On a recent episode of How I Met Your Mother, one of the characters feels lost and unsure what to do with her life. She got some powerful advice from a stranger: “What’s the one thing you want to do with your life? Now let everything you do be in service of that.”
This is a question I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately. What’s your one contribution, the one thing you really want to point to and say, “I did that. That’s why I was here.” Don’t make any considerations other than what you want. This isn’t about what you can do, but what you want to do. Got your answer?
Mine is to create content in many forms that inspires people to live exactly the lives they want to live. I want to be known as someone who did that for every person who crosses my path in some way.
We have to live life moving forward though we can only understanding it looking back. The only way we can face this reality is through faith. Faith that what we feel is right, is right. We have to tune into our intuition even when we don’t have a rational explanation for what we’re doing in the moment. Let that intuition spark your action. Some people won’t get it. That little inside voice of yours might not get it either. There will be jeers and questions and criticism. Turn their volume down to zero and amp up the voice from your gut. Walk confidently, gracefully. Head up, smile wide, heart open. Calm, cool, collected. You’ve got this.
When we want to take a chance, when we want to do something new, we have to clear the way so the new can enter. This is exciting and it’s scary because we may have some time when this empty space just wants to house something. It may remain empty for a good long while before we actually figure out what belongs in that space. This is also a dangerous time. We may get so frustrated with that empty space that we feel tempted to fill it with something, anything. Don’t do it. Only fill it with something and / or someone you truly want.
Waiting is a tough business because we don’t know how long the waiting will last and we don’t know exactly what our options will eventually be. I don’t have those answers, but I do know this: we get what we settle for. So if we settle for something less than we want then that’s exactly what we’ll get – something that leaves us feeling empty even though we are full. Something that depletes us rather than building us up. Something that casts a shadow over our light rather than helping it to burn brighter. If that’s the choice, then I’m waiting. I’ll clear the way and hold that empty space for as long as it takes.
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? ~ Rose Kennedy
The most exciting (and terrifying) project I have planned for 2014 is the production of my first play, Sing After Storms. It will be staged as part of the Thespis Theater Festival in New York City on June 18th at 8:45pm, June 21st at 9:00pm, and June 22nd at 9:30pm at the Cabrini Repertory Theater, 701 Fort Washington Avenue in Washington Heights. What led me to write the play and ultimately submit it for production can be summed up in one word: priorities. On the surface, it’s not such a sexy word, but it made all the difference for me.
I wrote the play while I was in California this summer on a creative sabbatical from my work. I went there with about a dozen personal projects I wanted to complete and quickly realized that even if I worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entire 8 weeks I couldn’t get them all done. They were so massive I couldn’t even get 2 of them done. (I live by the philosophy of “make no small plans.”) I quickly realized I had to choose. I tried to wiggle out of choosing and tried to select a few. It didn’t work. I had to sit down and decide what mattered most. And though it was the least lucrative and least likely to generate anything other than happiness, I spent my last 4 weeks writing my play. With much coaching and encouragement from my dear friend, Trevin, I finished the first draft. It felt amazing to do what I loved simply because I wanted to. That experience also helped me make up my mind to focus on writing and content development full-time.
When I returned to New York, I completed the second draft and submitted it to Thespis. That was the first time I ever submitted the full play to anyone for review and I expected to be rejected about 100 times before anyone even gave it a second look. I’m proud of the work, though I worked in professional theater management for a number of years. After managing Broadway shows and national tours, I know how difficult the industry is. I know how much work doesn’t make it, how many artists never get any shot. I wanted to be passionate and realistic. I wrote that play simply because I loved the story. I never expected anything else to come of it even though I knew I would keep trying to get it produced.
When I got the acceptance from Thespis five days later, I was shocked. And nervous. And excited. And overwhelmed. I spoke with Trevin immediately, and then with my dear theater friend, Amy, who also read the script and encouraged me to give it a shot. Should I do this? Both emphatically said, “Yes!” So I reviewed the contract and accepted the next day.
Now there are many months of hard work and long hours ahead. Trevin is going to direct the piece and I’ve started to look for other people who want to play a part in this new project – actors, a stage manager, designers, technicians, stage crew members, marketing and publicity, investors. (If any of these opportunities sound interesting to you, please email me at christa.avampato@gmail.com.) While I will now be consumed by this next phase of the process, I remind myself that this all happened because I put the wheels in motion by following my gut this summer, by doing what made me happiest. I made a choice. One single choice. And that was enough to get started.
We stumble. When that happens, we take a pause. We look down the road ahead and wonder if we should continue or stay where we are. Stumbling shows us what matters most to us. Do we care enough to get up, with scrapes and bumps and bruises, and try again? Or does it show us that the effort is not worth our energy? Either decision should be celebrated. We have only so much time. We have only so much space in our lives. How we use it is the most important choice we ever make.
