Category: goals

encouragement, frustration, future, goals, growth, passion, patience

Step 338: Rainbows and Rain

Christa Avampato

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” ~ Dolly Parton

When I was in Florida, rainbows were popping up everywhere. It had been a long time since I’d seen a rainbow, and in many ways I felt like the ones I saw in Florida were a sign that I’m going in the right direction. This year is my one year anniversary working with Brian. For a year I’ve been working hard on myself, digging deep into what I’ve come from, where I really am, and where I want to go. In one year, I’ve seen a huge transformation in my life: my confidence has grown, my authenticity has come shining through, and I feel positioned to live my very best life going forward.

The road to self-discovery can be difficult. I had dinner with my friend, Michael, this week and we talked about how much effort and energy it takes to find the work we’re truly meant to do. It’s much easier to take what comes our way, but it’s another thing entirely seek out and fulfill a personal mission. It can feel risky to build our own road rather than travel the one laid out before us, though ultimately a truly fulfilling and extraordinary life is one we live by our own self-designed principles.

There will be a lot of rain that falls as we build our own road, one small brick at a time. The pace of progress, particularly in the beginning, can seem slow and frustrating. I encourage you to please keep going, keep seeking. This world needs the very best of each of us, and we owe it to ourselves in this lifetime to find out what it is we are meant to do. Building strength, courage, and skill takes time, but the rewards we can reap once we have them are invaluable. The rainbow is out there.

The photo above is a picture of a double-Rainbow I took at Disney World last month.

choices, decision-making, goals

Step 335: Focus on the Heart

Christa Avampato

The lunch with the General Counsel at my company yesterday spurred a few other ideas that I’ll detail in blog posts today and tomorrow. the one for today revolves around focus. The company I work tried to be all things to all people for a very long time. If you wanted a financial product or service, we had something for you. The trouble is when we spread ourselves so thin and try to be a jack of all trades, we end up not really doing any one thing particularly well.

Eventually, we divested most of our ancillary business lines and focused our attention on what we knew we could do really well. Yes, we gave up some potential opportunities, but we realized huge benefits with our focus. In all honesty it’s that focus more than anything else that helped us to survive the recession more or less intact and what is driving our growth, even though the economy now is so sluggish.

This example begs the question of not what should we do, but what should we stop doing or not take up at all? I’m looking at all of my projects and interests now as I turn the corner of December and look straight into the eyes of 2011. What am I doing with my time? Where am I focusing my energy?

In 2011, I am not going to pursue my afterschool curriculum about product development. I love the idea. I really want to bring it to life. But now is not the right moment. I don’t have the time I really need to devote to it to get it to go. It’s a full-time job. If I really follow my heart, it always leads me back to my yoga and my writing. Those are the projects that have me dancing for joy, and I love joy. Those two interests fit together well; they feed one another and they feed my soul. So that’s where my energy and my time are going.

How about you? If you really just follow your heart, where does it lead you?

choices, decision-making, design, goals, imagination, inspiration

Step 333: Harry Potter, Muhammad Yunus, and How to Build a Business

Christa Avampato

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of think about small bets and goals, and the enormous benefits that can be gained by an individual and an entire community. Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and one of my social entrepreneurship idols, is famous for saying that he didn’t set out to help the whole world, or even his whole country of Bangladesh through microfinance. He wanted to help one village of 10 people in 1976 (incidentally, the same year I was born.) 34 years later, it’s deposits now stand at ~$1.4B and the organization has helped 8.3M people out of poverty, 97% of them women. (For more indicators of Grameen’s impact, click here.) He advises entrepreneurs not to build enormous business plans to scale. He tells them to just set one simple intention – help 5 people out of poverty.

Over the weekend, I took my family to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, part of Universal’s Islands of Adventure Theme Park. What they’ve done with the tiny bit of land set aside for Harry Potter is truly wonderful, with a few exceptions which I’m detailing in a letter to send to their President as guest feedback. What was abundantly clear is that they don’t believe that the appeal of Harry Potter will last too long. The Harry Potter part of the park is adjacent to several junky exhibits that should have been ripped out and used to expand the Harry Potter section. With such rich content, an entire park could have been built around that franchise, rather than just a sliver of an existing park land-locked between exhibits with little appeal. So much opportunity wasted due to a lack of belief by Universal in the powerful connection that fans feel to Harry Potter. Sometimes you need to bet the farm, or in Universal’s case at least the Islands of Adventure.

