About That List...

If you took the time to write that list of what you want out of life or even if you gave some serious thought to the matter of what it is that YOU want out of life... good for you because I know that once the list is written, it will be an incredibly valuable tool to help you get to where you really want to go.  Believe me, if you want to get to where you dream of going you've GOT TO SAY where it is that you're dreaming to go.  Name it and claim it - as some like to chant. The thing is, there is a little more to the value of the list than just writing down all that you want out of life and that is identifying the specifics of HOW you are going to do or be all of those things that you want out of life.  That's right, the list is actually a two parter. 

Stop whining -  because if this 'I'd rather be painting' artist can do it, so can you.

First,  as I shared in my last (rather lengthy) blog entry, you write everything that you could possibly want for yourself out of life and then, after writing the things that you want, you write a sentence or two telling yourself exactly what you need to do in order to make IT (that thing that you wrote down that you said you wanted out of life) come true.  So basically, it's like this;  say, for example, on your list of the things that you want out of life you say that you want to be a good friend.  That's a great thing to want to be, obviously, but it takes more than just saying that you want to be a good friend to ever actually be a good friend.  If you seriously want to be a good friend you need to have a plan of action to help you get to that place of being a good friend.

For example,  if I wrote on my list of what I wanted out of life that I want to know that I have always tried to be a good friend, I would follow that statement of what I want with a statement of how I should actually behave in order to go about being a good friend.  I might write something like...

In order to be a good friend I will take the time to call my friends just to say hi every now and then for no other specific reason than to say hi and ask how they're doing.  Maybe I would even go further and add, when I call for no specific reason other than to say hi and ask how they are doing, I will avoid the temptation to flood the conversation with everything that's been happening in my own life - I will focus on listening to what is going on with my friend.

You can see that after saying what I wanted out of life, which was to know that I have tried to be a good friend, I followed up my want with the action that I will need to either take or avoid in order to accomplish the goal of what I said that I wanted.

Another example might be a specific kind of goal that you want to accomplish like...

I want to start a blog (hmm, nice idea) to share some of the things that I've learned with others that enjoy the process of learning, too.  To support that goal, I might write a sentence such as, in order to keep my commitment to writing a blog and sharing new and important information that I value with others, each day I will be sure to read at lest two or three articles from magazines, the newspaper or on the internet in order to keep my own thoughts and ideas that I intend to share with others through my blog, fresh, supported and relevant. 

So, write something that you want out of life and then follow it with the words to guide you in the journey of specifically how you will accomplish what it is that you want.  It's easy, that is, it's easy once you start.  

The greatest part of this whole process for me has been that now, when I catch myself longing for this or that in my daily life, I automatically ask myself, 'Have I included that goal on my list of what I want out of life?'  followed by, 'Well, if that's truly something I really want, how am I  going to get it?

There are some sweet rewards that you will begin to recognize once you've put the hopes and dreams for yourself into writing, followed by a plan of action of how you intend to get what it is that you say that you want.  The other day I realized that something I'd included in my own list of things that I want out of life was, in fact, being accomplished right before my very eyes. It felt so good to see that I was accomplishing, already, something  that genuinely mattered to me. 

It came to my attention as I was watching a show with my fourteen year old daughter that she and I have been watching together since the first episode of the series.  I had recognized when we had watched the first episode that this was a show that would be good for us to watch together because first,  she really enjoys the show and second,  it seemed to bring up some pretty difficult situations in teen life that she and I would need to talk about but might feel awkward just bringing up out of the blue.