“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” ~ Nelson Mandela.
When faced with a decision, we need to follow the path paved with what we love. It’s the other choice, the “sensible” one, that’s really dangerous because it leads us away from who we really are and what we really care about. The sensible choice doesn’t take advantage of our talents and passions. It traps us by constructing limitations on our capabilities.
So break through and break out of that construction designed by fear. Focus your attention and energy on the possibility, and not on the contingency plans. You’re brave, smart, and resourceful. If things fall apart, you’ll find a way to adjust and adapt. You’ll have the strength to cross that bridge if and when you need to. If you take a chance on a dream, the dream will take a chance on you. And that’s where the magic happens – when we finally stop worrying about invented fears and take action on the opportunities right in front of us.
“Keep looking up. That’s the secret of life.” ~ Snoopy
Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. We get disappointed, dismayed, and discouraged by events out of our control. But here’s what’s within our control: how we use today to help us tomorrow.
Every circumstance, and especially difficult ones, teaches us about the world and our place in it. We can use that learning to make better choices and take better actions. They teach us that we’re strong, capable, and adaptable. We fear less because we trust more. We’re secure in the knowledge that no matter what situation arises, we can handle it. No matter where we are today, we have to believe that tomorrow will be better because we will make it so.
We are so much more talented than we let ourselves believe. Somewhere along the way we were told to not think too much of ourselves or the value we bring to the people, places, and causes that consume our time. We were told to feel lucky for every opportunity that comes our way rather than recognizing that we make our own opportunities. Someone convinced us to keep our heads down and follow the path as determined by others.
In the past few days, I’ve had several conversations with friends who don’t realize just how amazing they are. They’re worried about making bold moves as if they don’t have a right to them. They’re cautious about standing up for themselves and the gifts they bring to the places they work. They don’t see what I see – that they deserve everything they want and then some because they worked hard to get where they are.
Have faith, in yourself, in your process, in your path. You are meant to do great things with your great life. We get what we settle for, so only settle for what you really want.
Sometimes, we lose our footing on our path because we doubt our gut. We make a choice that at the time seems like the sensible, acceptable way to go. Then we get down the road and realize this was the wrong choice. Our gut was right. We should have followed our instincts. Doubling back seems difficult, if not impossible, so we just keep going in the wrong direction, hoping that we can somehow turn it into the right direction or be happy with it as is even if it’s not what we want. This is the sad definition of settling, but it’s not the only definition. We can choose to settle for what we want.
When I worked with my therapist, Brian, we spent a lot of time on this concept. For much of my life I had settled, but I didn’t realize that at the time. I had gotten so used to settling that it felt like what I wanted. Certainly I pushed myself very hard and I had incredibly high expectations of myself and others (I still do), but there was a part of me that was very concerned with the appearance of success and the guilt of not taking an opportunity that many others would love to have, even if it was one I didn’t want. “I should be happy with this,” I would say. “Many other people would be so I should be, too.”
Brian helped me break that awful habit. We are here on our own paths. We know what we want, what brings us joy, more than anyone else does. And that includes your best friends, your partner, your parents, even your strongest and most inspiring mentors. They don’t know what you want. They only know what will help them not worry about you. And that’s a lovely wonderful thing, but it is no way to live a life. Thank them for the advice and do what you know to be the right thing for you right now. Ask for their support, but don’t live by their rules.
You have to decide how to spend your time. You have to choose how to build your life. It’s one of the best things about being an adult – getting to carve and live your own masterpiece. Let people share in that, but don’t let anyone dictate it to you. Don’t be afraid to give yourself everything you’ve ever wanted in life.
To move ahead, an arrow must first be drawn backward. So it is for us, too. We take one step forward and two steps back. We feel like we are in a perpetual game of catch up, make ends meet, and CYR (cover your rent). I hear you. I live it, too. For every success I’ve ever had, the have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of strike outs. Sometimes I’ve even gotten up to bat to find out that the whole game was cancelled and everyone heard the news except me.
It takes a certain resilience, a certain beautiful brand of lunacy, to carve our own paths, to buck convention, to make the career we want rather than take a job someone else creates. It is a grind, and a grind is what makes diamonds brilliant; it’s what turns wheat into flour that makes bread; it’s what helps aged spices release their gift of fragrance and flavor. The grind is necessary.
We can’t get ahead without first being behind. We can’t give the best that we have without first undergoing some refinement. Our refinement as entrepreneurs is rejection. Rejection shows us in no uncertain terms what really matters to us, and more importantly it shows us what we’re made of, just how strong we really are.
Life is hard in some ways for everyone, and for some of us it’s hard in many ways. We are all battling something, healing from something. We’ve only really got two choices – we can let what happens to us build us up or break us down. I prefer up.
Christa Avampato 