It seemed like a good idea at the time…

On Mother’s Day weekend, I was alone in my own house. My husband took our 2 kids camping and I had about 48 hours to myself. For those of you that live with at least 3 other people, you know what it means to have that much time to just be. But I had a bigger agenda, other than just hanging out, doing nothing for no-one.

My plan was to conduct a solo strategy session. Goal setting, big ideas, brain storming and generally answering some questions about what was I doing with my life? Out of those days and my membership with fizzle came a 30-day challenge. What could I create in 30 days to test out if my ideas had any relevance to anyone other than me?

I had been working on an e-book for months at that point. It seemed like a good idea to just finish it and the rest of the challenge would be easy peasy. Oh the best laid plans. Turns out, writing a book, even one of only 17,000 words or so is not that easy. Add in the complexity of everything else required to bring those words to life and this challenge is proving to be, well let’s say challenging.

Not to mention that my family only went away for 2 days, months ago. We had some very busy stretches of time since then. I also have a full-time job. And lots of other interests which I didn’t want to drop completely. I can’t exactly order take out every night and eat restaurant lunches. All of this is to say, I do not have a great deal of extra time. So what was I thinking?

As with all other cases like this, it seemed like a good idea at the time. As you can probably tell, I have not given up, nor will I. I’m going to see this one through to the end. Please checkout the details of my ebook project at:

Fruitless at 40: Rediscovering My Creative Power.

If you have taken the creativity survey, I thank-you so much. This has been a challenging, but fun ride so far.

Happy Creating!

On the eighth day of grateful

As I come down the home stretch of 2015, I am taking stock of how the year played out against my goals. This is a habit which my parents help me to form a very long time ago. We used to do family goal setting, in fact. While I think goal setting is important, I don’t think it is an end to itself, (set it and forget it).

I was listening to a fizzle podcast recently where the topic was “How to create your own definition of success.” (A great listen for your end of year personal review process). What struck me was the discussion around the habit or technique different people use or don’t use for tracking personal success. It turns out, some people don’t bother at all. They have no kind of plan and just let life kind of flow over them. There have been years like that for me, (particularly when my kids were young). Looking back, that decade is kind of a blur. Probably because raising kids and working full time is a grind that no-one can describe to you. I wonder if those years would have been different had I been in the habit of goal setting and personal review?

I have read a lot about habits and written about them here in TGLL, because I think it is fascinating.

• “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg
• “I am Habit” poem in the opening of Sean Covey’s book and written about in TGLL
• The States of Change
• “This Year I Will” by M.J. Ryan

From that research and learning I’ve tried to create, modify or otherwise manipulate my habits with varying degrees of success.

Creating a new habit is not as difficult as I thought. My exercise program of the last 10 months is a good example. I didn’t set goals, I devised a routine. So when people ask how much weight I’ve lost or what I’ve done, as if I had a secret or a magic bullet, it is hard to answer in a sentence. I committed myself to the practice, on a daily basis of more exercise than what I’ve done normally. I don’t check in on the progress with strict measurements, I can see and feel it, over time.

Changing an old habit is much more difficult than I thought. My big one this year was negative self talk. That gets me into so much trouble. First I spiral down into it and then I tend to try and draw others into the vortex. I’m not sure if other people will think I’ve done a good job on this over the year, but I sometimes am able to catch myself. When I look back at what I was thinking, or about to say, I am shocked. Who would say such a thing? Me. This is an area of ongoing renovation.

As I look out the window today and review the weather forecast, it looks a little cloudy and is supposed to be a bit more windy than yesterday, which was blazingly and wonderfully warm. So it is probably a good day to spend some quality time thinking about my habits and the year to come.

Word of 2015 BRAVE

It is just before 6pm on December 31st and I’ve about finished my goals for next year. My little family of 4 is nicely tucked away in a small town in the Southern Baja. I have purposely kept our reservations, commitments and “have-to’s” down to almost nothing. In fact, other than getting back down to SJD for the flight home, we got nothin’ on our list. That has cleared out the mental space I needed to finish my goals. I started back home, but “my life” did not allow me the mental space I needed.

For the past 3 years, I have been searching for a way to bring the peace and calm I feel on this vacation, back home with me. There is a sense of stillness and focus, which seems to slip through my fingers like sand as I get back in the car for the journey home. But this year, today, I may have a list of actions which will bring me back, centre my soul to this time and this place.

