It lacks the intensity and scare factor ofNew Year’s Resolutions. Setting monthly goals feels more reasonable and doable to those who have failed to achieve their big yearly goals (trust me, I’ve been there with certain New Year’s Resolutions myself—I still can’t speak a second language even though that resolutions first made its appearance on my list when I was fifteen).

The idea of completely giving up soda for an entire year is admittedly a bit daunting for me right now (even though I don’t drink soda every day), but the idea of giving up soda for the next 28 days feels possible. Sure, it will sting a little and I know I will crave it from time to time, but if I know I can go back to the habit after a short period of time, I feel more confident that I can manage it.

Now, if we never stick with any of the mini monthly goals we make beyond that first month, we might want to examine why we are making them in the first place. It is good to challenge ourselves to do new things, but the far-reaching goal behind making smaller goals is to find the ones important enough to stick with month after month after month. These smaller goals should be ones that we believe are helping us become a better version of ourselves.

If I give up soda for one month and then go back to drinking two Mountain Dews a day for months to come, perhaps that goal didn’t align with who I want to become and thus wasn’t truly very helpful. On the other hand, if I give up soda for one month for the purpose of improving my overall health—I am now drinking more water and I have more consistent energy because I’m no longer experiencing the sugar crash that comes an hour after my second Mountain Dew—I will likely find myself drinking far less soda in the coming months. This small goal has produced the positive effect of pushing me towards a healthier lifestyle, even if I do still occasionally have a soda.

Some might argue that it is better to go all in and quit certain things cold turkey, and while there is some truth to that, I believe slow progress is sometimes better than immediate results that don’t stick long term.

Becoming the best version of ourselves is a process, a journey, and it takes time. Setting both big and small goals is important, each in their own way, but sometimes I think we forget about the small ones and how valuable they can be in carving out a path toward those big goals.

I want to encourage you to set a small goal for this month. You have 28 fresh new days. Challenge yourself to get a little closer to your best self with a small improvement somewhere in your life. At the beginning of next month, your future self will thank you!

Self Doubt

Some days it is hard to know what topic to focus on for this blog. I love writing and I love exploring different topics as they pertain to personal development, but there are times when I will admit that I feel redundant. There are times when I feel like my words might be irrelevant or that I might be under-qualified to write about the topics I do. After all, I am still a work in progress. I don’t have all these things figured out completely and I still struggle with many of the issues I write about when it comes to personal development.

Self doubt. I supposed that is what I am struggling with today, and it can be such a powerful feeling. It is one that has overwhelmed and consumed me many times in my life. Self doubt has often made me shrink back in a moment of opportunity rather than push forward.

Self doubt is a sneaky bastard because it makes you believe things about yourself that aren’t true. It makes you believe you aren’t good enough, aren’t talented enough, aren’t pretty enough, aren’t smart enough, aren’t you-fill-in-the-blank enough. Regardless of the area in which you feel inadequate, self doubt can come in and beat you up and taunt you to feel worthless.

But we can’t let our doubts win. I wish I had realized earlier in my life that I have the ability to rise up and fight against those doubts. They do not have to control me—in fact, it is my responsibility to push back against those doubts.

We’ve probably all heard the advice that while a person shouldn’t go looking for a fight, they should not back down from a bully. I don’t know why I didn’t look at my own self doubts through a similar perspective. Self doubt is a bully. Probably the worst bully we will ever face. But we are responsible for how we feel and it is our responsibility to push back against a bully.

It is within our right—and it is our responsibility—to push back against self doubt when it pops up in our lives. This feeling of self doubt is very natural and will absolutely rear its ugly head from time to time, but the more we let the feeling go unchecked, the more it will begin to rule our lives. In the reverse, the more we push back against the feeling and counter it with self confidence, the less control self doubt will have in our lives.

This takes a lot of practice. I know this on a very personal level because I’ve let self doubt keep me from pursuing many opportunities. Self doubt is the very reason I did not start a blog years ago. Self doubt is why I never attempted to submit any of my written work to publishers all through my twenties even though it was a dream of mine to be a published author.

And today, as in so many days past, doubts flooded my mind the moment I opened this Word document to write. But I’ve started to find ways to combat these doubts and shift my thoughts.

