Category: choices

choices, time

Leap: Be Ruthless With Your Time

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/kholt/

Pam Slim offers up this advice for entrepreneurs, though I think we should all honor it since we are all working on something of real value – be ruthless with your time. There are people who will be careless with it; there are people who think they own it because you work for them; there are people who don’t respect their own talents, gifts, and time, and therefore it never occurs to them to respect those of others. You have to guard your energy, and your energy is carried on the rails of time.

Free time is a misnomer. Time is never, ever free. There is always a trade-off. Even if you are the most supreme multi-tasker on the planet, there is a limit to how much you can do in any one moment, and you never get a single moment back. It’s spent and gone, and your time is finite. We won’t go on forever.

Life is generous, but it’s not that generous.

Forget would, should, and could when it comes to your time. The only verb that time understands is “do”. And what you do is always up to you. Be ruthless with your time. Take it very seriously, and do something so valuable with it that it will be worth remembering when it’s gone.

choices, creative process, creativity

Leap: Begin As You Wish to Go

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/rockyrococo/

On Monday night, we began the strategic planning process for Compass Yoga. We’re laying out a solid mission statement and using that to direct our programming and fundraising efforts. With all of the possibilities for our services, we have to be very deliberate about where we place our focus and energy. As we were sorting through possibilities, Michael made a simple and profound statement that stopped all of us in our tracks – “Begin as you wish to go.”

He then quickly made the joke that he read this line in an infant sleep book, but it stuck all the same. No matter what we begin – getting an infant to sleep through the night, starting a company, beginning a relationship, or learning something new – it is critical to keep the compromising to a minimum. Preferably to zero. The start is the foundation, the precedent, by which all other actions will be measured. A bad start is hard to save.

And so we trekked on through our planning with these hallowed words in mind. The thrill of a new beginning, a blank slate, is the opportunity to create something just as we wish it to be. If we can stay true to our vision at the start, the way to go will open.

adventure, choices, decision-making

Leap: Your Path is Up to You

Christa Avampato

“Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking.” ~ Antonio Machado

A path is a nice idea. We see it laid out before us, unfolding one glorious step at a time, and all we have to do is go along for the ride. Paths I’ve found are rarely given. They’re made. We make them so by paving them ourselves.

This can feel paralyzing at first. If everything is up to me, then where do I begin? How do I know what to do first, second, and third? What happens if I get lost or run out of energy? What if the way I’m heading is not the way I want to go?

And here’s an unappreciated truth about way-finding in life: we all start at zero. No one in this world was ever born walking. We spent time learning to roll over, pushing ourselves up, scooting, crawling, walking, and running. No one knows what you should do. There are examples and models that you can learn from, maybe even borrow from. But no one has ever lived your exact circumstances at this moment in time. You get to choose where, how, and with whom you spend your time.

You are an original by design, and so is your path. Create it.

choices, creativity, decision-making, stress

Leap: The Monkey Mind and The Inner Sage Can Walk Together

Christa Avampato

When we’re in a funk, it can be tough to pick our heads up and re-energize. When we’re down and out, sometimes it feels easier to stay that way. And for a while, I think that’s true. Every once in a while we do have the right to wallow a bit when something doesn’t go our way. The opportune word is “bit”.

Throwing a pity party
I have a friend who gives herself exactly 24 hours of serious self-pity when true disaster finds its way to her door – she turns on the music she only listens to when she really needs to bawl her eyes out, pours herself a stiff drinks, dives into a carton of ice cream, and lets herself feel truly crummy. And 24 hours later she is required to pick herself up, dust herself off, and leave the house. No excuses.

