One specific lesson has remained steadfast in my mind and is never far from my thoughts.

 The Danger of Waiting for the Busy Bus

Everyone  has waited for the Busy Bus at one time or another in their lives. They might not have been aware of it, or perhaps they have a different name for it. Maybe it’s not something they think about very often, taking it for granted as part of their daily lives.

The Busy Bus is a phrase that was used in the beauty shop.  It  stood for the imaginary bus that is going to someday drive right up to the front door filled to the brim with happy, smiling, loyal clients just waiting to spend their money.

Many of the young hairdressers fresh out of school – and some not so fresh – believed in the Busy Bus as a way to earn their living. They would stand by the front door, sighing, leaning on the broom, and staring aimlessly out on the horizon. They could stand there all day, just waiting and sighing, waiting and sighing, and at the end of the day go home, disappointed in how slow things were and wondering if tomorrow might be different.

Of course it never was, because the Busy Bus never came.

We have many Busy Buses in our lives that never come. Dreams, hopes, plans, which never live up to our expectations and  don’t show up the way we thought they would.

Sometimes, like the hairdressers in the example, we feel we’ve already done our part. They went to Beauty School, they took their test, they got their license. Now, where are those darn clients? Where the heck is that busy bus?

It doesn’t occur to them that there might be something more that they have to do. That it is an on-going process. That what they thought was the end of the hard work was really just the beginning. That the real trick to growing their businesses- no matter what they are- is the sales and marketing part of the strategy.

For some, the dreams and plans die right there when they realize that the bus isn’t coming after all. When they realize they have to create systems and strategies and be proactive about their success. The disappointment is too much. The rejection feels very personal. They quit before they ever really begin and head for a different bus stop and wait for a different bus.

But there is one way to increase the odds that the bus actually WILL show up. One way to stack the deck heavily in your favor to help you reach the goal you desire.

You can be the Bus Driver.

You can go get that bus, get in the driver’s seat, find the right map and start following the directions for your dreams and goals.

There are a few keys that will help you as you begin your drive down the road.

Break the Vision down into manageable chunks and look for the step-by-step processes that you will need to find to get you to the next level. Focus on ONLY one level at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself thinking about driving cross-country when you need to get to the next state.

Don’t be afraid to ask directions. Even bus drivers can get lost. Find the experts, coaches and mentors who have the information you need and follow their lead. No one gets where they need to go alone. Build a network of masters within your road-map and brainstorm your plans with them.  Watch how your creativity will soar.

Pick up passengers along the way. Helping others to get where they need to go builds good will and expands your circle of influence. Napoleon Hill said, “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” His book Think and Grow Rich is an excellent guideline for “bus driving” lessons.

It’s never to late to learn. Take an honest look at your job skills.  Are they up to date? Technology is changing faster than a speeding bullet. Are you keeping up? Even a year to six months out in some markets can put you in an obsolete position. Stay fresh. Make education part of your daily diet.

Take a look at the buses in your life. Are you waiting for the Busy Buses or are you driving the buses in your life?

Be the one that makes change happen. Be the one that says, “This can be different starting now.”

The one that’s going to make it happen is you. The one you are waiting for is you.

The Busy Bus isn’t coming unless you are driving it.

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.

~Robert Benchley

Why is it that when we are supposed to be cleaning the house, we are compelled to write, when we are supposed to be writing,  we are compelled to work in the garden, when we are supposed to be working in the garden, we wish to be indoors, when we are supposed to be working indoors, our noses are pressed against the glass, gazing at the garden?

We don’t even need to get into email, Facebook or the other social media time-sucks, do we?

Procrastination.

It happens to the best of us once in awhile. It happens to the rest of us now and then. It happens to a few of us all the time. And that’s when the big trouble starts.

Procrastination sucks the life out of dreams, hopes, goals and plans. It is a monster that ruins marriages, friendships, businesses  and any other type of relationship you can have. It can get you fired. It can ruin your reputation. It can leave you broke and miserable.

HOW TO STOP PROCRASTINATING

The first key to stop procrastinating is to determine what type of procrastinator you are.

The experts have their opinions but for us simpler folk, I’ve narrowed it down to these categories.