Now, you may be thinking that I must have written some pretty couch potato types of wants on my list of things that I want out of life but let me tell you, this spending meaningful and relevant time with either of my own  'in house' teenagers is not an easy task to accomplish. In fact, it's been my experience that when you crave time with your teens you've gotta grab it wherever you can...

such as during the brief drive to or from school or, while shopping at all of the over priced but incredibly trendy surfer/skater stores for their must have wardrobe items or even while helping them finish that last minute project that was assigned three weeks earlier and is due tomorrow that they've conveniently 'forgotten' to do up until thirty minutes ago, which they shared with you smack in the middle of when you were frantically cooking dinner that needs to be on the table in fifteen minutes if you even think that you've got a chance in hell of watching that DVR'd episode of Oprah discussing hormone therapy with that still incredibly fit Suzanne lady from the old sitcom Three's Company, anytime during the two and a half to three short hours that you call 'evening' or, dare I say it, 'downtime'.

I said all of that to say this, this list of what you want out of life needs to consist of the things that genuinely matter to you and if it matters enough to you to include on the list of things that you want out of life, you need to have an action specified as to how you can actually accomplish this thing that you want out of life.

I'll end this right here so that this blog entry doesn't become the book that you had wanted to read but just couldn't find the time to actually finish.  

By the way, if you have any questions or comments about the list thing, let me know because I believe that we learn the most by the things we share about ourselves with the people that we value.

Oh, one more thing, do take a few minutes for yourself and write the list and be sure to follow each item that you want out of life with a plan of how you'll get what you want.  

I promise, if you write it, you will get there. 

Who Are You?

Have you written your list of goals for the New Year?  If not, no worries.

Been there, done that is how I've typically responded to the annual, New Year's Eve suggestions of identifying that list of accomplishments that I wish to conquer, this year.

Maybe my previous responses have been because I'm a bit of a grouch or maybe it's because I'm too shy to spout out my goals to just anyone who aimlessly poses that question for the sake of small talk at a party.  Maybe, I'm just plain old tired of disappointing myself when I stop getting up forty-five minutes earlier to jog in the dark after only the seventh or eighth morning.  Maybe, I'm too old for such nonsense as teasing myself with the idea that change, just because you write it down on a list, can actually happen.

Oh, dear.  Did I really just say that, or rather, write that, ... out loud?

Shoot.  Now I'm really angry at myself for having thought and even worse, for sharing such negative, glass half empty, 'self talk'.

Nevertheless, it's true.

Sure, I can kid myself and delete what I've just written but what's the point? What I just thought and what I just wrote down are the voices that are inside my head whether I'm honest enough to own up to them, or not.

December 31st, 2008 

New Year's Eve didn't catch me with a list of socially palatable goals, aimed and ready to launch nor did it find me with a list of defenses for not having created some noble, traditionally admirable New Year's Resolutions.  Instead, this year New Year's Eve found me ready.

I was ready for a new beginning.  

No, I was practically dying for the annual chance for an official 'do over'; a genuine, once a year opportunity to start all over again.

This New Year's Eve I was thrilled for the first time since moving from Chicago five years ago, to live on the east coast so that I could be included in the very first time zone of Americans to welcome in the New Year of 2009.  In fact, when the digital numbers on the DVR turned to 12:00 - I felt like I'd been set free;  a bird released from it's cage.  The 'me' of 2008 was officially in the past and the new and improved 'me' was on its' mark, set and ready for action.

Maybe I should be fair and give a little credit for some of this optimism  and acknowledge that some of this excitement to embrace the New Year was due in part to the fact that less than 24 hours earlier, I had submitted my 360, Yours Truly manuscript for my first ever, young adults, novel.  Sure, finishing that story was plenty enough reason to feel hopeful about the coming year and like I've said before, I am proud of what I've accomplished by just completing what I started out to do. 

Truthfully though, if you've ever submitted anything to anyone else knowing that you'd have to wait for months and months to get even a drop of feedback and then possibly have to hear words that you don't want to hear at all, well then, you know that having accomplished sending off that story to strangers for possible approval or rejection was not exactly the type of thing that makes you feel like a bird in flight.  As a matter of fact, those of you who've known me for the last five or so years know that my person, with its somewhat reserved and quiet natured personality, honestly has to steady itself like someone holding on for dear life to a fence post in a windstorm as it certainly shudders with fear when even considering the thought of exposing ideas so openly as to put them in writing in the form of a manuscript and send them 'out there' for merciless judgement. 

