When I was 23, I headed to Hollywood with dreams of making it big. I got headshots. I took acting classes. I signed up to do extra work. And then…I sort of froze. The idea of trying to get an agent without being a member of one of the unions, the idea of really putting myself out there, of fully committing to the work…I let it overwhelm me and I froze.

I got scared. Everyone said if there was anything else in the world you could be happy doing, to do it. So I did. I went to law school. Of course, we know how that worked out—I sort of hated being a lawyer more than anything else.

I went to a convention a couple of weekends ago. In true geekish fashion, it was a fan convention where I got to meet some of my favorite actors and listen to them answer questions about the ins and outs of being a working actor and working on this particular show. It was fantastic and an amazing weekend all around and all I could think as I headed home was, “I gave up too soon. I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t want it badly enough.”

One of the actors that weekend said something in the Q&A that the key to success in the acting business was not to have a backup plan. To go for it with all you had.

I never did that. And for a couple of hours the regret was almost stifling. The recriminations were sharp—all I’d wanted, all I’d dreamed for, and I just ran away when it got hard. I didn’t go hard enough, I always had a backup plan. I barely gave it two years, even. I had to pull over the car for a bit to just cry.

I could have stayed there: could have stayed in the place of wallowing in regret, in beating myself up for the life I could have had, for the things I could have done, could have been. A few years ago, before I started on this journey to living the life of my dreams, I would have. I likely would have been curled up in a devastated little ball for days, going on about how I was too old to change paths and I’d lost all my chances, and I was doomed to live an unfulfilled life.

But I didn’t. I let myself have that moment, to feel the feelings that rose up. And then I asked myself what staying in that place would mean for me. I asked myself where the grief was coming from: especially when I am now living a life that I find utterly fulfilling and full of so much joy.

I realized I’m not creating enough—that in working to build a business, in adjusting to a new home, in dealing with a PhD program and getting back into the swing of teaching writing, I’ve neglected my creative side. I haven’t worked on my own writing. I did one show, but I haven’t been actively involved in a theater since I moved East.

I’m a creator. I’m a performer. Those are integral parts of who I am. Yes—the fame game in Hollywood appeals to the ego, but it’s the creative process I love, knowing I’ve connected with other people, no matter on what scale. And there is absolutely nothing in my life, or my choices, that keeps me from doing that.

Regret does nothing but stifle choices and visions for the future. We all have them lurking in our pasts. But when you focus on them, when you beat yourself up over choices you made in the past that maybe you would change now—you cut off options for now. You cut off options to grow. You block your ability to love the life you have now.

That doesn’t mean regret is a useless emotion, however. Often, it can be a tool, something that teaches us about what we need in our lives. For me, I realized I needed to designate some time for more creative pursuits, both those underway (like finishing editing my novel), and those that appeal in totally new areas.

Regret can illuminate things we need for our happiness that are missing in our life, point out areas in which we need to grow, identify old wounds we need to heal, reveal forgiveness we need to seek or grant, allude to relationships we should rekindle or call attention to connections we feel are missing that we need to make. By recognizing past behavior we regret, we realize patterns in our life that we need to change for our own fulfillment. We can become aware of limiting beliefs (I’m too old to every try for a professional acting career again!), work to overcome them, and brainstorm ways to make the dreams we still harbor and those we have developed come true.

Wallowing in regret only gets you more regret, more loss. It puts your life on hold and makes you blind to all the blessings surrounding you. But if you use it as a tool to check over your life and set any necessary course corrections you will honor your heart and lead yourself toward the life of your dreams.

If you’re feeling stuck in the past, drowning in regret, and are ready to take a step toward something better, contact me to schedule a free Story Session where we can pinpoint areas in your story that need to be rewritten and talk about how I can help you resuscitate your dreams and help you on the path to your happily ever after.

*Photo: Me and Daniel Gillies (one of my favorite actors) at TVD Convention in Chicago, April 14, 2012.

The post Forget Regret or Life is Yours to Miss first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

We all have stories: ones we choose, ones we discard, ones we change, ones we create. This is mine.

Once upon a time, there was a damsel who dreamed. Big dreams, little dreams, in between dreams; real dreams, true dreams, fantastical dreams: she had them all. But she didn’t know how to make those dreams come true, and as she tried first one thing, then another, slowly she felt hope dwindling inside of her, convincing her she was silly for dreaming. She started listening to all those things that everyone around her said about being sensible and responsible.

She went to law school.

It was all right. She loved to learn and loved to debate things, and school was always something at which she had excelled. She told herself she could follow her dreams in her spare time, but it was hard to find the time to spare.

After school, it was even worse. Brick by brick, a tower had grown up around her. It seemed like she was surrounded by dragons and trolls, and even an evil queen or two, all determined to trap her. Colors faded into dull browns. She gave away the flowing skirts and beads. Instead, she locked herself up behind pinstripe bars.

Every day was dull and gray, and she barely remembered what it felt like to dream, but she knew that someday, somehow, her prince would come to save her.

He didn’t. But in his place came a bard with magic in her songs. Music gave way to lyrics which evolved into words. The bard revealed with a peek under her patchwork cloak, the raiment of a wise woman. The damsel cheered, and thought she had come to save her.

The wise woman just smiled. She had a better gift to give, if the damsel would receive it, if she would just take her hand. Ready to grab at any chance, no matter what, the damsel did.

The wise woman didn’t save the damsel: she taught her to save herself.

The damsel stopped looking for a hero, and became a heroine. Brick by brick, she learned to take the tower down. Color seeped into her world in fits and starts through the chinks in the walls, until one day a rainbow flooded. She tossed out the pinstripes and silver and gold shackles. She wore a red ruffled jacket with her suit.

Then she tossed out the suits.

The dragons and trolls and evil queens, she discovered, were all locked in the tower with her, souls on a journey unlike her own. She stopped caring what they said to her, and thought of her, as she started to dream again. She wrote stories down and told people about them. She found a stage and trod upon it.

She bought a red sofa. (There’s another story there)

She stopped thinking of the dragons, trolls and evil queens as her jailors.

She climbed out of the tower.

The road was a little scary, out there with every possibility before her, but always just ahead, she saw the wise woman-bard and she listened to her song, and the songs of others she met on the road, and step by step, she moved forward, walking with more confidence, dreaming again, open to every possibility she had been blind to for years. Stitch by stitch, she made her own bard’s cloak.

She took a path to a place of learning that celebrated the bard’s craft, and became both student and teacher inside of it. She discovered young bards-to-be and mentored them in wordsmith and meaning-making.

Then, one day, she found herself in a field she had discovered off the beaten path. She could see her footsteps behind her, and she could see the wild world stretching out before her. And she could see a tower, with a damsel like she once was trapped inside, all her dreams forgotten.

The damsel called down to ask the heroine if she could save her. She’d do anything.

The heroine smiled, flipped back her cloak to find the raiment of a wise woman underneath. She told the damsel she had a better gift to give.

She held out her hand, and the damsel took it. The heroine didn’t save the damsel: she taught the damsel how to save herself.

[Photo credit: Lani Harmon Photography]

The post From Damsel to Heroine: My Story (or Why I Do What I Do) first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

“The perfect gift for me would be
Completions and connections” – The Waitresses – “Christmas Wrapping”

My word for the year for 2011 was “Action.” It served me well—I took a lot of action. From finding myself a whole new lifestyle based on whole foods instead of processed to quitting my job and staring a business and moving across the country. Looking back on the year and all the blessings and upheaval it brought, I find myself both proud…and vaguely exhausted.

It’s a good exhaustion, the kind you feel after a series of accomplishments of which you are proud, but it, like all exhaustion, has its harried edges. This December, after final papers were written and graded and fun but flurried weekends away were embraced, my body decided to shut down on me. It’s a common happening for students, I’m told, but this one hung on, dragging me under for well over two weeks, leaving me wanting to do little else but sleep even on Christmas day.