What does Harry Potter have to do with Muhammad Yunus? Quite a bit when we think about passion, belief, and priorities, and how those 3 pieces come together to form a new product that inspires and ignites creativity. Universal went small on an idea that warranted a far bigger bet. Muhammad Yunus bet small, knowing that his success could be replicated the world over if he could help his original group of 10.

The moral of the story – bet small on a brand new idea, but don’t go so small that you paint yourself into a corner.

choices, decision-making, goals, love

Step 330: Focus on Small Intentions

Christa Avampato

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” ~ Mother Teresa

There is a desire in our culture to make everything big, to have all experiences be life altering. We want the very best of everything, always. We are not by nature happy with incremental change and improvement. We are a society focused on drastic shifts; we like to go to extremes.

As I’m reflecting on 2010 and thinking about 2011 goals, I feel that temptation toward big ambitions. And then today I read the quote above and reminded myself about the incredible accomplishments that can come from doing a small handful of things really well. So rather than saying I’ll own my own yoga studio, I’ll rent a tiny space in someone else’s studio and see how it goes. I’ll continue to try to make connections in the medical field to teach yoga as part of an integrative approach to health and wellness – and I’ll do it for free if need be. I’ll put together a book that uses some lessons of yoga to teach basic personal finance.

I’ll go into 2011 one small step at a time and take each step with a lot of love and care. This will be a whole new experiment for me. I’m not good at taking my time. I’m not good at being still, or even just slowing down. Despite my physical stature, small is not a common word in my vocabulary. When people meet me for the first time, they often remark that they thought I’d be taller. To be honest, I wish I was. I make up for it with a personality and opinions that are big and bold. This coming year I’m going to try to lead with my heart first. Small intentions, big love.

The image above can be found here.

goals, meditation, writing, yoga

Step 324: Find New Pathways

Christa Avampato

“I like to think of meditation methods as portals, entry points into the spaciousness that underlies the mind.” ~ Swami Durgananda (Sally Kempton)

As I prepare my plans for 2011, I’m focusing a lot of my energy on the how, or in other words, the doors to my dreams as opposed to the dreams themselves. This passage by Swami Durgananda made me look at my goals in a new way. There are a lot of paths to a dream, and I’m not sure that the path is as critical as I’ve made it out to be.

The analogy of meditation is helpful to me. When I first started meditating as part of my yoga teacher training, I was so focused on the process. Do I leave my eyes open or do I close them? Do I sit, lie down, or walk? Can I listen to music? Should I do pranayama first? After a few months, I found what worked for me – I sit in a comfortable seat, I close my eyes, bring my hands to heart center, and count my breaths. I stopped trying to memorize complex processes because I realized my focus was just to relax and release.

My goal with my yoga classes isn’t to pack the house and make money; it’s to show people what an incredible effect yoga can have on their lives. I don’t write for money or to get tons of clicks, page views, and comments. I write to share my experiences and inspire other people to live fully, and even if I do that for just one person, that’s enough for me. My life isn’t about doing more good in this world than everyone else; it’s about doing as much good as I can possibly do with the resources I have.

When we’re facing roadblocks along our path, it’s easy to get hung up on breaking through. Swami Durgananda has some advice for us on this front: “In approaching the Self, it helps to have a doorway we can comfortably walk through, rather than having to break through the wall of thoughts separating us from our inner space.” It’s not the goal that’s the problem; it’s the approach. Where we begin has very little do with where we end up; what matters more is that we keep trying. So when one road to a dream seems too difficult, there’s no need to let it die on the vine. Just look for another way forward.

The image above can be found here.

goals

Step 305: October Accomplishments and November Goals

Christa Avampato

My favorite time of year begins with Halloween and runs straight through the new year. It always goes by too fast, and long after it’s over I find myself looking back on this time of the year as magical and transformative. As this year of consciously living an extraordinary life draws to a close, I’m grateful for the awareness that this journey brought to my daily living. I’ve loved the reading the comments and emails I received as I made a daily step forward. They kept me going and reminded me of why I hit the “publish” button every day.

October Accomplishments:
1.) Continue work on Innovation Station content and action plan.

I had several fruitful conversations this month that introduced me to potential partners for a pilot. These conversations were encouraging, and helped me see how important this program could be to the students who participate in it. Setting up a pilot is moving slower than I’d like, but I know how important it is to find the right partner for this project. There’s a lot at stake with this pilot, and I have a clear vision of how I want it to unfold. It’s important to find a partner school whose supportive of and enhances that vision.

