society & culture
Whatever happened to practice?
Practice makes perfect, they used to say. Then they changed their mind, perfect practice makes perfect.
Ouch. That’s a lot of pressure.
Now instead of putting in your hour a day at the piano, with pen in hand, in the batter’s box, in front of the hoop, you’re supposed to do it right every time?
Again, ouch.
On top of that pressure for perfection during practice, there is the added pressure of being expected to perform because you have practiced.
It’s no wonder we look for the “right” answer before we even try.
It seems practice went out with the early ’90s.
You don’t have to be good at what you’re doing straight away. You don’t have to have the “right” answer. You don’t have to make all the best decisions. You don’t even have to have a plan.
You certainly don’t need a strategy.
You need to try. You need to practice.
I tell [my students] they’ll want to be really good right off, and they may not be, but they might be good someday if they just keep the faith and keep practicing.
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Do you hate that I don’t give you straight answers? Do you wish my posts had more bullet points and do-this-then-that instructions? Sorry. I don’t believe in them.
I believe in questions, in trying, in experimenting. I believe in coaxing you not-so-gently to practice your craft (and your business).
I believe in finding ways around your deepest felt assumptions, exploding them from the inside out.
I believe the only way you’ll be better at your “something” 5 years from now is if you start NOW.
What are you practicing? What will you give the ol’ college try? Opportunities for practice (not to mention trial & error) abound. Some ideas for this week:
- new marketing tactic
- completely different kind of blog post
- cold call
- warm call
- coffee with a role model
- coffee with someone who looks up to you
- fresh offer to your list
- rewriting your sales page
– – – – – – –
It’s time for the second session of The Art of Action! If you’re ready to practice with purpose, to engage your goals, to lose the fear & embrace momentum, I will whip you into shape in 6 weeks. Plain & simple. Check it out.
But don’t take my word for it:
Tara, honestly, this class has been life-changing for me. Doing what I love and getting paid for it has always seemed like a pipe dream. For the first time in my life, I’m taking my work and myself seriously.
I feel confident and capable and skilled. I believe that I can earn money doing the things I’m passionate about. And I give you all the credit for instilling that confidence!
— Brandy, Emergency Breakthrough
{ image credit: orangeacid }
personal, society & culture
I have been feeling gross.
Bloated. Lethargic. Out of sorts.
I have also dropped my 4-times-a-week yoga addiction habit that I spent the winter cultivating. First it was some travel, then it was some personal stuff, then it was more travel. Cutting out an hour & a half of my day to drive to the gym, attend class, and drive back got to be just too much.
I’ve even lost my gym card.
But I’ve been doing my best to keep up with a wee bit of asana in the evenings before I go to bed. No matter how gross I feel, I try to spread out the mat, breathe deeply, and chaturanga.
I get back into my body. And my body gets back into me. 10 minutes, tops.
It’s my bare minimum. I don’t always achieve it. Sometimes I avoid even that. But I know intellectually that if I do the bare minimum, I’ll feel better.
I have a bare minimum for other things too: blog posts, answering email, making dinner, etc… I know how far I can cut down before things fall apart.
I get caught up in doing things bigger – better – faster – stronger – more XTREME. Finding a place to cut back when circumstances make it difficult to press ahead is good. Being aware of your bare minimum is even better.
When everything around me screams for more, it’s good to know I can rely on a certain bit of less.
There’s this tendency to view goals with an all-or-nothing approach.
But whether it’s yoga, or something else entirely, you can find power in just one small step.
— Brigitte Lyons
You don’t have to choose between firing on all cylinders and stalling out. There’s a place where you creep along slowly, making progress but not taxing your creative engine.
Knowing what satisfies you is just as important as knowing what thrills you.
My bare minimum isn’t a place I want to hang out long. In fact, keeping up with the bare minimum helps me get back into the flow faster than shutting down. But it’s a place that’s available to me when I need it.
What’s your bare minimum? And how do you know it’s time to ease into your bare minimum?
Big Thinking, society & culture
Your definition of balance is overrated.
Okay, I don’t know for sure that your definition is overrated.