Still, this newly uncaged bird felt like singing, again.

There's an easy explanation and, believe it or not, it does have a little something to do with a list.

The list that I'm talking about was an activity suggestion that my husband had shared with the kids and I at dinner one evening sometime during those typically frenzied days that fall between the first day of the kid's two week winter break from school and Christmas Day. Oddly enough, for some reason, this year the days before Christmas had been anything but frenzied. This year Joe had taken a few days off from work during that week so we'd all had more time than usual to spend together doing something that Joe, my husband, likes to refer to as 'carefree timelessness'.  I'll tell you more about the idea of carefree timelessness later, but for now, just know that we had some of that rare time together that was free of expectations and holiday 'to do' lists, alarm clocks and snooze buttons and even places to go and people to see.  We were just 'being', which I must say, if you haven't ever tried,  by all means, do try, sometime.

Back to the list that I mentioned.  During some of our carefree timelessness,  Joe had been reading a book called , The Rhythm of Life, by Matthew Kelly, which is where he had learned the suggestion of a revised sort of list of goals to consider.  Joe said that instead of making a list of things that we wanted to accomplish in  2009,  we should  each try making a list of goals referring to what we want out of life, rather than just what we want to accomplish during this upcoming year.  

Big task, I thought to myself.  How many days do I have to make the list and what if I forget something that should be on the list and what if Joe thinks that my list is too long or too hard or too much to expect or even worse, what if I write this stuff down and then don't actually do the stuff I'd written and then Joe and the kids will know what a failure I am? Even worse, what if I write this stinking list only to disappoint myself again?  I can't take it!

Just thinking about writing the list of what I wanted in life made me feel a bit like Charlie Brown when he scribbles down the love letters, that I don't think he ever actually ever sends, to the little red-haired girl of whom he has a practically paralyzing crush.

Along with images of Charlie Brown and the little red-haired girl my mind was spinning with things I knew I would put on that list of what I wanted in life and the reasons why I should avoid the list, altogether.  I mean, wasn't a list of goals for the New Year dangerous enough to my self esteem without adding on the weight of making a list that was suppose to say everything that I wanted, ever, and basically outline my complete reason for existence in the world? Gosh, I thought to myself, doesn't he realize I was just finishing up the final details of writing an entire book for heaven's sake?  What more did this man want from me?  I'd been writing, more or less non-stop, for months.  I was tired of writing my thoughts down and besides, I was finally perfectly fine with just enjoying this 

carefree timelessness that he had been reminding me to try to appreciate for the past year or so.  All I could think that I wanted to say to him was, one thing at a time, man, one thing at a time!

So, silently, though my head had nodded in agreement with Joe and the kids as he excitedly shared what he had read about the benefits of writing such a list, I resided myself to decline the invitation of completing such a menacing list.

Within a day or so, for some unexplainable reason, my thinking had shifted.

Wait, I should adjust that last statement.  While I can't actually provide you with a black and white, footnoted document detailing the why behind some of the more adventurous and beneficial avenues I've chosen to travel, I do not believe for even a minute that the good choices and decisions that I make are without someone to thank.  

As matter of fact, I believe wholeheartedly that when I make a decision that is undeniably good, true, right of heart and spirit, God is the one that somehow managed to get my attention, directed my intentions, followed by inspiring my feet to move in the particular direction that they desperately needed to go.

There I sat in front of my computer one sunny morning after taking my daily walk/run with Bear-bear, a.k.a. the most wonderful dog on the planet. Unrecognized by me, though apparently exactly where I'd needed to be sitting, ready to do the normal stuff 

like pay some bills, answer some emails and possibly even grab a little bit of creative time to myself, writing, before my Christmas vacationing, night owl family had even considered propping open a single eye, I sat, alone with my thoughts.  As I started to click my mouse on Yahoo to answers those emails, I stopped short and decided to open a new word document instead, unsure of exactly what I would write but knowing that I just felt like writing.