• The Rebel   This is mine so I’ll go first. I rebel against everything, even lists I made myself. As SOON as I make something my first priority on the list, there is a nasty little excuse monster that starts up in my head that has a reason—and dang if it isn’t a GOOD reason—that I really should be doing something else first instead. I work hard, I just am doing something else other than what I was supposed to get done. I don’t like to follow orders. I want to be free to wander about unstructured. I…am…a…brat. You would think a person would grow out of this. Not happening. Though I am learning to spot the signs of the excuse monster before too much damage occurs.
• The Thumb Twiddler This poor guy’s got it bad. It is the “In a minute” syndrome. “I’m just going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs and read one more e-mail, watch one more minute of soaps, check out Facebook…Twitter…Pinterest…and whatever comes after that.  This person’s behind never leaves the chair. There is no time management because there is no sense of time. Time is twiddled away and at the end of the day, they are shocked to find out that the day has left and they don’t know where it went.
• The Adrenaline Junkie It takes a strong shot of the “juice” to motivate this one. Just looking at the “To do” list doesn’t quite do it. Somewhere along the line they lost their ability to move without a swift kick in the rear. (Or as we say at Creative Clarity Coaching—A kick in the patootie!) All the other categories default to this eventually, the difference is, that while most of us hate it when we find ourselves here, the junkie lives for it.
• The Cowardly Lion This fellow would love to get things done—if only he could decide what to do.If only he could be assured he wouldn’t fail.  The last thing he wants to do is procrastinate. He is just waiting until he gets the job done perfectly. Fear of failure is paralyzing the Lion and keeping him tied up in ropes.

HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS

Once you have identified which type of procrastinator you are you can take steps to work  to undo it. Procrastinators aren’t born. It is a learned behavior. It can be unlearned. It is based on habits and conscious and unconscious beliefs that we have about ourselves that keep us circling in destructive patterns. By becoming proactive, we can fight procrastination and reach our goals.

You may have felt like you have identified with more than one or that you thought of more. That’s okay. Whatever the list sparked for you, write it down and see what insight you received. The important thing is recognizing the key patterns of behavior so that we can begin to take charge of it.

Here are tips to beat the four basic types of procrastinators.

• The Rebel    Be prepared! Awareness is the biggest part of the cure. As soon as you hear that little voice, you’ve already won because you are not caught off guard. Plan your list carefully and  ahead of time. Make sure that your list is prioritized so that it truly has the A+ priorities in the right order so you aren’t second guessing yourself in the moment. Remind yourself  that you have a choice, and you are choosing to keep your eyes on the goal, and that you want to be the best you can be. Give yourself rewards for sticking to the list. After each one is checked off, tell yourself what a great job you did. You earned it and you love being your own boss! 
• The Thumb Twiddler    Look, here is the bad news. You have to go cold turkey. You need to identify your time wasters and put them aside until after you get some work done. Do not touch them even for one second. Remember when your Mom told you to eat your vegetables first and then you can eat your dessert? Well she was right. But it doesn’t have to be quite as bad as all that. You do have to eat your veggies first, but you don’t have to eat everything on your plate all in one sitting. Part of your trouble is you feel so overwhelmed by the big picture that you never start. We are going to break it up. This is the FLyLady fifteen minute rule and it’s brilliant. You just can’t sit down on your Bum until you’ve started, OK? Good. Go get a Timer. Set it for Fifteen Minutes. NOW START Your Project and don’t stop until the timer goes off. Now you can take a timed break and then set it for a new fifteen minutes and work again. Honestly, I think you should go to the FlyLady website right now. You need her if you are a Thumb Twiddler.
• The Adrenaline Junkie    First realize your addiction is to the thrill, not the procrastination. Take up bungee jumping and get your work done! Make a deal with yourself. Give yourself something to look forward to. Barter yourself. Say- “Self- here’s the deal. We are going to set up a new deadline on that project for one week early and the next day after we finish it, we are going to do something exciting!  Keep yourself inspired with excitement not related to your work! Also, you might want to examine why it is that your work isn’t exciting to you. Are you avoiding doing it because it is the wrong work for you altogether? Does your personality need something else? We weren’t all put here to sit at a desk. Take a good look inside. Don’t avoid the big questions.
• The Cowardly Lion You, my friend, are a perfectionist. I know that you are looking all around you at your stacks of unfinished work and mess and clutter and you are shaking your head no and thinking….oh, she is talking about somebody else. No…I am talking about you. Yes, Felix from The Odd Couple was a perfectionist, and that is who we tend to think of when we use that term, but there is another perfectionist and that is the one who so wants to be perfect and so fears messing up and that the world will see our flaws that we freeze like a deer in headlights and don’t get anything done. So do this one thing. Pick one tiny action step and just start. Know that you are going to fail at it a little bit anyway so it won’t matter. Just say to yourself…good enough is better than not doing it at all. Pick just one thing-set the timer for fifteen minutes and Get started. 

