Goodbye Spark, Hello Shine
Whew! What a whirlwind month. But I do feel like paying particular attention to laying foundations for the year was really helpful for me and I so hope it was helpful to you, too. If you loved SPARK but want to go even further with it, I wanted to let you know that I am offering both a virtual and in person workshop in March that will help you do just that.
Spark Your Systems (in person) Wednesday, March 12 9:30 am until 12:30 pm at Triple Play Farm in Davidson, NC $50
Spark Your Systems (virtual) Thursday, March 13 12 to 2 pm EST on your phone $40
How do you organize your life to get a lot done in less time? How do you plan for your dream in the midst of taking care of your responsibilities? This workshop will teach you a system for managing your life while incorporating your dreams—and you’ll put that system into place during the workshop. Participants will leave with clarity about their priorities and passions and with a system in place to help them embrace and achieve more of what they want in their lives.
To celebrate the conclusion of SPARK here, I am offering a $5 discount on both workshops. Just use the promotion code SPARK (discount available until February 12th!).
And I am excited to announce SHINE II: philosophies and practices to nurture and flame your self-acceptance. SHINE starts February 3rd and will feature a post every Monday, Wednesday, Friday (Friday Reflections will go on hiatus for the month) and a happy sheet every Sunday. Happy weekend!
SPARK Day 26: Friday Reflections
Welcome to the final day of Spark— SPARK Day 26! Every Friday, I reflect on the week that has just passed by doing a little senses exercise. This practice is a gentle, easy way to tune into how we are doing, what we are experiencing, and what we are grateful for while more acutely tuning into our senses. It’s a whole heart exercise with plenty of bodily input, if you will. Because this practice has been so good for me, I want to encourage you to do it, too. Building some gentle reflection into our weeks is a nice way to stay grounded while maintaining some big picture perspective. So please join me in this week’s Friday Reflections (with each sense as your inspiration, consider how experiencing it impacted your week) and the final exercise for this month’s SPARK experience.
Here is my sensory round-up for this week:
tasting :: mushroom ragu and pasta, zucchini fritters, autumn chicken with brown rice, three bean soup, lots of oranges
hearing :: Lola barking at the wind and snow, so joyful that there was so much weather to amuse her.
smelling :: not much as I work through this round of a raging sinus infection
seeing :: a light smattering of snow and a dog determined to stay out in it; a resurgence of love for a stuffed animal (Omi the Elephant) who had fallen by the wayside for a bit in place of other favorites. Omi, the first stuffed animal in Happy’s life, is back in the bed (remember when Happy slept with a million stuffed animals? We had whittled it down to 2. With the re-introduction of Omi, we are at three so Happy still fits in the bed, at least).
feeling :: all the feelings as I read my Body Image students’ gorgeous, inspiring, heartbreaking, touching, and even funny body image autobiographies. And thankful for all of you for coming along this month for SPARK!
wishing/hoping :: for a smooth and inspiring kick-off to Run Big Dream Big V on Saturday. Every year, the Circle de Luz girls train and run a 5k with a posse of volunteers. We kick off the training season on Saturday with physicals, shoe fittings, a first run, and lunch!
What about you? What were your sensational experiences this week? Please share!
This post was inspired by Teacher Goes Back to School who was inspired by Pink of Perfection’s Five Sense Friday.
SPARK Day 25: Identify Your 10 Things
Welcome to SPARK Day 25– the next to last day of SPARK! And, today, we’re completing an exercise I have been doing each month for almost two years now: a list of ten good things. Here’s the scoop.
At the end of each month, I take stock of the previous month. What went well? What did I learn? What brought me a simple joy? These monthly reports are a way to encourage myself to take delight in the littlest of things. I find that Ten Things I Loved allows me to always see the silver lining, even when there are hard moments in a month. Taking joy in the simple things is paramount to how I want to live which makes 10 things an invaluable tool for me. Here’s this month’s simple pleasures.