There had been a variety of possible subjects scattered across my screen that I'd planned to write about sometime as well as some adorable holiday photos received from friends and family, documents downloaded from a recent endeavor of investigating a means of more affordable car insurance that I'd researched a few days earlier and some artwork files that I needed to label and store safely for our up and coming, inspireUart.com website.

I somehow managed to bypassed all of those possibilities of subject matter and life stuff distractions and opened a fresh new page on my screen and began typing what was on my heart in that very moment. Much to my surprise, I started finding that the subject I'd been dancing around with through the words on my screen was none other than, in a nutshell, 

what, specifically, did I want out of this life?

Yikes.  I guess I was going to have to face the question after all.

At least I could write it down on the screen, I thought to myself,  and if I wanted to trash it, I could, without anyone ever knowing that I'd written even a single word about what I wanted in life.  No harm, no fowl, I  told myself.  Besides, I didn't even have to print it out if I didn't want to, so there would be no evidence of it in the trash or anywhere.  Nobody ever had to see these words and no one could ever hope to find this document and call me on it, even if they tried.

Estimating the lack of penalty for proceeding to write, I wrote freely, and within just a few short minutes of  simply reciting the surface stuff that nearly every human being would list as items one through five of what they might want out of life, I went a little deeper and stumbled upon the person that I believe I was meant to discover again, myself.  

There, within the simple list briefly outlining what I wanted in life stood the person I had always been and always would be.  There is the midst of all of the things that I knew I should want out of life and the things that I honestly valued and knew that I had to have in life were the things that I had always wanted and had always valued, always dreamed of, wished and hoped for.  In my simple little list of what I wanted out of life,  I had uncovered the original version of someone God had created.  There she stood;  I could finally see her, again.

The image forming in my mind to match the words I'd been writing was that of a little girl, around the age of six years old, suntanned, seventies style, with waist length, long and straight as a rail, golden blond hair, cheeks tilted slightly upward with a smile across her face and eyes squinting from the sunlight that engulfed her. Surrounding the little girl there was a sort of rectangular shape, completely clear and totally see thru but nevertheless, there, with what looked to be a  clear, triangular shape sitting on top of the rectangle, like a house with a pointed roof similar to that of what little kids draw in their first line drawings of home.

So, there she stood, the little suntanned girl in the clear house, facing skyward, apparently happy, and smiling.  The space that surrounded her was that of cloudless, sky blue sky and an endless rolling landscape of grassy green. It was so good to see her, and as in the words of many I've reconnected with after decades of distance; it had been so long.

As my list of what I wanted out of life grew longer, more specific and revealing, line by line, the image of the girl in my mind became clearer and clearer.   I remembered her and realized how much I had missed her.  She was someone I loved.  She was someone I enjoyed. She was someone who loved deeply and never, ever gave up.  She colored pictures and stuck them on the fridge for all of the world to see. She wrote notes and left them throughout her house for her Mom, Dad and her brothers and one dear sister, boldly proclaiming her love for them that compared with no other.  

This little girl could sing.  She sang, wherever and whenever she felt like it whether it be in the bathtub or while swinging on the swing set in her backyard. She danced, she raced, she splashed, she laughed, she cried, she lived every moment to the fullest.  The possibility of her days subsided only when her parents called her in from play for the evening and tucked her into bed, only to then unleash her even further transforming herself into the little girl in her dreams who was a rock star, Mr. French's, Uncle Bill's, Sissy's,  Buffy and Jodie's best friend on Family Affair, Mr. Roger's newest neighbor who lived right next door to the trolly and the lucky seventh child that the Brady Bunch would surely be overjoyed to include in next Friday's episode. 

