I didn’t expect to record a vlog (video blog) today but I got home from work and just had to share this. I hope it resonates with you. Enjoy!
(click on the picture above to view on YouTube.)
Love always,
Jo
Tag: advice
day by day
I’m all about creating a life you love, living with intention, having a vision and long term plans. Where do you want to be 6 months from now? 2 years? What do you want your life to look like in 20 years?
Do you have big, crazy, dreams? Cool. Let’s make that happen.
The last two weeks, I’ve been having a really hard time. Struggling internally at an intensity I’ve never experienced before. Extreme anxiety, lots and lots and lots of tears. I’m ok. Everything is OK. It’s just something I have to work through.
But in an email to a friend this morning, I wrote “Can you say a prayer for me?” When I remembered that this afternoon, I thought, wow.
So while I’m all for big plans and visions and making things happen, this experience has taught me that sometimes you just need to take things day by day.
And that’s OK.
a lesson from wine country
One of the biggest things I took away from wine country was that it’s about what you like. Often, our friends would love a wine and I wouldn’t understand the hype or I’d love a wine and they didn’t care for it. But we were told over and over that it’s about what you like. Your taste is your taste and you like what you like.
It was challenging to remember at times. I’d get caught up comparing myself to other people in our group with stronger, more refined palates. I’d wonder why I wasn’t loving the wines that they loved. Why I didn’t enjoy this wine that was so complex and such a treat that every else bought bottles of it. Why do I love this seriously sweet wine that everyone else thinks is too much? Is something wrong with me? But the sommeliers assured us over and over that it’s about what you like.
I think this is a good metaphor for life. We all like different things and at different intensities, and that’s OK.
the right question: take out the shoulds
I often wake up thinking “what should I do this morning?” and on weekends it’s “what should I do today?”
These questions make me feel totally overwhelmed and set me up for failure.
This is essentially like asking “what am I supposed to do today?” OR “what pressure can I put on myself today?” OR “what obligations can I create for myself today so that when I inevitably don’t do them all I feel bad about myself?”
In response, I’ll start to think about all the things I could do: chores, business tasks, people to call, things that I should do because I live in the city and I should take advantage of them. And then I think about all the reasons why I don’t want to do those things or why I can’t do those things.
It’s pretty terrible actually. It makes me feel terrible and almost paralyzed.
I realized this morning that I do the same with blogging.
I’ll think “what should I write about today?”
Then I start listing possible topics followed by the reasons they’re not the right post for the day or why I can’t or don’t feel like writing that today. And then I just shutdown and don’t write anything.
In my opinion weekends should not be about shoulds.
And blogging shouldn’t either.
So I’ve come up with two new questions:
What would I like to do today/right now? | What would I like to share on the blog today?
Are there areas of your life where you’re asking questions like these? If so, where and what’s a new question you can ask yourself?
P.S. Part of the reason these questions give me so much trouble: Janice has a field day with them.
i don’t finish every book i start
I was reading The Dinner recently. Even though I was more than half way through, I just wasn’t into it. I was bored. And even though there is supposed to be a twist or something interesting happening at the end, I didn’t really care to get to the end.
One of my core desired feelings (Danielle LaPorte, anyone?) is to be engaged. To be excited and pulled into something. And this book just wasn’t doing it for me.
So, I let it go. I closed it with no intention to pick it back up. And honestly, that small decision made me feel powerful.
Life’s too short to do things that don’t make you feel good. Life’s filled with too many opportunities for things that make us feel good to hang on to arbitrary obligations. So I try not to do that anymore.
Ok, talk to me in the comments:
What’s something in your life that’s not grasping you in the way you’d like? What would it be like to let it go?
What’s the last book you read that you could. not. put. down??
go at your own pace: what to do when you have two
A while ago I wrote about going at your own pace in life and not comparing where you’re at with others.
It hit me this morning that we often struggle to find a good pace within ourselves, that this conflict is often an internal one.
As I mentioned in this post last week, I really want some down time right now. I’m really happy with that realization and am enjoying the space I’m giving myself.