I put someone else in my mind and imagine talking to them the way I talk to myself. This helps me gain some perspective for how negative and inconsiderate I am being to myself. When I let negative thoughts fill my brain about how I am not smart enough or my writing isn’t good enough (or whatever the doubt might be), I think, “Would I say that to my sister?” If she expressed doubt about her abilities, would I agree with her and point out all the additional reasons she isn’t good enough to pursue the goal she has in mind? Or would I counter her negative self talk and point out the ways she is smart and accomplished and capable? If I do that for her, why can’t I do that for myself?
I reflect on how my past self talk either helped me push forward or shrink back. This helps me these days because I remind myself of how I feel when I’ve managed to push self doubt down (I have rewarding and positive emotions) verses the times I let self doubt overtake my mind (I have unfulfilling and negative emotions).
I recognize that I am fully responsible for how I feel. Honestly, for years this wasn’t even a solution that was on my radar. I used to think, “This is just who I am,” whether it pertained to my fear of meeting new people or my bouts with depression or my aversion to networking to further my career. While it is true that I might have certain feelings that come up in regard to an event (a new social setting that gives me anxiety) or an action I need to take (improving the design of my blog when I don’t know how to go about doing it), I have the ability to change my feelings, or at least reframe them and keep them from having such power over me.
I focus on the fact that I can move forward with action regardless of how I am feeling at the moment. Feelings are fleeting, and if they are negative feelings they can paralyze us, but actions propel us forward and forward motion is rewarding.

The struggle to control self doubt will probably always exist for many of us and what I finally realized is that this is normal. Having doubts does not say anything about our abilities. It will say something about our ability to be happy and fulfilled in life if we always let our doubts win though.

Persistence

Today I want to talk about persistence. I don’t like to admit this, but persistence is not a great strength of mine. It is a trait I’ve always admired, but one that used to—and still sometimes does—feel elusive. My husband is persistent. And also extremely consistent. Once he starts something, he can’t quit until he has reached the goal he set for himself. Whether he is doing a project around the house or working on a business idea or pushing toward a physical goal, he does not quit.

For example, I have known my husband for fifteen years now and I can’t think of a time he ever skipped a workout. He has rest days, but he has never skipped out on a workout that he scheduled for himself. For two years now, he has been working on an entrepreneurial idea. It has not blossomed into what he had envisioned and hoped it would be at this point, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing to work on it. He believes in his vision and he is 100% committed to making it happen, no matter the obstacles.

There have been a few times when his stubborn persistence has actually frustrated and confused me. It may seem like a small thing, but this reflects how he is with projects big and small: when he bought home gym equipment a few months ago, he stayed up until 1am figuring out how to rig a pulley system using cable and hooks (he is kind of like MacGyver because he can figure out how to built and fix things using only what he has on hand).

My initial reaction to his decision to stay up was annoyance, but perhaps it was also a strange envy at his sheer determination to complete a project before going to bed simply because he had set in his mind to do it. I knew he had to get up to work out at 5am the next morning and he would be dead tired if he stayed up. I also knew that it would be possible for him to finish working on the project over the next few days. To me, it seemed unnecessary to lose sleep to put together equipment he didn’t even have to use yet. I’ve never fully understood that kind of focused drive.

Now, not only would I have not stayed up until 1am to complete that project, but I also would likely have made excuses when 5am came the next morning. The script in my head would have gone something like this: Just hit the snooze button. You stayed up really late last night and it’s probably more important that your body gets some rest right now. You can work out later today.

Mental Scripts

I have to fight REALLY hard against that type of script. But when I ask my husband how he manages to fight against excuses for his morning workouts, he gives me an answer that is hard for me to relate to: “I don’t let myself think about excuses. I just get up.” Essentially, he pushes any negative thought out of his mind before it has a chance to take root. He doesn’t allow those negative scripts—my type of scripts—to take up space in his brain. Granted, he also has a strong internal drive, but I have come to believe thathis internal drive is so strong because of his mental scripts.

This was when I realized that our mental scripts determine the course of our lives, at least to a large degree. What we tell ourselves day after day will eventually become our belief systems, our philosophies. If I tell myself day after day that I am unattractive, I will come to see myself as unattractive—regardless of what others might believe about me. And I believe that if I feel unattractive, I will actually become less attractive, because we become what we believe about ourselves. (Notice what I said at the beginning of this post about how I am not a persistent person—this is a script I have come to believe about myself after years of telling myself that I am not persistent.)

I’ve spent much of my life feeding my brain negative mental scripts. I didn’t used to think of myself as a negative person; in fact, when I was young I always thought of myself as a positive person, a dreamer. The problem was that while I had big dreams, I was always injecting doubts and negative thoughts into my brain. Those negative thoughts, those fears of failure, those creeping doubts about my validity—all of those things overpowered my dreams until they eventually began to wither. I was not confident about exercising those muscles so I let them atrophy. Now, twenty years later I have come to see myself as a person who is not mentally strong when it is really that I just haven’t exercised strong mental scripts in my brain for a long time.

