Category Archives: Musings

How do you translate ideas into action? Today’s #Reverb10 prompt directs us to consider: Action When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

Well, first you have to get beyond that pesky idea stage and make sure the idea has some legs to it. So many ideas are – rightfully – fleeting and never receive further consideration. (These are often the same ideas that wake me to scribble on a post-it. The next morning, 90% of the time, the idea either makes absolutely no sense or has already been done. (Hence, my morning Googling.))

So I massage that idea for awhile to weigh its merits. I go for a run or a bike ride and play devil’s advocate with myself. Will this idea benefit my greater vision? How does it fit in with other plans or actions or opportunities?

If it doesn’t, the idea gets filed away in some dark area of my brain, where, if it deserves a second chance, it will someday bubble back to the top. Otherwise, it remains on the island of misfit ideas forever.

But if the idea is worthy… oh, then the fun begins.

I love lists. Specifically, I love crossing things off of lists, staring at a list of items that can barely be seen beneath their completion.

And so, for me, action requires lists. It requires taking the big idea and breaking it down into a dozen, a score, a hundred individual items (depending, of course, on the scope of the idea), each one manageable.

And then those lists get put EVERYWHERE. I use Evernote as a centralizing tool, but usually also have a post-it at work, one at home on my desk, one on the coffee table, occasionally one on the corkboard on the cabinet in the kitchen. (When those post-its migrate, chaos ensues, especially when I find a cryptic note in the pocket of a coat I haven’t worn in six months.)

From there, action requires seeing those notes and reminders in my face enough times that I start feeling guilty about inaction. (Guilt is a huge motivator.) Every couple weeks, when I re-consolidate the lists and post-its, I have guilt pangs over the untouched items.

So really, it’s pretty simple. I have no shortage of ideas, and constantly weigh them against each other. I’ve got the theory of action down.

Ready, set, go!

What motivates you into action?

Today’s #reverb10 prompt asks, “Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?”

I’m experiencing this more and more, as my workouts get better and I get stronger. I’ve already blogged about the 2010 moment when I felt most alive – finishing my first 5k – and in those moments, I felt completely integrated. My mind and my body were in complete harmony, working towards the same goal.

Every morning, while lying in bed, thinking about getting up, I stretch, starting from the tips of my toes, through my calves and hamstrings and abs and shoulders and neck, bit by bit, waking everything up. I flex my feet and wrists and shrug my shoulders and stretch, slowly and deliberately. It’s a good way of rousing the mind and body, reconnecting them for the day ahead.

I do something similar after I run, investing some time in thoroughly stretching my legs and hips so I don’t pay the price in the morning. And it’s always worth the time.

How about you?

This post is part of #Reverb10, a month-long project to reflect on the year nearly gone. Read all my #Reverb10 posts, or learn more.

Today’s #reverb10 prompt asks for a list of the 11 things you could do without :

What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

I love lists.

1. Cable – I’ve never watched very much TV, and since I started school, I watch even less. I realized that the only reason I really have cable is for the DVR, since I never watch anything live. I’ve done some research (Hulu? Netflix via Wii?), but I need to make a decision and cut the cord.

2. Old clothes – I’m four or five sizes smaller than I was two years ago, so why am I still holding onto the old clothes? I’m never going to wear them again, so they need to be donated.

3. Taco Bell – I used to have a terrible habit of stopping by Taco Bell on my way home from grocery shopping. I do this far less frequently now, but every time I eat it, I feel gross. There is much better, more authentic quick Mexican food at a place right across the street.

4. Music I don’t listen to – My iTunes is full of songs left over from when my ex merged our accounts, many of which I always flip past. I need to invest some time in deleting the ones I really don’t listen to.

5. Clutter – I used to move every year, which kept the clutter under control. But now that I’ve been in this house nearly five years, the closets and basement are getting full. If I haven’t needed it since I’ve lived here, it needs to go.

6. VHS tapes – Really, why do I still have a stack of blank VHS tapes?

7. Staying up/sleeping in for the sake of it – I often find myself staying up way too late, puttering around, just because I feel like I should stay up to a certain time. Conversely, on rare sleep in days, I often force myself to sleep later than I really need to just because I can. Both are counterproductive.

