I love new books. Books are my guilty pleasure. I could wander the peacefulness of the bookstore, breathing its scent for hours.

Not on Saturday.

The bookstore had been overcome with Vultures. Borders had announced its “Going Out of Business Sale” and the Hoarders and Deal Mongers had crawled out of the woodwork to make sure they got their 10% off of every book and nook and cranny the store had to offer. Even the furniture had to go. They were leaving no stone—or paperback- unturned.

The line snaked from the front door all the way through the different aisles and wound and wound again and again, with person after person, loaded with stacks of books and trinkets.

I stood there, frozen in shock, my eyes welling up, my throat constricting in pain, totally unprepared for the wall of emotion that attacked me at my core.

I felt like Jesus at the temple. I wanted to toss over the tables of books, scream at the people to get out, just get out, and remind them that had they been there in the first place, buying their stacks of heavy-laden books, that this wouldn’t be happening now. That it was too little, too late, and they should all just get out and go pay homage to their god, Amazon.

I did nothing.

Except to wonder at my own sin. Had I bought enough? Had I visited enough? Was I an accomplice in this disaster? Was there nothing that could have been done? Where would I go to hang out with my books?

We left.

My husband thought I was taking this a little too hard. I’m sure he has a lot of agreement out there.

However, I fear there may be a day coming when I won’t be able to hold a book in my hand before I decide to buy it. A day coming when I won’t remember the smell of a leather book, when I won’t hold a child on my lap and open my copies of The Tales of Winnie the Pooh or The Secret Garden to page ten.

I’ll click on my Kindle.

It won’t be the same.

It feels scary. It’s unsettling and I feel out of control. I want my bookstore back, dammit.

Change is hard. For me, it’s the bookstore. The changing of the guard, the changing of a simple habit, a simple reassuring pleasure. For you, it’s something else. But change comes to us all, one way or another, sometimes when we least expect it, unraveling our well-laid plans, our rules and our truths, requiring us to see things in a new light.

We have no power over some kinds of change. We have no power over the tidal waves of  traumatic illness that come out of nowhere, death, unexpected job loss, spouses that up and leave, and betrayal that shakes us to our core.

And then there are the smaller things, like bookstores closing that—at the time—feel like they also are a horrible tragedy. We have no power over those changes either.

It used to be that when I went through one of these changes, one of these moments of feeling out of control, out of power, unsettled or rocked to my boots, either by the big things, or by one of the smaller things, I used to retreat and hide.

My emotions scared me. So, I tried hard not to feel them. I tried hard NOT to live Wide Awake. I tried to live Numb. I tried to get empty.

Instead, I opened the refrigerator and ate everything that wasn’t tied down. Instead, I tried to hide in novel after novel and not come back out to the real world. Or I wrote my own stories where I could be in charge. I hid in front of the TV. For awhile, I even got into running and tried to run away from myself.

 I wasn’t fast enough.

None of that worked. (Though I did get in shape with the running.)

I made a scary commitment to live Wide Awake and that meant living through not only the good emotions, but the bad, sad and scary ones as well. Even the out of control ones.

That means that even though not everyone in the world is going to mourn the loss of a big box bookstore, and that some people will think I am a sniveling big baby for crying over its demise, I have to own up to the fact that those are truly, my very own scary, out of control-oh-my-god-what-is-this-world-coming-to-emotions…and that…even if other people have logical, reasonable opinions about why none of this matters…

That doesn’t matter.

Because it matters to my heart—and to my feelings of being in control with change in the world and how I need to evolve with that. I know that once I accept how I feel, look at it and move through it—I can get past it. No apologies necessary. It’s how I felt and that’s okay.

This isn’t an article about a bookstore. This is about me and you. This is about all of us, and about the times we hide from our fears because of what we think we are supposed to feel and act and do, instead of looking at our real emotions, feeling them and then dealing with them once and for all.

What makes you feel out of control? How do you deal with it?

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” ~Admose Redmoon

Have you ever felt emotionally trapped? Ever felt stuck? Ever felt like you are held in a pattern of procrastination with no way to escape?  I know I have. I can safely raise my hand to every single one of those questions and give detailed examples of all of them. Many times over.