While I do believe that people are born with different strengths, both physical and mental, I think we all have more strength in us than we think. Some of us just stop using the muscles that we don’t feel especially confident about. And persistence is really just a muscle that we either use or don’t use.

Don’t Let Your Emotions Win

While we all have different methods of accomplishing goals, some of us need more help figuring out how to make sure we keep pursing those goals when it feels like we have hit a wall or we aren’t see the results we want. My husband’s advice to me—“just don’t think about the excuses”—might not seem easy, but it is a place to start. He is also always telling me, “it’s not easy, but it is simple.” And even though I find myself wanting to protest and resist this advice, it is actually true. For someone like me, someone who lives in her head too much, I’ve always let emotions call the shots in my life.

If I felt tired or I felt upset or I felt sad, I always used to let those emotions guide my behavior and my actions. That is a bad choice, plain and simple. Persistence is not complicated but it isn’t easy. Some of us have stronger mental muscles—either because we were born with them or we have been exercising them for years. But regardless of where we are right now, mentally, physically, or emotionally, we can all learn to start identifying and then replacing the negative scripts we have in our heads. I believe this is one of the tools that will lead to the difference between a mediocre life and a great one. Persistence is a necessary key toward creating and living the life you want but it is hard to be persistent if the negative talk in your head has a tendency to overpower your decisions.

So while this sounds overly simplistic, the next time you are faced with the choice to be persistent or make an excuse for leaving the path of persistence, don’t allow your brain any time to dwell on negative scripts. Don’t think about your excuses and don’t give yourself a choice about whether you can hit the snooze button or not. Override the negative scripts in your brain that are telling you it is okay to give up this once or that you aren’t good enough. Rely on positives scripts to push you out of your comfort zone and develop the habit of persistence.

Final Thought

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking persistence is a trait you either have or don’t have. Anyone can develop this trait. But also don’t fall into the trap of thinking it is easy. We can build systems for ourselves that will make it easier to develop strong traits, like persistence, but I don’t think the best things in our lives were meant to be easy.

Books, Books, Books

In my last post, I wrote about how important it is for each of us to cultivate reading as a habit so today I though I’d share a few ideas for where to start. While the following paragraphs will be far from in-depth reviews, I will give you a quick overview of three books and why I found each one so helpful.

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. This book was really inspirational to me because it pushed me to expect more from myself. It is amazing to me how certain principles can be thrown at us again and again and yet we still sometimes don’t put them into practice. I knew many of the principles in this book but haven’t always put them into practice in my own life, and I think that is typical of many people. And let’s face it, knowledge isn’t helpful in moving us forward in life unless we act on that knowledge.

Throughout his book, Olson talks about how success is created through consistent implementation of simple disciplines. Honestly, that sums up the entire book in a nutshell, but it obviously he goes into great depth about what that means and what it looks like.

There are so many nuggets of wisdom in this book but one of the most simple and perhaps most relevant is this: In chapter four (titled “Master the Mundane”), Olson says, “What you do today matters. What you do every day matters.” It sounds so easy and so small, but the profound truth is that we are each creating the shape of our lives through our everyday actions. He goes on to say, “Those little things that will make you successful in life, that will secure your health, your happiness, your fulfillment, your dreams, are simple, subtle, mundane things that nobody will see, nobody will applaud, nobody will even notice… Things that are ridiculously easy to do—but just as easy not to do.”

We are each in control of how are lives will turn out, and Olson’s book gives great encouragement and insight as to how we can create great success and happiness for ourselves. Just recently, I finished reading it for the second time—some books are good enough to delve into over and over and this is one of them!

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. I actually bought one of Sethi’s training courses about seven years ago when I was branching into freelance editing in addition to my day job as a legal proofreader, and I have been getting his newsletters ever since. I’ve only recently read his book, but I have enjoyed reading books on money for years and I have to say, his would make my top ten. His writing is clear and concise, and he is also funny. I love when an author can inject humor into a topic that most people find dry and intimidating. This is a great book for people who don’t really want to spend a lot of time reading or thinking about their money but are responsible enough to know they need to learn about the basics.

