Happy new year!

It’s been a long, long time…hasn’t it?*

*huge props to anyone who can identify the lyrical reference–leave a comment below if you can and you’ll be enthusiastically celebrated.

I haven’t posted in quite a while, because I’ve been thinking Deep Thoughts about where I want this blog to go. You should be seeing me post with some regularity again.

In the meantime, I’ve started off the new year differently than I have in the past, thanks to Cairene MacDonald, who recently hosted a teleclass with her own coach Laura Burkey on choosing a theme for the year, rather than goals or resolutions. Because you know how the latter usually works—you set yourself up for failure, with the best of intentions. If you’re lucky, maybe you even last a whole month. (Me? Not even that long.) Then you spend the rest of the year berating yourself for not keeping your resolutions or not working more diligently toward your goals, slipping further and further into resignation and self-criticism.

Fun fact! I just went to my favorite online anagram creator (be warned—it’s highly addictive), plugged in the word “resolutions,” and one of the anagrams it came up with was “onerous list.” How fitting is that?

I’m tired of that whole resolve-and-fail pattern…but I have some definite directions I want to take this year. So a theme seems like a great idea. According to Laura, a theme gives you a point of focus, but it doesn’t have any specific “action steps,” and you cannot ever be failing at your theme. To a recovering perfectionist like me, that’s important.

Here are the four main concepts to consider when creating your theme for the year. I feel okay sharing this with you because Laura offered them to us for free on the call. I’ve also rephrased some of them a bit, so it’s a mix of her words and mine.

• Your theme should reflect the emergence of your true self. It’s not about changing yourself—it’s about adding to or improving on who you already are and always have been. Some aids to thinking about this are phrases like “What I have always…” and “As a kid, I always…”.
• Your theme must be timely and relevant to you right now. Whatever words you use to express it will speak volumes to you, and resonate with your heart, mind, and even your physical body.
• Your theme should require a daily, healthy stretch. Not to stress you out, but more as a call to yourself from yourself to extend yourself in new ways that you want. Not because of internalized “shoulds,” but because you have chosen this direction for yourself.
• Your theme must “stick.” Its words should really pack a punch and be catchy and memorable to you. Personal.

I’ve chosen a theme for the year. Wanna hear it?

::whistles::

Oh, you do? Okay, then.

My personal theme for 2010 is “Nourish my life, claim my power.”

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Nourishing my life is partly about physical nourishment. Because I have some serious and deep-seated issues with food. I don’t eat well, I never really learned how to cook or enjoy healthy food, and I’m starting to suffer from this. The irony is that I’m probably severely malnourished at the same time that I’m significantly overweight.

This year I want to focus on nourishing myself with food and movement, rather than restricting myself to foods that I don’t enjoy and forcing myself to exercise. I’m not going to say “I can’t have that” or “I must do this.” Instead, I’m going to experiment with “What do I want that would nourish me?” and “What ways of moving would give my body pleasure?” So nothing is out, but I’m looking for more of what I want in.

But the concept of nourishment goes deeper than that. I’ve spent my entire life being a people-pleaser, and now that I’ve decided I want to live life on my own terms at last, I’m having trouble figuring out what those terms are. It seems that somewhere along the way, I forgot how to have fun in ways that don’t require winning the lottery to finance. When someone recently asked me the question “What would you do if you had today entirely at your disposal?” I had to honestly answer, “I don’t know.” That’s heartbreaking and more than a little frightening.

So as a first step, I’ve created a list entitled “Ways to Nourish Myself” and stuck it in my planner so I always have it at hand. It has some incredibly simple things on it like “breathe deeply” and “stretch,” which I can do anywhere, plus things that are more location-based (“cuddle with my cats”) and some that are mini-projects (“try a new recipe”) or longer-term ones (“grow plants”). I’ll add to it as I think of more things, but already this list gives me something to turn to if I’m at a loose end and want to do something to steady myself and experience some pleasure.

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Claiming my power is about stepping into a place of more confidence. For instance, I want to launch a business this year. (Stay tuned!) For the past year or so, I’ve been in learning mode, taking in books and recordings and advice from others so that now I can picture myself as a “solopreneur.” (Which just means being in business for myself, without having employees. Gotta love clever terminology.) But when I look back on last year, I realize I took on the role of the apprentice in my own mind.

I’ll never stop learning, growing, and asking for help and advice, but I need to stop seeing myself as an apprentice now. I need to trust that I have legitimate skills and wisdom to offer, and move out of information-gathering mode into implementation mode. Every entrepreneur I know says they didn’t know what they were doing when they launched their businesses—they just jumped in, started doing things, and noticed what worked and what didn’t. It’s time for me to stop reading about how to swim and dive in already, trusting that I’ll figure it out as I go along and that I have people on my team who will support me in all kinds of ways.