1. SPARK! I was really excited about turning the calendar to 2014. I wanted to set just the right tone for myself, get into my best practices right away, and really build some momentum after a December that was an emotional and physical quagmire. Choosing to share some of my practices with you through SPARK was also a great way to reinforce them with myself. While January wasn’t as full of ease and flow as I would have liked (Happy was out of school A LOT for weather and I’ve got my standard it’s been four weeks since my last one sinus infection brewing right now), but there was lots of forward progress and I am happy with the foundation that has been laid. Did you enjoy SPARK? Come back in February for SHINE as we focus on philosophies to nurture and flame our self-acceptance. More on that on Saturday!
2. visionSPARK! Oh my goodness! One of my best New Year’s traditions is hosting visionSPARK. I am just WILD about this event. Amazing women gather together with women that they are just meeting and get real and excited about what they want to craft out of this new year and then they set about to capture it in one simple, powerful word and in beautiful, inspiring vision boards. This year, I added a 3rd local offering and so I rode the visionSPARK high for three days! The inspiration is still carrying me.
3. CHOOSING THRIVE! My 2013 word was a bit of a bust. It just didn’t really capture what I most needed out of 2013 and about halfway through the year, I thought, what my word really should be is “abundance.” So for a while, though I started to center my 2013 energy on abundance, I was also thinking that I’d already figured out my 2014 word well in advance. Then, as December started clicking along, HARMONY came to me as my word for 2014. As I reflected on that more, I realized I wanted harmony in a very specific part of my life and that the word itself wasn’t broad enough to capture the feeling that I most wanted to have in all of my life. So, harmony was a good sub-focus in one area but it wasn’t it so I circled back around to abundance. As I thought more about it, I realized that abundance wasn’t quite it either as it felt like it could elicit some “careful what you wish for” sentiments later on. I didn’t want to have too much of some things and so calling out for abundance felt a little like a dare. I didn’t want my cup to overflow as much as I wanted my cup to have all the right things in it at the right amount. I want to thrive- to have a lush, radiant daily life and big picture life that is heaping with inspiration and clarity and goodness but isn’t too much, overbearing, exhausting. To flourish but not wilt. So here’s to a thriving 2014!
4. 2014 VISIONBOARD. I typically create my vision board for my new year on my birthday (since it is mid-November), but BF took my last birthday off so we could spend it together and he was certainly not thinking that it included helping me to trim my carefully chosen words and images down to just the right size. So, I put off making my vision board until the new year AND I only made one (for the last couple years, I have made 2 boards: a professional one and a personal one). While I wasn’t sure about it at all while I was creating it, I am really happy with the end product. There are some powerful longer quotes that really speak to me on the board (not so long but really fun is: what I want to do is uplift consciousness, heal the planet, and boogie. That Carlos Santana quote sounds just about perfect!), but there are also words and images that pack a powerful inspirational punch. While I never found the word thrive (yes, I could have pieced it together but didn’t feel that compelled to do that), I did find a photo that captured it for me: the woman carrying so many flowers you cannot even see her upper body and the words In Full Bloom. There are lots of words and images on the board about tapping, maintaining and sharing my light— from that star light to a fortune I found in a recent cookie: You stand in your own light. Make it shine!— as I strive to radiate (but not harmfully, of course). And reminders about the work that I wish to do out in the world (The Martha Beck quote: It’s only by starting in a place of peace that we find our purpose and power, feed your soul, and several of the other quotes on the board) and at home (Happy Happy Happy Happy, Celebrate Love, Make a playdate with your own kid, and a photo of a woman painting on the seaside). There are nods to Circle de Luz and to just being who and how I want to be in the world. I’ve propped it in the window of the Sugar Shack, right in front of my desk so that I state at it when I glance up and not at the sad, bare trees beyond. Here’s to inspiration!
5. BACK TO SCHOOL! I am always so sad to say goodbye to my students at the end of each semester and I worry that my next class won’t gel in the same way. Yet, that is just a silly worry because EVERY SINGLE TIME, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the way the students who are attracted to a class on Body Image come into the space in such an intentional and receptive way and, together, we get to create something really special together. My new group is just as grand as any pass group and I’ve even adjusted to my new classroom layout- the kind of collegiate lecture hall where the professor is down on a little platform in front and the rows are tiered up from in an amphitheater. It TOTALLy threw me off when I walked in there the first day, but we’ve made it work together (especially for discussions which are central to Body Image class). Very excited about the semester!