The forced downtime gave me a lot of time to think, however, to look at my life and my choices and consider how I wanted this new year in my new life to shape itself. I’m a firm believer in this type of reflection on a regular basis. It’s why I journal, why I commit to my morning pages. But there is a level of ritual attached to the work we do when the wheel of the year turns itself over once more, and with ritual comes an element of the sacred, encapsulated in our daily lives.

There is a lot of work to be done in the coming year—shepherding a fledgling business takes a lot of care and attention. But in my ruminations on what I want 2012 to look like, I kept coming back to my why.

Why do I do what I do?

What am I seeking?

What am I offering?

What is it that fills me up and makes me whole?

What is it that much of 2011 felt like it lacked, despite the business launching and the accountability partner and the joining of a mastermind group?

The answer was simple, and, as it often does, came to me in snippets of song and poetry, winding it’s way through my heart.

Connection.

Not superficial, not the moments of passing words and casual nods, though there is value in them. But I am aching for true connection—connection with myself, connection with my readers, connection with my clients, connection with my family, connection with my roots, connection with God, connection with friends, connection with a romantic partner. I am an NF, according to Meyers-Briggs, and NFs need connection, but in my busy-ness and action filled year of 2011, I felt that I had only moments of it, there to tease at me, but not pursued to the depth I needed.

So, 2012 is going to be the year of connection—deep, soul-level, intimate connection. With myself, with you, with my friends, with my family. Tied up in connection is also the idea of presence—presence truly and fully within my life.

It’s a little frightening. After years of living a fragmented life, I’m starting to pull the pieces together. Things which do not serve me are falling away. People who only seek the superficial may be confused and fall aside, as well, not willing to walk this road with me.

But there is a need for connection in the world today, and I challenge all of you to step toward it, as well, even if it isn’t the word you feel calling you, shaping you right now.

How can you make your friendships a little truer, a little deeper?

How can you make your life feel richer?

Is there someone to whom you need to reach out?

Is there a bridge that needs repairing—or one that needs burning so that you can nourish something new in the ashes?

Do you need to offer forgiveness? Do you need to accept it?

Do you know what you value—and do those in your life reflect those values?

Can you take the steps you need to take in order to fill your life with depth and richness?

I’m tired of the superficial. I’m tired of unkindness. I’m tired of people not connecting, soul to soul, instead of finding all the things that separate them. I want to take the conversation to a deeper level—and I’m looking for people to join me.

We’re at the beginning of a new year—a time for renewal and rebirth. What are you being born into?

I want to say to you: I am here. I want to help, to listen, to support you. I want to grow with you, each of us on our own path.

I want to hear your story—your true story, your life-long story—and I want to help you reconnect with the story you are wanting to live.

That’s my invitation to you, and I close it with words from Oriah Mountain Dreamer, and her Invitation, which I haven’t been able to get out of my head for weeks. You can find the full text on her website—these are my favorite bits:

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

 

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

 

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

 

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

 

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Will you answer the invitation? I’d love to hear from each of you what it is your soul is longing for this year!

The post Connection and Completion: A New Paradigm for a New Year first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress. ~ Bruce Barton

Change is one of those words that invokes a lot of emotions: fear, excitement, loss, hope. It’s very easy to say we want things to change, but it seems like nine times out of ten we rarely do anything to bring it about. We react when it approaches by skittering back into the smaller way we were living before.

Part of us craves change. We make lists every New Year of all the things we want to change about ourselves—but year after year goes by and we rarely allow the change to occur.

When things change without our input, when events conspire against us to force us into change, we often find ourselves reeling, wondering where the firm footing is, and how to get back to “normal.”

But what change does—whether we consciously institute it or not–is give us a new normal. The challenge is never to go back—life isn’t about retreating—but learning how to go forward and embrace the changes we’ve had in our lives.

My life has changed radically this year. When January rang in, I was working at a job where I felt stifled and unappreciated. I had put things in motion, hoping they would come to fruition to change my life, but I had no certainty it would. February brought with it a new role that I found myself embracing, finding pieces of the path I knew I wanted strewn along it, and for a while I thought that maybe I could just lean into this new role, to play it safe, stay where I was and say this had been the change I wanted all along.

By June, though, I knew that I couldn’t stay where I was. The first months of the year were transformative in so many ways—I learned a lot about myself, about the things I would accept and the things I wouldn’t. Staying in a place where I felt isolated, where my greatest work and gifts were unappreciated and I was chastised for exercising my creativity and problem-solving skills was not something I could do.

I wasn’t meant to be a worker bee, keeping my head down and denying who I was and the things I was good at doing.

So, I quit my job, which everyone thought was insane. Who quits a position as an attorney unless they are moving to practicing a different kind of law? I wasn’t—in fact, I went back to school. From a lawyer’s salary to that of a teaching assistant was a huge adjustment—a big change I had to handle, but I’ve embraced it, and learned that money truly doesn’t make you happy.

Not only did I quit my job, but I uprooted my whole life and moved from Nevada back to the East Coast. I had finally made friends in the Silver State, and it wasn’t easy to leave them, but leaving is what my soul was calling for, and so leave I did.

Everything is different: new job, new home, new city, new friends (and some old ones I reconnected with). I’ve had to learn to set my own schedule and make all those extensions out to new people to try and build a new social circle. I’ve had to remind myself what I’m doing and find focus inside myself to juggle my writing students, my new coursework and my new endeavor.

Because on top of all the other change, I finally took the leap and stepped out into the world of entrepreneurship, which is a whole other level of learning how to see and work within the world.

I’m not going to lie—it’s occasionally terrifying. But–

I’m not going to lie—I’ve never been happier. Never.

I wake up each day and I know that today I get to learn something, and I get to teach something—I get to help people learn to tell their stories and to make meaning from them and in their lives. I get to watch as people take the first steps toward living their dream like I’m living mine. I get to challenge people who are playing small and safe, and I get to speak my mind and be listened to and feel that what I say makes a difference.

I get to live in a beautiful city filled with changing colors and old brick homes that stand among ancient oaks across the street from modern art. I am surrounded by tradition and forward movement.

I have the ties to old friends that I’m renewing, and have made new ones for whom I get to be exactly who I am.

I wake up each day and the life I step into is one of my own design. The possibilities are unlimited, and for the first time in years I feel like I can breathe full, deep breaths again.

It’s a whole new world, full of dazzling possibilities, and I made it happen. I took the leap, and now every day I see the world of my dreams opening up before me.

Sometimes the only thing to do with change is to step into it, embrace it, and let it take you over. Move forward, step by step, on a new and maybe scary path, and let your heart lead you in that direction. If you don’t like where you are, or who you are, the only way to make it better is to allow for change, to be the catalyst for it in your life.

And then watch as the world opens up for you.

The post A Whole New World: The Power of Embracing Change first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

In “The Most Powerful Change You Can Make In Your Life-Today” I wrote about how the simple act of changing your attitude–having an attitude adjustment–can transform your life. It really is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal, but so many of us have been conditioned into thinking that we are ruled by emotions that it is sometimes difficult to figure out just how to effectuate this change.

So, I decided to write this follow up article to address the nitty-gritty practical side of attitude adjustments. The truth is, you can adjust your attitude anytime, anywhere, without any tools, but for a lot of us that takes time and practice. Using the tips and tools on this page will help you learn to see that you do have control over your emotions and attitude. The longer you practice controlling them, the easier it will be, until you will find yourself able to make these attitude adjustments with a deep breath and a single thought.

The first thing, and the most important, is that you must believe that you can change your attitude. Without this belief, the tools are all on shaky ground. They may work, but they will be far less efficient.

Secondly, before you begin any specific attitude adjustment you must identify what the attitude you feel stuck in is. This doesn’t have to be fancy, but try to put a name on it: grumpy, frustrated, angry, depressed, discouraged. They are all some variation of “bad,” sure, but each one has its own flavor, and different approaches may help change different attitudes.