But if it has anything to do with weighing out equal quantities of gold while a Lady Justice-esque woman looks on unknowingly, it is.
We have been programmed for strive for balance: family/work balance, give/take balance, eat your veggies/have your cake balance. We want to make sure each dangling tray carries the right amount of weight to keep the scale from tipping.
Phoey.
Contentment – nay, passion & joy – is about defying an equal-handed approach.
We indulge in work when we should be resting, we keep on giving when it’s time to take, we sneak a fork full of goey chocolate lava cake for breakfast. And we feel good about it.
We don’t feel off balance. We feel good.
The pursuit of balance makes us juggle. It puts us behind (always behind,) makes us guilty, neglectful, imbalanced. It’s as useful a concept as original sin. You can never get it right.
— Danielle LaPorte
Tipping the scales isn’t a matter of too much weight here, to little there. In order to maintain balance, you have to gently hold the focus of your passion, purpose, and values.
- If being a great mom & raising engaged children is important to you, do you need to fear the joy of working hard at your business?
- If serving others through your words & actions is your purpose, do you need to fear the need to make a living from what you do?
- If creating art & expressing yourself visually is your passion, do you need to fear the desire to have others love what you make?
We’ve created these false dichotomies. We’ve manifested dualities where none exist. We’ve set ourselves up for failure.
Your joy is whole. There is no need to balance the weight of what is demanded of you. Instead, honor all that you have to give.
{image via lululemon athletica}
Big Thinking, society & culture
laser cut doily clock by uncommon - click image for more info
As the mother of a two year old, I am acutely aware that there is one life skill that my daughter may never really need to learn: how to read an analog clock.
I can remember many hours (days… weeks…) being spent on this important skill. Little hand, big hand, counting by fives, system of twelve. The wonders of the analog clock never cease!
Except that analog clocks are now more like quaint little treasures – accessory on a wall, bling around the wrist – than an actual tool for finding our way in time.
In fact, many have decried 2011 as the year that the mighty wristwatch would become obsolete entirely.
We exclusively access time through the interface of our digital devices: computers, tablets, and cell phones.
Time outside the network barely exists.
Our digital world has taken over a very simple, tangible part of the analog.
* * *
I graduated from college in 2004 – the year Facebook was founded. I blogged on Xanga and my first social network was a very brief experience with MySpace. I’m old school.
While I was blogging, I was fueled internally by a very external life. I was engaged in school organizations, doing deep work in theology, politically active. Ideas flowed into me via experience and flowed out of me via the net. It was a beautiful way to live. Connected.
After college and a crisis of personal faith [in myself], I stopped blogging. I was no longer connected, experientially or digitally. There was nothing to fuel me. I withdrew. It wasn’t pretty.
Craving the connection I had before, I opened an account on MySpace. It lasted a week or two. The last status update I made read something like this:
Had the most amazing first date last night!
That first date is now my husband.
I didn’t start blogging or networking again for 3 years. I needed to plug back into experience. I needed to be & feel something deeper than pixels & posts. It took me 3 whole years to rediscover the depth of my own spirit.
* * *
I’ve said before how much the phrase “in real life” bothers me. I’ve also said before how real & deeply connected I am through the relationships I’ve cultivated in my digital world.
Analog – the physical & tangible world – and digital – the electrons & code world – are very much the same to me.
To be fully alive in either, requires a profound experience of life around you.
It’s not enough to try to cover up either world with superficial relationships, well-crafted marketing messages, or feeble calls to action. We can be artificial in the analog world too.
The way you interact with the world – whether digital or analog – is a reflection of the experiences you absorb & create.
Strive to do something that matters. Plan to find love, make love, and be love. Learn and teach. Be mindful of your smallest experiences as shared stories with the wider world.
To share the experience, we must really live the experience, as it unfolds moment to moment.
— Gwen Bell, Digital Warriorship
Mindfulness is at the heart of truly enjoying the experience of life. You can go through life flying from moment to moment, never being aware of the passage of life just below your feet. Or you can experience the feeling of each moment. You can breathe in & breathe out life.
Mindfulness is critical whether you’re accessing the analog world or the digital.