6. HOT STONE MASSAGE. There really isn’t more that needs to be said here, is there? Best Christmas present for sure.
7. How Children Succeed Summit. This half-day summit was sponsored by Communities in Schools (one of our partners for Circle de Luz) and America’s Promise Alliance and its national GradNation Campaign. The summit featured powerful education around drop off indictors (as early as first grade!), poverty impact, the impact of quality teachers, and a keynote address from Paul Tough, the author of How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and The Hidden Power of Character. It was so informative and inspiring. I took pages and pages of notes. And now I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of How Children Succeed from the library so I can read it all.
8. FIVE YEARS. We celebrated five years as a family this month. Wow. It both seems like the time flew by and that Happy has always been in our lives.
9. A CHAPTER A DAY. I practically didn’t read from Thanksgiving to the New Year so making the commitment to read a chapter a day in January was just what I needed to get back to it. Three books done and a fourth moving along.
10. THIS LATEST SINUS INFECTION. One of my oldest childhood friends told me that she just thinks of me as snooty. Not snotty as in I have an attitude but snotty as in there is always something going on with my damn nose. She knew me in middle school; she knew me in high school; she was a college roommate. She’s had enough exposure to how I sound to know. But the thing is that while the problem always started in my nose, it spiraled out of control FAST. Seriously, I go from post nasal drip to infection in about a day. I go from sinus infection to tonsillitis in about two days and from tonsillitis to bronchitis in about three days. And, usually, just for good measure, this is all accompanied by ear infections. About six or seven years ago, I was fed up with all of it and because I saw my tonsils as the problem (that was what hurt the worst), I saw an ENT who said that my tonsils definitely had to go. He also took one look up my nose and suggested sinus surgery, too (that he could just take care of while I was already under for my tonsils). But since I, non-doctor that I am, saw my tonsils as the problem, I agreed to tonsil surgery and not sinus surgery. Well, the good news is no more tonsillitis and, hence, less bronchitis. The bad news is that I am still friggin’ snotty more often than not. So after a sinus infection that knocked me on my tush in December and another one this month, I loudly declared that I was done. DONE. DONE. I would love to not have to have surgery but who knows what my quest to end the sinus infections will bring. What I do know is that I put out a call for feedback and have gotten tons of great suggestions. I’m working every angle and will certainly update you here if I land on something that makes me a less snotty person. In the meantime, I am grateful that this sinus infection landed at a time where I wasn’t so worn down from everything else and I could just look squarely at it and say, “This isn’t my normal anymore.” It gave me just the impetus I needed to come out swinging. Here’s to the good fight.
♥
Now, tell me about your January? What did you love?
SPARK Day 24: Explore Your SPARK Experience
Welcome to Spark Day 24! On SPARK Wednesdays, we’re going within.
The cornerstone to an intentional life is really knowing who you are and what you want to offer the world and understanding how to get there. Sometimes, we think by the basis of our age that we should know everything there is to know about ourselves, but we are constantly changing and, if we are busy, it could be that we aren’t getting quiet enough to discover the newest truths about ourselves and embrace what they mean for our lives.
Every Wednesday, I’m sharing questions designed to build your self-awareness so that you can proactively and powerfully live with intention and infuse your life with the feelings and experiences you most wish to have.
Today, our focus is really looking back at SPARK this month. We’ll take a look at your journey through SPARK so you can honor the foundation that you have built while supporting your efforts in still moving forward. Grab a notebook and pen or your favorite writing app/program on your phone, tablet, or computer, a little something to drink, and answer these questions honestly and completely. And, as always, please feel free to share here, too!
What word did you choose for 2014 and why? What will embodying this word on a regular basis in 2014 bring to you in 2015?
When looking at your vision board for 2014, what observations do you make? What inspires you from it? What gives you hope or clarity?
What did you discover while writing your wellness prescription? How are you living your wellness prescription? What do you still need to do?
How was your weekly review helped your processes? How can you tweak it to make it a more powerful tool for you?