But as I went out for a walk this morning, I thought “oh, I should email so-and-so” and “I need to look over that page on my website.” I’ve also had thoughts like “I want to read this book” and “I want to write that post” and “I want to reach out to this group.”
One part of me is like enjoy this time, space is good, relaxing will help you create. The other part of me is more cautious and saying “go, go, go” and “do, do, do,” fearful that if I don’t take action, if I don’t think about these things every single minute, that nothing will happen.
It’s hard to go at your own pace, what I’d call your soul pace, when there’s that voice in your head saying “hello, what are you doing?”
Here’s how I’m going to handle it: I’m going to keep going at the pace my soul wants to go while acknowledging the voice in my head by saying: “I know you’re looking out for me and want to make sure I get what I want. Thank you for that. But trust me, I know it’s coming. This pace is just fine.”
it's OK if you don't know
A few weeks ago, I went back to my alma mater to participate in a career day for sophomores. I was part of a panel called Unexpected Career Paths. It was so fun to share my career story and hear the stories and advice of other alumni on the panel.
A reoccurring theme through the event, from the keynote address to the panel discussions, was “it’s OK if you don’t know what you want to do.”
Let me repeat that:
It’s OK if you don’t know what you want to do for the rest of your life.
But, if you want to figure it out, I’d be happy to help.
a relationship secret ingredient?
I had a great conversation with a friend about our relationships the other day. We found the when we feel happy with ourselves, when we’re at our best, our relationships with our significant others are better. The more attracted I am to myself, the more I’m aligned/connected with my true authentic self, the more attracted I am to my husband.
I’m serious about this. This feels so good. So so good. Our relationship is better, our connection is better, the sex is better–and more frequent!
I feel like we’ve uncovered a secret relationship gem. One of the many magic bullets.
So, OK. Knowing this secret ingredient, how can we use it to our advantage?
Well, under what circumstances do you feel most like yourself? In what situations are you, you? Got it? OK. Now create those for yourself as regularly as possible.
I imagine this goes both ways. So, how can you encourage your significant other to be himself? How can you put yourself in situations where your husband feels confident and alive, where his true self, that amazing person you fell in love with can come out? Got it? OK, great. Make that happen.
And report back, will ya?
how I prepare for an interview
Some of my favorite people are applying for jobs!
Here’s how I prepare for interviews:
I create a handwritten sheet that looks like the picture above. Writing it by hand helps to solidify the information in your head in a way that typing doesn’t. I recommend handwriting it.
It has three sections:
- why Joanna,
- why the job/company, and
- questions.
In the first section, why Joanna, I list qualities, skills, and experiences I have that make me a good candidate and that I want to remember to highlight in my interview. You can include projects you’ve worked on in the past, successes from previous positions, or just qualities of you as a worker/person.
In the second section, why the job/company/organization, I list things about the job that interest me, reasons why I’d want to work for that particular company, why you applied, etc.
And last but not least, the questions section. Here I come up with 3-5 really good questions, ones that show I know enough to ask a good question but also are things I’m curious about. You should always ask questions at the end of the interview, and have questions prepared ahead of time just in case you get caught up and can’t think of one in the moment. Asking good questions shows your interest in the position. The answers to these questions can give you clues about the working environment, how they problem solve, how the organization handles certain situations. You can use the questions to get information you can use to compare and contrast your current job or previous positions, etc. One tip for creating your questions: make sure they’re not too leading–you don’t want the interviewer to think you will or will not take the job based on how they answer.
After I fill out my worksheet, I review it a little bit but truthfully I hardly have to reference it in the interview because I spent time thinking about it, writing it, and looking at it.
How do you prepare for interviews?
a tip for men: 3 words
A lot of times when we’re complaining about something, we don’t want a solution. We don’t want to figure it out. Sometimes we do, sure.
But most times, we want to hear a simple phrase. Just three simple words will stop us in our complaining tracks.
Here they are:
Wow, that sucks.
Yep, that’s it.
Wow, that sucks.
Ladies–feel free to send this post to your SO.
Guys–try it and report back.