Here is a brief summary of my main ideas for the year. These will pop up in many forms, my goals are quite specific. I think it helps to understand the intent, the feelings associated with the goals. Otherwise they are words on paper. They can easily be overlooked, forgotten and trivialized.

*Margin. I read about this idea sometime in 2014. The idea is to create margin or space in your day. Room to breathe. Time to think. Creativity needs to bubble up.
*Mindfulness. Be where you are. I have rationalized this notion out of my life entirely, blaming my never ending “to-do” list. I’m looking at this as the opposite of multi-tasking. I’m going to plan enough time to do one thing at a time.
*Gratitude. Only by focusing on gratitude do I increase my feelings of happiness. Full stop. The minute I spiral into bad news, my mood goes down accordingly. If current events are consisting largely of bad news, then I am going to be like a stork (my husband corrected me this morning, an ostrich) with my head in the sand.
*Practice. When I threw out the other “P” word, (perfection) I didn’t replace it with anything. This year I will practice all the time. Everything I want in my life is attainable, if I give myself the opportunity to practice. This I am eagerly looking forward to.
*Creativity. When I look back at some of the happiest moments of my life, they involved a healthy measure of creative endeavor. Somewhere along the way, I have lost that part of myself. I realized that I miss her dearly. As it turns out, I’m going to need her in 2015. Much of the heavy lifting on my list of goals will require creative work. Some of it will be “artsy” and some of it will be more “problem solving”. The latter has remained in my life all along, but the former will unleash all kinds of goodness.

Now it is time to play away the last hours of 2014.

Happy New Year or Feliz Año Nuevo!

2014 Annual Review

I am inspired by Chris Guillebeau. He shared a deeply personal annual review on his blog, The Art of Non-Conformity. Problem for me is a lack of process. I can see from Chris’s post that he creates a detailed set of goals and then conducts quarterly reviews. I would think it makes the Q4 review a little easier to manage! But have to start somewhere, so here we go.

January

• Rang in the New Year in Mexico. A nice family dinner at Corazon Cafe where a singer played guitar. Moved from sleepy La Paz to a big Cabo resort where the kids ran around the pool and played for 5 days.
• Woke up one morning with a full dose of inspiration. Created a new architecture for my blog.

• Bought a “Los Cabos” journal for an e-course with Brene Brown. The content followed her book, “The Gifts of Imperfection”.
• Practice is a Process
• Wholehearted
• Travelled to Oslo, Norway for the first work trip of the year. Left my family in Calgary, on the way home from Mexico and peeled off via London.
• Got my hair cut quite short. It was time for a change and the end game was to let my natural color come through. But we made a tiny mistake by putting so much light hair dye in. First I looked grey already and second lots of my natural color is a much darker!

• A few days spent in Denver, Colorado on a work trip.

 

February

• Back to Oslo, Norway early in the month.
• On the way home, stopped in Calgary where my parents picked me up for the short trip to Fairmont, B.C. Skied at Kimberly and Panorama during a week of vacation.

• Celebrated my daughter’s birthday twice, which she likes.
• Fast Friends
• Speed
• ULLR The God of Snow

 

March

• Sent my daughter off on her own to Calgary by plane. She was thrilled.
• On the way to the airport, near the end of the month, was hit by 2 cars near the entrance to the tunnel. My car ended up being written off. I had to catch a later flight to Calgary.
• Spent a few days in Bassano, Alberta with my daughter. My Aunt hosted a kind of retreat, which was lovely.

April

• Renovations on the new MBR were coming along nicely in early April.
• Quick trip to Oslo, Norway.
• Bought a new car.

• April 12th we had a warm enough day to wear shorts and sit in the sun!
• Around my birthday, headed off to Munich, Germany. Another work trip where we ended up in Austria. The last of the “fancy dress” parties.

May

• Tacked on an extra day to spend May 1st walking around Munich with a dear friend.
• Early May, off to Newport, Rhode Island for a work trip. Entertained customers at The New York Yacht club and sailing on an old America’s Cup boat.

• May 27th, the garden was in full bloom. Didn’t get to plant anything this year. Enjoyed everything that was already there!
• Fallow State

June

• June 2, our first crab boil of the season.

