I depend on my logic for everything. To make all the decisions, to decide what is right and wrong, to know what to do next, to figure out what I'm feeling. Logic is good. However, logic can be a little too black & white. Logic lacks feeling, lacks emotion, lacks risk and adventure. The only adventures I've had were planned and safe. I live by my logic, but I envy those who run with their heart. Travel the world. Make mistakes. Try all the new things and do so openly. Those who jump before looking. I associate strongly with the character Spock. Half Vulcan, half human. I feel like he represents my inner struggle. When I let my heart lead the way in something, I question every move with my logic. I simply don't know how to let go. I recently bought a guided journal. This notebook features beautiful art coupled with quotes and prompts to guide you through self-exploration. One of the pages asked to think of an issue that you've been approaching with logic and to see what that would look like if you followed your heart instead. I wanted to write my life, but it was overwhelming to think of how I could have lived differently. So, I just wrote about my current inner dilemma. I found out that following my heart scares me. That I need logic to feel right. So, while I'm on a mission to let my heart take the wheel, I don't want my logic left behind. I want it in the passenger seat. |
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It hit me so hard I froze still, trying to take it all in. I didn't even realize I was holding my breath. I then hurriedly gathered supplies so I could write down the words spoken that echoed in my ears. To pass time, I was watching the T.V. show "How I Met Your Mother". I was on season 4, episode 20. I didn't expect something so profound to happen while watching that show, but it did. Let me just get to the goods, here's what was said: "The longer I put off starting my own firm, the longer it can remain a dream and not something I screwed up at." That right there is what caused me to seize up, pause the show, search for a pen and paper, then write it down. Of course, I'm not starting my own firm, however I have this deep desire to start something. In the past, I've started {or attempted to start} many styles of my own business, brand, or blog. To name a few: Glady Anne Photography, Sparkle Plenty Jewelry, and currently Whole Body. However, in all cases I just kept putting off going public, advertising, or quite frankly jumping in with both feet. I would get a crazy amount of creative and fun ideas flowing through my mind really fast, I would write them all down and that was usually it. I would still be excited, but rarely would I follow through with all my wonderful ideas I had. To be completely honest here, I was scared. Scared of what people would think, scared of my product, scared it wouldn't work, scared I couldn't handle it, scared of screwing up. There you have it, I've admitted my problem. That's supposed to be the first step, right? Now it's time for an action plan and then to take actual action. Not idealized action. To go one step further, I'll tell you one of my fears that holds me back: I'm scared of working with strangers. I'm scared I won't be good enough. Then I go back and forth in my mind with the catch 22, I need to work to get experience, but I need experience to work. I would play around with how to get past the hump {which was usually 90% fear of working with strangers} and then I would slowly change my focus to something else as it slipped to the back burner. That pretty much sums up my experience with starting my photography business. It was that or some other excuse. The fitness quote, "You need to be stronger than your strongest excuse." works well in this setting. I've been passionate about photography for 6 years and I've been passionate about starting a photo business for about 4 of them. I think it's time to quit being scared and start doing something.
I have so many ambitions, dreams, and desires. I often find myself wondering if it matters, if I'll ever have or even take the chance to accomplish any of them. I look at life all too often and the future always feels unreal, unattainable, and mythical. Despite all these feelings; the years still pass, I still dream, and sometimes I even accomplish something and it becomes real. However, we could also all die from the Yellowstone volcano erupting. Either way, I still plan to make the most of it. You with me? The feeling comes and goes quite often. It's an itching sensation, a void to fill. Each week when we head out to do stadiums, the need pulses louder. Ever since graduating with my bachelors degree, my everlasting passion for personal growth and learning needs to be filled elsewhere. Most often, I find some resources online that satisfy me for a little while. One of those amazing resources is Udemy.com. Basically, it's one of the very few places I enjoy taking video courses from. Lucky for me and my itch, they had a coupon going around that found its way to me via Facebook. It came at just the right time. We did stadiums on Friday. Since the internet is so vast, we find more than enough good resources out there. So much that we can lose track of them and are likely to visit sites in waves. I'm not certain any of that makes sense. However, I'm back on the wave with Udemy and have started and completed {in one sitting} a course called Fit for Life: The Science of Exercise. I loved it. Now off to find another interesting course to take. Will it be on business, photography, psychology, health, or something entirely different? Who knows? What would you like to learn more about? I have no idea how, but it was February. Already, so fast. I didn't think much of it until Daniel asked me what I wanted the week before. One week. I've always seen and awaited the arrival, but not this year. This year it happened and had gone by so fast. Just before the day came I thought of my 25 by 25; It's a list of 25 things you want to accomplish before you're 25. You need not be 24 to have this list {like myself}. You can make bigger goals and have longer time to achieve them if you want. However, I was turning 24...suddenly. Usually, you'd find this sort of thing on my other blog. The style of this doesn't quite fit into this blog, but I want to hold myself accountable. I want to always have a reminder of my list. Now, in no particular order...