I also want to claim my power in the realm of personal relationships. I’ve gotten much better at stating my wants and needs clearly, and understanding that they’re as valid as anyone else’s—but I’d like to develop that even further. I want to be able to communicate openly and directly, but without anger or violence, in a way that affirms what I want but also seeks to understand what the other person (or people) want. I want to get better at finding win-win situations, and at making conscious choices to walk away from situations that become too toxic for me.

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So…it should be a very interesting year for me. I’ll keep you posted on my progress from time to time.

What about you? Have you made any promises to yourself this year, and if so, how are you doing so far? (And how are you doing it? If you’ve found a way to keep your resolutions, inquiring minds want to know!)

How does the idea of an annual theme sound to you? If you’re exploring it and want to comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Again, happy 2010! I hope it’s a great one for all of us.

It’s been an interesting few months. But I’m back! And I’m deliberately refraining from an explanation about why I haven’t written anything here for a few months, because one of my tendencies is to overexplain and justify myself. And while it definitely feels uncomfortable not to do that now, it’s good practice for me. So, um, yeah. I’m just back.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about next year. I’ve had a year of making great progress “in the soft,” as Havi Brooks would say (that’s the inner emotional and thought-process kind of self-work), and in 2010 I want to continue with that. However, I also have some definite goals “in the hard” (all that outer, tangible and sometimes trackable stuff) that I’d really like to achieve. Have I learned enough in the past few years to be able to have “hard” goals again without beating myself up over them? And will they block my “softer” goals, or can I find a balance between the two?

Luckily for me, Pace and Kyeli Smith, whom I’ve written about before, are launching their newest program today. It’s called ”52 Weeks to Awesome, and it involves a conveniently year-long process of completely pressure-free and non-guiltified remarkamobilization. (That’s mobilizing yourself to become even more remarkable than you already are. Of course it’s a word. Humph.)

I could talk about it, but why not let Kyeli and Pace do it themselves? I was lucky enough to catch them before they head off to Ireland very soon on their honeymoon, and they were kind enough to let me interview them.

You’re offering a year-long e-course entitled 52 Weeks to Awesome. “Awesome” is a pretty vague term—what exactly do you mean by it?

Our definition of awesome is pretty simple and twofold: a) Knowing what you want and how to get it, and b) knowing what you don’t want and how to avoid it. This knowledge coupled with this behavior makes for a pretty awesome life.

I’ve seen your list of weekly topics for 52 Weeks to Awesome, and it’s quite aweso…erm, impressive! What were your criteria for choosing which topics made the list?

Well, with 52 missions, we had lots of space for as much awesome as we could come up with. Almost. I mean, we did wind up with 5 bonus missions, because we kept coming up with stuff. But anyway. Every mission had to be simple, concrete, uncomplicated, useful – and fun. We want every week to be something that’s straightforward and simple to implement because that keeps it do-able, and if they’re fun, too, that’ll keep you opening those emails.  (:

I’ve lost count of all the programs I’ve started with enormous enthusiasm, only to berate myself when I inevitably fall off the wagon. How can people like me get around this tendency?

Yeah! We planned for that! The first week’s mission is about figuring out how to avoid exactly that. It’s called “Helping you complete the next 51 missions (and anything else you commit to).” We realize that the course won’t do anyone any good if it’s sitting at the bottom of your trash folder, so our first priority is to help you get what you need out of it.

I also tend to get very rigid in the way I define success—where maybe I’m not really doing all that badly, but my thinking becomes very black-and-white. For instance, I might start an exercise program where I decide I have to or should work out four days a week, but I only manage to do it two or three times. So in my mind, I’ve failed, my self-esteem takes a blow, and I stop working out entirely. I recognize the folly of this way of thinking, but it’s so hard to break free. Any suggestions?

*nods* That’s exactly why we made the missions optional. You’ll get out of it what you put into it, but we won’t judge you based on how many missions you complete, or how well you complete them. This is exactly why we put “Self-acceptance essentials,” “Self-esteem essentials,” and “Self-love essentials” at the very beginning of the course — weeks 2, 3, and 4. Hopefully that will be quick enough to beat the “have to”s and “should”s to the punch. (:  Last but not least, anyone who enrolls in 52 Weeks to Awesome gets a lifetime membership — you can repeat the course as often as you’d like, and you don’t even have to wait until next year. So imagine your life explodes in January, and you get behind on the course. In April, you finally have time to devote to the e-course again, but now you feel behind, like you have a mountain of backlog. Just start over. Just start over from the beginning, and we’ll re-enroll you so you start receiving Week 1 again. You can do this as many times as you like, with no worries or judgment.

What can we say to ourselves, or do, to help ourselves feel that little steps really do make a difference?

It’s like moving. When you get ready to move, you (or at least, we) look around the house and feel overwhelmed. So much stuff! So many things to do! But if you grab a box and start packing, before long you’ve got an empty house and bunches of full boxes. You can’t possibly fill 10 boxes at once — you have to take it one box at a time till you’re done. The same thing applies here: one step at a time. You can’t burst into awesome and totally change your entire life overnight (well, actually, you can, but it’s really crazy and we don’t recommend it). Reminding yourself that the really good, permanent, sticky changes take time — and that every step you take is good, no matter what — will really help put it in perspective.