8. Magazine subscriptions – As I’ve blogged, I have way too many magazine subscriptions that I never read. (The problem – and the piles – have gotten worse since school started and I’m not commuting as much.) While a couple are certainly read, I’m going to let the others all lapse.

9. Store-bought granola bars – I eat a lot of granola bars, usually as a pre-run or mid-class snack. I recently started making my own (based on Jenn’s recipe), and they’re fantastic. Then I ran out of the homemade ones and bought more from a store. Blegh. I can do better.

10. Negative people – You know how some people always bring you down? I don’t need that.

11. Excuses to not blog – I love to write but it’s so easy to find excuses not to. I think #reverb10 is proving that frequent writing is possible, even during the busy holiday season and finals.

What’s on your list?

This post is part of #Reverb10, a month-long project to reflect on the year nearly gone. Read all my #Reverb10 posts, or learn more.

Today, #reverb10 asks about Wisdom: What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

I’ve made lots of decisions this year, some wise, some less than thought-out. But for argument’s sake, let’s say the wisest ones are the most pervasive, the ones whose effects ripple through every single day.

I said yes.

And that empowered me to say no.

Early this year, I decided to say yes to everything, to every invitation, to every newsletter subscription list, to every book a friend recommended, to exotic new foods, to running. Try everything once, I repeated like a mom to a picky eater. It won’t kill you to try it on, to see if you like it.

I’ve said yes to dozens of ideas, activities, groups, tweetups, clubs, etc. I’ve shed some that I realized definitely weren’t for me. I embraced some that are such perfect fits, like a worn pair of jeans, that I feel like they’ve always been part of my life.

In short, I decided to say yes to the possibilities that surround our lives, circling around us, if only we stretch just a bit to reach them. In doing so, I’ve found so much intrigue and joy. It’s liberating. You really can be who you want to be, if only you’ll say yes to the possibilities and take a little leap of faith.

And by deciding to say yes, I learned I can also say no. I said no to a life I realized I didn’t want.

Wisdom always seems clearer in retrospect. When I decided to start saying yes, I did so to expand my horizons. I didn’t realize that my horizons were already nice and wide – I just had to reach for them. I can’t wait to see what I grasp in 2011.

This post is part of #Reverb10, a month-long project to reflect on the year nearly gone. Read all my #Reverb10 posts, or learn more.

I was doing so well with my #reverb10 posts! Yesterday was the first time I didn’t get a post up promptly. In my defense, this has been an insane week, with finals for my first two classes. (I am now 13% done with my graduate program. My goodness how time flies!)

Last night, as we finished our exam, my classmates and I gathered at Elephant & Castle for drinks. As I sat there and drank cider and watched the snow fall, I thought about the prompt:

Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

And I couldn’t think of any one specific gathering. I didn’t go to any big blow-out parties this year. (I’m okay with that.) I only went to one wedding, and it wasn’t a traditional one with music, dancing, etc.

Instead, I went to many, many more small social gatherings than I ever have before, even ones where I don’t know people. I’ve gone to events for social marketing people, book signings, running events, local tweetups, all of which I would have been reluctant to do a year ago.

Many of my friends now have kids, so some of the bigger parties I used to count on every year have changed, with kid-friendly activities, nap rooms, and an 8 PM curfew.

But that’s fine. As we grow up, so do our expectations and definitions of “fun.” I was never a drink-till-I-black-out party girl. And really, it’s about the people you spend time with. If dear friends are hosting a third birthday party, I’m there. And if party time involves a Scrabble board and some wine, so much the better.

What about you? Did you have a memorable party experience this year?

This post is part of #Reverb10, a month-long project to reflect on the year nearly gone. Read all my #Reverb10 posts, or learn more.

Twelve hours of mulling over today’s #reverb10 prompt hasn’t made it any clearer:

Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

I’ve read at least a dozen posts on this prompt, and the responses are widely varied. Grace Boyle nails it in her post, “Letting YOU Shine.” Matt Cheuvront took an approach with an homage to Rocky in his: “Are You a Fighter?”

And I think that in itself is what’s beautifully different: our perspectives. Each of us is molded and shaped by our experiences and backgrounds. A random off-hand comment made to (or by) our eight-year-old selves may forever color how we see something.