2.) Spend some quality time with my new pup, Phineas. I adopted him unexpectedly in September, which was a huge surprise goal that has brought so much richness to my life in a very short time. This month I’ll take him in for an evaluation to become a therapy dog. I’d love to get us into the Reading to Dogs program.

Phineas is a much younger dog than I thought he was when I first adopted him. He’ll need to grow out of puppyhood before he’s ready to be a therapy dog. I am surprised by how quickly we’ve bonded and how easily I made room for him in my life. This little guy is teaching me a lot about love and resilience and compassion. He’s making me a better human being.

3.) Continue working on yoga and personal finance book. Now that I’ve got a loose structure in place, I can start to fill it in with the fun stuff.

This has been a gratifying and productive month for the book. I’ve been getting lots of encouragement and gathering resources to fill in the lines I’ve drawn. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me how much this book is needed.

November Goals:

1.) Fully embrace the holidays. This is the first holiday season since 2006 that I’m not attached to a retail business. I love retail but it makes a mess of the holidays with its rapid pace. This year will be the most relaxed holiday season I’ve had in a long time and I plan to take full advantage of it.

2.) Planning, planning, and more planning. Because the holidays can be busy times, movement on projects that require outside input can be challenging. People are away on vacation and pre-occupied with tasks like holiday shopping. As a result, I’ll be using this holiday season to plan for post-holiday action.

Start decking the halls, light a few candles, and make time friends and family. We need every shred of holiday spirit we can get!

goals

Step 276: September Accomplishments and October Goals

Christa Avampato

I’m a few days late on this post because I wanted to write a week-long series about public education, though I’ve been mulling it over in my mind for a few days. The list of October goals is short. October is always a rejuvenating month for me. It always comes as a relief after a busy / hectic / frenetic summer that lasted well into September. October is my take it easy and take good care of myself month, and so it is my favorite of the year.

September Accomplishments:

1.) E-book marketing and expansion continues for Hope in Progress.
I’ve been working on the new formats and spoke with my brother-in-law about a new cover design. It took him about 5 seconds to think of something brilliant, and my sister, Weez, also had some good adds. I’ll post it when the cover is complete and the new formats are ready to roll.

2.) Secure some more sub or regular teaching gigs and private clients for Compass Yoga.
This one worked out better than I expected. This month I start teaching at Columbia Law School and New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I’m exploring some other avenues as well and will continue to track that progress here. I also made some decisions about Compass Yoga to really follow my passion of teaching to under-served populations who can benefit greatly from a regular practice. More to come on that front, too.

3.) Online writing portfolio needed.
I did some investigation into this with a variety of platforms. All of them had their pluses and minuses. Ultimately, I decided to set up a WordPress blog with just my writing as the center stage. I really like Michael Pollan’s website and started to use it as inspiration for the design. When the site is complete, there will be a link on this website and I’ll announce it in a post as well.

4.) My apartment needs a makeover.
It’s amazing what a little paint and some new soft goods will do. My home feels a little more homey now with some color and more personal touches.

5.) I need to put some more time into my new book idea around yoga and personal finance.
I started to sketch out a structure finding inspiration in a lot of how-to guides and workbooks. It’s a fun project that has my mind making new connections all the time between yoga and personal finance. The two are even more linked than I originally suspected.

6.) Continue to grease the skids of Innovation Station.
This one needs some work that I didn’t get to in September. I’ve got lost of notes and ideas scattered about but not the action plan I need and want. And I also want to do some more work on the actual contact. I’ll turn my attention toward that in October, speaking of which…

October Goals:
1.) Continue work on Innovation Station content and action plan.

2.) Spend some quality time with my new pup, Phineas. I adopted him unexpectedly in September, which was a huge surprise goal that has brought so much richness to my life in a very short time. This month I’ll take him in for an evaluation to become a therapy dog. I’d love to get us into the Reading to Dogs program.

3.) Continue working on yoga and personal finance book. Now that I’ve got a loose structure in place, I can start to fill it in with the fun stuff.

That’s it – 3 goals. Short and sweet, just like the glorious month of October. It will be gone before we know it, so I intend to enjoy it while it’s here.

goals

Step 244: August Accomplishments and September Goals

Christa Avampato

The summer is slowly fading into the distance, even if the temperatures outside don’t seem to be subsiding. In a month or so, we’ll be digging out some slightly warmer clothing, starting a new school year, and making holiday travel plans. We may even see a leaf of two put on its own colorful wardrobe. So long summer, until next time.