Thirdly, try and get a sense of what attitude you’d like to have instead. As with identifying where you are now, this doesn’t have to be fancy, simple descriptors will do: upbeat, encouraged, motivated, inspired, happy, excited. They’re all some variation of “good,” but as with the “bad” moods, each has its own taste, its own feel, and you want to try and capture what you’re going for.

Those three factors in mind, let’s look at 15 practical ways you can bring about an attitude adjustment:

1. Monitor your thoughts and substitute new ones

I’ve thrown the most difficult one out first, but it is also the most effective. It takes some practice, but once you master it, you’ll find this skill to be a godsend. Because our feelings are connected to our thoughts, if we can change our thoughts, we can change our feelings. Before you can do that, though, you have to be aware of what you’re thinking.

So practice that first. Listen to the voice in your head, the inner one that is probably often pretty critical and cranky. Notice what it’s saying when you’re feeling your bad mood. Then ask yourself–what thought would be a more positive one? Consciously work to insert that one instead, and make yourself think it.

For instance, when you’re stuck in traffic and you’re ready to flip the bird to the guy who just cut you off, and you’re thinking all sorts of horrible things about what he must do to small animals, take a breath. Notice those thoughts. Are they serving you? Are they helping you? Are they doing anything to make traffic go faster? What can you think instead?

Remind yourself that one car isn’t going to make or break the flow of traffic. Ten cars wouldn’t, even. You’ll still get there when you get there. Be grateful you were able to stop and not hit him. Whatever you do–stop dwelling on the thing that’s making you so upset. Dwelling never did anyone any good, and that bad attitude–how is it serving you? How is it making things better?

2. Question yourself and your attitude

One way to get to a point with the first suggestion is to play the game of questioning your attitudes, especially ones you hold on to. Ask where they have come from. Ask what they are serving. Ask what you are getting by not letting them go.

I find that journaling is really helpful for this step. It isn’t as quick as just monitoring my thoughts, but sometimes it is far easier (when just substituting happier thoughts isn’t happening at the moment). Writing isn’t everyone’s thing, so maybe you’d rather do it in your head, or talk it out with a trusted friend, or a coach, but it’s important sometimes to spend some time with yourself on these attitudes and questions.

We hold on to things generally because they serve some purpose. Or we hold on to thoughts because we can’t see a way around them. Write them out. Write the thoughts, write the attitude, and then question it–don’t just vent. This isn’t your whining session. This is something constructive–find out what’s going on underneath the surface, and then, like with #1, do something to turn it around.

Ask what you can do to make it better. Find some constructive solutions to the problem. Do some creative brainstorming. Often spending that time in asking and answering will lead to surprising solutions and lift a mood all on its own.

3. Write a letter to the person or thing that is irking you.

This is a variation on #2, and what I described doing with my boss in “The Most Powerful Change.” It’s a journaling exercise and can be highly effective as far as attitude adjustments go. This can be a letter to a person, a situation, a thing, an idea. You can write to your body, your health, your mom, your broken car, your lack of a job. Whatever you want–personalize and write to it.

Unlike #2 with the questions, in this one, it is a-okay to vent. Vent your heart out. Pour out all your angst. Let it spill across the page. You’re never going to send this. No one is ever going to see it but you.

If you can, try to come to some resolution in the end of the letter. Whether it’s a “you have no power over me” declaration, or some sort of problem solving effort, try and free yourself from that angst once it’s out. The point is to have it not in you anymore. Ideally, you want to get rid of the letter, even, once you’re done.

Burn it, shred it, put it in the bottom of the bird’s cage–whatever you do with it, make it very clear to yourself that you are tossing this problem symbolically out of your life once and for all, and see how much freer you feel afterward.

4. Write out affirmations/Write out how you’d like to think

When you’re training yourself to move toward new thought patterns to replace the old ones, it helps if you know in advance what the new thoughts are and should be. Affirmations can get a lot of sort of woo-woo feelings around them, and sometimes people feel really silly thinking about them, or working with them. (After the SNL skit, I certainly can’t quite say them to myself in the mirror without cracking myself up)

But affirmations are just new ways of thinking, and training yourself to replace old thought patterns with new. They can be whatever you want them to be, and however works for you.

Think about the thought patterns that are giving you the most grief and most affecting your attitude. Write those out as statements. Then consciously turn those around into something more positive–into what you’d like to think, into what your ideal self would think. This is different from #2 in that it’s not so much stream of consciousness as a deliberate activity.

Negative thought/Attitude supporting thought → Something more positive/supporting of the attitude you want to have

Then, when you find yourself thinking those thoughts that are somewhat frequent in your head (i.e. in monitoring yourself in #1), you will have something on hand to replace them with.

5. Write a Gratitude List

Yes, I’m very up on writing. I am a writer after all. But it’s incredibly therapeutic, and writing forces you to order your thoughts in a way that you sometimes cannot on your own early on in this sort of work.

A gratitude list is simply a list of things for which you are grateful. You can start it with “I’m grateful for” or “I’m thankful for” and then just go. Anything and everything from small to large. Friends. Family. The cute guy at the coffee shop who held the door open with a smile this morning. That you woke up this morning. Ice cream cones. Raindrops on roses. Whiskers on kittens. Whatever you are grateful for–write it down.

Being grateful forces us to acknowledge the good in our lives. And when we are acknowledging the good, it crowds out the bad. It’s hard to be sullen and grateful at the same time, and when you see how much good there is in your life, it’s easier to smile. And smiling is an automatic mood lifter, which brings us to…

6. Smile!

Our body reacts to physical cues. If you are frowning, you automatically tense up and your emotions will follow those cues. When you smile, even if you don’t feel like it, your body starts to relax and follow those cues instead.

Happiness really is something you can sometimes fake until you feel, but I’m not really suggesting that. While making yourself smile should start to make you feel better, it’s even better if you have something to smile about.

Watch something funny, ready a funny book, hang out with friends who make you laugh, pet a furry animal, watch children laugh–whatever it is that gets you smiling, do it. This will help reduce the stress in your body and help lift your attitude. The more you do it, the more often you are happy, the more your overall attitude in life starts to lift.

7. Work out

Unlike in “How to Feel Better on Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days,” I’m going to suggest a harder work out here. We’ve already talked about there how to lift your mood on a particularly bad day, and a gentle walk or being outside can also help with an attitude adjustment, certainly. Just getting outside and some fresh air and breathing deeply will help (see #8).

But for this section, I’m talking about seriously working out. Endorphins are your friends. Runner’s highs are very good things.

Not only can a good workout give you an immediate lift, but people who work out are healthier in general, and less stressed, which helps greatly with maintaining a good attitude. When you have a regular outlet for your stress and bad moods, it’s easier to maintain an even keel.

Besides, if you do hit the pavement for a solid 5 mile run when you feel like snapping someone’s head off–you get multiple benefits: better relationships for getting out the door without snapping, awesome endorphin rush to make you feel instantly better and a better, healthier body.

8. Meditate, or at least, spend some time breathing deeply.

I’ll admit that I’m not a great meditator. I’m not going to be your go-to girl for that for a while, though you’re welcome to come along for the ride as I try to learn to be. I do find, however, that if I can just sit still for five minutes and breathe and focus on the here and now (i.e. meditate, but without the scary term attached), then I feel a lift in my body and mood.

Being aware of your body helps you stay present. Being aware of your thoughts helps you monitor them and change them. Being aware of your breath helps you lower your stress levels. Taking some time to breathe can keep you from saying or doing things that you’ll regret later.

Whenever you feel the need for an attitude adjustment, it’s always a good idea to step away and breathe. Even if it’s just 5-10 deep breaths, even if it’s just a moment of centering, it will help take you out of your head (your raging, possibly lying thoughts that are controlling your emotions) and bring you back into your body, and calm you so that you can reevaluate what you’re thinking.

That time for reevaluation will almost always help you adjust your attitude to at least something calmer. And from calm you can work your way toward happy.