What do you love from your morning ritual? What do you love from your bedtime routine? What is still missing? How can you fine tune the experiences for yourself?
What did the Wheel of Life teach you? How is it offering you greater perspective and balance in your life?
What do you want more of in your life? What do you want less of in your life? What are the nos you need to give? What will allow you to be more wholehearted in your living?
What practices are essential for you to continue to nourish yourself in the days and weeks to come?
What do you believe 2014 holds for you? Are you ready to receive that offering?
SPARK Day 23: Know Your Nos Work Edition
Welcome to SPARK Day 22 and a whole new version of Know Your Nos. It’s the work edition. The philosophies espoused in Monday’s post still stand, but, now, here are some layers of thinking or doing that you can consider in determining or executing your professional nos.
Know Your Mission.
Many of the Passion. Purpose. Plunge retreats that I facilitate have some sort of professional element to them. Perhaps someone is in a place of transition and wants to figure out the natural next steps or maybe someone is self-employed and wants to fine tune their focus or processes. While I am no business coach, I am a pretty good concept and creative strategist, and one of the things that I am finding as a very important first step is getting my clients- especially those who are self-employed- to write a mission statement.
I know, I know.
A mission statement sounds like a drag and so very Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And it does because, well, it is. Having a mission statement helps to make things clear. When you define what it is that you want to be doing as your mission, it becomes a fabulous barometer for whether or not you should say yes to something. Now, I am not saying that you can only do things that are within your mission statement all the time but I am saying that having a mission statement makes things SO much more clear.
Mission statements allow you to voice what you want for yourself professionally, how you want to do that work and/or why it what matters to you, and the change you want to manifest in the world. And if you refer to it often, it helps you become clear about what work, projects you should take and which ones you shouldn’t.
I have used many different formulas over the years to write my mission statements. In fact, you can see some past mission statements here. Stephen Covey, author of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, really does have a good system. A life coach that I know, Nicole Greer, suggests a one sentence formulate made up of an identifying core value (something that is most important to you), what you innately do (describing it in three verbs) and identifying “who you are most meant to serve in this world.
The fact is that you would never drive to a totally new place without some directions, a road map, or a compass. A mission statement gives you that direction. So take the time to write one; especially if you are self-employed. It will give you good direction when an opportunity comes knocking at your door and you don’t know whether or not it is a fit.
Want to know my current mission statement?
Rosie Molinary empowers women to embrace their authentic selves so they can live their passion and purpose and give their gifts to the world.
Honor Your Rhythm
Figure out what you most need to be successful professionally and honor it. In my last traditional job, I realized that I really needed quiet time at the start of the day, but I worked in a highly social (awesome!) office and so I started to get to work 30 minutes before everyone else did so that I could get that quiet time to empty out my inbox from the night before, plan for the day, and do any prep work. That way, when my very fun coworkers arrived, I could chat with them without worrying about what was piling up in my inbox.
I bring this up now because that move was really about honoring my best work rhythm and, thus, it helped me manage my work stress. Take some time to figure out what you need to get good work done. As I mentioned last week, I need Mondays to be as free as often as possible and rooted at my desk. It takes all week- if it happens- for me to recover if my Monday is back to back to back meetings. So, now I try to block off my Mondays and am very protective about that time. Because I know my rhythm, I know that giving away my Mondays is a no that I need to give.
Honor Your Values
I value doing meaningful, high impact work that inspires women to live their passion and purpose and give their gifts and talents to the world. But I also value being with my family to have adventures, just relish in love, and even work through the occasional squabble. If I don’t create structure, then my schedule gets all over the place and I look up and realize that my values have been neglected. So, there are several ways you can respect your values by saying yes or no at work.
Come up with parameters.
I am asked to do a lot of pro-bono work. And I do reserve some time in my schedule for pro-bono work as that honors my values but there are some areas where I try not to give my time away. It is incredibly rare that I will miss 2 nights of bedtime on a school night. Routine is good for my family- from family dinners to our bedtime rituals, etc- and I don’t want to disrupt that casually. So I don’t work two nights in a week and I also don’t do book club and work in the same week, for example. Max: 1 night away a week. And I even tell that to people when they ask: “Thanks so much for the invitation but I have a personal commitment to not miss more than one bedtime a week and so I am not able to be with you for X as I already have a commitment that will take me away from the home for bedtime one night that week.”
