One New Thing Each Day

I’ve been thinking about the whole “reinventing yourself” process.  Making big changes in the midst of your real life is hard.  There’s too much going on, getting your brain around an entirely new life plan (or work-life plan) can be overwhelming, and most of us are just too fried by the end of a work day at our cube jobs to find the energy to dive into “job 2″.

What would happen if we made the change in very small steps?  You know, as in “How do you eat an elephant?”  “One bite at a time.”   So here’s the challenge.  Do one new thing every day.  Something that’s new for you, outside your comfort zone, or just different.  Take an out-of-the-way route to the grocery store.  Put your phone on the OTHER side of your desk.  Go vegetarian for a day. 

My theory is that making frequent small changes opens the pathway to larger changes.  When we choose to make smaller changes, we become more open to seeing what we could do, because now we’re in the habit of looking for new things.  We’re more likely to see the great opportunity, and to find it easier to act upon because we’re in the habit of doing new things.

My new thing for today  Rice pudding for breakfast.  What’s yours?

Lynda

Back on the Horse

Life has interesting twists and turns sometimes — and we often allow our dreams to shrink to fill in the small corners around the “big uglies” in our lives, rather than giving them center stage and allowing them to bloom. 

One of the sad things about this particular cycle is that our dreams, the things we need most to nourish us and keep us going, are the very things we give short shrift in time of our busy-ness.  Ironically, those dreams are the secret weapons we need to help us survive the curveballs in our lives.  

 Dreams give us mental stimulation in a variety of ways:  first, we can use them to dream about and provide respite from the incessant nagging of our every day lives.  Second, they can provide focus for the achievement of our greater designs for our lives.  Third, they eventually provide an escape from the cube-life misery (or whatever your particular pre-entrepreneurial misery may be) eventually, when we turn to those dreams and our ideal lives spring from them.

Getting our ideal lives to spring from those dreams does require care.  Even when you have more on your plate than seems possible to do, in order to keep ourselves going, we must take a few moments each day to acknowledge our dreams, to admit to ourselves that the dreams are still there, and that they offer a glimpse of freedom ahead.

For your consideration, the lyrics of an inspirational song, written by John Bettis, performed  by the late Karen Carpenter:

Look to your dreams,
Don’t they still seem worthwhile?
Don’t they still seem in style,
Aren’t you glad they’re still there?
Look to your dreams
There’s a need for them now.

When the world has us down, aren’t you glad they’re around?
Once conceived, once believed, fantasy’s reality’s childhood.
And like a seed, visions need constant care, like a child would.
We should look to your dreams, we can still make the stars.
We can still break the bars we have built here on earth.

Look to your dreams,
And tomorrow may be better for you and me.
The future may say,
Blame blind yesterday for taking dreams away.
They could mean more then they seem.

Happy dreaming!

Lynda

Keep Your Dream Before You — Every Day

One of the secrets of “lucky” people is that they make their own luck.  You know, those people who just “happen” to be in the right place at the right time.   Those people who work really hard for decades to become an “overnight success”.

If we really want those dream lives we’re planning we have to act as if they are happening now.  Today. 

If part of your dream is to be a glamourous socialite whose picture is all over the media, then lose those last ten pounds now and be sure that when you’re in public you’re photo-worthy.  Go places where the rich and fabulous hang out.  You never know when you’ll meet that millionaire who invites you for a week-long Caribbean cruise on the family yacht. 

If you dream of being a world-famous architect, learn that trade.  Apprentice to those people.  Associate with them.  Make a folio of your own work so you have something tangible to show people when they want to see what you’ve done. 

If your dream is to become a recording artist, you must be polishing your vocal or instrumental skills daily.  Make demos.  Shop them around.  Make connections in the music business.  Call people.  Get an internship.  Plan your next CD.  Learn the material for that CD, and record it.