Sethi gives solid principles to follow and breaks them down into action steps at the end of each chapter. I also love that he encourages people to set up a system that works for them specifically—he doesn’t claim that one size fits all. He wants people to live a rich life and pushes his readers to find out what that looks like for them rather than just following what they have been told they are supposed to want. For example, while our society tends to push this dream that includes a corporate job, a house in the suburbs, and two kids, Sethi notes that if you prefer to spend a larger portion of your paycheck on dining in expensive restaurants than owning a large home, you simply need to adjust your money system to fit your lifestyle. He believes that everyone can find abundance if we learn to work smarter and then let our money work hard for us.

Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser. This is a book I read some time ago and have just recently picked up again. It focuses on writing to figure out what we want and to visualize and then get what we want. Life is busy and chaotic and stressful much of the time, which is why Klauser emphasizes how important it is to write down our desires and goals for our lives. She says, “Once you start writing your goals down, the brain will send you all kinds of new material: innovative, energizing ideas for planning out and expanding those ambitions.”

So often we think about our dreams in passing—“Wouldn’t it be nice to vacation in Greece someday?”—but we don’t set down concrete goals for our lives—“I am going to start setting aside $50 every paycheck so that by 2024, my husband and I can go to Greece for a week, stay in a luxury hotel, and eat in the best restaurants.” Klauser makes the point that just having dreams won’t get you to them, but that “setting your intent, focusing on the outcome, being clear about what you want in life can make your dreams come true.”

On top of having action steps to take at the end of each chapter, her book is full of stories about people who managed to change their own lives using the principles she outlines. It is a call to action that helped me sharpen the focus for my own goals.

These are just three books that have influenced my life, but I will start adding to the list of great books in one blog every month.

Even if reading is a struggle for you, I encourage you to stick with it. Start out small—read one book every month or every other month and then increase from there. Listen to an audio book. One day you might just read a book that will change your life!

Growth Through Reading

I know I’ve mentioned a few different books in other posts but if I haven’t said it outright, I will say it now—I love to read. If, when I was in the regular workforce, I could have found a job where I was paid to read interesting books all day, it would be a dream (I actually did have a job where I read all day for five years but I was reading dry, boring legal documents that held no interest for me). Obviously jobs like this do exist but I have shifted my focus to new goals since I left my day job three years ago. The point is, I still love to read. And I know reading expands our knowledge base and helps us grow in many valuable ways.

Far too few people spend any time reading these days, or growing their minds, period. For most people, it is hard to put effort into reading and I believe that is in part because our society doesn’t encourage reading nearly enough. Reading is seen as hard work from a very young age, and when something is viewed as work, most of us try to find ways to avoid it wherever possible.

Just yesterday my dad mentioned that he is trying to find some suitable reading material for a young man he is mentoring. When my sister asked if the young man (he is about sixteen years old) liked to read, my dad said he wasn’t sure but that he needed to learn the disciple regardless of inclination. While I agree with that principle—we all need to disciple ourselves to spend time in exercises of growth even when we don’t feel like it—I also think it would behoove us as a society to find ways to encourage these exercises in growth to be viewed from a different perspective. Because let’s face it, if this young man doesn’t like to read, he will be very unlikely to read any of the books my dad gives to him, regardless of how they might benefit him. And while it is ultimately each person’s choice as to how they will live their lives, it is our responsibility as a society to set up our young people for success (something that isn’t happening enough today).

If we can encourage reading from a young age, if we can frame reading as a normal and even exciting activity, perhaps it will make a difference in how kids view it. And most importantly, if we as adults and parents model the action of reading in our own lives, our kids will be more likely to do it. How can we expect them to enjoy reading if most of us rarely read more than a few books a year after college?

Reading is hugely important because it helps us entertain new perspectives, expand our minds with new ideas, explore other worlds and hear incredibly interesting stories. We owe it to ourselves to pick up this habit and begin reading, preferably a wide variety of material.

I feel incredibly lucky that I love to read. I think this love was encouraged and fostered by my parents, but I also know that I was born with a greater inclination to this activity than some. My husband, for example, will admit that he hates to read. He finds it to be a very labor-intensive activity and has explained to me that he often has to read the same sentence two or three times to really comprehend it on the level he desires. He has even joked that he would rather go to the dentist than read, but that is why I admire him all the more for taking on the challenge of reading. As he grew personally and professionally, it encouraged him to take on new challenges, and one of those was reading. To this day, he doesn’t read because he enjoys it; he reads because he understands the value that lies within the act of reading, and he will adamantly agree that reading has increased his knowledge and expanded his mindset. While a majority of the books he consumes these days are actually on audio, he still makes an effort to read hard-copy books because he believes it is important for his own self-growth.