That’s how I felt last week on a particularly low day. I didn’t follow my friend’s course of action, though I have absolutely no qualms with it. Having lived with insomnia for many years, I give myself the chance to have one night of less than fantastic sleep. I’ll let my challenges toss and tumble through my mind at any speed they wish and I don’t stand in their way. As a yoga and meditation teachers who often focuses classes on taming the monkey mind, that skipping, jumping, frantic mind whirr we can all find ourselves in from time to time, I could stop the mania and get some rest. The monkey mind gets its way for one night and one night only. And here’s why:

The monkey mind has a voice…
When we’re unsettled, rattled, and confused, there’s a reason for it. Usually we’re reacting, understandably, to some past experience and our minds are trying to equate our current situation with a past situation in order to search for solutions. There are a lot of valuable lessons in this process – the monkey mind never forgets the emotion caused by feeling unsettled and with good reason. In its own special way it is trying to protect us, spare us from past discomforts. Let it play its part.

and it’s persistent.
If you don’t let the monkey mind have its say, it will eventually force you into listening. Think about a child who doesn’t get enough exercise. He will wind himself up and up and up until he finds a way to release his energy. So let him go run around in the park and give his energy a productive outlet. Keep him cooped up inside and he’s likely to start developing all kinds of unfortunate behaviors and feelings. And he should. Stress needs to be exercised so we can get past it. Mind chatter is no different, and if you listen closely you’re likely to find some small kernel of truth that begins the process of reinvention.

What comes of chatter
In my case, my properly exercised mind chatter transforms into fearlessness. I attempt to decision-tree my way through just about every challenge I face. “I could do this or that, and this action will lead to this consequence, and that action will lead to that consequence, which means I’ll need to….” You see what I’m saying.

So I let my inner decision-tree maker have her fun in the sun. She smooths out the sandy surface, gets out a stick, and goes to town etching her branches in the sand all the way down the beach. She gets one night to crank it all out and then the next morning that tide of reason is coming in to soften it up and wash the worry away. And then she toddles off to bed, spent but in a good way. She said her piece and wrote out all her fears. I listened carefully, and then I moved forward.

The meditation that was a long time coming
It took a long time for me to develop this tool, this imagery, and use it in my daily meditation whenever I feel any sense of anxiety. For many years, I knew nothing but a monkey mind and then for several more years I tried very hard to get her to shut up. Neither approach worked. The balance – energy and peace – is so much more valuable and in moments of high stress I remember that the stress is there for a reason. It has a purpose. It has something to teach me. We can take the concerned many of the monkey mind and distill them down to the vital few of the inner sage. Give the two the chance to walk together.

That’s how decision-making works best: lay it all out on the table, no judgements passed. The real heart of the matter is hidden in there somewhere. Give yourself the chance to explore your thoughts, really peel each layer back, and see what you find. The truths buried in there may surprise you.

career, choices, decision-making, meditation

Leap: Making a Big Career Choice Earlier Than I Expected

Christa Avampato

I’ve got some career choices to make in a shorter time frame than I planned.

The company I work for is going through some reorganization. Minimal reduction in headcount lots of reshuffling. This comes as no surprise; what surprised me was that I would have options. There are several different places that I could land in the organization. It may also be possible for me to opt-out, wish them well, and be on my way into the unknown. I’ll spend the next few weeks gathering information, assessing possibilities, and asking for a lot of advice from the smartest, most creative people I know.

In many ways, I wanted someone else to make the first move – to place me in a role and then have me decide if I wanted to stay or go. That’s how I had it mapped out in my head – node of decision tree and then just two branches depicting my choices. We should never underestimate life’s ability to surprise the hell out of us. I must be the first mover in this case.

Brian, my coach, and I talk a lot about the hero’s journey in which the hero chooses between different roads without any of them obviously being the better choice. It’s about choosing the road that is the best for us, at this moment, with the imperfect information we have. It comes down to trust. Trust in us.

I’m going over to my meditation cushion now, closing my eyes, breathing in, and breathing out. The answer will rise up if only I am ready to hear it. When it appears, you’ll be the first to know.

books, career, choices, creativity, writing

Leap: Heat Up the Iron and Carve Your Own Path (in Life and Book Publishing)

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“Do not wait to strike until the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.” ~ William B. Sprague via Alison Lewis

Over the past few months I’ve been sending out query letters and full book proposals to potential agents for a book I’m writing about yoga and personal finance. I love the project and have faith in the methods it uses because I used them to transform my finances. These are ideas born from experience, not theory.

While many agents have been encouraging of the project, they have all said it’s so different that they don’t have a proxy to point to that assures its success. In the often cut-throat world of modern publishing, they need to know every book they advocate for is a winner. Their reputation is on the line and risk-taking is rare these day in the hallowed halls of books.