9. Change your actions – Do something different than what you’ve been doing.

There’s a common saying in the personal development arena of “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” It’s very true when it comes to attitude, as well. One way to effect an attitude adjustment is to shake things up.

Drive to work a different route. Get something different for lunch. Go to a different gym. Try a different tactic with a supervisor. Start a new conversation with a friend or loved one. Do your work in the opposite order you usually do.

If what you’ve been doing has resulted in you living in a negative attitude–you need to change it. While changing your attitude can often effect the outside change, and that is probably ideal, sometimes we really do need to change our outside circumstances.

I don’t mean that you need to change your life or have your ideal life before you can be happy or have a better attitude. Note that all of the suggestions are fairly small.

Sometimes just shaking things up a little bit is enough to jar your brain into a new thought pattern and force it out of its usual pathways. It helps you see things from a different perspective and can shed new light where you only saw darkness before.

10. Change your space

It’s hard to have a positive attitude when you’re living in filth or overwhelming clutter or dark, depressing rooms. So change things up. Clean. Organize. Get some color in the room.

You don’t have to spend a whole lot of money redecorating (though if you feel the urge and have the cash, by all means have fun–I redid my living room a couple of years ago and had a blast with it. It’s SO much nicer when I come home, now–an oasis instead of an energy suck). Simple things like a blanket you got at a thrift store, or a vase of bright flowers can do wonders for a room.

Definitely clean and organize. Get rid of things that are tying you down and holding you back. Do you really need all that stuff that reminds you of the ex who broke your heart? Do you really want all that junk that you have to dust every week that you keep out of guilt, but not because you love it?

Take a look around your space–what do you love? What do you use? What do you need? Get rid of anything that doesn’t fit those three questions. Organize what’s left. Clean it all thoroughly. Open the windows and let fresh air in.

You’ll feel a lot better every time you step into your home, and just the act of setting your life in order can do wonders for your attitude.

11. Volunteer for a cause you believe in

Giving back to others is one way to reinforce the good in your life. The act of giving generates a feeling of goodwill in most people. It helps to connect you to other people who believe in the same things you do, and it lets you feel like you’re doing something with a purpose in the world.

The key is finding something you care about. Don’t go and be a Big Sister if you really can’t stand kids. Don’t volunteer at the animal shelter if you’re afraid of dogs. There are tons of causes out there that need people’s help, and I believe that there is something that you are passionate about or you wouldn’t be here.

So, find a group that needs your help in an area you care about and donate your time. It doesn’t have to be a huge chunk if you’re working 60 hours a week–just give them 5 hours a month. By helping those less fortunate, or giving back to the community in some ways, we foster a sense of connection to a world outside ourselves and this helps us step out of the isolation that bad attitudes can bring.

12. Have goals you are working toward and a physical reminder of them around you.

A life without purpose or meaning is one that is directionless and one that can leave someone feeling lost and adrift. It’s hard to find motivation to do anything or to change your attitude if you do not have anything that you are working toward.

Everyone should have goals they want to achieve, whether big or small. These can be wild dreams of our hearts desire (which we should all have, but that’s another article) or simple things that we feel that will make our lives a little better.

Whether big or small, you need to have something you are working toward and you need to have a visual reminder of it somewhere around you. This can be a vision board or post-it notes on your mirror or pictures on your refrigerator or little sayings and reminders that pop up on your iPhone–whatever works best for you to keep your goal at the forefront of your mind.

When you are focused on achieving something, it is far more difficult to let yourself slide toward depression and hopelessness. Frustration, yes, but there are ways to work around that attitude with other tactics. You must have something meaningful in your life, though, some rudder to guide you.

Then, when you feel your attitude start to take a nosedive, it helps to refocus on your goals and do something toward them, however small, and the productivity and glow that comes from that is guaranteed to help you shift your attitude.

13. Find something to do every day that you enjoy and that makes you feel good about yourself.

When we are doing things we enjoy and feeling good about ourselves, it is difficult to slump into a bad attitude. Furthermore, when things do not go our way and bad attitudes come upon us, the positive feelings generated by our fun activity will give us something to conjure up and strive for.

Memory is a positive force, and if you make sure to inject something fun into each day, then the memory of pleasure is always at your fingertips. You do not have to stretch back far for it, or try to remember when the last time you smiled was. Scheduling daily time for you also gives you something to look forward to, and the sense of anticipation for an enjoyed activity can be the lift that you need to get you through a moment when things are less than pleasant with a more positive attitude.

Like your goals, these things do not necessarily have to be big. They can be something different every day. Maybe a dance class one day, or a particular workout. Perhaps you schedule time for yourself for a bath and a book three times a week. Maybe girls night out once a week. A pedicure twice a month. Possibly it’s something as simple as walking the dog, or making your favorite meal for dinner.

It can be something routine, or something new. Most likely it will be a mixture of both. Either way, make that time for you. Hold it sacred. Give yourself something to look back on and forward to with a smile and enjoy your life that bit much more.

14. Learn something new

Some of the happiest people in the world are those who learn something new everyday. That’s because they approach life with an air of curiosity. It’s hard to let the bad attitudes creep in if you maintain that curiosity toward everything.

If you keep yourself open to new experiences, you will see new opportunities everywhere. Even in potential adversity, you have the chance to learn, if you look at it as a learning experience. Ask yourself after something doesn’t go your way, “What can I learn from this? How can I do it differently next time? How can I handle my reaction better next time?”

Take classes. Expand your horizons. Keep learning and opening your mind toward new things around you.

It’s the same attitude of openness and curiosity whether you’re examining a moment in your day for a lesson or whether you’re seeking one out. And while curiosity may have killed the cat, it can only enrich your life and decrease your bad attitude days.

15. Practice Acceptance

Nearly as important as monitoring your thoughts is cultivating an attitude of acceptance. Like gratitude, this one has to be practiced and learned, but it is well worth the effort. In addition, it will make monitoring your thoughts and replacing them with more positive ones much easier.

We live in a highly judgmental society. We judge our neighbors, our coworkers, our politicians, our celebrities, the random people on the street. More than any of that, though, we probably judge ourselves.

I’ve written a great deal about accepting others in “Being the Change: What Does It Take,” and so I just want to hit on it here as it relates to attitude. Judgment of ourselves or others, that critical vicious voice, is never going to lead to a positive, happy attitude. It is only going to foster negativity.

We must come to see ourselves and others as we are, and beyond that, to accept each other as we are, flaws and all. We must look beyond the surface irritants to the people below. Recognize in the annoying coworker the single mom who’s trying to get by and is afraid of being laid off. See in the strident cashier the girl who feels like her dreams passed her by and is just trying to make ends meet. Look in the mirror and see not just your flaws, but also your beauty.

Be forgiving. Accept people as they come. Accept yourself as you are. This doesn’t mean we don’t strive to improve, or be our best, but if you can accept that you are flawed, that people are flawed, and still love yourself and them, you’ll find a much greater peace in your day and your life.

Everyone has a story. Everyone has their own set of troubles. When we try to see the world through eyes of acceptance, a lot of anger we’ve been carrying evaporates into a feeling of compassion and that is one of the ultimate attitude adjustments you can have.

[Photo Credit: Pedrosimoes7 ]

The post 15 Practical Ways to Adjust Your Attitude first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.  ~Anne Frank

As much as I would like to claim that I was an angel when I was a little girl that would be more than a bit of an exaggeration. I wasn’t a holy terror (or I like to think that I wasn’t, at least), but I was a headstrong, opinionated only child who didn’t much like to have the attention off of her and who liked to be in charge of things. I was also imaginative and funny and liked to entertain people and would make friends with anyone, anywhere, but that’s a different article.

My mother had a phrase she used when I was acting out, getting belligerent, or just being a brat. Most often it came out when I was whining or complaining or acting in a way that was generally making myself and those around me miserable. She would pull me aside and very calmly tell me that it was time for an “attitude adjustment.”