As a child, I suffered from large bouts of anxiety that would keep me awake at nights and frozen in my path. My entire being would get stuck on a series of “What if’s” that would paralyze me into inaction. The cure from such a life-sucking affliction didn’t come overnight, nor did it come in a magic pill. I fought with this nightmare for several painful years.

I tried to ignore the fears. I tried to shut them off as they spun endlessly around in my head, creating scenarios of the future too terrifying to face.

Ignoring  my fears didn’t work. It was like trying to stuff a tsunami back in the ocean. They were way too fast and way too deadly to contain. My fears were destroying my life.

It was midway through my teenage years before the first hints of change occurred. I began to see that my anxieties and fears were tied into my ability as a storyteller. I realized one day that the story my fear-ridden brain had concocted was just that. A Story. Fiction. Something that my brain had created, imagined, and powerfully claimed as a fact.

A paradigm shift began to occur. If my brain could create THAT story, a story that was negatively impacting my life, why couldn’t my brain begin to concoct other stories as well? Stories that created me to be powerful, successful, action-oriented, positive and brave?

It was the beginning of understanding the first Key to Freedom.

Thoughts are changeable and we have the power to change them.

Yet, in the beginning, it still didn’t work as well as I would have liked. I began a battle of the thoughts inside my head. Life was an on-going mental argument with two sides of my being entrenched in a battle for my brain.

“I am a powerful, successful person and I succeed at what I do…”

“Yeah right, the truth is you are a distracted, frightened little girl and the entire world is going to figure out how shy and scared you are all the time.”

“No, really…I am a powerful, successful person.”

“Yeah right…sell that story elsewhere, cause the mirror ain’t buying…”

SIGH. It went on for years. I had some wins with the good thoughts, but the bad ones hovered, ruining many of my possibilities.

I was in my mid-twenties (and in therapy) before the next key to unlocking the cage fell into my lap.

Our thoughts and words are not the beginning of the trail but instead the PRODUCT of our inner beliefs.

I wasn’t fighting the right battle.  I hadn’t been addressing the right Bad Guy in my brain. I had been fighting the symptom, not the cause.

I had to take a long hard look at my BELIEFS about fear and my limitations. It wasn’t easy either. I had to go digging with a very large shovel. Many of my beliefs were hidden from me as Rules that I thought were hard-cold facts of life. I had no idea that these beliefs were just as much fiction as the thoughts I had created.

Top Six Fear-Based beliefs and How They Stopped Me in My Tracks.

Rejection/Abandonment- Everyone ultimately leaves me, so what’s the use of trying?

Failure- I am a failure, I never get anything right. Might as well give up before I even start.

Judgment- They are all laughing at me, they can see what a loser I am. Everyone else is much better than me. If I hide, maybe they won’t know….

Success- If I make it big-time, I won’t be able to handle it so there is no point in trying. Might as well not set myself up for the stress and frustration.

Control- If I can control everything that happens in my life, I can get it to turn out the way I want. I can’t trust other people to help me or my life goals.

Confrontation- If I express my needs, it can be dangerous, terrifying or lonely. Better to keep quiet and go along with the crowd.

There were more, (therapy and coaching was a very important part of my growth,) but these were the beliefs I was secretly harboring that planted the daily thoughts of failure and fear. Until I began fighting back against these wrong belief systems, I hadn’t stood a chance of fighting every single thought that sprouted from these abundant seeds.

The Next Key to unlocking the grip that fear had on my life was in staring down every single one of these beliefs and calling them out as the LIE that they were.

Rejection/ Abandonment It isn’t true that every person in my life has abandoned me. A FEW people have rejected and abandoned me. By allowing those few memories and experiences to overpower my path, I was standing in the way of many loving and amazing relationships. I had to step out in courage and allow myself to take a chance, and then accept the truth staring me in the face. I had wonderful, loving relationships that I hadn’t been acknowledging or giving gratitude for.

Failure It isn’t true that I am a failure at everything. I have failed and made mistakes that have led me to become better than ever and very powerful and successful at my goals. My failures are a natural path to my greatness. Talk about a mental shift! Instead of fearing every failure, I learned to embrace them for the tools to enlightenment that they actually are!