What are each of your personal favorite topics in 52 Weeks to Awesome?

(Pace says) I can’t pick a favorite based on usefulness, because all 52 are useful. So I’ll pick based on which is my favorite to talk about: Week 52: Manifestation essentials. That’s when I get to go off about my personal philosophy of the nature of reality. The stuff we teach that week works regardless of your metaphysical beliefs, but it’s fun to think about and talk about anyway. (:

(Kyeli says) For me, it’s a tie between Week 10: Stopping the Downward Spiral and Week 15: What is Fear, Anyway? These have been two of the most powerful steps I’ve taken in my own personal journey towards awesome, and the two I’m most excited about sharing!

What have you each learned in creating the program?

(Pace says) Amusingly, I’ve learned a lot about the usual error. Some of the missions I thought would be easy turned out to be unexpectedly challenging for others, because those missions rely on things I’ve already internalized — but we haven’t taught yet. We wound up doing a lot of re-ordering to be sure we covered the basics before moving into the stuff that wound up being more complex. The other thing I’ve learned is… I guess I’d call it a Grand Unified Theory of Awesome. Putting all the pieces together in a way that makes sense to teach them has helped me understand how they’re all related, and the underlying principles behind it all.

(Kyeli says) Brevity with impact. I’m a rambler, and keeping the emails in “bite-sized tidbits” has been challenging and fun.

What does the program cost, and where can people sign up?

We want this to be affordable for everyone, because being more awesome is a solid foundation for world-wide change. The 52-week course, plus 5 bonus weeks, is $52 — and, from Monday the 14th (that’s today!) through Thursday the 17th, it’s on sale for $39; $39 amounts to three full months free! We even have a few apprenticeships, where you get monthly coaching and extra email support for the entire length of the course.  There are only six of those spots, and each one is $390; Registration is on our site, here.

If people want to know what other awesomeness you two ladies are up to, how can they stay connected with you?

We’re both on Twitter – @Kyeli and @PaceSmith.  Kyeli is prolific, goofy, and talks to her uterus — so you’re forewarned. We’re on Facebook as Kyeli and as Pace. And, of course, there’s our blog where we talk about being awesome, the Connection Paradigm, personal growth, and all kinds of interesting stuff!

Click here or on the graphic above to view more details

Thanks very much for your time, Pace and Kyeli! Happy packing, and have a wonderful trip to the Emerald Isle!

In the meantime, I’ll be looking over my “52 Weeks” goodies and thinking awesome thoughts about 2010.

I can’t resist one more plug for National Novel Writing Month, which starts at MIDNIGHT TOMORROW! (Yep, somehow midnight on Halloween night seems very fitting.)

Even though I’m very sad about not doing it this year myself, NaNoWriMo was one of the key things that taught me how to start fighting back against my perfectionism when I first participated in November of 2005.

I’ve done it three times since then, and successfully completed a horribly raw and unedited 50,000-word novel twice. And I don’t think I’ve ever found a better—or more fun—crash course in how to throw your inner critic out the window (or at least lock her/him in a closet for a while).

So it’s worth stating again how heartily I endorse this program. If you’ve never heard of it and you’re intrigued, or if you have and you’re on the fence about participating, NOW is the time . . . because it won’t come around again for another year!

If you have specific questions I can answer about NaNoWriMo for you, feel free to post them in the comments below or send me a private e-mail at the address in the very bottom line of my “About Me” page. I’ll make a point of checking that at least a few times today and tomorrow.

I also want to make two offers for anyone who’d like to get involved . . .

If you do NaNoWriMo this November and would like a personal cheerleader, I’d be happy to be your NaNoBuddy via e-mail. You can send me your word counts if you want to keep yourself gently . . . ac-count-able (heh). Or you can just check in with me and tell me how it’s going, and I can reply with hearty cheering-you-on messages and any advice I can offer.

If you’d like to be part of this adventure of literary and creative abandon, but don’t want to actually, you know, write a novel, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Office of Letters and Light, the parent non-profit which runs NaNoWriMo and other beneficial programs—many for children.

There’s something in it for you if you do, hopefully. A very good friend of mine is doing NaNo (again!) and she’s personally raising funds to get into a special Write-a-Thon here in San Francisco on November 22. If she makes her stated goal, she will not only get in herself, but she’ll be able to bring one guest.

That will be me.

If she raises enough to qualify us both to attend the third annual “Night of Writing Dangerously,” I promise to blog from there and give you an insider’s view of the unbridled thrills and excitement. Maybe I can even take a little videocam, record a few brief interviews with other writers, and post them here. (I haven’t included a video in a blog post yet! Hmmm . . .)

