entry 64. [you can fly when you want to]
Hi.
I know, it’s been far too long. I’ve really missed writing to you…
Lately I’ve been thinking about change. Change, in and of itself can be really great. It’s better when you initiate it yourself…not so fun when it’s initiated for you. But I choose to believe that ultimately, all change can be good…given enough time.
That’s where I am…well kind of. I keep thinking that something big has to change in my life; personally, professionally, I’m craving something big (and wonderful) happening. But here’s the thing - I look around, create mental to-do lists, think of all the ‘what ifs’ and as soon as I see one thing that needs to change, a hundred other things that also need changing come into view. With that kind of aperture, I tend to give up before anything had been started. Before anything changes.
A month passes, and I’m exactly where I was a month prior. As I talk to my friends, as I watch my family, it has become clear to me that I’m not alone in this. Perhaps it’s our nature or maybe it’s something we learned, a bad habit, if you will, of accepting mediocrity as normal. A habit of accepting plateaus as a place to permanently camp, instead of simple a place to rest, and eventually, move on.
Change leads to growth, expansion, new opportunities. Staying stuck in the same place creates exactly the opposite; more of the same. And if where one is is not good, by staying in it, you’re saying to yourself, this is as good as it gets. On the one hand it’s giving up. On the other, it’s giving in.
I’ve noticed that when I’m not pushing myself, when I’m not growing as an artist or as a person, I feel less happy. My definition of happiness has more to do with growth than safety. I find that when I take risks, no matter how big or small, I feel a surge of what I call happiness, but really it’s more similar to an adrenalin rush, which carries me over into the next task. What follows is a never ending search for happiness, a constant need to change and grow.
What if I could be one of those people who is perfectly content living in the same place for 50 years, married to the same person, working the same job?
Ah, but I’m not one of those people. And that is a curse and a blessing at times.
So how to we change the big picture when the big picture is just so…big? When we look around and see hundreds of things that also need to change and get so overwhelmed that we do nothing, what happens then?
Take small steps. Small deliberate action steps, daily. I say small steps because that’s not as scary as a giant leap. A giant leap too soon and we might stop before we begin.
In my daily to-do lists I started playing a game. I list only 5 things that I will accomplish in that day. Now, for someone who is self-employed running several business, 5 tasks is barely the surface of everything that needs to happen. But if I list too many tasks, the list overwhelms me and I get nothing done. I have found that 5 works for me. Sometimes the tasks are huge (like editing 1,000s of wedding photos), and sometimes they’re simple (like ‘go to the post office’). But it’s always just five. And then I have a section I call “extra credit”. These are the fun things, the not-so fun things, the things I’ve put off from the previous week. Whatever they are, the extra credit are always items that I have been avoiding for whatever reason. It’s a game I play with myself, and it works. When I accomplish all 5 things and then move into the extra credit, boy oh boy do I feel accomplished! And it makes those things I’d been putting off so much more fun.
Who knows? With enough of these daily, deliberate actions, I may just find myself in a whole new terrain, one I’ve never before imagined.
Just keep going…
xo
Liz
