Category: Second Step

clarity, cooking, dreams, Second Step, sleep

Beautiful: Making Bread Overnight and Writing in Dreams

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

Bread making and sleep are magical processes. I put flour, salt, yeast, and water into a bowl in specific proportions, mix them up, cover the dough, and let it sit for 20 hours. When I wake up the next morning, it’s transformed into the perfect sticky consistency because I left it alone. When I need a booster shot of inspiration for my writing, I stuff my brain full of information that relates to what I’m trying to write and then I let my brain work it out while I sleep. Just as the light of day starts to filter into my apartment, the words I need start to filter right into my mind as I’m half-awake. I grab my pen and paper to get it all down.

The trick is to give your work what it needs and then walk away. Get the right ingredients into the right environment to work together. Arm yourself with data and information that your brain can sift and mesh together. The process is about you, and it’s also about you getting out-of-the-way. There’s a little mystery in creativity, a little magic inside each of us. There’s a time to work and a time to give up, and we need to do both to come up with something that’s inspired and inspiring.

child, children, happiness, Second Step, work

Beautiful: Keep the Spirit of a Child

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

Have you ever watched a kid at “work”? He or she is so absorbed that nothing else matters. There’s no checking the clock to see how much time has passed. There’s no distraction or boredom or frustration. Just pure focus. They are so fascinated by what they’re doing that they don’t want to do anything else.

I’m convinced that this is the secret to happiness, to be so in love with the work at hand that just the act of doing it is its own reward. In that work we will find our greatest talents, a peace that can’t be disturbed, a joy that can barely be described. That’s what we’re aiming for – to love our work so much that it becomes play, that there is no separation between our head and our heart. Then the feeling of fulfillment becomes not something we pursue. It’s just something that we are.

change, dreams, Second Step

Beautiful: Small Steps

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

I’m all for big leaps. Big, daring gestures that signal a new beginning. I’m also a fan of small steps, those tiny changes we make in our day-to-day that add up over time through dedication and hard work. Tiny steps can be frustrating. We want so much to move forward quickly and efficiently. When we’re ready for change we want it right here, right now in a big way that we can feel and others can see. However, there is so much beauty, so much learning in those tiny steps. They are no less worthy and deserve every bit as much celebration as the big ones. They pave the way, too. So don’t wait and save yourself for the opportunity to take a big step. If you can take a small one today, then do it. It’s still progress. It still has value and meaning. It helps prepare us for the big step that eventually we will be able to make.

dreams, Second Step

Beautiful: Why Not You?

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

We focus too much on obstacles. We think about all the competition, how difficult it is to do the things we want to do. Here’s what I know: it’s all hard. Everything has its challenges. There isn’t a single dream out there that lacks its fair share of stumbling blocks. Challenges show us just how much we really want something. Do we give up at the first sign of difficulty or do we find another way around, over, and through anything that blocks our path? Challenges reveal our dedication. They test us. And in the end they save us time by giving us new skills, renewed strength, and the knowledge of whether or not this is a dream that’s worth chasing down. When you think about your dreams, stop asking yourself, “Why me? Why should I be able to do this?” and starting saying, “Why not me? Why shouldn’t I have every dream I’m willing to work for?” Pretty soon, it won’t be a question of if. Only a question of when.

adventure, dreams, Second Step

Beautiful: Stop Waiting and Build

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

You might think you need a class, or a degree, or more experience, time, or money. Maybe you do. Or maybe too many people have questioned your ideas and your dreams and that’s worn you out. Maybe the doubt demons rally every time you start to think it might be time to take a chance. If I had to place a bet, I’d say you’re abundantly ready to make your move. You have what you need, and most importantly, you have heart. And passion. And ambition. You can learn the rest as you go, and there will be a lot to learn but that’s part of the fun. And the adventure. You can’t continue to bury dreams. You can’t settle for being less than you know you can be. You have to rise up. Take a chance. Let go. And see where the path leads. Put one foot in front of the other. Take it step by step. Day by day. Before you know it, you’ll be running. Then flying. Then taking others along with you. You’ve got what it takes. Now go show the world. Go do. Be. Build.

creativity, Second Step, work, writing

Beautiful: Creative Order in the Mess

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

Do you feel like you’re making a mess by following your heart? That happens. Every day, I have to sift my way through a to-do list that’s always too long and never done, competing sets of priorities, different opportunities that fly across my eyes and get lodged in my mind. Last night I got to 8:00pm after working since 6:00am and I left like the spaghetti that was coiled around my dinner fork as I sat at my computer, still playing catch-up. I had to laugh at myself. Why did my desk seem to get more cluttered, not less, as the day went on?

I sat in the middle of my mess – on my desk and in my mind – and tried to see the beauty. It was there. It always is. Inspirations on scraps of papers in separate piles, contacts scribbled on my whiteboard, reference material tacked on my cork boards, an endless slate of tabs open in my internet browser.