Oh, if you’d like to donate, you might want the link:

Donate to my writerly friend’s NaNoWriMo fundraising page here! Just click the link and then the “Sponsor Me” button (after reading her lovely page, of course).

So there you have it, ladies and gents.

A fantastic month-long chance to play with imperfection begins tomorrow.

You can join in if you’re inspired to.

If you do, you can take me up on my offer to be your NaNoBuddy.

And/or you can donate to the cause and hopefully get me in the door to blog from the Write-a-Thon itself.

Or none of the above. Of course it’s up to you. But I couldn’t resist one more reminder that NaNoWriMo 2009 starts at MIDNIGHT TOMORROW! )

I had it all planned out. It was going to be so much fun.

It really was a great idea, if I do say so myself. My blog is about overcoming the kind of perfectionism that gets in our way by telling us that what we’re doing isn’t good enough. National Novel Writing Month (which I’ve written about before), is a month of hands-on practice in blasting straight through that mindset with wild writerly abandon.

So I was going to blog my entire NaNo novel publicly, right here, during the month of November.

Practice Makes Imperfect and NaNoWriMo—what a natural combination!

I got in touch with the organizers, and they were going to feature me in one of their daily Q&A spots. I would get to publicly practice what I preach in a very visible way, and maybe turn some people on to this annual event that I love so much in the process. We could cheer each other on, inspire each other, and keep that flow of raw, gloriously unedited words gushing.

Except then I heard an inner warning siren go off. It was followed by a voice:

“Wait, you’re the person who says she’s finally coming to grips with the fact that she can’t do it all, no matter how much she wants to. Who says she’s tired of trying to be superhuman. And who is already having enough trouble handling all the things on her plate now. And you’re thinking that you can manage to write 50,000 words next month on top of all that?”

Damn.

The disturbing truth is that once you embark on the path of self-awareness, it gets harder and harder to be in denial. Even when you really, really want to be.

So today I’m here to tell you that I will not be doing National Novel Writing Month this year.

And that makes me incredibly sad.

It would have been so joyous! Not to mention good for web traffic! I would have gotten exposure to many thousands of people around the world who do NaNoWriMo and visit its website, and who might have seen my Q&A feature and checked out my blog! I could have possibly been inspirational to people who were thinking about trying NaNo this year, or who were doing it but flagging in their enthusiasm, just by writing my novel publicly! And maybe some of them would have become regular readers or subscribers here at Practice Makes Imperfect! So many exclamation points that I will now miss out on!

Not to mention that I simply adore doing NaNo each November.

It is actually harder for me to not do it than to do it and drive myself into the ground. The latter has been (until recently) my modus operandi. I know very well how to pummel myself into submission over a goal that I’ve arbitrarily decided I have to achieve.

It’s much harder to admit that the world will keep on turning and that I will keep on breathing without my writing a novel next month. It’s so difficult to allow myself to just drop something that would prevent me from the self-care that I need to focus on right now.

Which is why I’m letting NaNo go this year. I need the practice in saying no to things I want so that I can say yes to things I want even more. Like health. And sanity.

BUT . . .

If you have ever wanted to write a novel, I cannot recommend NaNoWriMo highly enough. Here’s an excerpt from (again) my own previous blog post about it:

What makes the program so effective? It allows you to barrel right past your critical mind. You have to write so much so fast that quality concerns fly out the window—you just don’t have time for them. “I can edit later” becomes your mantra. And the amazing thing is that once you push past your initial resistance, get into the flow, and establish a daily writing routine, you realize it’s completely feasible to write 50,000 words or more in a month if you just keep writing and don’t overthink it.

It’s fun, it’s intense, and it’s probably the best training program for recovering perfectionists I’ve ever found.

If there is ANY part of you that is saying (perhaps very quietly) “yes!” right now, then I heartily endorse NaNoWriMo and suggest that you check out their website right away. Because this year’s novel-writing adventure begins at midnight this Saturday night.

If you decide to do it, I’d love to know so that I can holler and whoop and cheer you on!

Hello, dear readers!

I know why I’m writing this blog, but now that it’s been going for about 6 months (wow!), I’d love to get some feedback from you about why you’re reading it, and what you’d like to see more of.

So, you amazingly perceptive, intelligent and cool people, I’ve prepared a short survey which should take you five minutes or less (probably less) to complete.

I’d really appreciate your input, because it will help me give you more of what you want.

And I promise keep all answers and information completely private and confidential. Because doing anything else with it would be too icky for words.

So without further ado, below is the link to the survey. Thank you VERY MUCH in advance if you choose to give me your input. And as always, you can always reach me directly at michelle AT PracticeMakesImperfect.com.

Click Here to take survey

Pace and Kyeli Smith, two of the coolest people I’ve ever met online, do not think small. They have started a revolution, and two days ago, they released a manifesto explaining it. [Click here to view more details]

I dare you to read this and not feel inspired. Seriously.