Judgment It isn’t true that the entire world is spending all of its energy judging me. The fact is that most people are so busy being hard on themselves; they don’t have the energy to focus on me. And when they do, it’s because they are hiding from the fears that are guiding their steps and isn’t a reflection on who I am or what I do. Ultimately, judging anyone only hurts us. I had to realize the part I was playing in judging others to hide from myself. When I stop doing it, I stop seeing others doing it as well.

Success It is a lie that I can’t handle success. (This was a really hard one for me) It is a lie that when I am successful life goes to hell in a hand basket. The truth is there are hundreds and hundreds of areas and projects that I have been very successful at and that have not set off a hand grenade into my life. I am capable of a Both/And life of success AND happiness. All I have to do is create strategies and systems to manage my increasing success in a positive way.

Control It isn’t true that in order to be happy and safe, I have to be in control of everything. By believing that, I cut off the wonder and power of teamwork, masterminds, partnerships, love and friendship. My life has PROVEN to me that these are much more valuable and unstoppable than my limited ability to run the world. My name is Wendi, not God, and He has it covered. I can relax and enjoy His Creations.

Confrontation The truth is that confrontation is a valuable part of living life and communicating authentically, happily and honesty. I am capable of confronting in love and truth without warfare or drama. I am actually appreciated for my honesty and my ability to value others in truth.

The Ongoing Truth

Our Belief systems aren’t stagnant. We are like machines, gathering and analyzing data as experiences change our day-to-day lives. Whatever Rules, or Belief System we are currently promoting, our subconscious will look for ways to PROVE that it is true. It doesn’t matter to your brain if your guiding believes are positive or negative, it will accommodate your reasons to hold on to this belief with all your heart. If you want to change your guiding beliefs, you will have to fight back with the positive evidence to back up your new claims. Just because I know how it works doesn’t mean I have discovered a one-time cure. My beliefs are evaluated daily and examined for the truth and power they have over my life.

The Ring of Keys that Keep the Cage Open.

Gratitude Writing in a gratitude journal has taught me to acknowledge- and be on the look out for- the positive and successful moments in each day. When we focus on the fear, the fear is all we see. When we focus on the gifts of life, our focus turns to abundance.

Journaling I have a journal that I share my deepest, darkest frustrations with. I allow myself to tell the truth about how I am feeling and experiencing life. But rather than making it a dumping ground for garbage, I actually then read it as if I was my own coach. I ask, “If I was coaching myself on these thoughts, what would I tell myself if I were a loved friend or client?” My experience is that we have all the answers we need; sometimes we just need a kind and loving viewpoint to help us change our viewpoint.

Celebrating When the good stuff of life happens, CELEBRATE it! Our minds need to acknowledge happy memories, successes and experiences to make them real. So many times in life, we discount the good as a “Fluke” and then record the bad as the “Truth” Turn it around! Make every victory the celebrated Truth of your life!

Ongoing Maintenance. There is a very good reason the Bible says, “Pray without ceasing”. When we keep our minds filled with positive energy and experiences, and focus on helping others grow, there is very little room for the seeds of doubt and fear to take hold. We need to be vigilant to keep the ongoing journey of our beliefs as focused and on PURPOSE as possible. Don’t take for granted that your beliefs are maintaining themselves. YOU be in charge of filling your computer mind with data, and don’t leave it up to your subconscious mind to fill in the facts for you.

There is no secret cure. But there IS a daily solution and you are holding all the keys you ever need to beat Fear at its own game. Ready to win? It’s easier than you think. Just BELIEVE you CAN and you WILL.

Solitude is Impractical and Yet, Society is Fatal.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the things that surprised me the most in the land of blogging was how many introverts I was destined to meet on-line. In retrospect, I’m not sure why. After all, I’m a closet introvert myself, as are many of my blogging and on-line business friends.  The obscurity of hiding behind a computer screen makes a perfect shield for someone who needs to recharge their social batteries more often than our extroverted counter-parts. We can pick and choose how often—and when—we need to walk away to put back on our social smile and friendly face, or bring on that enthusiastic attitude that keeps the land of the internet such a nice, grumpy-free place to reside.

That is until we try to turn our friendly little blogs into an on-line business. The rules of engaging in a successful business aren’t as accommodating for introverts who like to hide away half the day, skirting away from difficult conversations with people who may or may not agree with what we have to say.