This isn’t an exhaustive list. There are a lot more. This is a drop in the bucket. There are posts and posts to be written on each one of these. What are some of the things that you do to fight procrastination? Which ones do you identify with? How do you manage time?

Speaking of time…I have to go, my timer is about to ring!

photo by Wendi Kelly

When I was coming of age into my teen years, my oh-so-wise mother sat me down for THE Talk.

Only my mother didn’t want to talk about birds…or bees. She wanted to talk about jewelry. And value. And why some things were valued more than others.

She talked to me about things that were common. About how if they were in unlimited supply and anyone could have them, then…well…frankly, people lost interest in them and nobody wanted them. They were the things in our lives that stacked up in the corners, in the dark…like  trash.

She talked to me about the five-cent rings you can get from the bubble gum machine. How, when you first see them, they are all glittery and sparkly, but when you pay your nickel and take them out of the plastic bubble, they are never what you hoped for them to be. They bend and warp. They get dull. And the small little gem turns out to be nothing more than colored plastic.

Always, always disappointing. Always easily forgotten. Always  ultimately discarded.

Then We Spoke About Diamonds.

We talked about how rare they are, how long it takes for nature to create a natural diamond. How hard it is to excavate them. How difficult it is to “cut” them, a complicated process that requires specific training, skills, tools and talent. Not just anyone is worthy of the task.

We talked about their hardness and unsurpassed durability, how years of extreme pressure make them able to withstand trauma that would destroy other stones. The diamond didn’t become the most durable stone overnight. It received that title by its lifetime of painstaking creation.

We talked about value. About rarity. About how the diamond is desired BECAUSE it is set apart from the masses and because not everyone can have it. It is exclusive. It is special. It is unique.

My mother ended her talk by telling me that she thought of me as a diamond. And she wanted me to always think of myself as one too. She wanted me to make sure that I represented myself as a diamond to the world. Especially Boys. (It was…after all, the talk.)

My mother thought she was talking about boys.

But that day she taught me one of the most valuable lessons about life I’ve ever learned. If I want to be a Human Being of the Highest Value- in any area of my life- I have to decide what kind of gem I am.

I have to be honest. I haven’t always remembered to treat myself as a diamond. Sometimes I forget. I know in my heart that I am a diamond, but I have sometimes forgotten to treat myself like one. I have settled for treating myself like a five-cent bubble gum ring. I have sometimes said things in my self-talk like:

I don’t have time to take care of myself now, there is too much to get done.

I don’t deserve that, I’ll wait until…

I’ll get the cheaper one, I’ll just work around the parts that aren’t right for me, that’s okay…

Someday I’ll take the time to________ but right now I have to concentrate on other...

And what is sadder, I have allowed other people to treat me that way too.

I have had a mindset that I should settle for what is good enough (and appallingly, a few times it was downright awful!) rather than put in the time, energy and focus required to get what I needed to treat myself like the high-quality person that I am- and should be.

We live in a world where we have been trained to settle. Especially women. (Sorry guys.) Many of our mothers came from a culture where the men in their worlds were put first and foremost at all costs and their needs were put last or sadly never. This unspoken behavior, that we watched and modeled, permeated our spirits at a cellular level, creating a push-pull reaction in our soul anytime we have a need or desire of our own.

We don’t feel worthy of calling ourselves a diamond. Our minds reach out-immediately wondering what gem represents the serving stone- perhaps the one that everyone sits on. That feels more like the REAL us.

Sadly, we wait for someone else to declare us a diamond- or put one on our finger- to accept that self-worth for ourselves. Even then, the moment is fleeting.

Until we claim the power of the diamond for ourselves, until we are willing to accept nothing less than the absolute best for ourselves, until we are willing to become the Highest Quality Person we were born to be…we will continue to struggle with the five-cent version of ourselves.

The only person that can change that for ourselves is…

us.

I AM…a Diamond.

Are you?

Yeah right.

Who am I kidding?

For the last two years my once stunning garden has been an exercise in warfare between me and the weeds that have declared squatter’s rights in my front yard.  My once enjoyable hobby of puttering around the yard admiring the beauty is now an all out battle as I yank and throw, spray and dig, swear and threaten to murder and mayhem any weed that dares to return to my precious soil.