Back then, that was generally my first warning–shape up or discipline would follow. Now, however, as I am a grown up and parental punishment is a thing of the distant past, the phrase still sticks with me and has become one of the power tools in my arsenal for tackling and succeeding at life.

This is because the #1 thing that determines how you go through life is your attitude.

We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails.  ~Author Unknown

We can control a lot of things in our daily lives and make a lot of changes by willpower and discipline, it’s true.  Our habits and practices are greatly a product of our choices. But there are always elements that can come in that are outside of our control:

• You can start the best exercise program in the world and then be waylaid by an injury.
• You can find a job that you absolutely love, only to have the company go out of business.
• You can have certain responsibilities that must be done which limit the time you have to spend pursuing your dreams.
• The stock market can crash, illness can hit, accidents can happen–all outside of your control.

Of course, all of these are things we can work around and overcome. There are stories aplenty of people overcoming adversity and great odds to achieve dazzling success. In some ways, it’s the ultimate of the American Dream.  But those who have achieved that success did not do it by grit and discipline alone. They had a secret weapon underneath their willpower and determination, and it is one we must have as well.

That weapon is the right attitude.

We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs.  ~Kenneth Clark

Despite all the positive thinking messages out there today, it still isn’t hip to be positive. People who try to live that way are often derided as Pollyannas or told that they aren’t realistic by those around them lost in cynicism. We’re called chirpy cheerleaders (no joke, I read that just yesterday in an Amazon review) and the implication is that we’re either too naive to understand how the world works, or are selling some sort of snake-oil to other desperate, deluded folks.

The naysayers can list of dozens of things that are wrong with the world, and with life, and ask how we can possibly find anything to be positive about.  But I want to ask you this: What does that attitude accomplish? If you’re one of those cynics, how has it helped you so far? Most people adopt such an attitude to protect themselves from disappointment, but when you live your life that way–where do you get?  What do you achieve?

When you look for darkness, you will find it. And the more you find, the more your worldview is validated, and the more dark the world seems to you. There seems to be no point in striving for anything, no hope, no reason. What is the point, then? This level of thinking can lead only toward a downward spiral to misery and depression, ripping joy out of life.

Sure, you might seem “cool” as you sit around being cynical with everyone, tearing down this or that, or complaining about whatever the complaint of the day is…but when you turn out the light that night, do you feel any better?

I’ve been there. I was that person. And I can tell you that, no. I didn’t feel any better for all my cynicism and snark. I went to bed miserable most nights, lost in a sea of “why do I even bother?” It was hard to see that the world could ever get better. It didn’t matter when things went right, because I was convinced they’d just go wrong again soon.

No one could change that for me. Nothing that happened externally could shift that. I had to do it. I had to be the one to perform an attitude adjustment, to make a conscious choice to approach life differently.   It didn’t happen overnight. It took work, and it still takes work.

Old habits are hard to break, and there are still days when I catch myself in old, negative thought patterns. When I do, though, I take a breath and say firmly, but calmly (and sometimes in my mother’s voice): “Charity, you need an attitude adjustment.”

Because when I made that choice–when I decided that I would start doing attitude adjustments when I found myself in those dark places–everything changed.

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.  ~Katherine Mansfield

I could give you tons of research and talk about the power of positive thinking all day, but that isn’t what I want to focus on right now. Right now I want to demonstrate the sheer power in one little shift of attitude. One change in how you think, and nothing else, really can effect outside changes in your world.

For several years I worked in a job where I was miserable. More than once, I closed the blinds to my office and found myself sobbing at my desk because of something someone said, or some opportunity that passed me by again. Until this job, I’d been a superstar everywhere I’d been, and succeeded at nearly everything I’d done, so the disappointment was that much more crushing.

I was a straight-A student who graduated from my MA program with a 4.0 and was in the top 10% of my law school class.  All of my employers had always loved me, and I had achieved the highest rankings ever given to a law clerk in one position I held at a law firm.

But something didn’t click at this job.  Something wasn’t working. I was working. I was putting in the effort and trying my best, but nothing I did was good enough, and I kept being passed over for opportunities I wanted and was told that my work was sub-par, no matter how hard I tried.  It was devastating and demoralizing because I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

Finally, last year, I decided to stop trying to “fix” it. Not, mind you, to stop doing my work or anything. I didn’t decide to give up altogether because “why bother?” But I realized that I had come into the job already miserable from my divorce and moved to a place I had no friends. I was putting all of my self-worth into what my boss and supervisors thought of me, and whether I was promoted as quickly as others in the office. I was letting what they thought of me, and what they said about one tiny facet of my life, define who I was as a person and undermine all of my happiness.

So I made a conscious effort to stop doing that. I got more involved with things I loved outside of work. I performed in one of my favorite plays. I directed a show for the first time. I worked on my novel.  And I did some serious internal attitude adjustment.

I wrote letters that I didn’t send expressing my resolve to give up basing my self worth on their opinion and accepting that it was possible nothing I did would ever be good enough, but that I was more than that, and I knew that I was smart and capable and a valuable asset. Others had seen that and cultivated it, and if they couldn’t, it was their loss, not mine. I would continue to do my best until I had the cushion I needed to leave to pursue my passion, but this was now a job to achieve a goal, not what defined me.

Excellence is not a skill.  It is an attitude.  ~Ralph Marston

Immediately, I was more happy. It was as if a burden had lifted off my shoulders and for the first time in five years, I could breathe again. I saw new possibilities all around me and felt myself re-energized to pursue my passions and dreams. This is one of the main benefits of attitude adjustments–it awakens you to everything good that really is out there. But this one went further.

Within one week after my conscious decision to change my entire attitude toward work, I had my boss in my office offering me a chance at the opportunity I’d been wanting for two years. It came with a caveat that seemed challenging–working with one of the people who’d been most critical of my work before–and I felt my new positive attitude challenged.

But I held on to it. I promised myself that she wouldn’t define me, and I would work with her and go into it believing the absolute best about her and about myself. Everyone in the office expected me to fail, I think, such was the reputation of the person and the situation I was going into.

Instead, I had a really good few months working with her. I learned a lot, and she really helped me to grow.  She treated me with respect and asked my opinions on our work and listened to them. In the end–I got the opportunity I wanted and have been loving it.

Beyond that, I have had my boss and all of my supervisors consistently stopping by my office to thank me for my work, to praise it and to say how much they appreciate both my hard work and the quality of what I’m turning out. That just doesn’t happen much in my workplace, and has never happened to me here before.

I didn’t change anything external.  I didn’t change my work ethic (It’s always been strong). I didn’t noticeably change how I was doing my work (I’ve always tried to do my best).  I didn’t take extra classes or go to extra training to improve my skills.

I just changed my attitude. Instead of the despairing place of, “I’ll never be able to do this and they want me to fail” that I had been in, I reaffirmed my intelligence and capability and that they were lucky to have me (confidently,  not arrogantly!). And miraculously–they suddenly seemed to agree.

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.  ~Arthur Rubinstein

Admittedly, not every attitude adjustment will have such immediate dramatic results, but the possibility is there and you never know which one is going to pay off in spades. However, even those that do not literally turn your life around will make a dramatic difference.

Life is how you see it. Everything is about perception. Two people can look at the same situation and experience completely different things based upon their perception, and their perception of the situation is driven by their attitude.

Whenever I mention this, someone always wants to argue with me saying, “That’s great for you, but you don’t know what my life is like. I have to deal with x, y, and z…” That’s true. I don’t know each and every one of your situations.

But I do know that if people around the world who are far less fortunate than we are can find ways to be genuinely happy, then so can we. If Anne Frank can still believe in the goodness of people and see beauty in the world, even while hiding in an attic, afraid for her life, then so can we.

It’s a choice, and it’s the one thing in your life that is completely, totally, 100% within your control. Your outside circumstances can never infringe upon it. No tragedy or injury or bad day can take it away from you.  No one can take it away from you.

We choose our attitudes. We choose how we see the world. We choose how we approach situations.