It is a rare introvert who has the energy-infused stamina to stand up to forty hours of draining conversations with business prospects, hunting up new potential clients and putting their authentic, heart-worn souls on the line for the entire world to see.

Most introverts are better at hiding than show and tell.  In a large corporation, there are plenty of jobs for the people-pleasing introvert to hide away in a corner ducking under the drama of the day-to-day interaction. But what happens when the Introvert is the CEO of their own one-person company? And often the CEO of the homefront as well? How do you manage the balance between life and business when you are all you have to get the job done? How do you hide then?

Lost productivity, missed opportunities, unspoken marketing messages and a lack of clarity are only a few of the symptoms of a company run by the typically shy, insecure introvert owner of a small business. Especially when the leader of the company feels too frozen to step up and speak out.

Take Heart, There IS A Solution

It isn’t hopeless. I’ve already admitted to being an introvert myself. That fact surprises most people until they get to know me very, very well. I have a high energy level, a frequently positive disposition and a reputation for being very outspoken and “Telling it like it is.” Not what you would expect in your average introvert. It isn’t that I’m cured. I don’t believe that being introverted is anything that needs “Curing”. We are created the way we are for very important reasons. We are creative, reflective, thoughtful, empathic people who require a lot of energy to process information and create. When we are fully charged, we are capable of amazing things. The trick is in realizing the potential of the Creative Introvert and learning how to make it work for our lives and our businesses.

So what exactly IS an introvert anyway? Good question. Even many people, who would raise their hands if asked if they were one, couldn’t tell you exactly why they were one. The best definition of the difference between Introverts and Extroverts, simply put, is that Extroverts draw their energy from being AROUND other people, and Introverts draw their energy from WITHDRAWING from people and being alone.

It’s hard to put your best foot forward in retreat mode.

This creates a particularly difficult issue for introverts. We WANT to be able to market ourselves, present ourselves as lively, enthusiastic, positive and someone fun to be around, but honestly? All you human beings are draining.

And that is the entire point. If you can identify yourself as an introvert, it’s important to begin to see yourself in a new light. Your number one obligation to your business and your life balance—ABOVE ALL— is to manage your energy resources. I would go so far as to say it is the number one important thing for everyone, but our extrovert friends get away with it a lot longer. They simply go out and plug in to the next human being they can find. You and me? Not so much. For us, it’s like every time we step into the presence of mankind, we left our power plug at home.

So, Where is our Power Plug?

Nutrition—Without proper fuel, our cars don’t run. If we stick sugar in the gas tank, they break down. That is such a simple cause and effect it hardly seems worth writing. Yet, every day we expect our bodies to function at high levels on food we would feel guilty feeding a beloved pet. Do we really think that little of ourselves? For high energy, we need high level fuel. No energy? Look at what you are putting in your mouth first.

Exercise—Energy creates more energy. Slugs breed slugs. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. It’s okay if you feel that for today all you can do is walk five minutes. As long as you walk five minutes tomorrow too. And the next day. Then try six. Constant motion is more important than the once a month we browbeat ourselves off the couch and wonder why we can’t function. Keep moving, even if it is only to take baby steps.

Sleep—Bodies regenerate, heal and build resources while we sleep. Without good quality sleep, we don’t function at optimal levels, no matter how we are doing in other areas. Our lives feel like we are walking in a fog. Go to bed. And…if you can honestly say you are putting in the time, but not achieving quality, consider talking to your doctor. There have been several advances in the last few years in the area of sleep.

Meditation/prayer—There are many different ways and techniques for meditating and/or prayer and I really don’t know of a bad one for restoring energy. Some people shy away from meditation because they feel they can’t do it “Right” and spend the entire session beating themselves up for being wrong. That’s not very energy producing. There is no wrong way to sit quietly and relax. If your thoughts are running like a hamster on a wheel, that simply means you’ve been a long time coming to the mat. Your mind has a lot to process. Let it be. Just observe and stay out of your head’s way until it empties out and you can feel the energy restore itself.