I have yet to feel badly about any of these rejections; I feel badly for agents and traditional publishers. They’re part of an industry of tied hands, locked hearts, and icy cold eyes fixed on P&L statements. It’s sad and they’re missing a lot of boats. I’m sure they know this, and feel powerless to do anything about it.

So now I’m at a cross-roads trying to decide if it’s worth it to continue down the traditional book publishing path for my project or carve one of my own through self-publishing and platform building. There’s the prestige of having a traditional book publisher, but also the loss of control. The publisher also makes the lion’s share of the profit from the book, even though the author is doing just as much work, if not more, to market the book.Teh list of pros and cons is endless; even though I’m an avid list maker, I’m getting tired of this analysis.

A recent note from a high-powered agent began to tip the scales toward self-publishing. It began:

“A book is like an iceberg: Writing is 10%; marketing is 90%. ~ Chicken Soup coauthor Jack Canfield

Christa,
Many thanks for writing about your excellent idea for a book. Out of necessity, our goal is to sell books to New York houses, and they want writers with a platform and a strong promotion plan. So the challenge is to maximize the value of your book before you sell it. Publishers aren’t buying promise, they’re buying proof. So before we can help you with the 10%, we need to know how much you can help your publisher with the 90%. Because we can usually tell from a platform and a plan if we can help a writer, that’s where we like to start.”

That 10% / 90% ratio sticks in my craw a bit. However, this agent went on to give me a lot of wonderful advice and some ideas of how to develop a solid book plan and platform. I did find it humorous that he quoted Jack Canfield, an author whose initial book was rejected by publishers 123 times and began a series that now boasts 200 titles and 112 million copies in print in over 40 languages. Jack is also an advocate for the advantages of self-publishing and the value of small presses. (Learn more about Jack’s writing journey and publishing philosophy here. To read tales of 50 rejected writers who went on to write treasured works, click here.)

When making decisions like this, I examine my past experiences. I’m most proud of the roads I built myself. They’re exhausting, though they’ve always been worth it. During the times that I took a path prescribed by others, I found a bit more sleep, a lot less joy, and a lack of inspiration. I’m a person meant to carve my own canyon through the mountain, to fire up the iron myself rather than waiting for someone else to do it – that’s just how I roll.

adventure, career, choices, future, work

Leap: Sometimes Your Future Chooses You

Christa Avampato
Photo by Soller

Next week is going to prove to be an interesting week around the office. There are rumors flying about changes in staff, strategy, and priorities. I’ve heard so many at this point that they’ve all cancelled one another out. Only one thing is for certain – the way it is now is not the way it will be going forward. But isn’t that always true? Change is part of life, every piece of it.

Not even a year into this work toward my new year’s resolution, and it may come to be bear without me doing much of anything. We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we always have the opportunity to choose what we do about it. Sometimes we leap on our own, and sometimes we’re pushed into taking the leap. We don’t always see the push coming, and many times there’s little we can do to stop it. The question is will be commit to this new trajectory being laid out for us or will we try to cling to the ledge of a cliff we don’t really want but feels familiar?

My answer in one word: Geronimo!

choices, decision-making, travel, work

Leap: What We’re All Really Doing Here

Christa Avampato
Photo by Mark Nethercote

“We‘re all just walking each other home.” ~ Ram Dass

I read this quote from Ram Dass and it stopped me in my tracks. It reminded me that we are here to be of service to one another. All we’re ever really trying to do is make life a little bit easier, a little happier for someone else. And we do this in all sorts of ways – through friendships and romantic relationships, community service, teaching, new products and services, and art that inspires and intrigues. And it’s all part of the same journey – one destination, a fulfilling life, and many paths to get there.

We’re all on our way home. We may be on different timelines, with different stops along the way, but we’re all part of one another’s adventures. It’s an honor to bring other people into our lives and have them take us into theirs. The only questions we really have to answer at the end of every day is this: did I make this day worthwhile, for me and for others? Did I help someone travel a bit lighter, get a bit further, and smile wider than they would have without me?

