Archive

If you knew you could not fail

posted 19th October 2010    Written by: Doniree    CATEGORY: Creativity, Doniree, Inspiration, Job/Career/Work, Season 3, What I've Learned

“What would you attempt to do, if you knew you could not fail?”

I saw this quote written on the chalkboard behind the counter at a Starbucks in Minneapolis.  I think I remember the Starbucks.  I think it was the one at Excelsior and Grand, and I think I’d met a girlfriend there that night for coffee.  I remember I had been considering a move – I was close to the end of yoga teacher training, and my world was opening up in ways I’d never imagined.  I was weeks away from a goal and a dream I’d set years before – be certified to teach yoga.  I was starting to contemplate another dream I’d had from years before – live a number of different places for a little while at a time, learning and loving my way through new cities.

I also knew I wanted to work from home (or coffeeshops, or the road).  I wanted to write, to help, and to create, and I wanted to do so outside of the 9-5 timeframe.  I wanted to allow myself to be creative when I felt creative and to be productive when I felt productive – knowing that an 8-hour work day did not equal the most productivity, just the most hours.  And I don’t believe in putting in a lot of hours to look busy.  I want to be busy, and then be done.

I was starting to feel like this was the right time, but I was scared.  I was nervous about my ability as a yoga teacher, and I was nervous about leaving the comforts and familiarity of friends and family in Minnesota.  I was outlining my life and where I wanted it to go and it included: teach yoga, move around, write a lot, know and love amazing people.

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

I remember the coffee shop, and I remember the quote.  And I remember almost immediately answering, “I’d quit my job, turn this freelance idea into something real, pack up my life, and move across the country.”

And somewhere in that moment, I started to feel the exhilaration that comes with making a decision and knowing in your gut that it’s the right one.  I did quit my job, I have learned how to freelance full-time, I did pack up my life and fit most of it into a Nissan Murano, and I did move from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Boulder, Colorado in January of this year.

And here we are again – on the cusp of new opportunities and ideas.  I haven’t started teaching yoga, but I’m committing to doing so by the end of the year.  I have ideas about what I want to be doing with my life, how I want to be spending my days, and I find myself towing the line between “dream” and “do”.  I’m really, really close.  Again.

So today, this day in October, I find myself asking the same question I did that night in Minnesota:

What would I attempt to do if I knew I could not fail?

Teach yoga.  Start writing a book.  Start teaching skills and ideas that I’m always asked about yet for some reason doubt my expertise on the subject.  Stop doubting the things I know well.  Stay healthy.  Sell my stationary and scarves in an Etsy shop.  Decorate a beautiful apartment.  Make homemade truffles (with a recipe from Nicole).  Earn a life coaching certificate.  Study Spanish again. Eat locally, sustainably, and organically as much as possible.  Live in Europe.  Grow my own herbs.  Simplify my life aka own fewer things.  Be able to pick up and pack up at a moments’ notice, grab an Airstream and leave on an indefinite road trip.  Drive a motorcycle.  Cross more items off my Life List.  Teach.  Never stop living out loud.

What would YOU do, if you knew you could not fail?

{Photo credit – card photo above.  Beach feet thumbnail is my own.}

divider

My Dreams Of Coffeeshops, Italy and ESPN

posted 1st October 2010    Written by: Alisha    CATEGORY: Alisha, All Posts, Family, Inspiration, Job/Career/Work, Money, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3

I have big dreams.   Gulliver-sized dreams.  I have dreams that are so big that they scare me (literally and existentially).  Sometimes my dreams scare me into action; sometimes into the land of Stuck.  There is this lyric from a John Mayer song that sits in the back of my mind.  (I quote ol’ John quite often; his song lyrics are the stories of my life.) “See I refuse to believe that my life’s gonna be just some string of incompletes…” Right on, John.  Right. On.  So I keep dreaming.  Because dreams keep me from getting sucked into the eddies of depression.  Dreams keep me sane.

Right now I’m dreaming of:

Being fluent in all three romance languages.
Napping on a sun-lit field in Tuscany.
Living abroad with my family, preferably the French or Italian countryside.
Learning how to make artisan bread.
Is it too late to be a ballerina?
Publishing a novel/collection of short stories/book of poetry.
Owning a coffeeshop and bookstore.
Designing my own line of jewelry.
Having a vacation home in Maine.
Taking a honeymoon.
Riding a motorcycle.
Inventing and patenting teleportation so I can spend time with my favorite people across the country.
Sky-diving.
Dedicating a room in my home as a library, complete with rich mahogany shelving and a fire place.
Co-hosting Monday Night Football with Michelle Tafoya.
Singing in a band.
Learning how to read sheet music again so that I can play the piano.
Running in–and winning–a 5k.
Wearing a pair of really bad-ass leather pants.
Meeting Danielle LaPorte.
Working for Rachel Zoe.
Being DEBT-FREE.
Growing my own produce.
Learning how to play guitar again.