For those of us whose dreams are not so public, the same focus is required.  If your dream is to open a small bookstore/coffeehouse, lay the groundwork for your luck by learning everything there is to know about running a bookstore and a coffeehouse.  Talk to the people who are already doing it.  Make yourself known to them, and be sure they know of your dreams.  Become part of their community and make them part of yours.

If your dream is to run a yoga studio, make sure you know yoga and practice it every day.  Learn about different types of yoga, and meet people who practice those types.  Cultivate future teachers for your studio.  Learn about the business of running a studio.  Act as if you already own one — think about it and work on your plans every day. 

If you dream of foreign travel, be sure you have a valid passport.  Barbara Winter (www.joyfullyjobless.com) tells a story that one year she decided she wanted to go to England by the end of the year.  She realized that she couldn’t go without a current passport, so she got one.  Voila!  Near the end of the year, a friend offered her a trip to England.  She was prepared.  She went!

Barbara’s story points out two things.  First, you must treat your dreams with respect.  She knew that she wanted to go to England.  She took her dream seriously.  She took action to be sure her dream was possible when she got her passport.  She then remained open to receive the invitation her friend eventually made to her.  If she had not acted to make herself ABLE to take advantage of her friend’s gift, Barbara would not have achieved her dream.

Our mission as people working on reinventing our lives is to keep our dream lives before us.  Focus on them.  Get talismans or visual reminders of your goals and keep them near you.  Do one thing every day, no matter how small, that moves you closer to your dream.  Those dreams will gather momentum and become reality sooner than we think.

Lynda Keever

Queen of Transformation

Find a Tribe

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to making people “masters” in their chosen fields.   He talks about the Beatles, Bill Gates, Bill Joy and others.  One of the factors that sets these people apart is that those “masters” start their early lives in a supportive, encouraging community.  Often this community was their original family — supportive parents and/or school systems.

I believe that for those of us who are creating our escapes from cube-life, community is even more important than it was for those young masters.  We are not just designing new ways to think and be, we are also changing or ending roles from our previous lives.  Sometimes we encounter huge resistance from people who don’t want us to change, or who care about us and don’t want us to get hurt “if it doesn’t work out”.  These non-dreamers can throw up just enough obstacles to keep us stymied in our places — loaded with “want to” but unable to take the first necessary steps into the new lives of our dreams.

The answer to this problem is to find our own tribes.  Our own packs.  Our own group of like-minded people who will encourage our dreams, act as sounding-boards, throw us “idea parties” (a concept I got from Barbara Sher — check out her brilliant stuff at www.barbarasher.com ), and give us as much support as we need without the “yeah, but” that can kill our dreams.

How can you make those connections?  There are so many self-bossers online; you can find your pack there.  Or among the entrepreneurs you already know.  Attend an in-person workshop for the gleefully self-employed, or even a teleclass.  Stay connected with the people you meet there. 

In older times, people taking up a new trade apprenticed with a master.  The young artist would live with the master and often several other apprentices.  I imagine that the air surrounding those apprentices crackled with energy and new ideas as they soaked up the environment in which they planned to excel.  Think how much farther along in your journey out of cube-life you would be if for just an hour a week you could connect with your tribe for encouragement and problem-solving.

It’s not just the forward movement of your new life, either.  Spending time with people who think “dreamer” as we do makes us feel better.  Happier.  More able. 

If you do a Google search on “finding your tribe”, you’ll get many fascinating hits.  Take a look and see what’s displayed there that could help you.  Click this link and read Paula G’s words about the company we keep:

http://www.thepaulagcompany.com/Newsletters/find_your_tribe.html

I believe Paula is right.  So do it.  Participate.  Get a community.  Find your tribe.

Lynda Keever

Transformation — From Employed to Free

Transformation has been on my mind a lot lately.  That’s what reinventing yourself is, really:  transforming from one phase of life to the next.   Transformation has been the focus of our desire for centuries.  Remember alchemists of medieval days and their quest to change base metals into gold?  Then there are witches and wizards with their spells and magic wands — turning people into frogs or vice versa — or turning miserable Hogwarts students into white ferrets.