• Spent my anniversary working in Seattle, Washington.
• My Son graduated grade 7. A big one for him as he would head to a private school in the Fall, leaving 8 years of friendships behind.
• Tried my first Annie Sloan painting projects after taking the course at The Passionate Home in Langley.
• The MALM Transformation
• Inspired by Paint

July

• Ringing in my husband’s birthday and Canada Day, we spent a few days on the Sunshine Coast. Unfortunately the weather was less sunshine and more rain forest.
• Personal Space
• Attended the most amazing conference called “The World Domination Summit” in Portland Oregon.
• Service, Community, Adventure

• Drove to Bassano, Alberta and then back to Calgary. Spent a few days recovering from all that driving. Picked up my kids and drove back to Vancouver. Managed to avoid any hail damage in what was one of the worst seasons for the area.
• Canned a few jars of beans as they were coming off the fields. Processed bushels of fruit for our freezer.
• Food Preservation
• Renovations of the MBR were almost complete. Bought some artwork at the White Rock Farmer’s Market and finished the last of the Annie Sloan paint projects.

August

• On the way to Oslo, Norway stopped in Stockholm, Sweden for a long weekend with my girls. 2 dear friends who also work where I do. One based in Stockholm and one in Hong Kong.
• Stockholm Helgen

• Home on my son’s birthday with great plans to be “present” for him. However, the travel was starting to catch up with me. Had the worst swelling in my legs. Felt – just – bad. Ended up sleeping for a long time.
• Teenager in the House
• Mid August, picked up my nephews from the airport and then shipped all 3 boys off to camp on Thetis Island.
• Took a last week of summer vacation when my Sister and Parents arrived from Alberta. All the kids took a week of skim boarding camp at White Rock beach.

• My sister and I, taught ourselves how to add beads into a knitting project. Made great progress early on, as usual!
• The Good Beach Life

September

• Private School
• Early days, my daughter was not back in school. That was due to the Provincial teachers being on strike. We had an interesting experiment in home schooling, which my daughter did not enjoy.
• Education Hacking

• Mid September, off to Hong Kong for the better part of 2 weeks. This was a long trip and I suffered coming come with adjusting back to the schedule. For many nights, had to take sleeping pills. This was unusual and a little concerning.
• Unpacking

October

• Early October off to Alicante, Spain. Another long trip, about 10 days. While it was a fantastic location and I quite enjoyed much of it, had a very tough time with my mood. Even had an episode of what I could only call “panic” which was very strange. Made an appointment with my doctor.

Team SCA leaving Alicante October 11, 2014

• Extreme Sports
• Missed Canadian Thanksgiving which was a bummer. This is a non denominational holiday all about food!
• My husband who was the VP of Marketing for a high tech company was laid off as they continued to downsize staff. This is no fun to go through, but he successfully negotiated a fair severance.
• Dia de Muertos Shrines
• Last day of October we adopted a cat. Not sure what we were thinking. But he is considered a “senior” as a 7 year old. At least we stopped short of a kitten, (we almost adopted 2 kittens), who would have tore our house apart.

November

• Creative Soul
• Joined a knit-a-long where I created a very nice hat. My daughter, who looks amazing in hats, immediately laid claim to it. That works well, I look terrible in hats.
• Hosted a work friend for dinner in White Rock and she gave me a lovely present!

• Day trip to Calgary, mid month.
• Picked up my Aunt and Uncle arriving from Calgary who were staying at our house for a week.

December

• Spent a fantastic week in New Orleans, Louisiana on a vacation of a lifetime! Really felt like I was in another world.
• True Rest & Relaxation

• One more trip to Calgary for work with a couple of days added on. Relaxed for the weekend at my parents house, attended a Christmas party at my sister’s house and a family Christmas dinner. Super nice.
• A Christmas Eve flight to Mexico. Will spend the last days of the year, back where the year started.

Next year

• A group of three represent woman from all over the world. We will do amazing things.

• A new beginning for my husband, built from the ashes of the past.

Teenager in the house

“Keep true to the dreams of your youth.”   ~Friedrich Schiller

Yesterday my son stepped over from being a tween, solidly joining the ranks of teens. So far so good. It has only been a day. But we have been watching him change over the months and years. There have been little signs and clues. Nothing is happening in the flash of a birthday passing by the calendar.