Each experience adds a new lens to our glasses, whether rose-colored or otherwise. A particularly vivid memory tinged with extreme joy or sorrow will sharpen how we see similar incidents. Things we’d rather forget get blurry, like Vaseline smeared over the lens, a trick to enhance less-than-ideal events.

I’m just finishing a class on Consumer Insights (the final is tomorrow, in fact), and  learning how different market segments view the world has opened my eyes to an entirely new world. This one class, over ten weeks, has given me an entirely new set of lenses (with nerdy frames) to look at advertising critically and determine which consumer values marketers are trying to leverage. What does each group – whether ethnic, religious, cultural, or fans of a given product – value? Why?

You can make sweeping generalizations – and you have to, sometimes – but the truth is, we can never really know exactly what makes someone tick, what drives them, what they see when they look at an ad.

And that’s what makes me different. The year I spent in Hungary completely transformed me at the impressionable age of 14. Being a big sister gave me another set of experiences with corresponding lenses, as did the high school debate team. Heck, girl scout camping trips and grocery shopping with my mom left indelible impressions that reverberate today, whether I realize it or not. Each and every experience – no matter how seemingly insignificant – contributes to the mosaic that is me.

You can try to walk in someone else’s shoes, but unless you know what glasses they’re wearing, you’ll never fully understand their perspective.

This post is part of #Reverb10, a month-long project to reflect on the year nearly gone. Read all my #Reverb10 posts, or learn more.

Today, I made myself get out of bed and then made the bed. I made coffee and scrambled eggs. I made a study guide for tomorrow’s exam. I made lunch and a nest of blankets for the cat to burrow in, away from the cold. I made butternut squash tacos and a mess in the kitchen, which I promptly cleaned up.

Today’s #Reverb10 prompt asks, “Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?” It definitely threw me for a loop.

I make things every single day, but they’re not necessarily tangible, inedible items that I can point to and say, “I made that.” (Though I did build some bookcases.)

But over any given period of time, I do indeed make lots of things.

I make music, singing in the shower or vacuuming.

I make plans for tonight, next week, next month and the next generation, fully aware that plans are made to be broken.

I make new friends and acquaintances. I (probably) make new enemies.

I make people laugh, sometimes unintentionally.

I make fire and ice, though I’m not sure which I favor.

I make decisions, sometimes too late.

I make money and progress and a life.

Because really, making is the same as doing. Think about how many phrases in English rely on “make” to make sense (ahem). In describing your day, you have to “make”time and room and other abstracts while you make a coffee run or photocopies.

And doing is a marvelous thing. In July, I blogged about the nirvana of doing, quoting Thomas Jefferson:

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.”

So while I can’t show you a tea cosy or scarf I’ve recently made, I don’t feel at a loss for making. In fact, I think I’m going to make it after all.

This post is part of #Reverb10, a month-long project to reflect on the year nearly gone. Read all my #Reverb10 posts, or learn more.

Today’s #reverb10 prompt has a very easy answer, and a much less apparent answer:

Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

A year ago, I was planning a July wedding, which I called off in February. I ended the relationship entirely a couple months later.

But that’s too simplistic. Thinking it through, 2010 was not just the year I woke up, it was the year I let go of my preconceived notions of myself.

Growing up, I was always the fat kid, the bookworm who had no athletic talent – or desire to do anything active. The klutz who lead all the academic and nerdy teams and clubs in high school. It suited me. And I thought it was who I would always be.

But nearly two years ago, when I started my new healthier lifestyle, I shifted that paradigm. As I got lighter and stronger, I got braver. I found a new confidence I’d never known before. It was exciting. Exhilarating.

As I rounded the corner into 2010, I started leveraging that confidence and realized I didn’t need to conform to the stereotypes I had established for myself half a lifetime ago. I truly could be anyone I wanted to be, including a runner, a grad student, a neighborhood leader, all titles I lacked a year ago.

And while I didn’t pick up the Mrs. I had planned to this year, I’m very satisfied with how things have turned out. By letting go of my teenage concept of self, I’ve finally started to grow up into an even better version. Letting go has empowered me to go forward to bigger and better things.

This post is part of #Reverb10, a month-long project to reflect on the year nearly gone. Read all my #Reverb10 posts, or learn more.