In the spirit of my new year’s resolution to fearlessly go after every dream I have, I’ll write every day about this journey. In 2012 I took the leap into a life of my own design. I spent a lot of time entrenched in the critical processes of planning and experimenting. In 2013 I will breathe life into those plans. I’ll roll up my sleeves, get out into the world, and actually build those dreams with my own two tiny hands because at heart I am a Maker.
Poet Mary Oliver poses the question, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” In this new year, I mean to answer that question not in words, but in beautiful, thoughtful, passionate actions.
I’m so glad you’re here to share this experience. I hope it inspires you to take up the call to create. In 2013, what will you make?
My friend, Adela, posted this on her Pinterest board and it raises a question that I’ve run through my mind so many times this holiday season. It’s fine to wish or hope for something though every person I know who is happy has two qualities in abundance: gratitude and determination. They don’t pray for things to get better; they work hard and make them so. They recognize the value of who and what they have in their lives and they share with others.
Here’s what I’ve learned – everything, absolutely everything, can be figure out. We can find a way into a new job or field. We can solve challenges, locally and globally, by extending our hands and acting together. We can find love by opening our hearts. We can improve our world, for ourselves and others, by shutting down our devices, leaving our homes, and rolling up our sleeves. And none of this requires that we have more stuff. It requires that we have more heart, more concern, more courage, more confidence. It requires us to understand that we have everything we need to do everything we want to do. The question is what will we do with it.
This Christmas, I hope we all get just one thing in our stockings – the strength to decide that the helping hands we want are the ones we already have.
“As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I no longer try to predict the future. It certainly fascinates me; I am as eager as the next person to know what lies around the bend. The only thing I have some control over is now. I trust that what happens next will unfold exactly as it should and I’m confident that I can and will flex to make the most of the future, not matter what it holds.
I try to build skills and experiences that I think will be useful tomorrow.
I spend a lot of time nurturing relationships and giving much more to my network than I ask or take.
Each day I try to learn at least one new thing.
Before I go to sleep and as soon as I wake up, I make gratitude my first thought. I find that the more often I count my blessings, the more blessings I have to count.
The future is coming for us. We have a hand in how it unfolds. We may not always be able to control it, but we can control how we manage it when it arrives. Be ready.
For a few months, I’ve been taking mini coding lessons at on Codecademy. They’re hard for me – I’m learning a new language, turning my thought process on its head, and getting familiar with a whole new way of structuring my creativity. I’m not good, but I’m getting better. This weekend, I received a new book that’s geared toward teaching the very basics of Python, a popular programming language.
I have no interest in becoming a programmer so why would I devote time to gain a basic understanding of coding?
1.) Our world is becoming increasingly influenced by technology. Knowing the basics of coding will soon be as necessary in the workplace as knowing how to use Microsoft Office.
2.) It’s difficult for me. By forcing myself to learn something that doesn’t come naturally to me, my mind must look at challenges in new ways and create new neural pathways. Just as we work muscles so that they get stronger, we must also work the brain.
3.) It grows my understanding as a product developer. There’s noting worse than a business people who ask the world of tech teams without having a clue exactly what their requests entail. I saw this all the time in my old job. Hardly anyone on the business side ever truly understood what they were asking of others. I want to do better.
4.) All it takes is time. Not so long ago, I would have had to enroll in a class to learn these skills. Now there are sites like Codecademy that offer these lessons for free and online. There are excellent manuals and books that will walk beginners through the basics. If it’s there to learn, then why not give it a try?
Are you working on learning something new? Would love to hear how the adventure is unfolding for you!
I read this article in the Harvard Business Review yesterday. The author surveyed 30 professionals from 28 to 58 to ask them about their deepest career regrets. I was surprised by the results. In short, they wish they hadn’t taken jobs based on money, had quit earlier to start their own businesses, and had trusted their gut when it came to their careers.
These results encouraged me. As we wind down 2012, I’m making some decisions about where my career will go next. Should I keep freelancing? Should I take a full-time or long-term contract role that has some flexibility so that I can still teach and pursue my creative projects?