The Freak Revolution, they say, is a revolution of ideas. From page 21 of the Manifesto:

No guns. No violent uprisings. No protest rallies. No bullshit. Just ideas. World-changing ideas. It has happened before, and it can happen again.

Think about the Renaissance. When the Renaissance swept Europe and then the world, was there a violent uprising? Were any governments overthrown? Were any anti-art monarchs assassinated? No. The creation and transmission of revolutionary ideas fueled the revolution. The ideas swept through the dominant paradigm, causing changes that continue to ripple through our lives.

I agree with Pace and Kyeli that the time is ripe for some bedrock-level changes to our collective way of looking at the world. They say that we are living under the control paradigm, which gives us certain (and often not very pleasant) ideas about how life works. But the very nature of a dominant paradigm is that we’re so immersed in it, we cease to question its underlying assumptions.

The Freak Revolution Manifesto exposes and deconstructs some of those assumptions, and encourages us to think about whether or not they’re actually true.

There is a lot in this 44-page document to think about, but one of the most powerful realizations that emerged for me was this: Because I’ve been a people-pleaser all my life, I’ve internalized the control paradigm so deeply that I’ve often blamed myself for not measuring up. I never even considered that I might be using a flawed yardstick.

Think about it this way. Let’s say I give you a $50,000 gift card to Home Depot, but inform you that you’ve got to get there and back yourself, choose your materials yourself, and arrange for their transportation. Your job? Construct a house which conforms to all state and local building codes (which you’re perfectly free to research at the library or on the Internet, of course) in two weeks, on your own. Could you do it?

I thought not.

So why do we so often feel responsible for equally insane amounts of stuff, remain in denial about the insanity, and feel guilty and ashamed when we can’t handle it all? Where did we get such a deep-seated need to be superwomen and supermen?

You’ve got it—the control paradigm, which tells us that only when we get a solid grip on everything in our lives simultaneously can we achieve a sense of inner peace. Which is impossible.

In their wonderful manifesto, Pace and Kyeli write about a different paradigm of connection. One in which we connect to our own hearts and souls, with each other, with the world around us, and with the Infinite. One which makes us feel happy, fulfilled, and balanced.

What I really like is that they don’t just talk about all this from a negative point of view, or in general terms, in a way that leaves you angry, frustrated, and thinking, “Great, but now what do I do?” The manifesto goes into quite a few concrete suggestions about how each one of us can start to make real, positive changes in our lives to disconnect from the control paradigm. To unplug from the unrealistic, hurtful, and demoralizing assumptions that we likely imbibed with our mothers’ milk.

And don’t be put off by the word “freak.” Pace and Kyeli use it in a pretty inclusive way. If there is any way in which you feel you don’t fit in or would like to buck the status quo, you can join this revolution.

Please, please read this manifesto. (You can read it online or download it: [Click here to view more details].) I think you’ll be very glad you did. I certainly was.

What excuses have you made today?

Nope, I’m not getting all judgmental on you. Especially since I just paused to ask myself the same question and thought of several. 

It’s easy to have an explanation for everything, isn’t it? You bought the dress because you’re going to need a nice one for Maria’s wedding anyway. I had to deviate from my food plan because the seminar was in a hotel with only one restaurant, and my choices were limited. What? Oh, sure, I could have ordered a salad, but the lettuce didn’t look fresh. 

The difference between what we say we value and what we actually do sets up something called cognitive dissonance. We feel uncomfortable because we know we’re not walking our talk. Our minds naturally search for ways to close that gap so we can feel good about ourselves again. Excuses, explanations and rationalizations make convenient mortar for filling in the chinks and shoring up the walls of our self-esteem.

The problem is, all that mortaring takes energy, and the wider the gaps, the harder the job. This can easily kick off a long downward spiral of frustration, depression, and shame. You want to live in certain ways and do certain things, but you seem to have less and less energy to do them. Your talk and your walk drift further and further apart. And your walls need even more repair. 

So how can you lay down the trowel and quit mortaring? Here’s one idea: 

Figure out what you value. 

This is tough to do because of all the socialization we undergo. Our parents and families are our first teachers, and we absorb their viewpoints and priorities automatically. Teachers, religious leaders and other authority figures dip their oars in as well. The mass media start pounding away at us as soon as we’re able to begin comprehending their messages.

And we’re not even aware that most of this is happening. Which means we’ve pretty much inherited an entire value system unconsciously.

To start repairing the gaps between your values and your actions, it helps to get some clarity on what those values are. Which ones are truly your own, and which came bundled with the software? 

Are you up for a quick exercise? Grab a sheet of paper and quickly write out a list of the things you think are most important in life—the core ideals which form the bedrock of your personal value system. Aim for about 10-15 items, or whatever emerges in about three or four minutes of writing. Go ahead, do it now—I’ll wait.