Journaling—If your mind is on the hamster wheel, if you feel like you are on overdrive, if you are all bottled up about to bust and don’t even know what’s wrong, I have a secret to share. The pen will tell. If you trust the pen and will sit with pen and paper in hand, and let yourself honestly brain dump any thoughts that pop into your head, you will find amazing things staring back up at you that you never even knew you felt. If you are blocked by a fear of someone reading it, promise yourself you will destroy the evidence when you are done.

Clarity—Nothing drains us more than confusion. Not knowing what we want, what our goals are, what direction we should take, how we should proceed…indecisiveness drags us into the Hamster Spin and and leaves us stuck there. You need clarity. It isn’t a luxury, it is a life and business need that must be achieved for true success to happen. If you can’t achieve it through prayer, meditation, or journaling alone, consider coaching. Clarity is the number one purpose for coaching. Helping you to find your path so you can move on more effortlessly is priceless.

Nature—Take a walk, go for a drive, get out your camera, bring your drawing pencils, spend a few minutes sitting on a park bench. Observing nature—or even humans from a distance—is much, much different from being in a crowded room or a conference call. Nature rejuvenates and restores energy for Introverts. A thirty-minute walk observing the little details of the emerging season, or the animals in their habitats (including people) could be all you need to recharge for the rest of the day.

Art—Likewise, art, in all of its endless forms, stirs the creative juices, swirling and twirling the energy source inside of you until you are fully charged again, ready to resume creating. For me, it could be observing paintings, looking at amazing jewelry creations, designing a new garden, reading delicious recipes. It could be a good book. For my daughter- it’s baking. Watching baking, specifically. Anything that wakes up the creative power that resides in each one of us is a positive energy source.

Shyness and Introverts

Being shy and being an introvert is not the same thing. Sadly, many introverts begin to think of themselves as shy because they dread many kinds of human interaction. They can’t stand the horrible feeling of being in a group of people and having the plug pulled on their energy and having to “Fake” it. It’s terrible. Especially when someone is committed to living authentically. I’ve spent many years of my life thinking that I am “Shy” when the truth was I was either on overload, or I was completely drained. I couldn’t figure out why sometimes I was better able to handle being around people than other times. It felt random and I didn’t trust myself or have faith that I would be at my best in a crowd.

Learning to manage my energy sources has been a miracle in my ability to function in crowds, on conference calls, at parties and in business in general. I no longer think of myself as shy. I know that fully charged, I am just as capable- or more- as any extrovert out there in my ability to put my best foot forward, present my message confidently, energetically and authentically. As long as I remember to plug in to the power source…

I am as outgoing as any extrovert out there.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

How excited are you to get out of bed every day and go to work? On a scale from one to ten how would you rate it? About as excited as getting a root canal? Or are you one of the lucky ones who are so in love with their work they would do it for free?

I can honestly admit to having been both at different times in my life. I know well the Sunday night twisted-gut dread of wishing Monday morning would never come. I also frequently feel the surge of thrill and adventure that comes from living my dream and working with clients that make my heart sing.

I’ve been known to admit that I am having a love affair with my business. I feel very blessed to be able to have a career that I love that much. I look forward to writing, to sharing inspiration and hope with the community here. I look forward to building our company, Blue Sun Studio, and coaching clients who are creating exciting passionate businesses of their own. Making a positive contribution in the lives of others is extremely rewarding to me and keeps me fired up day after day, thrilled with the life I have.

It hasn’t always been the case.

Throughout  my twenties, I fell into a pattern of settling for a job that paid the bills but wasn’t congruent with my lifetime goals, my personal mission statement or values, my family needs or my life/business balance schedules. Instead, I ran around like a scatterbrain with a truckload of guilt, massive pile ups of To-Do lists and SHOULDS that I procrastinated on and never got around to. I stayed in the job for several years unhappy and settling because I couldn’t see a way out to escape and do what I knew would make me happy.

My dreams felt like nothing more than a fuzzy fog that I could never get a clear vision on. Every day felt like a struggle and every night was an exercise in exhaustion and frustration. It was hard to imagine that life held anything else in store for me than the worn down circular path that I had been trudging on over and over again for years.

One day, after a decade of being in the same rut, a client that I was very close to came in to see me. I had a long time working-friend relationship with this client and was always inspired by his devotion to his family, his love for his career and his insistence on living his life by his terms, fully engaged and determined to be happy every single day. It was a cold, stormy Chicagoland wintery day when he left our business.