That’s what I’m doing here – for my students, my friends, and all of the people I have the extraordinary privilege to interact with every day. It’s a gift to be with them, and I treat every moment with that same belief. We’re just encouraging one another as we make our way forward.

art, career, choices, creativity

Beginning: The Art Born of Life

Christa Avampato

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” – Chekhov

I spent a lot of 2011 in a mode of planning and personal development. At turns, I would get frustrated with what appeared to be a lack of progress, or at least a lack of progress at the pace I wanted. And when it comes to my personal development, I always want to pick up the pace. What I didn’t realize is that in those times when we think we aren’t making any progress, the progress is really happening under cover beneath the surface. This is the most crucial kind of progress, the kind we need to really move forward.

Think of a cut or scrape. Beneath the surface of the skin, the tissue begins to repair itself immediately after the injury occurs. It starts knitting back together one tiny cell at a time, healing from the inside out. All we can see is the outward face of the injury, the very last thing to heal, but without that inner healing, healing on the surface wouldn’t matter. In fact, if we healed from the outside in, then we would be more likely to incur a repeat injury.

Think of a house. The building process begins deep within the ground where the foundation is laid. For a long time, it may look like very little progress is being made, as if all the work is for naught. But once a strong foundation is put in place, the rest of the building goes quite smoothly. And it lasts.

We need to live our art, creativity, and dreams in their own unique and beautiful form. Spending our lives any other way guarantees only that we will wish we made different choices. Living our dreams takes time time and planning. To give our all to our art, whatever that art may be, we have to spend time honing our craft and getting other areas of our lives in proper order. We may not always see the progress, but if we are diligently working toward our goal, we can rest assured that progress is happening and will reveal itself in its own good time.

Compass Yoga was like that. My writing was like that. My education was like that. My whole life, my greatest work of art, has been like that. Progress was slow and not always apparent but it was there. Piece by piece, I was knitting together the threads of my life that would form my foundation for my life, and from my life came my art.

Our art is always born out of our lives. You wish for an artistic breakthrough? Start with a life breakthrough. And then you can get to the fun part – with the foundation in place, it’s time to build that castle in the sky.

choices, clarity, creativity, writer, yoga

Beginning: Create Something Beautiful and Good in 2012

Christa Avampato

“That which you create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come. Don’t spend your life accumulating material objects that will only turn to dust and ashes.” ~ Denis Waitley

It’s with more than a bit of irony to find this quote among my reading during the holiday season. It seems that almost everyone except me went on a buying frenzy in the midst of Black Friday madness. Then they got their credit cards statements and logged an unprecedented number of returns. This is a good sign for American society – perhaps we’ve turned a corner when it come to how we think about stuff. It is all just stuff.

I think about stuff a lot because I am, by profession, a product developer. However, most of the products I’ve created aren’t tangible products. They are Broadway shows that inspired people, nonprofit programs that benefited worthwhile causes, and experiences that celebrated our creative spirit.

The tangible products I’ve created over the last few years for my current employer are things I am less than proud of, actual things that I have relegated to the back of my mind, and conveniently left out of my portfolio. Creating them has afforded me a salary that has helped me to pay back a good chunk of my student loans from business school and to save an emergency fund as well as another savings account so that I can chase my dream of starting my own nonprofit. I am grateful for this gift, particularly in a time in our economy when so many people have struggled financially.

If I think about the last three years of my professional career strictly from a product development perspective, they have been wildly pointless. I have churned out product after product that I don’t believe in, would never buy, and would never counsel anyone else to buy. These three years were really just about survival in a bleak financial market. The joy has gone out of my work.

Personally, these three years have been staggeringly exceptional. I have learned more in this time than I ever thought possible – about myself, the world, and my purpose. I have made oodles of friends along the way, reinforced my confidence and convictions, and found my voice as a teacher, writer, and leader. It has been nothing short of a blessing. It has been a transformation. I found and live the dream of my life, even if at the moment it is only after regular working hours.

This dichotomy – an enriching personal life and a stagnant professional life – has been brewing for some time now. I’d say it was at a slow boil for about a year, a rolling boil for another year more, and has been at a flat out screaming boil over 2011. The only thing that can possibly come next is a quick evaporation altogether. And that’s rather what my latest career decision feel like – an evaporation of what doesn’t matter in favor of activities that do matter, to me and to the world. Compass Yoga is my attempt to follow Denis Waitley’s advice to build something beautiful and good.

It’s going to be a beautiful 2012 – just wait and see!