In addition, I was once asked to do pro-bono work at a time where I would need to hire a sitter. I was happy to do the workshop but just couldn’t reconcile paying $50 to do the pro-bono work and so I let the inviter know that I would be happy to do it, I would be honored to do it, but we needed to do it a time where I wouldn’t have to hire a sitter. They readily agreed and changed the time.
Set Limits
Another way that I honor my values is that I don’t give away work on the weekend. If I am going to miss family time on the weekend for something related to work, it has to pay and I typically have a minimum earning amount. I know that might sound ogrey but because the workshops I host and my volunteer commitments with Circle de Luz do ask a lot of me on the weekend and that is the one time all three of us can hang, it is hard for me reconcile missing additional precious time with my family by having that be the time where I willingly give my work away.
What parameters will allow you to embrace your values? Your more or less list from last week might be helpful in considering this question.
Honor Your Time
Speaking of more and less, I recently asked a friend, “What do you want to be doing less?”
“Going to ‘can I pick your brain’ coffees!” She answered pretty quickly. And she is not alone; I actually have heard this a lot from my self-employed buds. And they are torn- so, so torn- because they want to be helpful, they want to be supportive, but they can’t lose the work hours! So how do you say no in these situations?! Try these options.
Write an everything you wanted to know about what I do and how I do it blog post (or series of blog posts) and direct coffee inviters there.
Schedule one two hour block a month for those inquiries. Direct the inquisitor to that day, time. If that works for them, great, they can have a 30 minute spot. If not, maybe next time.
Do a phone call instead of meeting in person and give the phone call time parameters (I can give you 30 minutes on Tuesday morning).
Basically, the concept here is that you do not have to be available all the time for people’s inquiries. You can put parameters to it and have it allow you be generous and kind while honoring the time you have available.
In addition, you can try these options.
Make and keep room for yourself.
Putting unscheduled days (which doesn’t mean that I don’t work, it simply means that I do not schedule meetings on those days) really helps me be more efficient on my work days (since I live outside the city, I often lose an hour to driving to a meeting which means that a one hour meeting actually takes me two) and allows me to really get into the zone for some projects. And the zone is where the really good work stuff happens and so I need to make sure that I make room for that!
Delegate
I do most of my own stuff but let me tell you one thing that I do not do: my own web overhauling. If I need a page added to my website, I could do it (badly) but the time and energy suck that it would be is just not worth it to me so I hire that out (the amazing Ron Doyle is my web guru, if you are curious). And it is not just with web-stuff that I sometimes put out an SOS. BF and I each divide up tasks based on what we either have no business doing or desire to do, my siblings and I do, too, and it even happens on committees that I am on. It’s a smart practice because it allows most people to work more in their zone. I loved this post from Christine Kane on how to know when to hire (or delegate) help.
Use Your Out of Office Message
I get a lot of email in a day. Probably more than 100 emails fly in and out of my inboxes in a day. And the idea of people having to wait to hear from me to move forward really stresses me out (because I am worried that I am stressing them out!), but sometimes I am in meetings back to back and just don’t have email time or I am elbow deep in grading and have my inbox closed. So many of us are used to only using our out of office message if we are actually traveling but I say use it to let people know that you are in deep and might need extra time to respond. This has been a really great tool for me for settling my stress level during already stressful times.
Can you see any of these suggestions working for you? What do you do to manage your nos at work?
Spark Day 22: Know Your Nos
Welcome to SPARK Day 22. Today is all about taking that idea of what you want you to be doing less of in your life and really grasping how to claim that in your life.
And the inspiration for today’s focus really comes from my own experience. You see, I love the idea of saying yes with abandon, love the ability to be helpful, but, truth be told, if I yes my way through several days or weeks, I absolutely hate the impact.
The yes girl in me sees you, sympathizes with your need, and desperately wants to partner with you in meeting that need.