If you have a list. It doesn't have to be a 25 by 25, it can be a 30 by 30, 15 by 50 or 25 by 55. Whatever combination of numbers you wish, I'd love to read about it. Keep tabs on my progress by following me on this blog {bloglovin} or the other {bloglovin}! It sounds like whit noise. It slams surfaces and echos through vents. There's a sense of gloom to some and a cleansing feeling to others. Rain like this invokes many thoughts and feelings. For me, I'm using this time as a mental wash to help refocus. If I could smell it, I think it would help. However, I'm at work and can't leave so easily, so seeing it on camera and listening to it roar will have to be enough for my senses. I'm pondering all the different paths I want to take and how, even if I do them all, I can only do one at a time. Refocus. I feel that if I focus and put my energy into seeing each thing through before adding another, then I will be successful. It helps to have people in my life that guide me to my tracks again, help me find the spark that got me interested in the first place. After a long time, I feel like I'm not good enough. It's tough. That's where I was just a little while ago. Now, I have a renewed energy that's motivating me and widening my view of what's possible. This is thanks to the friends and family around me who are always showing me in little ways how I am good enough, that I can do it. "Dream until your dream comes true." Beautifully sung by Aerosmith in his iconic Dream On song. Dreaming is amazing, but don't forget to give yourself credit for where you are and what you've already done. We dream and dream and continuously modify our dreams as things in our lives change. We need to take moments now and again to realize that to our younger selves and older dreams, where we are now would be considered an arrival of sorts. We've already arrived and have been living our dreams of the past. We don't always know or pay enough attention, but we mutate our dreams, adapt them slowly, in a way where we will never reach them because as we get places, we want for more. It's okay to always strive for more as long as we balance it with moments of recognition to how far we've come and what we've accomplished. To older dreams and younger selves, we are possibly living the dream of years ago. So, we should LIVE it, presently. A little bit ago I found a letter to myself written five years in the past for me to see now. That letter outlined all that I was and hoped to be in that time. What I never realized until reading it, was how I had already accomplished and was living the dreams I had five years ago. I just took a deep breath, smiled, and decided to take a moment to fully appreciate who I was, what I'd done, and where I was. This all came at a perfect time because I was having some serious doubts about all of what I'd done and where I was going. That letter found me at an opportune moment in my life. So, I ask you to take a good positive look at yourself. Take a moment to reflect and be happy that maybe one little thing you're doing now is something you wished for years before. I also encourage you to write a letter to yourself and seal it up to be found in five years time. I absolutely loved finding that letter and I wasn't even looking for it, in fact, I had completely forgotten of its existence. Once I had smiled and took some joy in what I've done and what I followed through with, I sat down and wrote myself again. I hope to continue it, it really is an eye-opening and almost out-of-body experience. It's strange and kind of hard to describe, but for a small moment you actually feel like you're answering your five-year-younger self. It's weird, go try it. We pulled up to the window and before anything else, the lady handed us our change. Not all our change, she's not psychic, but she handed us the loose change, the coins. It was this little act that just had me shocked and inspired. It seriously must be silly to read about, but I've never seen this happen before. It was just a fast food place {we were indulging that day with some chicken sandwiches}, but seriously awesome. Afterwards I thought to myself, now here's a person who knows how to get things done, who is efficient for the better of herself, the business, and us. It's a simple act, but one you would have guessed more could do to improve things just ever so slightly. It only takes a second to notice if a person is paying with cash or card. Not only was it more efficient in time, but it was nice, simple, and easy. I can't tell you how bothered I get when people present me with my change in this order: paper then coins. That is frustrating for me. It presents a perfect opportunity to drop the coins. I know this all seems like just little pet peeves and satisfactions, but it really is the little things in life that inspire or lead us to either a moment of breathing or a moment of frustration. It has me asking the question, what little acts am I doing that can help out more than myself? What ways am I helping others frustrate less. I beg you to ask yourself the same thing and share! Here's what I came up with. Earlier in that same day we were waiting at a pharmacy for what seemed like forever, sad thing is it wasn't even a pill or something they had to literally "fill", it was just something already packaged that they could just put in a bag. I knew it was busy and though I was sent away to come back at an even later time, twice, I figured if I was frustrated at them it really wouldn't have them working any faster or get me any farther in my day's duties. So, I took a deep breath on my third time through the line and eventually when I approached the counter {again} I smiled. It was really that simple. I smiled and I could visually see the release of tension on the lady's face. It was a smoother transaction for both of us. No one ever wants to hear it, but taking a deep breath and even smiling actually helps. The deep breathing forces activation of our parasympathetic nervous system, which helps balance the changes our sympathetic nervous system can influence when we're emotionally stressed {heart rate, rapid/shallow breathing, perspiration, blood pressure, tense muscles, etc...}. Not to fill you will psycho-babble, but basically what I'm saying is there's reason behind all that "take a deep breath" crap. It helps. That's my story, I'd love to hear yours! Have you experienced something little that made a big difference in a moment? Or have you done something to try and ease the daily-doings of someone else? Looking fixedly at the “submit” button on the application, all I can do is bite my nails. This is only a decision that would determine how my near-future life goes. Only. Currently, I comfortably work part-time. The downside is that it’s not stable or steady in any way. This is more of an "as needed" type work. I like it. I can turn down shifts when I need to and take as many as forty hours when offered. This is great for me as I’m trying to get my photography business started. The downside is the lack of stability and benefits. I’ll have to admit, like any new business, it would help to have some money to get it going. Also, Daniel and I could use the extra steady paycheck to fix up my car {or get a new one}, and possibly get out of our current house. Now the cons of taking the job would be less time for my photography and the little fact that I don’t really want to work here all the time. We all make sacrifices, right? I should quit being a baby and just commit to the position. I also have this phrase bouncing and attacking me all the time since the new year. That would be my new motto: Take risks and just do it. Seriously, this would be risk number two of the new year and I would fully be living up to my 2014 goals and motto. Just because there are risks available to take doesn’t mean we need to take them all, right? How do you know which ones are the ones to jump into? You don’t. That’s kind of the point of taking the risk in the first place. There’s no right answer, there’s no way to know without trying. While trying to make this decision I’ve talked to people at work and home with good insight. They have given me a lot to think about; However, in the end, I'm still the one who has to push the “submit” button on the application. |
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