So I guess my goal for today is to encourage you to add a few new books to your reading list and spend some time pursuing this valuable activity. Yes, it might mean that you have to cut back on that hour or two you relax in the evening with your favorite show but it is completely worth it. And if you don’t feel like you have time to sit down and read a hard-copy book (these are still my favorite way to read but I do listen to a lot more audio books these days because I can wash dishes or clean at the same time), at least take advantage of the extensive online audio book options—either through your local library or sources like Amazon Prime. When we look back over our lives, I don’t think any of us will wish we had watched more t.v. or played more Candy Crush on our phones, but we will wish that we had used our time engaged in valuable activities that helped us, challenged us, and made us learn something new. Reading can do that for us every time.

Obstacles

It is so easy to talk about great ideas and lofty goals but it is always harder to put those ideas into action and shoot for those lofty goals when obstacles pop up to block your path. Take this blog, for instance. I probably worked on creating my blog for five weeks before I finally took the plunge and bought a hosting site and domain name. After watching a few videos and reading a few blogs about how to start a blog, I decided it was time to move forward. Even though I felt unprepared, I believed it was best to plow ahead so as not to lose momentum.

For most of my life, I’ve operated under the notion that a project should be as near to perfect as possible before revealing it to the world, but as I’ve spent time shifting to a growth mindset, I realized that imperfect action is better than perfect inaction. As my own past experience has taught me, usually working to get something “perfect” ends up meaning it never gets done at all.

So here I was, setting up my website. Enthusiastic, excited, inspired.

Then, I hit a roadblock. I made a stupid mistake that cost me hours of time. When inputting my information, I listed my email incorrectly on the set-up page of the hosting site. I guess I was tired and not paying attention because I don’t think I’ve ever written my email incorrectly before (but in all fairness, I had just recently set up a new email account).

Three times now, I’ve called the customer service line and three times I’ve chatted online with a customer service representative. Apparently, if you list the incorrect email address and set up a domain name, you cannot activate it. This makes sense because the validation code is sent to the email you listed—and the one I listed was wrong. So I’ve had multiple emails sent to some stranger (hopefully they have simply ignored the emails) with information I need. But each time I try to correct this problem with the hosting site, I’ve run into issues.

Each person I’ve chatted with or spoken to has been very kind, but each time I was told the problem was fixed, I seemed to run into another hiccup because of my dumb mistake.

The reason I am telling this story is because at a few points in the midst of this mess, I considered abandoning my blog project altogether. It sounds silly, but the truth is that sometimes when a wrench gets thrown in our wheel, we fall off our bikes and then simply walk away. We think it is a sign that this is not “meant to be” (I’ve never liked that phrase anyway because it implies that we have no control over our own lives); or else we think that it would just be easier to abandon the project altogether.

For a few days, I got discouraged and thought of all the reasons why I should just abandon this project.

I don’t know much at all about technology, which means I don’t have the skills to make my website look really good and I won’t have the skills to fix things if they break.
I might not be able to recover my domain name and could continue to run into difficulties because of my one dumb mistake while setting up the website.
I still don’t know if I have enough to say on my blog. Will I have the ability to produce good content? Will people be interested in what I have to say?
Even though I always considered myself a writer, I haven’t written much in years and the reality is, my writing skills need a lot of polishing.

Those were a few of the reasons I almost abandoned this project. But then I tried to counter my own negative thoughts with a way through each problem.

There are tons of resources out there and even though I don’t know much about technology right now, I can learn. (I also had to remind myself that this blog is themed around learning and growth, after all.)
If I have to choose a different domain name and start from scratch, it’s not the end of the world. Who knows, maybe I’ll even come up with a better name than the one I current have.
There is plenty to write about, even if it has been written before (and it most likely has). I just have to focus on making it authentic and remember that if it is relevant to me, it is likely relevant to someone else out there.
The only way to get better at something is to practice. I can only improve my writing by writing. Even if these first posts are unpolished, I will get better over time.

We should all be careful not to let obstacles stand in the way of taking action. Whether your goal is facing its first obstacle or its tenth, you can do this by reframing the obstacle and looking for solutions. Growth happens when we are willing to do something that scares us, something that takes us out of our comfort zone. So this is me doing something that scares me. Every time I post, I am pushing through the fear that I suck, that I’m not good enough, that I don’t have anything relevant to say. But I am doing it because I believe growth is in progress with every action I take. And the reward for that growth is always fulfilling.