Fall is my favorite time of and always has been. I always feel most alive during these last months of the year, and it’s always been a time of great change and accomplishment for me. I revel in it. I expect this Fall to be no exception to the norm. I will “celebrate” the 1 year anniversary of my apartment building fire that set off a year of change and transformation, and spend as much time reflecting as I do looking forward. Later in September, I’ll head up north to see my family and celebrate my mom’s retirement and her impending move to Florida with my stepfather. Times, they are always a changin’.

So here’s what’s been cooking over at Chez Christa as the summer winds down and what I’ve got on order for the coming month:

August Accomplishments:
1.) Kick off my viral, guerrilla, and social media marketing class at LIM College

My class fell through at the last-minute, which was a disappointing turn of events. I didn’t stay disappointed for long – as a result, space opened up in my life this Fall for some other wonderful activities and people. For more details, check out my post on the class cancellation.

2.) Make a decision on my apartment lease renewal. I’m thinking about a possible move to Brooklyn and doing some research before I notify my current landlord one way or the other.

I decided to renew the lease on my current apartment. The thought of packing and hauling myself to a new neighborhood wasn’t appealing since I couldn’t find better space for less money in a neighborhood as convenient as the Upper West Side.

3.) Make some headway on my out-of-school education project, Innovation Station. I recently made some valuable partner contacts to keep this idea moving as we head into the school year.

Moving right along and having more conversations with potential partners. Now that school will be back in session this month, the conversations should start to translate into actions.

4.) Do some marketing of my e-book, Hope in Progress.

I did some marketing which yielded some good results. As of August 31st, 413 uniques have downloaded the book. The book has been out for about two months so I think 413 downloads is a pretty decent number considering I haven’t done a big marketing push and the summer is a historically slow sales time. Now that my summer travels have passed, I’ll be doing some more work on marketing the book this Fall. (See #1 below in September’s goals.) To download a copy, click here.

September Goals:

1.) E-book marketing and expansion continues for Hope in Progress. My friend, Dan, asked me to get the book into as many formats as possible as fast as possible. He also said that the book may benefit from a new cover. I’m going to talk to my artist brother-in-law about helping me with the new cover. I like the image on the current cover but Dan’s right – it needs more pop. More formats and marketing on the way…

2.) Secure some more sub or regular teaching gigs and private clients for Compass Yoga. I’ve been added to the sub list at the Downtown Community Center, and there’s also a sub possibility brewing at Columbia University. Now that the summer is ending and people are returning to their routine lives, the yoga should pick up, too. I’ll also begin to more marketing on this front to get some additional private clients – so far I’ve stay close to home on drumming up business. Now that I have more time this Fall, I can devote more time to Compass.

3.) Online writing portfolio needed. I have a page on this blog with links to my freelance writing. With all the links, I now need a more formal portfolio. I’ve been in touch with several different services and now I’m weighing the options. More to come when it’s up and running.

4.) My apartment needs a makeover. Now that I’ve decided to stay in my apartment for another year, I’m going to add some color and new touches to my place. I’ll also take some time to de-clutter and reorganize myself after a whirlwind summer.

5.) I need to put some more time into my new book idea around yoga and personal finance. My friends, Dan and Sara, were very encouraging of the idea over the past few days. I think I’ve got something here…

6.) Continue to grease the skids of Innovation Station. As the school year kicks into high gear, I want to make sure that by next Spring I’ve completed a pilot program of some kind to really put some training wheels on this idea and see if I can get it to go.

Happy Fall, y’all! What are you planning?

goals, marketing, New York City, priorities, work, youth

Step 237: Do You Want to “Arrive”?

Christa Avampato

I always know that something is afoot in the universe when the subject of a conversation I have with a friend is echoed in a conversation I have at work the very next day. Last night I had dinner with my friend, Courtney, and we talked a lot about “arriving”, both in a professional and work sense. I met Courtney through my yoga teacher training and as new teachers we’re both trying to find our way through the complicated maze of the wellness industry. She and I are both contemplating full-time career moves as well.

We talked about relationships and living in New York City, a city whose residents strive to arrive in every aspect of our lives and yet are also always reaching for that next rung up. After all, most of us moved here to prove we could make it here, and therefore make it anywhere. (Thank you, Frank, for writing that succinct, poetic line to describe our complicated, collective goal.) Because we live in this delicate balance of thriving and striving, it’s hard to know when we’ve actually made it.