The articles on the internet, (probably a bad place to look for information on this topic), describe a list of horrors which await parents. Luckily life doesn’t unfold for one person in the same manner as another. We don’t know the trials waiting for our family as our son grows into a man, but something about his character will be at his core to guide him.

I am looking at a document I wrote 12 1/2 years ago. It was titled – “Long term vision”, where I detailed hopes and dreams for my family, 10 years hence. I wrote an interesting paragraph about my son. Keeping in mind he was only 6 months old at the time, I was seriously projected my wishes, rather than having knowledge of him.

he is 10 now….11 in August he keeps reminding me whenever he asks to do something I think he isn’t ready for yet. He is so confident and big for his age. Sometimes he bites off more than he can chew and no-one is the wiser because he has the stride of someone who knows what he is doing. Under it all though, he has a lot of fun. He understands very clearly, at the end of the day, you only live once. He is content to still play and enjoy the age he is at.

Of course, not every detail of this vision is accurate. But the essence is spot on. Maybe that is what I find interesting as I review this and compare to the young man he is becoming. He is confident and self-assured. He still enjoys life.

Maybe all that will change as he wades deeper into adolescence. The hormones will rage and cause all number of problems and confusion for him, I’m sure of that. What I think will help unravel the confusion for him is at his very core – his dreams. From the beginning he had an active imagination, something which has served him well. He speaks of his dreams, he plans for the future.

Now I think it is our job, as his parents to help keep these dreams alive. Prop him up and remind him when life seems overwhelming. And maybe we need to lead by example. It might be time to reach back into our young minds and remember. Sort though what is there and act on the good stuff we find.

Giving back

I have loved the NFB of Canada, (National Film Board) productions since I was a child. I felt intensely proud to be Canadian and that we had our own movies. Then I grew older and realized what they did down in Hollywood, yeah the Americans made a bunch of movies too.

As I now fly around the world, as much as possible on Air Canada planes, it is still with pride that I always try to watch an NFB film. I recently enjoyed “Force Of Nature, the David Suzuki movie. (In my movie page, there is a full review). Last week, I was lucky enough to choose “Hannah’s Story“, about a girl from Winnipeg who created the Ladybug Foundation.

Her interest in the homeless began at age 5. During the filming of the movie she was about 11 and has since travelled all over Canada giving talks about homelessness. Her foundation has raised over 2 million dollars and a facility in Winnipeg have built an emergency bed shelter in her name. She volunteers her time, her creativity and most of all her heart. She hugs everyone she meets

I came across this story for a reason. Just last week I suggested to my son that he read about children who have become published authors for personal inspiration. While that will still be on his objectives list, driving towards his goal of raising his creative writing grade, this girl Hannah can provide something else.

It is people like Hannah, who inspire us all to become better and push us forward. She has achieved and given more back to society than most people will do in a lifetime. And if I can show my children inspiration like this, they too can feel what that does to your heart. Similar to the main character in the Christmas movie “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” where his heart grew 3 sizes that day. That precious feeling of inspiration, the reason we steel ourselves to achieve a difficult goal, even when the going gets tough. That is some of the good stuff.

Timing is everything

“Lost time is never found again.”   ~Benjamin Franklin

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”   ~Albert Einstein

“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”    ~Will Rogers

And so it is that time again. Instead of just trying to keep myself on track, it is time to get my children to start planning their own way in life. Yes, I mean goal setting.

My Mother reminded me tonight that, as children, my sisters and I did not like this activity. But, memory is a funny thing, because I seem to remember how good this process was. So much so, that I am going to teach it to my children.

For me, it is like a new school year, breaking out the new supplies. The promise in the potential of a new start wafting off the smell of a clean piece of paper. Sitting down to the first brainstorming session tonight felt just like that.

My children had blank little cartoon bubbles over their heads and polite smiles on their faces as they poised their gel pens ready to write. Then as the flow of ideas started to take shape, their heads were down and there were multiple lightbulbs popping above their heads. New colors of gel pens, more and more writing, a pause to contemplate which category needed more work.

The experts tell us that good goals need to be time bound. Which I agree with. But if the goal is not ready to be started, if it is the wrong time, that will not create a good goal either. My children seem to be ready for the process. Now to carefully structure a well designed set of goals. Then ever so gently urge along the follow through process.