Honestly, I would be just fine if nothing on that list happened.  Okay.  Well, I take that back.  I really would like to own a coffee shop–overstuffed chairs, exposed beams and poetry slams, yes, please.  And music is just dying to come out of me so I need to find that band ASAP.  Oh, and my family will live abroad.  I don’t think I would ever be happy if we did not spend at least a month in Italy.  I know the book will come out of me sooner rather than later–NaNoWriMo, anyone?   I’ve already met Michelle Tafoya, now I just need to convince ESPN to let me stand with her on the sidelines. (Universe, are you listening?)

But really, my biggest of big dreams is to be able to help support my family, financially, doing work that inspires me.  That’s all I really want. Really.

I have spent my life watching both of my parents work very, very hard to provide my brother and me a comfortable life.  I was–and continue to be–blessed through their efforts.  Yet, I also saw them leave for work each day, commuting for hours, working over-time to answer to someone, or some company, that didn’t give two shits about them.  That will not be me.  Maybe that’s unrealistic.  Maybe working like that is just part of being an “adult” in the ”real” world.  That is what my parents and husband would say, anyway.  But I believe that there’s got to be a better way. I believe my dreams will become realities. And I’ll keep dreaming.

divider

Life Is Not a Lottery, Winning and Happiness are a Choice

posted 15th August 2010    Written by: Lindsey    CATEGORY: All Posts, Life Lesson, Lindsey, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, What I've Learned

Ever since I grew into the moody little sparkplug of twelve or so, I’d always have the same wish when I blew out the candles on my birthday cake: “To be happy.”

Vague, right? But, I figured, if I were just happy, everything else in my life would magically fall into place. Woo hoo! Happiness fairy! Thank you for finally granting my wish! Now I am truly alive!

Yep. Not how life works, much to the chagrin of my naïve young self.

I wouldn’t say I lived an unhappy life, just unconscious. Unaware of who I was or what I wanted, and therefore, unable to even begin to understand my happiness. I didn’t have my priorities worked out, because that required introspection. To just exist, glide along, and fill the societal-defined mold of “success” as I had done, doesn’t really require any inner work.

The ability to Do-What-I-Want and Live-My-Best-Life didn’t exist in my mind, when obligations to grades or career responsibilities were more valued than taking time to explore the concept of passion and authentic happiness.

Happiness, for me, is a choice to be passionate rather than stoically blindly driven towards someone else’s vision of success.

Last year, I left on a post-college freedom fighting tour of the country, seeking to do only things that made me happy. It was amazing. I had time to breathe, and be introspective, and get the butterflies you can only get from fully immersing yourself within your passions and experiencing complete happiness.

But I hit a wall. Enter: Quarterlife Crisis.

Or, several months of optimistically flipping from “ah, I’m a snowboarder and a traveler and I’ll start a business and be free to do whatever I want!” and “life is awesome and full of happiness. I can just keep on livin’ on the fringe and do what I love.” to “holy shit I am a complete failure!” and “If one more jackass drinks 8 diet cokes with their Applebee’s Fiesta Lime Chicken dinner I will bring a samurai sword to work!”

(Oh, hi, by the way, I am kind of crazy. In an endearing way.)

I was successful in defining my happiness and dreams, but achieving them with a minimum wage job sucks. Turning towards a responsible life: well… but… I DID that already…and it definitely didn’t feel authentic. Yet something was still missing from my life.

There is a part of me that loves to dance like crazy, jump off cliffs, laugh far too loud than any situation will demand. That feeling I get snowboarding deep powder or lifting off in a trans-continental jet or (well, there is a lot, I will spare you). These things make me happy. They are my passions; they make me feel alive.

On the flip-side, I have deep sense of responsibility. Not the lame “oh, I must make money to put in my 401K” but a sense that I have something to contribute to the world (other than awesomely-bad dance moves). And just thinking about following through on this, makes me feel even more alive.

I know what makes me happy, and I now know how to have it. But my mission has evolved to more than be happy but rather to define, create, and live out loud, a completely authentic life.

I’m a person of extremes. Driven, passionate, and hopelessly dramatic. Since I don’t actually plan on living in Crazytown forever, finding balance is super important. Actually, I am working on my Joy Equation this month and have declared BALANCE one of my Core Values!

This Quarterlife Crisis revolves around finding balance in the far edge of extremes. In creating a life where it’s okay to live completely, authentically as yourself. Sometimes that means cliff jumping and hiding out on a secluded beach for weeks on end. But other times it’s about contribution, of the mind and heart, to something greater, evening if that something greater is simply being the best person you can be, and sharing that with your world.


divider

« Previous Page