I grabbed Phin’s leash and we took a spin around the chilly block in the dark. Winter’s settling in again and I’m looking forward to it. I always do. A time for hunkering down. The darkness outside always reminds me of the light within. It lets me be alone in my thoughts. It gives me time to play in my favorite place, my imagination. It also hides just enough of the messy work of creativity so that I can’t really be bothered by my ability to only see the very next step and not the whole staircase of my path.

In the dark, I plod on one foot in front of the other, one day at a time. Inch by inch. I build whatever it is I’m building brick by brick, without a set blueprint nor timeline. The thing with creative work is that you can set the stage but you can’t force the action. It comes in bits and pieces and you have to grab them as they arrive. I always find walking helps them rise to the top. We actively move them out of our minds and into being.

I got back home with Phin. He headed for his warm bed. I went back to my desk. The mess was still there – after all I am by choice flying solo with this work so no one else is going to do this for me – but now I could see the order appearing. On its own terms, though getting clearer all the time.

freedom, happiness, Second Step

Beautiful: We Can Have Both Freedom and Happiness

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

I’m blessed beyond belief that I do what I love and love what I do. It wasn’t always this way. For a long time I had to choose between one or the other. Freedom and happiness don’t always go together. I’ve had financial freedom with little happiness and a lot of happiness with little financial freedom. I had to put myself on a course to figure out what I love and then on another course to figure out how to make a living from it. It’s still a work in progress, day by day, month by month. And though I have regularly scheduled freak out periods that always strike on or around 2am, I wake up every morning raring to go on a path that holds freedom and happiness in equal and high regard. The freak out periods are just fuel to stay the course.

fear, Second Step

Beautiful: It’s Okay to Be Scared

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

Fear isn’t such a terrible thing. It shows us what we’re made of. What matters. Fear points the way to newness. New heights to be scaled. New things to learn. And ways to grow. Fear is only dangerous if it stops us from living the lives we want to live. If it prevents us from fulfilling a dream. Everything I ever wanted to do, everything I ever did that I’m really grateful that I had the chance to do, started out as something I was afraid of. So when fear shows up, I don’t cower. I don’t turn tail and run. I say thank you. And then I leap.

change, science, Second Step

Beautiful: We Have to Make Inertia Work For Us

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

Though I left engineering school after a year, I’m still a hopeless nerd for physics. One of my favorite principles is inertia – a body in motion stays in motion and a body at rest stays at rest until acted upon by an outside force. It’s true for physical matter, and true for the trajectory of our lives as well. We do what we’re doing until there’s a change.

For our lives, that change can be internal or external. We can choose it. We can slow down when we’re going too fast, and we can get ourselves in gear if we feel stuck. It takes a great deal of effort to cause that shift, but it’s possible.

Eventually something in life is going to throw us a roadblock and we’ll have to pivot and change. That is the game. That is the dance. Change within or accept the change forced from the outside. I’d always rather be the master of my own pivot so I keep changing, growing, evolving, transforming. It’s all I know how to do so I keep going. Which is its own kind of inertia. Ah inertia – the force of life that keeps on giving and follows us everywhere.

career, commitment, dreams, Second Step, writer

Beautiful: With Time and Commitment, We Get the Lives and Careers We Want

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

About 10 years ago, my sister, Weez, had a difficult health issue. (Don’t worry – she is completely healed, healthy, and sassy now.) In those scary days, her doctor said something that has always struck me as quite possibly the best thing that any doctor has ever said to anyone facing an illness. “I don’t fish. I don’t play golf. I am a doctor. This is my hobby. It’s all I do.” For all the talk about balance between work and life, this doctor’s maniacal focus on his work was exactly what my sister needed to hear.

Rather than building careers that we need a break from, that wear us out and deplete us to the point that a vacation is the only remedy, what if we find a way to build careers that build us up and give us energy? What if we all had careers that mattered so much to us that a separation between work and life was unnecessary, unwanted?

I know this may sound like la-la land to some people. It certainly did to me a few years ago, though now this is exactly the career I have. I wake up every day and write. What I used to do as a hobby on the side is now my focus. I write early in the morning and late into the night. I shut it down when my eyes grow tired or when Phineas lets me know it’s time for his late evening walk before he puts himself to bed, whichever comes first. I work a lot of hours, every day, and I don’t mind at all because I work at the craft that helped me build a life I love, no balancing act required.

I want you to know it’s possible. Even if you have a lot of difficulties, even if all you’ve known is difficulties, it can happen. The only reason I can say this with such confidence is because I came from very tough circumstances. Every step on this journey was tough and took a great deal of effort, and that’s okay. I wanted this enough to work hard for it. It takes planning, patience, time, and passion. I have to commit every day to this path, and it’s still not easy. It is always worth it. Every day, I wrap it up and say thank you because I know just how amazing it is to finally be right here, in this place, doing exactly what I love. I’m a writer, a working writer, exactly what I always wanted to be.