But if left to my own natural instinct, I say yes with a personal recklessness, show up everywhere you need me, and give, as one of my high school students once so keenly observed about me, until I give out.
There was a time that I found this precious about me, where the truth of it allowed me to define myself as good, where my overly yes nature defined part of my worth. And what I most wanted to be was good. Being good was my everything.
And I realized that I could not continue to say yes with wild abandon. I had to have more of a structure for my yeses and I had to know my nos. Because here is the thing: we are, each one of us, here on purpose. Every one of us is meant to meet at least one of the world’s needs whether that is raising compassionate, problem solving children to treating or curing some insidious disease. And if we disperse, distract, diffuse our energy, we are less capable of doing the work we are meant to be doing in this world. We become less capable of flaming our passion and purpose and giving our gifts and talents to the world. And so becoming aware of what our nos and yeses should be is vital for several reasons: it allows us to practice better self-care which is so awesome and important but it also allows us to focus our finite energy on what we are most meant to be doing in this world.
Over the last fifteen years, I have honed my understanding of myself and my system for saying no, honed my responses, and honed my philosophy. It is not perfect; I still have to relearn the same lesson far too often; but I no longer get to that really dangerous overextended threshold. I put things back into check far earlier.
Because learning this lesson has been so valuable to me, I wanted to share with you a strategy for knowing YOUR nos and it all starts with a powerful personal realization.
I’m Every Woman
For the longest time, when someone asked me to do something, I had two standards for whether or not I would say yes.
Was the time needed actually open on my calendar?
So, if Sally Smith saw me in the preschool lobby and asked me if I could help with Thursday’s bake sale, I would check to see if my calendar was open on Thursday morning . If yes, then I moved to standard #2.
Could I do what was being asked of me?
And I don’t mean with any particular skill or anything—just was I capable of the bare minimum of the ask. So could I, at least, whip together a bag of sugar cookie mix and put some frosting on top? Then yes. If the question was could I repair a motorcycle, then no.
So those were my standards. Was the time open on my calendar and could I basically do it. If so, then yes, I would do it.
Right now, you are thinking, “yeah, so?” because that’s likely what you do, too. Your standards are “do I literally have the time?” (not “is this how I am meant/called to spend my time?”) and “can I basically do it?” How do I know those are your standards? Because in the words of Chaka Khan, I’m every woman.
But then as a commitment neared, a little voice in my head would say something like, “why did I say that I would do this?” It would say that while I was preparing, getting ready, driving there. Then, I would get there and I would have a wonderful time. And so on the way home, I would start in on myself, “See? You had a perfectly good time. Your problem isn’t being overcommitted. It is your attitude. Fix it, girl.”
And so I tried to fix my attitude. But here’s the thing. In my list of areas for growth, a bad attitude isn’t one of them. I promise. So what was going on?
Then I had this important realization: Being happy AFTER the commitment isn’t enough as I am wired to have a good time most everywhere I end up. As much as is possible (and, heck, it isn’t always possible as there is laundry to be done in my life and I just can’t be happy about that), I want to be happy all the way through a commitment.
And, thus, was born a whole a new framework for me in knowing my nos.
A Continuum of Wholeheartedness
In 2012, my word for the year was wholehearted. I chose the word for many reasons but one of the big reasons I chose it was because I really wanted to be wholehearted in everything that I did. I wanted the feeling of wholeheartedness to be my guide. As much as possible, I wanted to feel wholehearted and all in with everything that I did. Granted, I knew I wouldn’t feel wholehearted about the laundry or dishes or vacuuming but, you know, as much as possible I wanted my choices to be rooted in wholeheartedness.
And, thus, the continuum of wholeheartedness was born, and it became a critical tool for me in knowing my nos.
Because I want to be wholehearted in as much that I do as possible, I now operate with different standards. It is not enough anymore for the basic standard to be that my calendar is open nor that I am technically able to meet the need (recall the example of making cookies for the bake sale). Now, I have to feel honored to be asked or thrilled to offer my energy/gifts/talents, excited to say yes, happy to do the pre-work to get ready for the commitment, and THEN have a good time while I am there. This is the continuum of wholeheartedness, and it has given me so much clarity about what my yeses need to be.