And those choices often have consequences outside of our own heads. People with positive attitudes see more possibilities because they believe possibilities exist. The energy and attitude you project is something others can pick up on and it effects how they interact with and treat you, which can effect the opportunities with which you are presented and the relationships in which you engage.

It is not too broad a statement to say that if you change your attitude, you change your life. It is a change you can make with no monetary investment, no training, no great amount of time. All it takes is a little faith and a bit of hope.

So, what are you waiting for?  What’s holding you back? And what attitude adjustment do you need to perform today?

[For practical tips on how to adjust your attitude, please see the follow-up article: 15 Practical Ways to Adjust Your Attitude]

[Photo Credit: Pedrosimoes7]

The post The Most Powerful Change You Can Make in Your Life – Today first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

This weekend was the first weekend I had off since Christmas. It was much needed, given the excruciating past three weeks at work. Not only have the hours been long, but the media coverage of the work we do has been brutal and excoriating, leaving me crying at my desk at least once and declaring to sympathetic friends that I was having at “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” and that I thought I was going to move to Australia. Bonus points if you get the reference for that without looking below.*

I could write a whole article on those three weeks, and the media coverage and the partisanship apparent within it and the misrepresentations on both sides. On politics itself and the issues ripping our country apart right now, but for the moment my “day job” requires my silence.  I have opinions, but I do not express them, because I serve both sides, and I serve the people in a nonpartisan capacity. I do my best work no matter which party asks it of me.

And this isn’t a political blog, anyway.

But it is a blog about living a life you craft, and choosing to live life the way you want to see it. So how do you do that when everywhere you look, life seems to be throwing things at you determined to twist up all you’re trying to vision into being? How do you shrug off the criticism that may not be aimed at you personally, but feels like it’s scoring nails down your soul?  How do you keep your head up and actually smile when you feel like the mob is trying to tear your hope to shreds?

How do you get through your terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days?

I would suggest five possible ways.  Some of these may seem simple, but feeling better when you’re down in the dumps isn’t about going from misery to elation in one fell swoop. That is very likely unrealistic unless you are incredibly more skilled than most of us.

But if you can just manage to feel a little bit better, and then a bit better from there, and then a bit better from there; if you feel like you’re in the well of despair and then you can rebuild one brick of hope, and then another, and then another; if you can lift yourself from exhaustion and get one night of rest, and then another, and then another it gets better.  You get the drift?

One step at a time. One day at a time.  These may be small steps, but one at a time, one piece at a time, and I promise they add up and all the negativity out there will start to wash off of you and the world will seem a little better, a little brighter.

1.  Have a playlist that’s your “happy” or “inspirational” playlist. Better yet, have a theme song on there somewhere.

Music has been shown to have a direct effect on the brain and body. Some studies have even shown that it can lower levels of cortisol (associated with high stress levels) in the body. In a study reported in the AORN Journal in February 2003 researchers posited that listening to music can even lower blood pressure.

Beyond that, I’m sure almost all of you have felt the positive effects of having your favorite song come on the radio, or know how hearing a song from your past can evoke those memories–good or bad. Science may not be able to explain all of it, but the effects of music are visceral. So why not use them to your advantage?

I have a playlist on my iTunes on my computer and on my iPod and iPhone (so I have it wherever I go) entitled “Inspiration” and on it are my favorite uplifting songs–the ones that never fail to make me smile.

Beyond that, ever since Ally McBeal had her search for a theme song, I’ve been looking for mine. It changes as I change, and as my circumstances change. For the past year or so it had been Christine Kane’s “Virginia” (you can get a copy at her website!), but the past couple of weeks, it switched to Katy Perry’s “Firework.” I keep having that on loop when I get down at work.

And I feel instantly better.

No one said your theme song or happy playlist had to be particularly deep music.

So go through your music collection. Find the songs that make you smile. Don’t just let them be random and out there, but gather them together in one place that you can find them whenever you need a pick me up, and when that time comes, listen. You may think that perky music is the last thing you want to listen to. In fact, the temptation may be to find music to match your mood, but don’t give in to that. Instead, listen to the happy music, and watch as your mood shifts to match it instead.

2.  Go do something outside. Go for a walk. Go to the park. Go roller skating. Go swing on the swings.

Any form of exercise will probably make you feel better, so this could read “go to the gym” or “exercise,” but sometimes when you’re feeling overwhelmed, or stressed, or angry, or whatever has pressed down on you “exercise” can feel like yet another chore.

So don’t make it that. You don’t even have to break a sweat on this expedition. You don’t have to time yourself, or go walk for a mile, or make it a big thing. Even just ten minutes around the block at lunch will help. Just a meander around the park or five minutes at the local playground will make a difference.

Fresh air and sunshine are imperative for happiness.  The lack of it can lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder in some people–its own form of depression, which says just how important the sun can be in our lives. We need it for the production of Vitamin D, as well.

Don’t take your phone or anything where your problems can reach you–just get out and away  and walk for a bit. Move your body . Breathe deeply (which can also reduce stress) and just feel and be as you move.  A lot of people suggest just walking with yourself without any distractions, but I always feel better if I walk with music, so if you’re like me–go walking with your happy playlist. It’ll distract you from your upset thoughts and you can kill two birds with one stone and double up on the happy-making.

Movement gets us out of our heads and makes us aware of our bodies. Doing something fun like roller skating or swinging reminds us of more carefree times. Sunshine and fresh air help our bodies heal themselves. If you can combine all of them together, even better, but give any one of them a try and I guarantee that you’ll feel a lift in your mood.

Personally, my favorite thing to do is to take my iPod (I did say I took it everywhere) and walk to the local park, which is about a half mile away, and hit the swings for a while. Depending on how much I have to do, or how much time I can spare, I’ll stay there until night falls, if need be, or until I’m just laughing with the exhilaration of flying through the air. It was my favorite thing to do as a kid and it never fails to make me smile and make things a little bit better no matter how bad they seemed when I left the house.

Find your thing, and give yourself the gift of doing it in the fresh air, especially now that spring is in the air.

3.  Keep a success journal.

It’s easy to lose sight of all we’ve accomplished when everyone is trying to tear us down. When the voices all around us are telling us everything we’re doing is wrong, or how much of a failure we are, it’s all too easy to believe them. Our own inner voice can lose some of its power without reinforcement.

So we give it something to back it up.

It’s easiest to do this when times are good, but if you haven’t already started one, you can find that wise inner voice and begin one even in the hard times. Do suggestions one and two first. Go for a walk, listen to your power music, clear your head of the negative voices for a bit, and breathe. Find that inner you and have a smile on your face, then sit down and write.

Write out everything you’ve done well in your life. Write down everything you’ve succeeded at. Write down everything you feel you’ve accomplished. Big. Small. I don’t care if you got a certificate or public recognition or if you did it in the silence of your locked room and no one knew but you–if you felt a thrill of pride, of achievement inside your heart, write it down.

Turn the page, and write down every good thing that’s happened to you, for you. Every thing that’s made you smile. Immerse yourself in goodness. Immerse yourself in smiles. Go back as far as you need to, as far as you have time. Don’t let a hint of negativity creep into this writing. No nostalgia, either. This is a record and a reminder, but it isn’t something to beat yourself up with, because here’s a solid truth:

Everything in life goes in circles. Challenges come into the brightest lives, but we surmount them.  We succeeded before.  We were happy before.  We will be again.

Now, every time something good happens, every time you achieve something, you write it down–you keep a record of it, and when you’re feeling like you’re nothing, or you’re no good, or you’ll never rise up; when those voices are beating you down and your own can’t seem to rise above them: you pull this journal out, and you read. You read each success, you pull each smile into you, and you let them strengthen your inner voice until you can hear you over all of them.

Because we are stronger than all of that noise out there. But even the strongest of us needs a reminder of that sometimes.

4.  Set a window for indulgences.  But go ahead and indulge.

Sometimes we need to indulge.  We need to cry to a friend or we need to shop or we need a bowl of ice cream or we need a drink or we need some macaroni and cheese or we need a glass of wine while in a bubble bath with a trashy romance novel.