Acting with compassion & kindness, leading with your passion, engaging with beauty – that’s where you’ll find “realness.” And real is never obsolete.
What experience is your digital world reflecting? What experience is your analog world reflecting
personal, society & culture
image via Etsy Labs on flickr - click for more info
“Etsy… is a place?” One of Megan‘s students asked her.
“Yes, it’s a place,” she replied.
Etsy is a marketplace, a state of mind, a verb, and, yes, a very real place in Brooklyn where everyone looks so very, well, Brooklyn.
Traveling up the elevator, walking through the industrial hallways, entering the Etsy Labs, I couldn’t help but think how far things had come since my mom was putting food on the table through her sewing business. Could she have even imagined in 1992… or 2000… or 2004… that there would be a multi-million dollar company that encouraged people to come, hang out, and craft at their headquarters?
I think not.
On Tuesday, I had the privilege of attending the Etsy Success Symposium organized by the lovely daniellexo (above) and facilitated by many other fab Etsy admins.
Right now, I find myself in the midst of a rather beautiful & expansive discussion of social media – it’s relevance & “realness” – and my experience at Etsy just makes me more confident of my theory:
social media is as real as you make it.
I can tell you that when I hugged daniellexo as soon as we met, it was real.
I can tell you that when people said, “Are you…. Scoutie Girl?” adding how much they loved the blog, it was real.
I can tell you that when I put faces to Twitter handles and Etsy shops, there were no strangers, only friends.
The gratitude I feel for all the relationships I have nurtured through digital means is very real and very deep.
To me, arriving at Etsy was both a manifestation of a lifetime spent making, doing, and appreciating craft and a reminder that I have much (and many) to be thankful for.
Blogging for Business, society & culture
Part of the Secrets to Succeeding with Social Media series by Blacksburg Belle
The phrase “in real life” (IRL) drives me a bit batty. It’s the phrase that social media addicts, bloggers, and otherwise connected folks use to describe the interactions they have outside the internet space.
“In real life” suggest that online life is fake.
“In real life” sets up a barrier between what you do away from the computer (or mobile device) and what you do in front of it.
This is a false dichotomy.
If you’re looking to create influence online and a larger following of engaged “fans,” it’s time to forget about IRL. You only have one life to live – and if you’re building a business, a good part of it will be spent online. Your life is a whole and should be represented that way, as clearly & passionately as possible.
getting really real.
April asked me to write about building a following in social media because I’ve done a fairly good job of it, relatively speaking. I have 4200+ followers on Twitter, almost 1900 fans on Facebook, a growing email list, and a respectable subscribership for both of my blogs. There are a lot of people who choose to connect to me and consume what I have to offer.
Since beginning my online business in January 2009, I have never felt more “real.” Online, I connect with people who truly care about the real me: what I have to offer, what my interests are, who my family is, how much ice I like in my lattes. Online, I have the freedom to be who I really am, without question, without shame. If you don’t like who I really am, you quit following me – no offense, but there will be someone else to take your place.
My life online is just as real as my life offline – if not more so. I don’t hold much back online, I don’t craft strategies for getting more followers, I am who I am. Being real is the key to my success.
So how do you connect with real people in a real way?
- Talk back. Everyone wants a conversation. Initiate one. Answer questions, respond to ideas.
- Ask questions. Just as important as providing answers is asking real questions and expecting real answers.
- Share your mission. Yes, real conversation is great but, at some point, you’ve got to get real about your mission. You wouldn’t have a face to face conversation without telling each other what you’re all about. Attracting people to you requires communicating your message.
Finally, keep you barriers low. The least “real” part of social media is just how easy it is to connect with real (cool) people. Outside the web, I’m a pretty hard person to connect with – I’m so darn shy. Online, we can connect with one keystroke.
If you’re looking to make friends, build a following, and grow your audience, make sure its ridiculously easy to connect with you.
Growing your online network isn’t about tips, tricks, or strategy. It’s about getting real and forgetting the false barriers we put up between our real lives and our online lives. Growing your online network is about being real enough that people want to share you with their friends.