Today, I want to encourage you to employ a continuum of wholeheartedness when deciding whether or not to commit to something.
But what will that person do if I say no, you wonder.
Last year, I was asked to be on a board for a non-profit whose work I feel is incredibly important in our community. The email invitation made it seem like I was essential to the organization’s success. I was torn, but I also knew that I was at my saturation point commitment-wise and I just couldn’t. Yet, I felt so bad.
So I wrote a very detailed apology note to say that I just couldn’t do it and that I was so, so sorry.
Minutes later, I got an email back that basically said, “No problem. Do you know any other Latinas who might be interested?” It was more tactful than this, I promise, but that was the gist.
I have to tell you that guffawed at that one. They didn’t need ME; they needed someone who had a particular lens that I also had. And that made me realize two things.
People are more ready for your no than you realize.
Think about it. Every time that I ask someone for help, I always have a back up plan. What will I do if Valerie says no, I think. And I am not special. Other people think that way, too. In fact, I think that organization expected me to say no but thought that asking me might get them closer to what they need. So people are ready for you to say no if it doesn’t work in your quest for a continuum of wholeheartedness.
Your no is someone else’s yes.
When you say no, you allow the person who asked to get closer to the right person for the job. Imagine that my bake sale example is real. I am a relatively friendly, enthusiastic person. I move through a space, checking in with people and hearing about what is going on, and so I might be a natural person to tell about the bake sale to see if I might be interested in helping. But my cookies are just as likely to come out burnt (because I get distracted by some other commitment) as come out worth some money. So I may not be the best bang for your bake sale buck. But that more quiet mom walking down the hall behind me could very well be your person. She could be experimenting with putting rosewater or lavender in her lemon cupcakes during her weekly baking sessions, and if I just said no, she would be right there, in front of you, the perfect yes for the project. So by saying no to something that is not a perfect fit, you allow the more perfect fit to be found which is good for everybody. It gets all of us closer to our true purpose. It helps each of us more accurately give our gifts to the world.
Tune into what is true for you.
Consider your own continuum of wholeheartedness and begin to employ it as you say no and say yes. What you will find is that you will be more energized by getting more and more pure about what you offer and how you offer it while the world’s needs are more powerfully met by the right people coming into their calling.
Are there things in your life that you know you need to say no to? How can you begin?
And look out for tomorrow’s SPARK which will look at knowing your nos professionally.
SPARK Day 20: Boss Your Email
Welcome to Spark Day 20. This journey is all about embracing practices that help make room for us to create and embrace what we most want in our lives. We’re creating new systems, embracing new ways of being, and reorganizing around things that feel defeating.
If you are anything like me, a full email box can feel overwhelming and so I have worked hard over the last year to really make my email more manageable. If your email feels like it has gotten out of hand, here are some ways to reign it in.
1. Manage what comes in. A couple months ago, I went on a fierce unsubscribe tear which has reduced what comes in– a lovely thing. In addition, I created a Do/Watch/Read file to put the things that I am really interested in reading in detail (newsletters I am subscribed to and the articles and videos people send me) when I am not overwhelmed. My weekly goal is to go Do/Watch/Read 1-2 items out of that file. Finally, I managed some of my social media accounts so I wouldn’t, for example, get an email every time someone spoke to me on Twitter since I can see that on my Twitter account (note to self: I need to do this for Pinterest, too, so I don’t get an email for every repin).
2. Pick up the phone. Sometimes, one email is not going to take care of the entire situation at hand, but one phone call could. Opt for the phone call when it is the more efficient, effective option.
3. Reign in the group email. Need to schedule a group meeting? Opt for Doodle when you have a lot of dates, a lot of people (or both) or use BCC so folks just respond directly to you so you can gather the dates, for example, and then get back to everyone on a final option. When you are on the receiving end of group emails, read everything that is in inbox before responding and then try to just send a response from one email.