I’ve always been mildly suspicious of people who say that you shouldn’t indulge when having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. People who say they are stronger than that, or who say that they feel better for having some super healthy dinner of brown rice and greens and go to the gym and don’t want ice cream.  Maybe they do.  Maybe honestly being that healthy really does make them feel better.

But it really doesn’t work for me. I mean, I’m healthy–I work out 4-5 days a week, and I enjoy it. I don’t do it because I “should.” I really enjoy moving. I like eating healthy, too, and if I eat too much junk, I don’t like how I feel.  And I hate how I feel after more than 2 or 3 drinks, even on a night out with the girls for someone’s birthday party.

But on a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day?

I may go for a walk. If it’s nice out, I may even strap on my skates and hit the trail for an hour with my iPod and upbeat music. But then I’m very likely going to come home and indulge in one of the things in the first paragraph.

Notice the singular up there, though. One of the things. One.

Because that, I think is the key. Our indulgence when feeling bad can sometimes make us feel better. Too much sugar or alcohol and you’re going to have a serious crash on the other side that’s liable to leave you feeling worse. Just a bit, though, and it might be just enough to lift your mood and get the serotonin going in your brain to kick in and help you find some balance.  Go on a bender, and you’re going to wake up feeling worse.  One drink, and you might be able to sleep better instead of tossing and turning in anxiety.

None of these are habits you should form, obviously. (Ice cream every night is a sure fire way to add on five pounds pretty fast) (Well, okay a nightly bubble bath might be a nice self-care routine. Sans the glass of wine.) But as an indulgence, in moderation–don’t feel guilty. Just set a window. Don’t pull out the pint of Ben and Jerry’s. Get yourself a bowl and put the carton away and don’t go back for it.  Pour one glass of wine and put the bottle away.  Get one bowl of mac and cheese and put the rest in the fridge before you can be tempted by seconds. Take out a certain amount of cash from the ATM for a shopping trip that you can afford and do not spend any more than that at the mall.

Whatever your particular indulgence for your bad day–go ahead. I won’t judge you. Because after my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day–I’ll be over here with my bubble bath, glass of wine and the new Sookie Stackhouse novel.

5.  Let go of your “shoulds” for a bit. Be kind to yourself.

If you’re like me, all those outside voices are throwing enough at you.  You have a ton of things you “should” be doing. There are the things you have to do for others. Your work responsibilities. Your family responsibilities. Your community responsibilities.

For me, I have had bills and amendments to draft. I have a committee to staff, research to do, questions to answer. For my community, I have my responsibilities to the theater I work with–bylaws to amend, Board meetings and retreats to attend, issues to weigh in on.  For my family–birthday presents to attend to, things to get in the mail, cards to buy.

None of those are really things I can slack on.  You probably can’t slack on a lot of your responsibilities, either, or feel that you can’t.

But beyond those we put a lot of other “shoulds” on ourselves. We have our goals, our dreams, our ideals. And these are all good, amazing things. I’m here to encourage all of you to go for them, to aim high, to pursue the things that make you happy. I want each person reading this to work toward your ideal, your best life.

Some days, though, days when the world is beating us down, our goals, our dreams, and our ideals can turn into something we beat ourselves with, and that is something they never should be. When the voices outside are castigating us, we do not want to add our own to the chorus. Neither, of course, do you want to use a bad day as an excuse to let go of your dreams–that can become self-fulfilling. You can get caught in a cycle of “bad days” and never move forward toward a goal.

Instead, when you have one of those days when it seems like you cannot win at anything, when you just want to curl up and hide and your to do list is a noose around your neck–let it go. Forget about having to do everything on it. Just pick one thing. What is the most important thing on there?  What is the one most in line with your vision of your life?

Do that one thing.  Even if it’s only fifteen minutes, try and do that one thing that is moving you toward your ideal life, still, because I guarantee you that you’ll feel better for it.

But let go of the others on days like that. And let go of the other “shoulds.” Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get to Spinning.  Don’t yell at yourself if you don’t hit that party with your best friend. Don’t put yourself down for skipping the networking event. There will be other gym classes and other parties and networking events.

Do what you can, do what does not make you feel even worse, do what brings a smile to your face, and write that down in your happiness/success journal. Then call it a day.

Because tomorrow will be a new day full of new possibilities and when you’re in the middle of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day–that’s the best news of all.

[Photo credit: Pedrosimoes7]

[*The phrase “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” is taken from the title/book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day which was one of my favorites as a child and has thus made it into my vocabulary ever since. Alexander declares throughout the book that because the day is so terrible, and he is so unappreciated, he is going to move to Australia, which must be this magical, wonderful place where nothing bad has ever happened. That’s also shorthand in my family and among many of my friends who remember the book–instead of going into that it has been a bad day, we simply can say,  “I think I’ll move to Australia” and everyone knows what the day was like.]

The post How to Feel Better on Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

This is a more personal post than usual, but it’s been on my mind the past few weeks, and I think it’s something we all struggle with in our own ways, so I thought I’d share where my head has been.

I’ve always been a girl who’s embraced change. Growing up in the military, change was the only constant.  We’d get settled somewhere, and I’d make friends and then boom–three years later (sometimes it felt just like months) the orders would come and we’d be moving halfway around the country or the world to do it all over again. New school, new home, new friends.

I thought when I got out on my own, I’d settle down, but that hasn’t really been the case. Four years of university, and I was off to Korea to teach for a year. Two years of graduate school after that, and I was off to L.A. to do the Hollywood thing. Two years there, and I was off to San Diego for an experiment in marriage and a grab at law school.  Three years later, I packed up my car, my cats and my broken heart and headed north to Lake Tahoe.

Well, color me surprised as I’ve taken stock the last few weeks of a few things:

I’ve got to say that for a girl who doesn’t let grass grow under her feet, there’s at least a few seedlings that have sprouted.  Five and a half years now in the same job, the same town, the same apartment, even.  I hated it here, at first.  I mean, let’s be honest–I was heartbroken, and I’d left sunny SoCal at the end of November to arrive in Carson City as the snow started to fly.  The work wasn’t anything they trained me for in law school, and my coworkers, while nice, weren’t my Renaissance Faire loving, theater going, sit up and talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the philosophical implications of questions posed in Joss Whedon’s television shows until 3AM with a bottle of wine sorts of people.

I was homesick for a place I didn’t know I’d called home. I wanted to leave.  I spent the next five years trying to figure out how.

Now I have it. I have my shiny opportunity handed to me on a silver platter of dreams spun out: art and theater and words and friends and a home I once had, even if it isn’t Sunny SoCal. It’s the place of childhood and the place I came of age combined.  The birth of a lot of what is me lies back there in that town to which I’m returning, and a whole new life is spread out beckoning as I get ready to take a leap as huge as the one I took the first time I drove across this country–from that place to LA–eleven years ago.

And what I’ve figured out these past few weeks?

Change is bloody terrifying.

The past few months have been the best I’ve ever had at my job. I’m finally doing work I actually enjoy.  I’m getting compliments on it from my supervisors and my bosses. I’m engaged in the process going on outside the walls of my office. I think about all that I could do next time around and how hard I’ve worked to finally be appreciated and accepted here and how good it feels to be recognized, and I wonder, “why the hell would I give that up to start all over again?”

The past year has been the best I’ve had since moving here. I performed in a show I loved and made three wonderful friends. I assisted in directing another and then directed my first show for a summer art performance, and it was amazing.  I look at the upcoming season at the theater and I think, “OMG, I want to audition for…” And then I stop, and I realize, and I pause, and this ache twists in my chest, because I won’t be auditioning for it. I won’t be there to see the show my friend will direct or the one another friend will star in, I’m sure. Okay–well, maybe I can fly back to see them, sure, but I won’t be a part of it.