They don’t listen. I can almost hear them laughing as they plot their vicious return.

How did this happen to my once spectacular garden? That’s easy. Three years ago, I turned my back on it and concentrated on something else. I took a year off of gardening thinking that the garden could fend for itself because I was busy elsewhere. I skated by with the bare minimum, and for some mad, mad reason, expected the garden to still give me back its full glorious display. I planted no seeds, filled in no flowers, added nothing new to the garden and even worse…didn’t bother to pull out the handful of weeds that snuck in to fill in the empty spots. They weren’t that bad. Just a few here and there. Honestly…you could hardly notice them.

Now that small handful of weeds is a battle zone. When I walk past my garden these last two years, all I see is a guilt ridden chore that I have to get to, just another thing on a long list of shoulds that that I need to find the time and energy to fight and take down.

The Gardens of our lives.

I’d love to be able to tell you that my outside garden is an isolated place where this has happened in my life. But you would probably know I was lying.  I have a handful of weed gardens in my life. It happens with laundry, clutter, my car-which is magnetically attracted to stuff and dirt- and it happens with my office.  It has also happened with my weight. That is exactly like a garden as well.

I looked in the mirror one day to find an extra fifty pounds there that didn’t belong. Hard to believe that fifty pounds can sneak up on a person, but over the years and four kids later, that’s what life does. So then I mustered up the battle cry, went charging on to the dieting field and banished those pesky pounds right out of my life.  I declared they were never to return and I meant it too.  But if I turn my back on those sneaky little buggers, five of them will show up over night. If I don’t call a halt to their progress at the gate, they bring ten or fifteen of their best friends and I am back in the battle again.

The weight battle never ends. I have to stay alert. That is an ongoing war in my life. I have to constantly be putting in the healthy food, thoughts and exercise that my body needs or the weeds and pounds take over faster than I can blink and I have a huge problem on my hands. (And THOSE weeds aren’t as easy to pull out in a day)

The most important garden I have to tend to though, isn’t a place I can see. I can’t roll up my sleeves and start chucking out the weeds and clutter. The most important garden I have to tend to is that fertile place inside my head, my Mind Garden.

The Mind Garden

The Mind Garden is a tricky place. It’s hard to keep track of all the seeds and weeds that are blowing into that garden.

There are countless weeds coming at us all the time. Weeds that become bushes with thorns of anger and violence, weeds that grow into tangled bramble bushes of negativity, weeds of depression and inactivity are just a few that we are in constant battle with. Even the most diligent mind-gardener, careful to prepare the soil with fertile compost and wholesome nutrients is constantly bombarded with weed after weed in our daily lives.

How can we fight the bombardment of weeds on the mind?

It isn’t hopeless. There are things we can do.

Gardening Tricks for the Mind Garden

Overfill it with flowers. It’s a gardener’s secret that if the soil is full, then it is harder for the weeds to take. Be proactive in filling your mind with the Mindflowers of your choice. Plant your seeds close together so that the weeds can’t take hold. Flowers of positive, hopeful, passionate, inspiring mind and heart nourishing topics choke out the weeds and give them no room to take hold.

Create your own unique design. Peaceful, positive, challenging, enlightening, artistic, inventive, or whatever interests you. What would you like your mind-garden design to be? Create a plan. Put it in writing. Look at it. The brain is a malleable, fertile organ soaking up everything it is exposed to. You have an amazing amount of control over what goes into your brain. Choose to exercise that control and plant your garden the way you want it.

Pull the Weeds. Next, pull the existing weeds out. You might have to look closely to identify the weeds in your life. Some weeds look remarkably like flowers. Or they have been there for so long that we just haven’t paid any attention to them before. It might be that they are in everyone else’s garden so we thought they must be OK. Take a deep look. Once you have planned your garden design, there won’t be any more room for weeds that will take away from the plan you want. Be very selective. Pull them all! Weeds breed more weeds. Gardeners know that one weed has lots of friends.

Fill in the empty spaces with new flowers. While it takes effort and time to cultivate friendships and learning, it takes amazingly very little effort to cultivate weeds. You can do nothing but leave them in your life and they will grow and breed and take over. Once you have removed them don’t let them back in. It’s a battlefield in the garden and the weeds plan to win! Once you have removed them, fill that space up with new flowers. Make new friends that nourish your new goals. Listen and read positive information. Remember to water and fertilize and feed those new flowers. Take time and attention, carefully care for them and they will reward you with their beauty and fragrance.

