I wrote about my personal relationship 2 days ago. Something I would normally keep for the closest friends. Laying it out in writing does help to clarify things for an ENTP like me though (and thank you Dear Friend for the supportive email, you know who you are.:)

Now it only begs to post a follow up and just let you know that I found it.

It was in the very moment of counting my blessings. Also, in realizing that I need to keep taking risks and doing more of what makes me happy. Luckily, these aha moments didn’t come at a high price - we never really split up. Rather than a happy ending, I like to think of it as a happy continuum.

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photo credit: Paul J. Thompson

My silver lining is in finding my own happiness in an unbalance world that’s constantly changing. I’ve gotten better at it over the years, and this is just a loud reminder to keep at it. To take new risks, and to be vulnerable in new ways.

I’m feeling pretty positive today. It may be the fresh start Jan 1st promises, or the hangoverless and sunny morning with my babe after an alternative choice to celebrate at home.

Last year I spent a decent amount of time planning the year ahead, setting goals and milestones to achieve them. Needless to say, the year took its course, and my goals and priorities shifted. I hit the marks on some, and totally missed on others.
This year I didn’t have that kind of time or motivation to plan, and propensity to disappoint myself, so took a more intuitive approach of setting goals based on just what feels right.As a result, my New Year resolutions list is pretty simple.

1. Don’t hold grudges. Not ever again and under no circumstances.- it’s pretty obvious, yet amazingly hard to achieve sometimes. The eye-opening truth that motivated me to commit to this comes from Abraham Hicks “ Some of those people in your life do not deserve your good thoughts. In other words, "They are bad. They are evil. They are wrong! They are inappropriate. They do not deserve your good thoughts," and you stubbornly are not going to give them any. They may not deserve your good thoughts. But you do. You deserve your good thoughts about them.” Thanks Abraham Hicks. Sign me up!

2. Go on the Crazy Sexy Diet. Because it’s awesome and it will make you feel more alive, happier, and ….sexier. Some side effects are known to include beautiful glowing skin, loss of cellulite, loss of fat, and a stronger immune system.

3. Trust and believe in yourself. Especially your hunches.

4. Let others be. - We all are where we are, and we can’t magically be who someone else wants us to be. So let us be and learn and grow at our own pace.

5. Let go of habits that don’t serve you anymore, of clothes you don’t wear anymore, and of thoughts that don’t feel good anymore.

A new year is a chance to evaluate what works, what we want, and how to get there. It’s a chance for a fresh start. What’s your fresh start looking like?

One of my yoga teachers Aaron Cantor who teaches an interesting mix between yoga, circus, martial training and dance, says we should try to do the hardest poses without showing a the tiniest bit of effort on our face. Why? Because it’s so hard. Because when you get better at something that's hard, the next step is to make it look really easy. Even when it’s really hard. That’s art.

I was at a comedy contest recently, and it struck me that one of the participants with funny jokes, performed them so well and confidently, yet I couldn’t help but notice his legs were shaking while he was on stage. Maybe it was an unfortunate angle of stage lighting. And I have to give every one of the participants credit for having the guts to get on stage by themselves for 6 minutes and try to make people laugh. That’s really hard. How can you work with stage fear, fear public speaking and be at ease enough to be funny all at the same time. It’s really hard, right - not showing a hint of nervousness. It’d be next to impossible for me to do it. And that’s why it's so valuable and so artful when we see it in others. It’s a rare commodity.

When you have a gig that’s so difficult for you and you feel like complaining and letting everyone know how hard it is for you to do, and how you should get credit for doing something so hard, consider instead making it look super smooth and easy. There’s insane value in that. Because so few of us are capable of doing it.

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photo credit: laubarnes

The thing about processing emails is we’ve learned to speed-read them. That’s because we’re so overloaded with information, we’ve gotten faster at processing it.

That’s great, except misunderstanding from misreading can slip in and effectiveness goes to hell.

I’ve been experimenting with relaying information to test speed-reading skills and get effective results. In general, brevity and conciseness here rule. I think a little structure strategy can help too. Mostly, it’s about getting to the point faster, organizing information well, and making it easy for others to step in your shoes for a moment.

I look at 4 types of emails:

1. The Problem email:
Something went wrong. You need the other person to act on it to fix it.
State the problem right away. Every time I’ve tried to save grace by starting the email with a thing or two that went well, I find that I miss my point.

2. The Updates email:
Use bullet points, or numbering and bolding. Add a sales pitch by reorganizing the info to include at the top the items most critical to the other person. Always start with the positive. If things are not going well, use the opportunity to brainstorm an action plan, offer to act on it, and ask for more suggestions.

3. The Follow-up email:
State the progress made, or the roadblock you’re facing. Before you ask the person for further action (again!, please) let them know how this is going to help them - maybe by them being so helpful to the project and to you that they should feel like a rockstar, or by you ceasing to bug them (nicely). Either way, always give your reasons. Let them get in your shoes, and they’ll be happy to help you.

4. The Intro/Request email:
I love Danielle LaPorte’s insight on this. She calls for identifying affinity, using brevity as a form of respect and specificity as a call to action, being honest and exposing your passion.

And mostly, we can stick to Elmore Leonard's advice: “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.”

Have you ever been stuck in a thought, a pattern, a set way of doing things? It’s not only true that when we keep doing the same things, we can’t expect different results. We also need to act, get started. Actively.

The best way to reset a pattern is through physical activity. Josh Pais says that doing anything physical will reset the way we do what we do. It’s true with yoga for me when I finally do a pose I’ve been trying at for a while. The feeling of being able transfers outside of the mat and helps me work similarly with situations that arise in life. How we feel during a new physical activity leaves a blueprint in our sensory memory and when we face decisions, we can recall that memory and act with confidence out of it.

Beyond that, we evaluate what no longer serves us, and stop doing it. Not doing is just as big as doing. We can only create space for new patterns after we eliminate the unwanted ones. If you find resistance to eliminating an old pattern, just throw a pillow at it and keep going.

Recently I ranted about the wasteful catalog spam from Victoria's Secret. Then I noticed 62% of the organic blog traffic here resulted from searching for advice on how to stop receiving VS catalogs. Apparently, the catalog frustration is collective.

Three things, one common theme, caused me worries today:

1. I almost broke a tooth while chewing a non-pitted olive from a box of ‘pitted’ olives.
2. I impacted negatively a co-worker’s work-flow, because he works in my home country and I assumed vendor’s expectations there are the same as in the US. Of all people, I should have known, and my ‘excuse’ is 10 years of conditioning away from ‘home’.
3. In a discussion about ‘social definitions and norms’ I felt light years away, because all of it was based on cultural conditioning.

You get the picture - the status-quo is a dangerous place to be in. It not only shapes the answers we give, but also the questions we ask. It has the tendency to block out a spectrum of possibilities because it’s a comfortable place to be in, so why bother extending beyond it?

Maybe because questioning it leads to seeing opportunities, to protecting us from the danger of assumptions, and to better interactions with others.