I only know one thing for sure – I’m glad I made the leap on June 15th. I’m glad I stepped away from my corporate job to try out this new chapter of my career. This HBR article confirmed for me that no matter what happens next, I will never have to wonder what would have happened if I trusted my gut, quit my job, started my own business, and followed my dream instead of a paycheck. I did all of those things and everything turned out just fine.
We can’t always logically explain our actions. On paper, it looked like a less-than-smart idea to leave my very good job for the sake of following my heart. I just knew when I came back from India that I had to take this adventure and that I needed to take it now. The decision defied any sense of reason. I just knew that I had to take this time and that I had to take this chance, no matter what the outcome.
I much prefer the risk of trying something new over the risk of regret.
“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.” ~ Voltaire, French writer, historian and philosopher
In the last few weeks, I’ve done a heavy dose of reflecting. I’m in prime planning mode for 2013. What direction will I take with my career? How will my personal life unfold? What do I want to learn? What do I want to do more often and what do I want to give up? Where do I hope to be at this time next year and how do I chart a course to get there? These are heavy questions.
Sometimes, I get frustrated. I see so many options that I get stuck and run the pros and cons through my mind over and over again. When this happens, I just stop. I close my laptop. I put down my pen. I take myself (and Phin) for a walk.
The break clears my head and I return to my challenges with fresh eyes. While on break, the wheels of my subconscious spin and ruminate without interference from the filters of my conscious mind. My subconscious goes free-wheeling to make connections between seemingly disparate bits of information. It combines information in all sorts of ways without attaching judgement. The key is that last bit: no judgement. When I let my conscious mind give up, my imagination can run wild and that is the best way to solve challenges.
Maybe this time of year invites reflection for you, too. Like me, you may be running through different scenarios for the year ahead. You will need to make choices on how to spend your time, energy, and effort. If it overwhelms you, I hope you’ll give up, too. Stop trying so hard to figure it all out. Let your mind sort it out and don’t get in its way.
This holiday, spend time with your family and friends. Let yourself laugh. Power down your devices (at least for a little while.) Be present. Reconnect with nature. Go for a walk, confident in the knowledge that the answer will rise up precisely when it is needed and that you will be both aware and relaxed enough to hear it.
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” ~ Mary Oliver
I walk through the world with my eyes and ears wide open. I take in as much information as I can, even if I’m not sure how or when or why it would be useful. I love those moments when I realize that something I saw, read, or learned years ago is now immediately relevant in my life. It really strengthens my faith in the power of curiosity and makes me wonder if there is always some divine work at play.
Are we given lessons now so that we acquire knowledge and experience that we will need many years down the road? Is today’s challenge preparing us to meet tomorrow with the increased sense of vigor and determination that we will need to get through?
Questions like this make any difficulty I face more palpable. Time and time again in my life, I’ve seen how this plays out. There are no coincidences. If I am willing to be a student in every experience, there is always something to learn that is useful down the line. Even the challenges. Especially the challenges. They are tough to live through but my goodness do they teach us better than any circumstance of our own design.
We innovate because we are challenged. We rise up because something attempts to keep us down. We reach out to others with empathy and compassion because we understand the circumstances they face and because someone gave us a hand up when we really needed it.
Awareness helps us to wake up to the gifts that this Universe has to offer, even if those gifts are cloaked in packages that seem undesirable. Pay attention to what the world offers – it’s found its way to our path for a reason. Our job is to make each of these lessons useful.
“I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.” ~ Philip Yancey via my pal, Lisa, the lovely Charmed Yogi
About a year and a half ago, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at developing an independent consulting practice to freelance full-time on projects that are meaningful to me. A meticulous personal financial planner, I knew it would take me a year to put away enough money to feel comfortable to make this leap with my whole heart. I knew the final number I needed to have in the bank and set up monthly savings goals to reach it.