Stay Alert. A gardener must always be alert and on the look-out for stealth weeds that sneak in looking like flowers, promising to be a good thing in your life, only to end up taking over the whole garden. Keep in mind, that many nice flowers, if left to over-breed can become weeds in the wrong situation. You must choose wisely with balance, and determine what are the most important flowers to fill your mind with and in what proportions.

Spend time. A  Master Gardener knows you should spend time on your garden every day. Take a walk through it, enjoy it, meditate in it.  Get inspiration from it. A beautiful garden will give back much more than you ever will have to put in to it, especially a beautiful mind-garden. Daily maintenance keeps the job from not getting overwhelming and keeps the weeds at bay.

You can’t escape having a mind-garden. It will be planted. What goes into that garden is up to you one way or another, by choice of doing something, or by choice of doing nothing.

It’s still a choice. Oh…and by the way, these tricks work on the other gardens of your life too.

How are your gardens doing these days? Where do you need to pull some weeds and plant some positive seeds and flowers?

At the Heart of Authenticity is the Courage to be Vulnerable

~ Brene Brown

I had never heard of Brene Brown until this past Monday when I saw a link to her TED talk on Facebook. I am a fan of TED talks, so I instantly clicked on the link and sat there, mesmerized, soaking up ever morsel of her funny, brilliant, engaging speech. (I promise, I’ll give you the link at the bottom… )

Three days later, I am still ruminating over the words that Brene spoke so eloquently.

She speaks about shame. She speaks about feeling unworthy. She speaks in the most heartfelt way about vulnerability and empathy, courage and compassion and our deep inborn need for human connection.

And she explains why and how we manage to muddle the process of keeping ourselves separated from that deep inner need by our inability to risk being open and vulnerable with each other. By our fear of sharing our truths with each other. By our deep societal fear of shame and judgement that we place on each other, and perhaps even worse…in fact, I believe, most decidedly worse, the shame and judgement we place on ourselves.

I don’t think there is a friend or foe on the planet that is crueler than we are to our own selves.

“It is Our Imperfection That Connects Us to Each Other.” – Brene Brown

When we judge ourselves and others for being less than perfect, or for not upholding these impossibly high standards that we have all come to expect from the media and from the chatter that we all perpetuate, we build the walls brick by brick that close us off to the connections that we crave.

When we pretend we are doing great,when our perfect curb appeal hides the demons that lurk within the doors,when we are too ashamed to cry out for help, to turn to our neighbors and friends- the very ones who are likely suffering in silence themselves- we dig the holes of desperation and loneliness to unbearable depths, convincing ourselves that it is only us…everyone else is doing great and we alone are the only ones who can’t keep the pace, stay on track or handle the rules that society demands.

I want to call a spade a spade. I don’t care who you are. I’m going to let the cat out of the bag. As a past successful Realtor, I’ve been in your houses, I know what lurks behind those perfect looking curbs. In all my busy years of selling of houses, some extremely expensive ones, there was never ONE SINGLE TIME that I walked into a house and decreed it to be PERFECT. There was always a checklist, always something to do, some things to fix up, some stuff they had never gotten around to, some things that had been on the list, bugging them for years. Sometimes the list was long, sometimes it was short, but there was always a list.

And that is just the way life is. It isn’t just our houses. It’s our lives. The more we can just understand that everyone has a list, the more we can relax, shrug our shoulders and say…oh well… so, I’ve got my list and you have yours. Big deal, so what who cares, let’s go out and get on with life and have some fun.

The Beauty Of Sharing Lists.

Our lists may be different. That’s ok. The stuff on my lifelist that I need to fix up and work on is different that yours.  But by comparing our lists instead of hiding them in the closet of shame, I may find out that you figured out a solution for something on my list ages ago. By tag teaming my issue, I might actually get ahead. And if not, just having someone to bounce ideas off of, and not feeling so hopeless and all alone does wonders for making my failure list not seem quite like the monster it did before.

Connections and community have been our number one survival tool since the cave days.  For us to isolate ourselves by pretending that we have it all figured out by our own lonely perfect selves is, in my mind, one definition of  society’s sad insanity.

So…are we willing to bare our naked imperfections together and get closer? I think I have blabbed every flaw I have across cyberspace…but if there is anything you all don’t know about me by now, just ask…I’m pretty much an open book…but…how can I help you?

Brene Brown TED Talk