In writing the list of what I wanted out of life,  I found myself right back at square one, in a good way.  In writing the list of what I wanted out of life I found that, not only was I who I thought I was, I was also who I had always been.  While it was true that some of the hard things of life had taken some of my open heartedness and taught me to move about with just a tiny bit of carefulness and chosen distance from things that may hurt or reject me, all in all I was still that little six year old girl, full of promise and hope with armloads of love to give and a heart that was so wide open and sincere that you could see straight through it if you tried, just like you could see into and through a glass house.

Suddenly, without need for a mirror, I could see myself again.  

Before writing this list of the things that I wanted out of life, I had allowed some circumstances and unfortunate people I had experienced to make me believe that I wasn't who I thought I was and that I was way, way less of a person than that little six year old girl had known herself to be.

Thankfully, without need for a mirror, I can see myself again.

Spoken or not, truth be told, just like me you have the list of what you want out of life written somewhere inside your head.  If you take a minute to write the list down, and keep writing until you can't think of another possible thing to add, I believe you'll find someone that you will truly be thankful to find.  

When you find that person, please know that I'd love to have the chance to know them, too.

Here's a question for you, even if you decide to skip the incredibly powerful opportunity to write down all that you want out of life, ... what, or who, would you hope to find through the journey of answering for yourself, what it is that you really want out of life?

It Went Out on the Thirtieth of December...

It went out on the thirtieth of December - that's when the pages were released to the publisher I hope to engage. I feel great about what I've accomplished because I know I've done my best.  

I've poured out my heart, just the way I remembered it to be before I grew up and knew better. I spoke my mind, told it like it is and was - allowing myself to give voice to words that before I'd only carefully and silently, thought. 

I wrote the story from the perspective of a sensitive young girl, trying to make her way through the jungle that we Americans refer to as High School.  I say jungle because, when I'm being honest with myself, that's pretty much how I remember High School to be. I say sensitive because that is the forum from which I view all of life, even still.

High School was hard, wasn't it?  Never knowing what someone might say in order to make your day sing or singlehandedly destroy it in a matter of seconds, making you wish you had never been born. 

Man, the power we gave our friendships back then.  

We're over that now, right?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Anyhow, "360, Yours Truly", is what I named my hopeful journey back to the days when I thought I'd known it all. Two hundred and something pages later, I found I had much more left to say and even more to learn.  

Here are some details of "360" to describe a few key elements in the story so that you see where I'm coming from and where I am going.

• Her best friends are there for her, always, until suddenly they aren't.
• She has a Mom who loves her and gently guides her while trying to protect her from some of the hard knocks of life, but face it, even the best Mom in the world, feverishly as they may try, can't actually do that.
• She gathers countless yummy little gems she refers to as 'Fierce Facts' regarding the secrets of surviving teen life so that she can form her own theories about how to avoid those same hard knocks that her well meaning Mom had hoped to spare her. 
• Sometimes her gathered seeds of wisdom save her and sometimes, like most of us, she realizes she obviously has some more gathering to do.  
• Being the strong and independent young adult that she is, without her knowledge, she models much of her thinking after her Mom.  Eventually she recognizes her Mom's hand in her own opinions only to find that though her Mom may know tons, she doesn't always know as much as she thinks. Even so, she somehow wades through the ever changing and dizzying deep waters of teen-dom-hood and triumphantly manages to become the perceptive and confident person that she was created to be. Truthfully, she at least learns to tread water, keeping herself afloat while bravely trying to rescue a few colorful friends.  
• Maybe she's even a bit of a hero.
  

I don't know about you, but I like seeing people accomplish their goals, live up to their own expectations and experience their wildest dreams. I celebrate when I see others make it and I welcome, with open arms, anyone willing to do the same for me.

So, come with me on this journey of attempting the impossible, climbing the highest peak and daring to dream aloud.  Wait with me and see if this publishing opportunity is the one that marks the new beginning that I've been preparing for my entire life.  Walk with me and experience the incredible places that we will go.

Like I've said,  I feel great about what I've accomplished. The only thing that could possibly make this lifetime journey even better would be the privilege of sharing it with you.