I’ll have moved on.  That thing that a year ago I would have told you was what I wanted more than anything, and even now, when I truly envision my life…it isn’t here. It’s somewhere else, doing other things. Creating and mentoring and teaching and building this business into something vital and alive.  I see it pouring out and growing and I can feel the joy it will bring, and the excitement that tingles under my skin at the very idea of it.

That way lies my bliss.  This is my path. All the little fear demons that are popping up aren’t going to stop me. I’ll stomp them out the same way Buffy stomped out Gachnar, though with fewer taunts, because Giles wouldn’t approve. (You knew there had to be a pop culture reference in here somewhere, right?)

But change is hard. Change is scary. And I finally realized that change can be painful, too.  I have something to lose. Where I always figured that I’d just say, “screw it” and be gone when the time came, now that’s not the case. I have, as my mentor Christine Kane has said, to say “no” to the good to say “yes” to the great.

But permit me my sentimental moment for a bit.  I think I’m just still reeling a little from the surprise of just how much I’ll miss the good I have here.

How about you? What do you need to say “no” to, in order to say “yes” to what’s calling to your soul? What are you afraid to let go of in order to change?

[Photo Credit: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – “Fear, Itself” – Image from Wikipedia]

The post Fear and Change first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

Mahatma Ghandi once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

The quote has become one that is almost a cookie cutter quote for almost every positive thinking path in the world, I think. I can’t count how many magnets, bumper stickers and websites I’ve seen it adorning in the past few years. It’s one that I think gets seen so often, though, that it’s possible we don’t even really think about what it means anymore.

How often do you look at other countries, other places in the world, and the way they live their lives and think, “If only they’d be more like us, then they would…?” (and while I’m an American, and I know we’re guilty of this, I’m betting a lot of other countries look at America and think that about us, too–if only we were more like you…so, this goes for all of us, no matter where you are from)

How often do you stare across the political aisle and wish the other party would change their minds and see things the way your political party does?  Can’t they see how wrong they are about health care? About immigration? About gun control? (and yes, this goes for everyone, too. I don’t care which side you’re on right now–just if you’ve wished the other side would see it your way)

How many times do you find yourself looking at the person in your office who aggravates you the most and just wished they would open up their eyes and get their head out of the dark place they’ve shoved it and get a clue?

How many times has a friend done something to hurt you, and you’ve lashed out, and wondered how they could be so cruel?

How many times have you stared at your parents, or your child, or your husband, or boyfriend, or girlfriend, or wife, and wondered how on earth this person you loved could do something so insensitive, or something so unkind, or keep doing something that drives you so very insane?

Or from a seemingly positive standpoint–how many times have you seen a loved one doing something, or making a choice, that you know is all wrong for them, and yet nothing you say can dissuade them, and you know it’s going to end in heartbreak, but they won’t listen and why won’t they just listen to you? Why can’t the see things like you do?

Why won’t they just change?

You aren’t asking much, right?  You don’t want all of this for selfish reasons. You’re not trying to rule the world, or acting out of greed or a desire to hurt anyone.  In fact, you want to help.  You want to make the world a better place.  You want to help the poor and end war and make sure that the oppressed are able to walk in the freedom you enjoy.  You want your friends and family to be happy and you can see all these little things that are polluting the world and their lives and they need to change–other countries, other parties, other people.

But the thing is…you can’t change other people.

All those other people, other parties, other countries–they’re looking back at you probably wishing the same thing.  We’re all so caught up in wishing that other people would change that no one’s focused on the one thing they can change which is themselves.

I’m not saying that we don’t focus on changing ourselves at all, of course. You wouldn’t be here reading if you weren’t interested in changing your life for the better. We all work on improving our lives in lots of ways.  But one that I’ve noticed in my own life, and in those of my friends and family, is that it’s really hard to focus on change in our interactions with people.

I can’t change the friends who chose to break off ties with me, who lied to me, hurt me and suddenly seemed to shift into people I’d never known.  I can try to communicate with them, but when it devolves into a blame cycle that makes no sense and is never-ending…I can’t change them. I can’t make them listen to me. All I can do is listen to them, and apologize for anything I may have done to hurt them, and try to learn to be a better friend from the experience.  If their attitudes do not change, and their behavior does not change…I can do nothing about it but move on with what I have learned. I can change me, but not them.

I couldn’t change my ex-husband and the fact that he kept cheating on me and lying to me. I could suggest we go to counseling. I could try to save our marriage. I could look at what I might have done to make him unhappy, but I couldn’t change him. I couldn’t make him care about the marriage, or want to save it. I couldn’t make him love me.  And I can’t change him into a man who honors his obligations now, as much as I would like to. He has to make that choice and change. I can only strive to be a woman who honors her commitments, who chooses to forgive, who does not let bitterness poison future relationships.

I can’t change the political beliefs of my family. It doesn’t do any good to poison our otherwise very good relationship with debate that ends up in argument. It hurts me sometimes to hear things they say, though, and that I can change. I can change me, and my reaction to them. I can choose to love them through it and choose not to bring up contentious issues when I know that I will get sucked in to trying to persuade them to change their minds.  I can’t make them do that. They will or they won’t. I can, instead, choose to live from a place of love and a place where I show my beliefs through my actions, and offer my reasons when asked, but not where I try to make them change.

Because I am the only thing I can change.

How can I judge someone for being too judgmental? Isn’t that just circular and doing the same thing to them I think they’re doing to others?

How can I be upset when people think their way is the only way when I think mine is a “better” way? Would I be upset with them if they agreed with me? Isn’t that just as dogmatic in the end?

So what can I do?

I can listen more.

I can love more unconditionally.

I can accept people where they are, even if I don’t agree with them.

I can choose to respond with loving words, not argumentative ones.

I can stop kvetching so much about how much those “other people” annoy me, even to sympathetic friends.

I can give up my need to be “right.”

Because the change I want to see in the world is one of a world that is more loving, more accepting of people who are different. I want to see a world where we all can come together in peace and fellowship, where it doesn’t matter who you love or what name you give God or what flag you fly, but what you’ve been through and what you have to give and what you choose to share in this world. I want to see a world where we all work together to take care of those less fortunate, to see that no child goes hungry or without an excellent education. A world where we can sit down and discuss our differences and learn from each other instead of drawing arms on or spewing hateful words at one another.

So, if that’s the change I want to see in the world, then that’s the change I need to be in the world. A person who doesn’t try to force friends and loved ones into changes they aren’t ready for in their lives. A person who listens to other viewpoints, who accepts people where they are in their lives and walks through this world. A person who loves people just as they are, even when I don’t agree with them. A person who doesn’t try to force my beliefs on someone else, but strives to learn from theirs. A person who doesn’t think her way is the only way.

I’m just one person, but I’m the only person I can change. I can’t change you. I can’t change my friends and family. I can’t make my country change, and I can’t make the world change.

But I can be the change I want to see, and that’s my big goal for this year. Beyond all the actionable ones, beyond the business and fitness and creative ones, that’s my over-arching goal for this year: To truly be the change I want to see in this world.

What change do you want to be?

Photo credit: Pedrosimoes on Flickr

The post Being the Change: What Does it Take? first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.

I’ve been choosing a yearly word since 2008. Every year it’s surprised me with how it manifested in my life. This year  was no exception.

I was carrying a lot of anxiety last fall. I had applied for graduate school and was desperate to get out of a job that seemed to be going nowhere, but I wasn’t sure what path to take. I felt I needed to lose weight after an injury sidelined my running practice, but anxiety was killing my motivation.

Though I considered “forgive” for a while–feeling I needed to do some work on that when old anger arose after learning my ex-husband had remarried–in the end, release just kept drawing me back. Somehow, some way, I needed to release everything that was miring me in that pit of anxiety and fear. I had certain expectations of how that would happen, of course.

Read the rest over on Christine Kane’s blog, where it went live today as a guest post!

[Photo credit: pedrosimoes7 ]

The post 2010 Word of the Year – Release first appeared on Fairy Tale Coaching.