(whistling some cheery on-hold music)

Okay, take a look at your list. I’ll bet it contains many items such as (in no particular order):

• Love
• Happiness
• Family
• Religion/Spirituality
• Honesty
• Hard Work
• Excellence
• Security
• Courage
• Compassion
• Friendship
• Gratitude
• Determination
• Generosity
  . . . and the list goes on.

These are the types of “old standards” most of us inherit, and they seem so obvious that we rarely question them or think about them deeply. (Love? Of course! Who wouldn’t want love in their lives?) Plus—and this is key—we know at some level that it’s safe to espouse these beliefs. They’re socially acceptable because they are dictated to us by society. 

Let me be clear. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these values. In fact, most of us would agree they’re very important. They’re just . . . a little vague, don’t you think?

Let’s say you wrote down “courage,” for example. Sounds great—but what exactly does it mean to you? Not backing down in a physical confrontation? Getting over your fear of public speaking? Standing up for yourself and drawing healthy boundaries in a relationship? Going (oh, no!!!) to the dentist?

There is no judgment attached to any answers here. (Well, as long as you don’t value torturing living creatures or engaging in destructive hurtfulness, there’s not.) You just need to figure out what the stuff you’ve probably been parroting all your life really means to you, if anything.

Check your list. Is there anything you wrote down because you felt you should? Be honest. Maybe you don’t actually value hard work, or family. That’s okay! It doesn’t mean you’ll never work hard or spend quality time with your family—just that these are not going to be primary motivators for you. Maybe you feel you should go to church or spend time in meditation, but deep down it’s just not fulfilling to you. Again, no judgment. You’re only admitting this to yourself anyway, and I promise the world won’t end based on what you think and feel.

Speaking of feelings, the relief you feel when you accept what is true for you is immensely liberating. Maybe for the first time ever, you’re in a clear and conscious space with this stuff. And it feels wonderful. 

Now add the values that you’d really like to have on your list, but were afraid wouldn’t look good. Rest and relaxation, anyone? Fun? Freedom? Travel? A different religious or spiritual perspective than you were raised with? Go ahead—this is your list, and no one else ever has to see it. 

Congratulations! You’ve just taken a major step toward congruency between the things you say are important to you  and the things you do. Because it’s a whole lot easier to walk your talk when you honestly believe in the things you’re saying.

(HINT: Even if you didn’t actually make a written list, I encourage you to mull this over for the next few days. Your unconscious mind can do some amazing things when you’re not looking, and you may be treated to an epiphany or two! If not, you’ll have dug a little deeper into your own motivations. That’s always a good thing.)

(Image courtesy of ex novo)

The first post in this series explained why you need an Outboard Brain, and got you started on the first step of creating one by asking you to do a time-released brain dump.

Time for the next step.

If you have gone through the process since then, you now have either a deck of cards or a notebook (or maybe a computer file) filled with everything you want or need to do. And you’re probably getting impatient about what to do with them already. So let’s dive in–we’re going to categorize these suckers and make them start earning their keep.

NOTE: I forgot to mention something in my first post in this series–you should definitely include dreams and long-range plans on your list. They’ll get their own category, so go ahead and jot down at least a few now if you haven’t already. That kickboxing class you’ve been thinking about but are more than a little intimidated by? Taking your kids on a cross-country vacation? Learning Slovenian? C’mon. You know what yours are.

OTHER NOTE: I’ll do some explaining first, but at the end of the post I’ll give you a list of common categories to help get you started.

YET ANOTHER NOTE: Try not to make your categories either too broad or too narrow. For instance, having only two categories for “Work Stuff” and “Home Stuff” probably won’t be very helpful, unless your life is MUCH simpler than most people’s. On the other hand, having separate categories for “Grocery Store,” “Post Office,” “Pet Store,” etc. is too cumbersome. Try a middle-of-the-road category like “Errands.”

Now let’s get into it.

The Card Method

If you’ve got a deck of index or other cards, find a section of floor so you can spread them out. Inform any small children and pets that these cards are not toys, nor are they edible.

Begin laying out the cards in groups, keeping them all visible if there’s room. Don’t come up with a list of categories beforehand–let them develop organically as you sort. This is the advantage of the card method. You can move things around and change your mind until everything is organized into the groupings that make the most sense.

Now take a moment to rank each category’s cards in their approximate order of urgency and/or importance. Don’t spend too much time on this–if you can’t decide whether picking up a birthday card for Aunt Edna is more or less urgent than figuring out the menu for the dinner party you’re hosting next week, just choose one of the two and move on.

When you’ve got them how you want them, sweep each group into a stack. Jot the category names on cards–preferably ones that will stand out, such as on differently colored paper, cards with raised tabs, or with sticky notes or flags attached to them. Clip or rubber-band all the categories into a single stack if you have a way to visually differentiate them, and into separate stacks if not.

Now hang tight for a moment while I talk to the folks who did this a different way.

The Computer Method

I didn’t mention this method in the last post, but some of you may have created your to-do lists on the computer. If so, you can sort them into categories by moving them around with merry cut-and-paste abandon.

