Creating Archives - Lisa for Real

017. It’s not just work

January 17, 2021 by Lisa Leave a Comment

People with uteruses are creators. If you can bear life, you have a breathtaking, undeniable capability that the other type of human doesn’t have.

As creators, we are not meant to only bear life – nor do we have to. It is a choice.

However, creators are meant to create.

We are meant to do and become and craft and mold and sculpt and then we are meant to share them. Creations are not our work – although they could be.

But work is too simple of a term. Our creations are our soul’s calling. The manifestation of desires, lessons, and purpose.

001. New Year, New Practice

January 1, 2021 by Lisa Leave a Comment

2021 will be a year of practicing – starting with this daily blog.

Practicing consistency by writing and publishing daily.

Practicing bravery and squashing the fear of shipping.

Practicing brevity in 100 or less words per post.

Practicing focus as I try to write this in one sitting.

Practicing exploration with no map or destination.

Practicing imperfection.

Practicing play as I create my own rules here.

And in practicing, I can see already that it will lead to my embracing consistency, bravery, brevity, focus, exploration, imperfection and play.

In 2021, I plan to create a blog each day consisting of 100 words (or less). Sign up here to receive the blogs in your inbox.

Wild is the hum of Mother Earth. Generations of chanting, dancing, laughter, and sorrow that she has absorbed into her core and has become the surround sound vibration we feel when we are in nature. The vibration supports us and reverberates through our feet into our souls.

Those who have lost touch with the peace of Mother Earth express their wild recklessly, dangerously, ferociously. They gnaw and thrash as they try to work their way back to Mother Earth’s bosom, fighting back the injustices they feel they have suffered without cause. They use their violence, hateful words, and close-minded arguments to tune out or drown out Mother Earth’s hum, refusing to hear it, refusing its support and love.

Wild also appears in those of us working our way back to Mother Earth, to our feminine, to our power. But the journey is not about provocation, about harm or fighting or force. Our wild focuses on tuning into that earthly hum. Tuning into that rhythm of the Great Mother and seeing how the rhythm of our hearts fits into hers.

Inspiration: This piece was written as a response to a prompt in Jeanette LeBlanc’s course, 30 Questions To Bring You Closer To Your Wild Heart that asked me to answer the question – What is Wild?

I journaled regularly from fourth grade into the latter years of high school but for the following 13 years, my writing was exclusively academic or professional. I realized in 2015, my Year of Self Identity, that I wanted to find “my voice.” I came across Jeanette’s course and initially recommended it to a friend who was looking to work on her writing. While she didn’t join the course, I realized I would personally benefit from it and decided to embark on its 30 day journey.

I wish I could say I completed all 30 days of Jeanette’s course but I didn’t…even after taking it three times. But what did happen was a fire ignited in me to write again. For the first time, I felt like *I* was writing but at the same time, I wasn’t. Jeanette’s prompts go deep into the soul and lure words to appear on screen in a sequence I cannot fully attribute to myself. I actually came across this blog post in a text file on my desktop. I was not quite sure who wrote it, thinking perhaps I saved it after coming across it online somewhere. But I was very surprised to learn it was my writing and while I am proud, I’m also enchanted with what I am able to write when the muse flows through me.

Why resolutions mean squat to me

December 31, 2016 by Lisa Leave a Comment

I’ve never been a new year resolutions enthusiast. Chances are, you probably aren’t too. While I love the fresh energy that a new year brings, I’m not a fan of the constant reminders and pressure of “new year, new you.”

Why? Because resolutions are a waste of time.

According to this fun site, only 8% of people actually achieve what they set out to accomplish in the new year. Yay for those people but yikes for the 92% of others!

Now, I poo-poo resolutions but that doesn’t mean I’m not a goal oriented person. I am always looking to improve myself and my circumstances. The issue I have with start of the year goal setting is that everyone focuses on the same stuff every year and set themselves up for failure.

After all, as Albert Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results. That is what we are doing year after year. Dragging ourselves into the hamster wheel and starting out sprinting in hope that we will reach our goals and stopping shortly after because we are either burned out or we realize we’re getting nowhere.

The problem is we are goal setting the wrong way.

No, I am not proposing for you to follow the SMART goal setting formula that a lot of people swear by. I’m also not saying you need to find an accountability partner. Or set up a disincentive like donating to least favorite charity if you don’t meet your goals.

Those things are all possibly helpful but traditional goal setting misses the key component to a truly happy new year.

Now you may have found a goal setting strategy that works for you. That’s awesome! That means you can stop reading this. Who I’m talking to are those people who feel a complete resistance to creating resolutions or who have set them with good intentions and “failed.”

Alright, you’re still here! And you’re in good company because that’s me too. Before I get into the one thing that HAS worked for me, I’m going to share the key parts of my personality that make me anti-goal.

I’m not a numbers person.

Numbers on a scale or in my bank account don’t drive me to achieve a goal. And I think a lot more people are like that than not. So that means that SMART measurable goals aren’t effective and with my money blockages, may even drive me away. (My money issues are a work in progress and I’m slowly chipping away at them. Perhaps I will be able to follow SMART methods once I figure them out. This solution works for me while I do so.)

I’m not a material person.

My Christmas list this year included self development books, socks and a replacement top for my favorite Pyrex container. That means goals or rewards of a new wardrobe/car/house/etc. is not going to make me want to achieve my goals any more.

I hate being told what to do.

Goals feel really restrictive, even when I create them myself. I will rationalize and talk myself out of any goal. “Oh, I’ll go to the gym tomorrow.” or “Today’s dessert doesn’t really count.”

I’m not a surface-level person.

