When everything is going well, your life is like a well constructed piece of music - everything in it's place and a place for everything. You move effortlessly from task to task, like fingers flying over the keys. Any piece of music is possible when you are in this frame of mind, you have boundless energy, life is amazing AND you are enjoying every moment of it.
Then something knocks you out of your "tune" of thought, "life" they say, sometimes gets in the way. We find it hard to hit the right keys, everything seems jumbled, like you are just hitting the keys in any random pattern. Sometimes you make music, sometimes though it's just a wall of sound.
I can't remember the last time my life played like a symphony. It's not that I like disharmony you understand, but the fact that I am constantly pushing myself to do new things, try something different. Change things around.
When that happens of course, our fingers don't know the correct notes we have to play. We have to look at our hands and the music score to see what we are doing or trying to do. We have to practice, we get things wrong, we hit the wrong keys, we get frustrated, and sometimes if we don't master the new score, we go back to our old familiar piece of music.
So what can you do?
Well, you don't have to change everything at once. We are of course coming up to that awful time of the year again. I am of course talking about New Year's Resolutions. This is where we decide that we hate everything about our lives and decide we are going to change EVERYTHING - and I do mean everything.
We throw away the old scores, nope not playing those again. I am going to bite the bullet and learn that uber difficult piece I've said I would learn one day, then my life will be perfect.
What if I were to tell you there was another way - yes the challenge. One day at a time, we can choose to try something new. We don't have to throw everything away. What we do, is that we keep the symphony playing in the background, but we add new pieces to the scores of our repertoire each day. Believe me, it's a much easier and faster way of getting more out of life.
Signing off with many thoughts and beautiful pieces of music to follow...
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Step into that role
Uggh, seems like my brain just doesn't want to gel at the moment - I'm reading stuff, but it's just not sticking.
I worry about the "normal" working day, you know the 9-6 routine that businesses say is an effective use of time. Well I don't know anyone who can switch it on at 9 and turn it off at 6 and be productive for the gap in between. OK there are times when you can just churn through it,but is that a good use of the hours you have been given? I know that when I force myself to work during those times, actually these times, I will discard 9/10ths of what I work and edit it like crazy to the last bit. So why force it? Why bother?
Well, sometimes near enough really is good enough.
But sometimes I drive myself crazy trying to craft the perfect piece of prose when in reality it doesn't have to be perfect just completed. As I have found out many times a couple of days later when I've read backsome of the words I thought I had written, only to find out they weren't as good as I thought.
One of the comments my friend said to me in a fit of the frustrations was:
"Just do it, step into the role and be ..."
And of course that is what we should all be doing. Are you a painter or someone who would like to get the paints out when he has the time. Or what about the aspiring photographer who never remembers to take their camera with them. How are you going to be THAT person, you know the one you say you want to be, if you don't step into the role?
One of the reasons I feel is that we don't want to be "found out"
What if I'm not good enough we ask ourselves. What if they can tell I'm a fraud, that I'm really no good at this.
Says who?
As you know there will be people who tell you repeatedly that you are notgood enough. If they shut up for five minutes, we all have our own littlecritic sitting on our shoulders whispering in our ears. Hear him? You'renot good enough, who do you think you are?
Now, do me a favour, hold up your right hand. Now using your index finger I want you to reach across to your left shoulder and POKE HIM ON THE NOSE. Poke him hard enough and he's going to fall off.
Anyone else having a fit of the giggles at the thought our critic now sitting with a bruised rump and a sore nose on the floor behind us.
Right, now he's off nursing his bruised ego, we can get on with whatever it was we said we wanted to do.
We can do amazing things, if we allow ourselves to step into the role and be that person. And the beauty of it is - we can play more than one role if we have the desire and the passion to do so. And anyone who says we can't, well they're probably not stepping into their roles either.
Which role are you going to step into today?
I worry about the "normal" working day, you know the 9-6 routine that businesses say is an effective use of time. Well I don't know anyone who can switch it on at 9 and turn it off at 6 and be productive for the gap in between. OK there are times when you can just churn through it,but is that a good use of the hours you have been given? I know that when I force myself to work during those times, actually these times, I will discard 9/10ths of what I work and edit it like crazy to the last bit. So why force it? Why bother?
Well, sometimes near enough really is good enough.
But sometimes I drive myself crazy trying to craft the perfect piece of prose when in reality it doesn't have to be perfect just completed. As I have found out many times a couple of days later when I've read backsome of the words I thought I had written, only to find out they weren't as good as I thought.
One of the comments my friend said to me in a fit of the frustrations was:
"Just do it, step into the role and be ..."
And of course that is what we should all be doing. Are you a painter or someone who would like to get the paints out when he has the time. Or what about the aspiring photographer who never remembers to take their camera with them. How are you going to be THAT person, you know the one you say you want to be, if you don't step into the role?
One of the reasons I feel is that we don't want to be "found out"
What if I'm not good enough we ask ourselves. What if they can tell I'm a fraud, that I'm really no good at this.
Says who?
As you know there will be people who tell you repeatedly that you are notgood enough. If they shut up for five minutes, we all have our own littlecritic sitting on our shoulders whispering in our ears. Hear him? You'renot good enough, who do you think you are?
Now, do me a favour, hold up your right hand. Now using your index finger I want you to reach across to your left shoulder and POKE HIM ON THE NOSE. Poke him hard enough and he's going to fall off.
Anyone else having a fit of the giggles at the thought our critic now sitting with a bruised rump and a sore nose on the floor behind us.
Right, now he's off nursing his bruised ego, we can get on with whatever it was we said we wanted to do.
We can do amazing things, if we allow ourselves to step into the role and be that person. And the beauty of it is - we can play more than one role if we have the desire and the passion to do so. And anyone who says we can't, well they're probably not stepping into their roles either.
Which role are you going to step into today?
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