The next day I received the horrible news that his car had slid on an icy hill and had not been able to stop in time for an oncoming train. He had been killed instantly, leaving behind a wife and two young children.

It’s been said that people never really make a change until the catalyst is so great or the pain is so unbearable that it overtakes the inertia of repeating the same history over and over. For over a decade, the pain of being miserable wasn’t enough to get me to make a change. But when I looked at this man’s life…when I looked at his testament to living the life of his dreams, when I reflected on how happy he had been, and how much his family knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were the most important thing in the world to him, I decided in that moment that my days of settling were over. His life was a reminder that our time could be over in the blink of an eye, and while we are spending our time waiting around to get on with our lives, life could be getting over for us.

I was done waiting.

No matter what the cost, I had to begin living a life that was consistent with my values, my mission statement and my family needs. I needed a life of balance.

I Jumped.

I left a long successful career and began again in an entirely new industry, learning new skills and building up a business based on my terms, with my vision and my dreams.

And it was HARD WORK. It was nail-biting. It was exhausting. There was so much new stuff to learn that I would fall into bed at night asleep before my head hit the pillow. But I would wake up the next morning and hit the ground running, happy and ready to go again. I was excited. I was passionate. I was helping people, I felt needed, I knew I was making a difference and I knew I was in control of my own destiny.

As much as it was the hardest thing I had ever done, it was the ride of my life. It was exhilarating. It was an adventure. And it felt…effortless.

How could something that hard, that scary, that much of a change feel effortless? I believe it was because I had become clear. I was no longer willing to settle. I KNEW what I needed to make me happy and I wasn’t going to risk one more moment on a job that made me cringe so much my teeth hurt.

Over the years, I have tweaked my choices again and again, each time building and shifting and getting closer and closer to the perfect, ideal working solutions for me and my family. I analyze what doesn’t fit in, I walk away from what doesn’t work and create better systems and solutions. I keep my eye firmly focused on the long-term goals and look for opportunities to streamline  and build the current plan closer to the long-term goals.

The perfect life-business situation isn’t a destination. It’s a live, growing, shifting, changing process that we always have to stay closely in-tune with.

But it all has to begin with the intention to be true to who we are, what our values are and what would give our lives meaning and passion. I know that for me, it’s what I am able to give to others that makes my heart sing. Do you know what makes yours sing?

That’s the first step.

The second step…is to have the courage to jump. Make the change, stop settling.

Take the chance. Life is too short.

Photo by Wendi Kelly

Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you will have more time and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?”
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Marcus Aurelius, a philosopher and Roman Emperor, 161-180 CE, wrote the quote above. His words hold as much truth and power still today as they did back then.

Perhaps, in our current world of internet and commercial babble, self-propelled busyness, and idealistic perfectionism— they are more important than ever before.

As a society, we take great pride in our busyness. We create Actions Steps and To-Do lists that would wear out the Energizer Bunny. We spread ourselves as thin as honey on a hot day. We struggle, fumble, mumble, and complain about the frustrations of “having to do it all”, “Coping with the insanity of not knowing what we are doing…” and wading through countless hours of unhelpful help-support, puzzling explanations that solve nothing, and head-scratching solutions that offer nothing more than a new complication to add to the mix.

At the end of the day, we slink home battle-worn and exhausted and IF we have the energy, we might try to think of a few things that might have gone well, or something at all to feel grateful for.

I really wish I was exaggerating, but for many, many people this is an accurate account of the daily trudge of life. For many people, the Must Do’s and Should Do’s far out-weigh the Want to Do’s and tower over the measly Love-to-Do’s that often never even get on the list at all.

If we are lucky, we struggle through the daily grind, etching out the pencil marks counting off the days until our one or two week vacation where we can FINALLY, finally…get a few days to rest and hear ourselves breathe.

My friends. This is no way to live.  And what is even more remarkable?

You don’t really have to live like this at all. If you feel stuck in a life like this…I have good news for you. The STUCK is an illusion. There is a way out and—no—it doesn’t require robbing banks, winning the lotto or waiting for Great- Aunt Matilda to leave you her inheritance.

