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Starting Over (and over and over)

posted 12th July 2011    Written by: Molly Mahar    CATEGORY: Inspiration, Life Lesson, Molly

Each day is a chance to start over.

Each moment is an opportunity to bring yourself into the present moment, releasing the anger about the past or the anxiety about the future.  Each new sunrise gives you the openness of a new day, a day you can deliberately choose to live in support of your dreams or not.

You have a choice.  Today is offering itself up to YOU.

That thing you keep talking about doing or being… It doesn’t have to be big.  It doesn’t have to be world changing. It doesn’t have to matter to anyone but you.

But you do need to do it.

Now.

It doesn’t matter to me if you didn’t start yesterday.  I don’t care if you’ve been thinking about it for years without doing anything about it.  Those choices to put it off?  They are in the past.

You can make a different choice today.  It’s completely within your power, gorgeous.

Maybe it feels like you’ve already started?  You’ve read a dozen books, talked to several experts, and immersed yourself in the peripheral culture.   All that preparation is not the same as action.  Gathering inspiration and knowledge is vital, but when you’re using it to procrastinate or as a protective shield, it’s not helping you one bit.

If you’re feeling paralyzed or overwhelmed, stop preparing.  Start doing.  Begin being.

Action can arm you with just as much clarity as thought.

Want to meditate?  Awesome.  Get your butt on a cushion with an egg timer.  Like now.

Want to be kinder towards your family?  Great.  Think of one action you can do immediately and do it.  Write a letter of forgiveness?  Skip cleaning the kitchen and have a special date with one of your kids this morning?  Send your mom a goofy present in the mail?

Want to start an Etsy shop?  Rockin’.  Take the first step. Whether that’s opening your account, photographing your art, or coming up with an name for your crafty genius- take one small action now.

Start over today.  And then start over again tomorrow.

Once you create a little momentum, you can plot and develop and set some juicy goals and recruit accountability. I’m still a big fan of all those supportive methods of sustaining a big dream.

I also realize that we can get overwhelmed by all that planning and never actually START.

(Insert me giving you a huge bear hug, looking you straight in the eyes, and asking you, “Honey- what do you want to do TODAY?  Let’s do it.  Let’s blow off some plans or work or cleaning the closet and start something.  I’m so, so in.”)

I’m feeling intimately familiar with this concept of starting over, as I’ve landed in a new city, with a new apartment, new schedule (hello early mornings!), and new family responsibilities.  I’m trying my best to craft supportive days for my business, my sanity, my art, my playfulness.

Some days I’ve failed.  Some days I’ve rocked it.

It’s this beginner mindset–this realization that each day is brand new–that is really helping me.

So what if I threw myself a little pity party yesterday because I miss my familiar city and my pals?  Today, I can embrace the adventure of a new neighborhood by hopping on my bike and meeting my banker.   So what if I haven’t actually gone swimming in that huge pool two blocks away?  Today,  I can break out my goggles and dive in.

Literally.

What are you going to dive into today? What are you going to start?  I’d love to hear.

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Can I Have the Last 24 Years Back?

posted 2nd February 2010    Written by: Nicole Antoinette    CATEGORY: All Posts, Nicole Antoinette, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2, What I've Learned

INTRODUCING NICOLE ANTOINETTE

No one told me my Quarterlife Crisis would come with so much tequila.

I grew up on the move – Los Angeles, NYC, London, back to Los Angeles, back to NYC, back to Los Angeles. A whirlwind coming of age tour in the world’s cosmopolitan wonderland.

I did everything right. Aced high school, worked part time, rocked the extra curriculars, got into NYU, aced NYU (while still working and still rocking the extra curriculars), fell in love, fell out of love, made friends, lost friends, lived the life I had always been told I was supposed to live, graduated (a year early) with $50,000 in debt and a piece of paper that claimed I was summa cum awesome.

And then I cried.

Because I was 21 years old, in possession of one of the best educations student loans can buy, and all I had to show for it was a box of theme party costumes and a big fat hole where my life plan should have been.

The three years between then and now were filled with a lot of shenanigans- emotional, sexual, career wise and the like. I ran a children’s day camp for five summers, helped start a create-your-own cookie shop, worked an inhumane amount of hours, moved around a lot, broke two hearts, made a bucket full of bad decisions, came crashing into the reality of my mood disorder, started a blog, started therapy, and finally realized that the things I loved about my life didn’t outweigh the things that made me want to burrow into the ground and hide.

And then all of the sudden it was August 26, 2009 and I found myself quitting everything to live the life of a professional nomad, traveling around the country, crashing on couches, and trying to answer the big question:

What is authentic happiness and how can I start taking regular intravenous doses of it?

Three months went by; three months of seeing new things and meeting new people, three months of not having a routine, not having stability, and not having a definitive source of income or a guaranteed place to do laundry. The new things were great, the new people even better, but after three months I realized that life at the other end of the super-Type-A spectrum kind of sucks.

So it was back to Arizona, back to my parents’ house, back to slow cooked meals and late night talks with my mom about what, you know, the hell I was going to do with my life.

That was four weeks ago, but in the context of my story it feels like another lifetime. Four weeks ago, I woke up, realized that no one was going to hand me the life that I wanted, got in my car, drove to San Francisco, checked into a hostel, and jumped into the freshest of fresh starts, the kind where there is no backup plan and it’s time to fight like your life depends on it, because it does.

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