This magical stuff doesn’t seem practical today, but transformation still occurs.  This year I read a fun book by and about Kyle MacDonald and the way he transformed one red paperclip into a house in one year.  The book was entertaining; the premise is a life-changer.  Check it out at

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com

Kyle’s story shows that even in this world of chaotic economy, plentiful evil-doers and sometimes paralyzing fear, we can still be agents of our own change.

With open mind and heart, we can be ready to receive whatever good things come our way.  We can receive those good things as they are, and then use them to “trade up” — leverage those good things to gain a whole new level of happiness.

Someone else who is an expert at transformation is SARK.  Go visit her at

http://www.planetsark.com

In her joyful way, SARK gently gives us all permission to make the transformation from where we currently are to someplace more authentically ourselves.  I particularly love her colorful expressions of the joy in her life.  Take the opportunity to read her book “Transformation Soup”.  It is full of the human condition at its most uncomfortable and at its glorious best, complete with hints on making that transformation journey.  There is inspiration galore here.

For those of us still in cubeland working our way out, we must be aware and open so we can SEE the gifts that drop into our laps — like that training on the new telephone system where you connect with the trainer.  Then you take what you have (that new contact) and make a transformation — your new contact knows a client who needs someone to do a voiceover project, and that’s just what your sideline business is.  You connect, you transform — and you’re one step closer to the life you are meant to be living.

As Demosthenes once said, “small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”  Take a fresh look at your cubejob.  What opportunities are you missing?  Go ahead.  Transform!

 

Hello world!

Welcome to Reinventing Yourself!  I’m glad you stopped by. 

This blog started out as the germ of an idea for a book.  Then I decided the publishing process would take too long to reach all the people who might need a nudge in the right direction, particularly in these interesting economic times, so here we are. 

I’ve been reinventing myself for as long as I can remember.  The highlights:  I’ve been a professional musician, an insurance adjuster, a dressmaker, a model, an author, a secretary, a proofreader, a mom, wife, greyhound rescuer, lawyer, cat-lady, teacher, recording artist, International Quartet Champion, vocal coach, and International Chorus Champion.    I’ve had real “jobs” and been self-employed — usually simultaneously.

The purpose of this blog is to help others figure out how to live the work-life they want.  In this precarious economy, the time is right to uncover those skills and passions we’ve been keeping hidden and find the means of supporting ourselves that lights us on fire.  For some of us, that may mean becoming self-employed at something we already know how to do.  For others, it will mean developing a new set of skills.  And for others still, it will turn our lives upside down, as we discover ways to incorporate several income streams from smaller projects into a lifestyle that is incompatible with cubicle-dwelling.

I’ll bring information from other sources, tips and tricks I’ve found that have worked for me when setting out on a new venture, and I’ll provide links to some of my favorite people who are busily making a joyful living without working for someone else.  Here are the websites of two of my mentors in my current quest for joblessness:

http://joyfullyjobless.com

www.changingcourse.com

I hope you enjoy these sites and find them useful. 

Take a few moments now to contemplate what your perfect life looks like.  In that life, do you live in a different part of the country?  Do you work full time?  Do you work only a part of the year?  Indoors or outdoors?  Does your work include travel?  Other people?  Lots of time alone?  Is your work portable?  What do you wear to work?  Are you in the mountains?  By the beach?  Do you speak to groups of people?  Are you an artisan?  Do you get lost in your work and then realize that hours have gone by?  Do you feel refreshed at the end of your work day?  Go wild here — dream as big as you can.

Your dream life is possible.  “If you can dream it, you can do it”,  Walt Disney once said.   With determination, focus, and intent, you can have that worklife you just dreamed up for yourself.  I’ll bring you resources to help you get there.  Together we can make this journey.

Here’s to our Reinvented Lives!

Lynda Keever