You can live a more simplified, peaceful, tranquil, fulfilled, inspired life, doing the things you believe you were created to do.

And it isn’t by making that list longer. Quite possibly, it may be by dumping most of the things on the list altogether and rearranging the rest of the list into manageable strategies that work. Then…we can work on bringing back in the Love-to Do items that you never believed you had time to do at all. You do. We all have the exact amount of time in a day. No one was created with one second longer in a day than anyone else. It just depends on how we chose to use it, and what we want to do with it.

So how willing are you to create the life you really want to live? Are you ready to begin? There are four steps on the journey.

“Most of what we do and say is not essential…”

Step one: Elimination.
This is a powerful first step for many reasons. It spans the breath of our existence in our personal lives (both physical and spiritual), our relationships, and our business lives.

From everything to our physical clutter around us, to the mental clutter of our thoughts, to the time-consuming, energy-sucking relationships that drain us, to the jobs that evade our boundaries, don’t fulfill us, don’t challenge us or utilize our unique creative talents, our lives are overflowing with piles of time occupying debris that we mistake as important daily tasks and commitments.
We are moving on auto-pilot, mind-numbingly unaware of how much energy this disconnect with our authentic desires and needs wastes precious minutes, hours and days of our lives that could be better spent making us—and the people around us—happy, successful, and inspired.

Identifying the non-essential areas, things and people in our lives is a huge first step in finding valuable time and positive energy back into our lives.

I won’t pretend it will be easy. Habits are hard to break. It will be hard to give over control of tasks, chores and projects to someone else better suited for the job. Someone whose natural gifts are more in-line with the task and won’t suck away the time and energy it does for you. Your ego will tell you that you HAVE to do it all. That if you don’t, you have failed, that the world is depending on you…that to admit that you can’t do it all makes you less of a hero.

The truth is that it is better to do five things like a genius than to be mediocre and suck at a hundred things. The world will never applaud average. It simply doesn’t give a damn.

Ask yourself every moment…Is this necessary? If the answer comes back no, dump it. If the answer comes back, “Well somebody has to do it…” Then…hmm. Maybe it’s time to find somebody who isn’t YOU.

Step Two- Expansion
Leave Empty Space. As a society, we abhor silence and vast amounts of space. The moment we reduce or eliminate the clutter in our lives, our very first inclination is to fill it up again with something new. It’s almost as if the very act of elimination is a license to go shopping, for new relationships, things or busyness. We are uncomfortable with breathing in the stillness, hearing our own thoughts, walking in the calmness of tranquility. Hang on to it. Let yourself adjust to the newness and instead of fighting it, breathe into the openness of the new spaces in your life. Protect them, observe them, listen to them. Watch. They have something to teach you.

Step Three- Clarity
In the Stillness, you will find yourself there. Only…when you have given yourself enough time to hear yourself think, remember what you actually enjoy- when nobody is telling you what to think, how to act, and what to do with all of your time, will you begin to feel the stirrings of your TRUE To-Do list. Your Love-to-Do list. The list you were put here to finish. Start writing. Start dreaming. As the vision begins to unfold and the plan becomes clear, capture it. The Muse doesn’t hang around forever for those who don’t take action. Grab the inspiration and start planning!

Step Four- Implementation
Create a plan for YOUR destination. If you don’t create a plan for your new-found life, someone else will and you will be right back to step one again. Believe me, the world has a plan for you and they don’t care where you thought you were going. They are riding the current toward crazy and if you want to swim in your own stream, you have to have a very clearly defined plan, with focused goals, daily discipline and accountability to stay on track. With the homework of the first three steps behind you, you can move almost effortlessly into a highly charged action plan that doesn’t drain you, but instead energizes you each and every day. You can do less, because you are concentrating on only the important items in your life, you will have a higher quality output, more happiness and less stress than you ever thought possible.

The Power of doing Less.

I don’t promise the journey will be easy. However, I will promise that the change in your life will be powerful indeed.

Wendi Kelly is a Creative Entrepreneur Coach who guides her clients to better clarity, vision and radar focus.  She combines powerful exercises, personal consultation and proven systems designed to work with the unique personality traits of the creative business person in mind. If you could benefit from more information about how she could help you create a plan for your success, start here for more information.