I work full-time as a product developer for a premium financial institution. Like many luxury brands, our brand halo has always had the understanding that once you carry our brand in your portfolio, you’ve made it big time. It’s a sentiment that’s served us well except for one tiny, recent glitch: many young people (young Gen X, Gen Y, and Millennials) don’t feel like they’ve made it yet and therefore don’t have a sense of belonging with our brand as they do with many others. It’s a tough nut for us to crack since we’ve spent over 100 years touting ourselves as aspirational and a recent market study showed that young people today are choosing to grow up later in life than previous generations. The real risk for us is that if we don’t grow loyalty among the youth segment now, we actually won’t be relevant to them once they do feel like they’ve made it.

I’m a cusp Gen X / Gen Y so I understand this mentality. In truth, I’m not sure that I’ll ever feel like I’ve arrived and a large part of me doesn’t want to feel that way. I live in New York City because I actually love striving, pushing my limits, and the feeling I get from growing, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, every day. Honestly, if you’re not interested in growth and change, I would recommend living someplace else. New York City is just too difficult a place to make your home unless you love to push yourself every day. I love New York City – I’m probably a lifer – but it is not for everyone and I understand why people choose to move. There’s no shame in that at all; it’s just a matter of priorities.

When I think about the youth dilemma facing my company, I think we’ve got one clear choice: Do you want to be a brand that rewards people once they feel like they’ve arrived at some idealized financial state or do you want to help people strive, accomplish, and push their boundaries no matter where they are on the “arrival spectrum”. That’s a very different kind of brand attitude that requires a new overarching brand strategy and quite a shake-up at my company. It’s a question worth pondering and acting upon – living in a state of limbo and identity crisis doesn’t help anyone, and in actuality it’s a sure-fire way to become irrelevant. Eventually, you’ve got to say “this is who I am” and be with the people who support that.

goals, opportunity, success

Step 213: My July Accomplishments and August Goals

Christa Avampato

“When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.” ~ Susan Sarandon

I definitely felt the world opening up to me in July. Many times, in ways I never expected. It was a month of great learning.

July Goals:
1.) Soak up the sun in Greece and enjoy every second of my teacher training time with Shiva Rea.

This didn’t go according to plan. The retreat was much less than enjoyable than I expected though I learned so much about myself and my yoga. Greece is a beautiful country and I am glad I got to see it, particularly for a day in Athens. The retreat fell below expectations, so much so that I can’t say with honesty that I will continue to study Shiva’s style. Instead, I am branching out and exploring other styles. For more reflections on my retreat, click here.

2.) Meet my little niece, Aubree, and hang with my sis and older niece, Lorelei.

We had a fantastic time together in Florida. I am so glad I got to spend so much time with my nieces. I miss them every day and realized that I need more geographic flexibility in my life to spend time with them. The photo in this post is me and my little cuties at my sister’s house.

3.) Begin actively looking for a weekly yoga class to teach in NYC at an established gym or studio.

I contacted the Downtown Community Center in the Financial District and scored a spot on their sub list. More to come when I have my first class there…

4.) Begin thinking about my next e-book. (I’m taking suggestions!)

I have done quite a bit of work on this front. I am working on a new blog that will lead to an online workbook type of publication to help people use their yoga practice to shape their personal financial plans. For a little sneak preview, check out my recent guest post on Elephant Journal.

5.) Continue prep work for my LIM College class that I will start teaching in the Fall: Viral, Guerilla, and Social Media Marketing.

I got the syllabus in good shape. Not finalized, but heading in a solid direction. I’ve met with the head of the marketing department several times to review a structure and format, and I selected the different weekly topics. I also accepted that I will make up a good deal of this course on the fly. The world of new media changes too quickly to lay it all out months ahead of time. Relevance of the moment makes improvisation as necessity.

6.) Do some marketing of my e-book, Hope in Progress: 27 Entrepreneurs Who Inspired Me During the Great Recession.

This is a goal that I just didn’t get to this month. Moving to August list.

August Goals:
1.) Kick off my viral, guerrilla, and social media marketing class at LIM College

2.) Make a decision on my apartment lease renewal. I’m thinking about a possible move to Brooklyn and doing some research before I notify my current landlord one way or the other.

3.) Make some headway on my out-of-school education project, Innovation Station. I recently made some valuable partner contacts to keep this idea moving as we head into the school year.

4.) Do some marketing of my e-book. (From July’s goals.)

That seems like a good list to round out the summer. I hoped the summer would have more relaxation time, though life doesn’t always toss us what we hope to have. My 2010 so far involved holding on and enjoying the ride as much as I can. I expect the next 5 months to take the same course.