The only drawback is that you probably won’t be able to see everything onscreen at once; you’ll need to scroll up and down in your document. Still, good for you! The items are movable. And I didn’t even tell you to do it this way.

The Notebook Method

This will be a little harder if you’ve written your to-do list in a notebook, but not much. First, grab some highlighters in as many different colors as you can, a bunch of colored pens and markers, and a scratch pad.

Before you start marking up your list, read through it to see what categories suggest themselves. (Again, see the end of the post for some start-you-off suggestions.) Jot the categories on the scratch pad as you go. Be as messy as you want. All you’re doing is making your thought process visible.

When this list feels pretty much complete, grab a highlighter and use it to mark through all the to-do’s in one category. Use a second color for the next category, and keep going until you run out of highlighter colors. (What’s up with that, people at Sharpie and Sanford? Six isn’t nearly enough!)

Then you’ll need to get a little creative with your opaque colors–maybe red squares, blue circles, green arrows, etc. in the left margin for different categories. (The six-year-old in me just piped up with, “Pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons, green clovers–and new blue diamonds!”)

Now Everyone Back in the Pool

Notebook people? (”Here!”) Computer people? (”Here!”) Card people? (”Here!”)

Good. We’re actually going to pause here, because even though you physically have the same notebook, electronic document, or stack(s) of cards you started with, you’ve just done a lot.

Now is a good time to test-drive your categories for a bit, see if they work for you, and make any needed adjustments. For now, keep adding items to your list in their brand-new and wonderfully appropriate categories, and removing them as you do them.

In the third and (possibly) final post in this series, I’ll cover how to turn these categories into a coherent Outboard Brain that works for you. In the meantime, here’s a list of a few broad categories to kick-start your thinking process. Of course you’ll have categories that are unique to you, but these are fairly common. I’ve added a few notes to some of them. Don’t feel you need to use all of these, either–use the list as a springboard for your mind.

• Things to be done on or by specific dates (Don’t wait on these–go ahead and enter these on whatever calendar or tickler system you use now so that they don’t fall through the cracks.)
• Urgent Items
• Errands/Shopping Lists
  
• Active Projects/In Process
• Delegated to/Waiting For (For anything others are working on that is important to you or in which you’re a key player.)
• Spouse or Key Relationship (Things to discuss or do together.)
• Family (Ditto the above.)
• Business Ideas (Things you want to research and/or implement.)
• Finances
• Health
  
• House
• Books to Read/Movies to Watch/Etc.
• Fun Things to Do (In my opinion, this is a wonderful list that everyone should have!)
• Recurring Events (Birthdays, anniversaries, key action reminders, etc.)
• Someday/Maybe (This is the category for those dreams and long-range plans. It’s a catch-all so you don’t forget about them and can review them periodically. Writing it down does not mean you’re committed to doing it.)

Holy categorization, Batman! See you next time.

Do you get frustrated with all the peppy, saccharine advice out there which tries to convince you that you are a wonderful person just as you are and you should accept yourself without self-recrimination? Do you find it just a tad* hard to accept?

(*sarcasm alert)

Yeah, me too.

This post was sparked by Jennifer Louden (whom I am not accusing of being saccharine, by the way—she’s the real deal) and her Declaration of Freedom from Self-Improvement which she posted today to kick off a week on this theme on her blog.

I signed the declaration by leaving a comment, but it made me think about how easy it is to fall into empty-words, positive-thinking rhetoric and say, “Yes! Non-judgmental self-acceptance, what a great idea! I stand behind it completely!” and then go about your life as usual, vs. really trying to practice it.

And the ironic thing here is that trying to practice it can turn into the very self-improvement self-tyranny you’re attempting to unlearn. (”Damn it! I’m failing at unconditionally accepting myself!”)

That’s a fine line to walk, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on what has helped me to walk it.

Today’s post is about one of the most important attitude adjustments you can make toward overcoming what I am hereby naming “Superhero Syndrome.” (Definitely more to come on that!) I will follow up soon in another post with a list of specific techniques I’ve used.

So . . . how can you move past feeling that the pep talks (from others and from yourself) about how “you’re perfectly fine as you are” are empty positive-thinking platitudes? How can you start believing them?

Realize that accepting yourself as you are now is NOT the same thing as becoming complacent and lazy.

If you already set high (maybe even unreasonably high) standards for yourself, you will not suddenly turn into a person who lets things slide, produces shoddy results, and stops working on yourself. It’s simply not in your nature. You will continue to do your best, but if you can uncouple those efforts from the belief that they define your worth as a human being, you’ll gradually be able to relax into an acceptance what you really are—an amazing work in progress.

This is not easy, but it’s well worth the effort. Personally, I get there by:

• Self-talk. I remind myself over and over again that the essence of me is more than the sum of my actions and how successful I think they are.
• Self-observation. When I act as if the above concept is true, I notice that I feel more peaceful and happy. The more I notice that I do not, in fact, become lazy and complacent when I let go of my attempt to be 100% perfect at everything, the more I build up evidence that I’m not going to turn into an unmotivated lump.

