Please Don't Wake Me Now

My alarm went off five minutes earlier than my husband's this morning. Some days I hit snooze and doze until his alarm goes off, but not this morning.

I got up, started a pot of coffee, and did some morning affirmations before 30 minutes of yoga. While he was in the shower, I spent fifteen minutes triaging my email to check for any surprises, and then put myself together for the day. With him out the door, I got on a conference call, and then spent a half hour following up on client task work. I took a break early on to drive my mom to a medical appointment, swung by the post office to ship a gift to a friend, go to the bank, and stop at the grocery store. I returned home just in time for another work-related call, got the roast for dinner seared/seasoned/started in the crock pot, and then made myself lunch. My afternoon was full of client work, and I also did a consultation with a local non-profit coordinating an awareness walk in the spring. I signed off at 6pm and went to rehearsal, where I spent two and a half hours on stage, preparing for our upcoming concert and discussing our trepidation about the current state of the country. I returned home around 9:15 to find my husband on his computer, so I made a salad, steamed some fresh broccoli, and sat down to eat dinner around 9:45.

 "How was your day?" he asked, as he sat down next to me. It wasn't particularly a good day...there were a lot of miscellaneous things to do, and I didn't feel very focused. "It wasn't a bad day," I shrugged, contemplating all of the unfinished items on my to-do list and unsure how I really felt. "How was your day?" After a heavy sigh, he replied, "Today was a really long day."

He doesn't have a trivial job and I know he works hard. Lots of important people report to him, and he reports to other important people, and there is always tension between time spent in meetings and time actually doing the tasks assigned in meetings. But comparatively, he drove to work, went out to lunch, worked all afternoon and came home, where I assume he just worked some more. I got to exercise, eat healthy food I made myself, run personal errands, help out a family member, volunteer time to a local charity, and put in 6 hours of contracted work for clients I love. I also spent fulfilling time engaged with activist sisters making art to improve our community, and cooked a wholesome meal for my partner.

How was my day? I was a serious bad-ass today, and I am literally living the dream!

Run the Gamut

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is the Beloved?

If you think that the Truth can be known from words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing!

Someone Should Start Laughing by Hafiz

In this world of superficial how-do-you-do's and rushed human encounters, this resonated with me. I am sharing in hopes that it might lift the spirits of someone else as well.

One of the biggest challenges I have faced over the past year has been finding a way to talk about myself. Not my elevator pitch about who I am and what I do. But what makes me unique, and what I have to offer that will add value to potential clients/current customers/the world around me. It's really hard for me to articulate.

I recently finished reading Peggy Klaus' book Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It, and she addresses all of these things, and more. Working through her exercises and examples has given be a fresh perspective, and also helped explain why it's a frustrating process for me.

My first problem is that I am never satisfied with my accomplishments, because there is always something more I could have achieved. There is always room for improvement! Whether it's in my nature or it's due to my upbringing, I tend to seek my weaknesses and errors, and dwell on the things that didn't turn out the way I imagined them. The solution to this is to honor all of the small steps taken towards a goal, even if I don't actually achieve the goal I set in my mind.

The second thing I struggle with is that I find myself rather boring. Perhaps it's because I live with me every day - but there aren't many things about my life that I imagine anyone else would find interesting. This is, of course, because we are raised to compare ourselves to others around us, regardless of their unique circumstances and their journey. My social media feeds are loaded with amazing photos of friends who visit exotic far-away locations, spend endless afternoons at happy hours with craft brewers or gourmet chefs or California vintners, or have adorable kids developing into fascinating small people. I have none of those things at the moment, and looking at my days I don't think of anything I am involved with as having the potential to be of interest to anyone. However, I have been to many beautiful places, and have lots of lovely people in my life. I have been blessed to be able to experience a variety of wonderful arts, sports, adventure, and leisure.

The third reason this is a challenge for me is because I have put myself in the situation where I have to be confident and brag about my accomplishments in order to convince people to hire me. My success in this endeavor literally depends on my ability to sell myself! Like I said, there is always room for improvement, and I am hoping that becoming more intentional about the messaging I share about what I have to offer will point me down a path of growth on this front.

Let It Go

This is a big week for the Gustin family. My management consulting days are dwindling into single digits, we celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary as well as the fall equinox, and a new moon graced the sky. What a great time to reset intentions and set goals for the next few months!

One thing I've been struggling with this summer is the ability to cross something off my list and be done with it. I have gotten really good at procrastinating - I can fabricate a valid reason to justify putting off doing anything I am not 100% inspired by. Lately it's been hitting the send button, figuratively and literally. I'm not sure if it's my internal pursuit of "perfection" that is holding me back, but there are a lot of things I have been transferring from one list onto another each week. I work on it, but it's not quite ready, or I just don't feel like it's the exact message I want to send, or I get nervous about how others are going to perceive something - so I just put it on the back burner and expect that I will have an epiphany and find the right words. I know this is slowing me down, so I am making a concerted effort to dial back my expectations and be content with "good enough."

There are only so many times I can read a press release and find ways to improve it before the editing becomes a marginal use of my time. First impressions are critically important, but if it's just an email I should find a way to keep it simple and send a clear but concise introductory message. Letting an idea marinate for another 24 hours will not provide enough additional creative content to justify putting off the phone call another day.

Any time I waver about getting something accomplished enough that I could cross it off my list, I am going to give myself another 15 minutes to agonize over it and then let it go and move on to other things. We'll see how this goes...

This Glass Ain't Empty

There is a facilities manager who works in my building who is quite possibly the happiest person I have ever met. Our paths cross a couple of times a day, and he always waves and greets me, goes out of his way to politely hold the front door for me, and has even called the elevator for me. He always has a nice comment about the weather or the impending weekend, and emanates a positive attitude.

It was a challenge to drag myself out of bed this morning, and after pulling an outfit together and making some coffee, I reluctantly said goodbye to Bosco and drove to work lamenting the fact that it is only Wednesday. Outside the office I ran into Yuri. He stopped what he was working on and ushered me into the lobby, making the usual small talk about the beautiful sunshine, and sent me up to the second floor with a huge smile and a very sincere "Have a wonderful day!"

Less than a minute of interacting with him completely adjusted my approach to the day. What a positive way to influence other people around you!