I made a deal with myself that I would try this lifestyle for 6 months, working my tail off to try to make ends meet. If I could cover all of my expenses by the end of 6 months, then I could keep going. If I couldn’t, I would look for full-time work again. And just to keep things interesting, I had to be very passionate about the freelance assignments I took.
June 15th of this year was Leap Day for me. I had my Mary Tyler Moore moment, wished my former employer a fond farewell, and off I went into the great big world of freelancing. While much of that time has been as close to career nirvana as I’ve ever had, these last few weeks have been slightly fraught with anxiety. December 15th is quickly approaching. I have turned down a fair amount of work because I just didn’t feel passionate about it. There were a couple of assignments I deeply wanted to secure that didn’t come to pass. I started to realize that I may not reach my goal, despite my very best efforts. A full-time job search looked inevitable.
And then in 24 hours it all turned around. I’m elated, over-the-moon, pleased as punch, ecstatic, and grateful beyond measure that I started a short-term assignment yesterday that put me in the black. With a couple of weeks to spare, I hit my goal of covering all of my expenses with freelance work by December 15th. I even have a little bit extra to put back into my savings and this gig has the potential to create a steady stream of wonderful, well-paid work into 2013.
Thank you so much to everyone who believed that this lifestyle could work for me, who cheered me on, who shared in this incredible journey in so many ways. I am humbled by your belief in me and deeply appreciative of the encouragement. I’ll find some way to say thank you that reflects just how much your support means to me. Happy holidays indeed!
I had dinner with my friend, Amanda, last night. She and her husband, Jordan, are my sages of freelance work. For all its lovely and numerous benefits, being a freelancer can leave you feeling like the 3 ring circus is a cakewalk. We juggle multiple clients, completing all of the work in front of us ahead of schedule and under budget, while also seeding the ground for future work. Dr. Seuss must have been channeling his inner freelancer when he wrote “life is just a great balancing act.”
The keys are to keep breathing and do the best you can every day. On Monday I was feeling a little down-trodden by the endless treadmill of excavating leads and today one of those leads hit big-time and I’m starting a new short-term contract with great people doing great work. Amanda explained that the nature of this freelance beast is sometimes you’ll have so much work that you need to turn some of it down and before you know it you’ll be knocking on 100 doors just to get 1 to open (maybe). That’s the gig and to thrive in it, you need to understand it and relish every step of the way, whether those steps involve feast or famine.
My yoga practice helps. My yoga teaching helps. Writing helps. Dear friends like Amanda and Jordan help. To keep your sanity, keep breathing and keep working. That’s the game. Play it as it lays.
I walk into the produce department at Whole Foods or Westside Market and I breathe easier. My kitchen and its humble tools beckon me away from my laptop. In the past week I’ve made my own chicken stock from scratch for the first time (it is so much better than stock I buy), whipped up a hot and hearty bowl of soup with items I had on-hand, made an entire meal courtesy of my grill pan, and saved some sad-looking apples from the fate of the trash can by quickly turning them into homemade apple sauce.
On Wednesday I was very early to a meeting by Grand Central Station due to an easier-than-expected commute and found myself wandering through the gourmet food market. I couldn’t get enough of all of the interesting hand-made, hand-cut, hand-mixed goodies. For the first time in a long time, I consciously felt all of my senses fully engaged and activated. As my senses opened up, so did my heart. I could have stayed there all afternoon. I was swooning over local food products as if I had a teenage crush. It was….wonderful.
Food memoirs are among my most treasured reads because there is so much history, mystery, and emotion literally folded into the foods we eat. Food and recipes connect us across generations, time zones, and cultures. They are our tie to the past and our gateway to the future.
As I think about future passion projects, I’m wondering how I might position my love of and fascination with food into my professional work. There must be a way. While turning that thought over in mind, I’m going to toddle back over to my stand-up kitchen to see which ingredients are jumping up and down saying “Pick me! Pick me!” Who knows…I may even bake a pie.
I read 
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” ~ Mary Oliver
Christa Avampato 