One important thing to keep in mind here is that if you’ve been riding yourself into the ground for a long time, once you begin to realize that you can stop trying so hard all the time you may find yourself sleeping a lot. Or vegging out and staring at walls or the television. Or reading novels. Or playing lots of computer games. Or whatever you do to relax and unplug.

This is fine. You are not becoming a lethargic slob. You are catching up on much-needed rest and rejuvenation, which you may have been denying yourself for years or even decades.

When I finally admitted that I needed to slow down and nurture myself, I slept for 10 hours or more per night for four straight months, with many daytime naps on weekends. And when I came out the other side, I had more energy and enthusiasm for life than I’d felt in many years. I was able to do more.

Go easy on yourself. Don’t be like the saying on one of my all-time favorite t-shirts.

And stay tuned. There’s more to come on this reeeeeeally important topic.

Warning: The following article describes a brutal act of clutter-clearing in which a number of inanimate objects are heartlessly disposed of. It may not be suitable for sensitive readers. Proceed at your own risk.

I’ve never been a packrat. By most people’s standards, I live quite simply and don’t have a lot of “stuff.” I have learned, though, that a lot of the material I do accumulate is like sea wrack, washed up against the shores of my living space by the waves of projects I’ve started and not completed.

Oh, I’ve tried to complete them—most of them, anyway. Usually by organizing the heck out of them first. I’ve kept lists of projects. I’ve whittled those projects down to bite-sized tasks, devised methods to streamline and schedule those tasks, and created whole systems to track my progress so that I could have the joy of crossing things off my to-do list. I’ve spent hours, days and weeks blasting through those to-do lists like dynamite in an all-out effort to finish as many projects and tasks as quickly I could, so that I could have the simple, uncluttered life I crave.

It never, ever occurred to me that I could simplify my life by eliminating things without finishing them.

In late 2001 I fulfilled a long-held dream and began to learn to play the Indian tabla drums. I took lessons for five years from one of the world’s acknowledged best tabla players, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. I adored the classes, and Swapanji is a wonderful, patient and gently humorous teacher whom I miss deeply . . . because I haven’t taken lessons now for over two years.

It broke my heart, but I had to stop for my own benefit. I took the classes far too seriously, and I felt such a sense of obligation that the lessons became more of a chore than anything else. I was feeling enormous stress over the fact that I couldn’t practice as much as I wanted to, and I thought I wasn’t doing justice to either the money I was spending on the classes or, even more important to me, the beautiful musical tradition of the tablas.

At the end of it all (and I still choke up just writing that), I was left with five years’ worth of cassette tapes. Tapes? Yes, because we learned so much so quickly each week that Swapanji allowed us to record the classes. I would come home from class, play through the tape, write down the new composition we’d learned, and refer to it as I practiced throughout the week or refreshed my memory of it later.

These tapes held pure gold. They contained the teachings of a living legend, instructing very small groups of students in a tiny room. Swapanji played each new composition for us. He gave us individual attention and advice. He gave encouragement, sometimes talked about the history of the tablas, and often told funny stories.

But 90% of the tapes were filled with us students, ineptly tapping and pounding away as we attempted to stuff each new kaida, rela, tukra and chakradhar into our short-term memories. This was nothing I would ever want to listen to again.

Once I’d finish transcribing each week’s tape into my permanent notes, I’d save it with the intention of extracting the 10% of the material with real value for future reference. So when I stopped taking classes, I had a gigantic box filled with five years’ worth of cassettes. I consoled myself with the thought that since I was (*sniffle*) no longer learning anything new, I would finally have time to deal with them all.

It was an Enormous Project. Just getting the (sometimes undated) tapes into chronological order took me a long time. The next step was to listen to roughly 200-250 hours of class tapes through an analog-to-digital converter, and sift through the dirt of the vast, useless majority of the recordings to find the tiny nuggets of gold where Swapanji was actually talking and teaching. I would then need to save those smaller files, date-label them, catalog their contents, and burn them to CD for safekeeping.

I really thought I could do it. In my spare time, outside of my full-time job and my many other projects and commitments. I expected myself to. This unfinished project weighed on my consciousness for two full years. All unfinished things have an oppressive weight to them, but this one was extra-heavy. After all, those tapes were priceless! They deserved to be saved, if not for me, then for posterity!

But slowly I realized that posterity didn’t much care. That other people took these classes, too. That I wasn’t personally responsible for being the caretaker of the material I’d learned. That Swapanji had been recorded—professionally—hundreds of times over the decades.

That I really, truly didn’t have to do this project at all. Ever.

So . . . I threw away the box.

Then I cried.

And then I was swept with the most profound feeling of relief I’d felt in years.

How odd that my biggest lesson came when I stopped taking classes.