4. Put some parameters in place. I taught high school during the age of beepers. My leadership students once told me that they needed me to get a beeper so that way, they could reach me if they needed me on the weekend. My response? ”First, of all, I am not that essential. There is nobody who needs me THAT much that I need to be reachable at all times. And if I haven’t taught you what you needed to know about life before getting yourself into that situation, I am certainly not going to be able to teach you a darn thing while you are in the midst of it.” Now, we are in the era of smart phones and people think we should all be ALWAYS reachable. Except I don’t really want to be always reachable and maybe you don’t want to be either. Here are some ways to be less reachable…
A. Set your email hours. In your email signature, set your hours. Tell folks when you check and answer email. This will take some pressure off yourself to always answer quickly. At the beginning of each semester, I tell my students that I check email from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. If they need me, email me during business hours and I’ll answer. If they have a paper due on Friday and have a question, they know they need to email me by 4:45 pm on Thursday to get an answer from me. My students do not even blink when I tell them this and I think I model a good work/life balance with this parameter. In addition to communicating that parameter to students, I very rarely do email from Friday afternoon to Sunday night. Unless it is time sensitive to those few days, it sits in my inbox and I try to do a quick email clean out on Sunday night to prepare for the new week.
B. Control what is on your smart phone. The way that I keep myself honest about not answering my students’ emails at all hours is that I do not have my university email account on my smart phone. I have no idea what is in my inbox until I log onto the university site from my computer. Automatic control measure right there. If it is your phone and you are paying for it and you aren’t saving the world or humanity IMMEDIATELY via email, don’t feel like your work email has to be on your phone. Granted, I do a lot of my work via my personal email account but having at least one work email account not on my phone does help.
5. Be succinct. Don’t do all of your relationship building in email. That makes an email too long for everyone. Try to be as direct as possible and let folks know whether or not the email contains just FYI stuff or actionable stuff right at the top. People will love you for making their email kinder and will begin to make your email kinder
6. Back away from the email. When I really need to focus on a project (like writing a book proposal or putting together a new workshop), I put an out of office message on my email and refocus my energy and attention elsewhere. I know that at any time I can choose to pay less attention to email but officially putting up the out of office helps me really shift my energy into whatever I am working on.
I know some people only answer email at set times during a day, and I am sure there are many other strategies for bossing your email. What are yours?
SPARK Day 19: Friday Reflections
Welcome to Spark Day 19! Every Friday, I reflect on the week that has just passed by doing a little senses exercise. This practice is a gentle, easy way to tune into how we are doing, what we are experiencing, and what we are grateful for while more acutely tuning into our senses. It’s a whole heart exercise with plenty of bodily input, if you will. Because this practice has been so good for me, I want to encourage you to do it, too. Building some gentle reflection into our weeks is a nice way to stay grounded while maintaining some big picture perspective. So please join me in this week’s Friday Reflections (with each sense as your inspiration, consider how experiencing it impacted your week).
Here is my sensory round-up for this week:
tasting :: lemon orzo and meatball soup, black bean pie, movie theatre popcorn, a milkshake, shrimp stir-fry with brown rice
hearing :: lots of thoughts about the best decisions for right now and future plans from our Circle de Luz sophomores and juniors during a college readiness workshop and Happy’s professional wish list: hibachi chef, life guard, camp counselor, lion, doctor, nurse, writer, teacher, a worker, and a driver.
smelling :: cooked onions as they were a prominent feature in this week’s recipes
seeing :: the final version of my vision board featured in a prominent location in the Sugar Shack
feeling :: hot stones on my back during a hot stone massage that was a Christmas present. A nice temporary antidote to the cold, cold temps that I am also feeling here. Also, so inspired by the Circle de Luz hijas and the amazing women we have serving as their mentors. It is an embarrassment of riches to survey the women we are blessed to have on our team.
wishing/hoping :: how a restful, low key weekend as I feel a sinus infection coming on (~#@!). This year needs to be the year of ending sinus infections in my life. I think I am going to start by looking into acupuncture. Have any of you tried acupuncture for sinus issues or allergies? Got other secrets for dealing with or eliminating sinus infections?
What about you? What were your sensational experiences this week? Please share!
This post was inspired by Teacher Goes Back to School who was inspired by Pink of Perfection’s Five Sense Friday.