Resolutions are so outward facing. So many of our goals are an attempt to manipulate our external circumstances. Lose weight. Buy a new car. Eat better. Get organized. Quit smoking. Find a partner. Now, do not get me wrong – these are all amazing things to strive for, but for me, they are not deep enough. Goals tend to be really superficial and that is just not my jam.

If you’re still reading this, chances are you identify with some of what I just shared.

So what goal setting method works for a non-material, non-numbers person who wants to transform on a deeper level in the new year?

What works amazingly well for me is setting a theme for the year and using that as the foundation for everything I work on for that year. A theme is usually just a few words. It does not involve numbers or any other sort of metric.

All you have to do is fill in the blank – 2017 is the year of _____.

The word(s) you choose are the end result you are striving for. So they are a goal in a sense but not in the traditional way. And there is only ONE, not an overwhelming list of them.

If you are still stuck in the paradigm of traditional goal setting or already created your new year goals, take those goals you have and shift them to a feeling. For instance, if you are looking to lose weight, forget a specific number and figure out how you want to feel. Instead of “lose 30 pounds,” deem 2017, “the year of unlimited energy.” Or if you are really looking to find your soul mate, make 2017, “the year of love.”

If you are a self-development geek like myself, then perhaps a feeling isn’t what you want but it’s uncovering the next layer of yourself. 2015 for me was the “year of self identity,” where I sought to answer the question “Who am I?” 2016 was the “year of release” – creating and releasing what’s inside myself out to the world. That meant continuing to understand who I was in order to release myself but also to find those opportunities to do so. As for 2017, the theme I have been kicking around for the past couple of months is the theme of purpose. To follow my purposes but also to do things with purpose.

As you can see, the theme is deceivingly simple.

The beauty of this is that you could have the same word as your best friend or least favorite person and the interpretation is up to you. Your theme may have a whole paragraph supporting it or your interpretation of it may shift mid-year. That is all a-okay.

Once you figure out your word, you instill it in your mind and body. It’s a bit easier to remember one word than it is a whole list of goals with arbitrary numbers. Then you use your theme to drive what you do day-to-day throughout the weeks, months and ultimately, the entire year. “Unlimited energy” may look like something different each day in terms of food, sleep, or who you choose to interact with. And “love” – the word doesn’t just stand for finding a partner. It can mean self love or love for your friends, family, and neighbors.

What’s most important is that you are intentional towards that theme everyday.

This does not mean you have to do something everyday but when you have that intention you will see that little things you do even contribute towards the theme. Then the decisions you do make will start to build on one another.

If you have read Jeff Olson’s Slight Edge, you may have already started following a similar strategy where you take slight action in every day choices towards your goals.

Now, if your Type A, list loving self is experiencing nervous tics because this method is too open to interpretation, feel free to make a list of your goals AFTER you figure out that theme. And then revisit those goals frequently and see what can be adapted.

Goals are super rigid and as someone who lives in the grey and where circumstances change, I find this method works best for me. I have felt much more personal fulfillment in the past couple of years doing this method than I have of anything else.

How has goal setting been for you in the past? Will you be setting a theme for the next year?

Why I am no longer a failure

August 16, 2016 by Lisa 1 Comment

Guess what? I’m not calling myself a failure anymore.

I’m not sure anyone else has looked at me that way but I definitely have. I have looked in the mirror after every project of mine imploded or fizzled and said, “Wow, I totally suck. Why can’t I ever successfully finish anything? I am just not cut out to do my own thing.” (Of course, then I go out there a month later to try all over again.)

I have tried quite a few things. If you are an adept Googler, you’ll be able to find what I lovingly call, my internet breadcrumbs – remnants of projects past. All of these attempted businesses fell apart within a year for a variety of reasons.

I couldn’t keep my health coaching practice going because I was getting too drained from the clients. My networking group stopped after a year when I got pregnant. My essential oils business went ker-plunk after just several months. And my health and wellness magazine style site is still hanging by a thread but it’s no longer stimulating me.

I thought getting bored, tired or drained meant I had failed, but I realized this morning, I didn’t fail at any of these!

I have always considered myself a hands on learner. Why is business any different?

I enrolled at my college because of the “hands on” curriculum and I still say it is one of the best decisions I have made. I have known for a long time that I learn by doing, by experimenting.

If I did not pursue my past ventures, I would not have learned about what I like or don’t like, what works and doesn’t work, and what models succeed and don’t succeed.

With my coaching practice, I learned client work can be draining and having a multiple session package that requires meeting regularly does not fit my style. I also learned that I liked the health side of it all but it was really the life side of coaching that I loved. I learned I have a knack at asking good questions to help people really dig to get to the root of an issue.

With my networking group, I learned that I loved having the energy of a group of people and organizing the group and leading the effort. I also love holistic health practitioners and feel they are an underserved population that I feel called to support. Lastly, I found that having multiple monthly, in-person meetings was fun but unsustainable as I was about to enter motherhood.

With my essential oils business, I learned I can’t sell other people’s products as the core of my business even if I love them (and I love my oils!). I have been solicited by MLM companies and turned them all down until the oils because I felt most aligned with them! And when I realized I couldn’t sell for them, I knew the MLM model wasn’t for me.

So what does this mean? It means I am not just a hands on learner at school but at life.

I know I learn by doing. When it seems to other people that I am flaky or a failure, I will reminder myself that this is how I process information – via experiences. By doing I am learning and progressing and triangulating on what works for me.

How about you? Have you always considered yourself a hands on learner? Have you translated that mentality into your pursuits in life since leaving the classroom?

Inspiration: I was brushing my teeth listening to a podcast on May 11th and something that the speaker said made me think – of course I’m not a failure! I immediately rinsed my mouth out and quickly tapped this blog out on my phone on the bed. Inspiration really can it whenever! I’m so happy that I have the Google Docs app with my writing document on my phone which I can turn on anywhere whenever I get an idea or urge to write.