Keep on Keeping On: Jump Start Your Failures and Accomplish Your Dreams

It took me five years to get my driver’s license. You read that right. Five years. By the time I got it, high school freshmen were into their sophomore year of college. College freshman were into their first year of the workforce.

Why am I admitting this shameful detail about myself? Because it’s a good reminder that sometimes the path to where you want to go is full of obstacles. And whether the obstacles are internal or external — or both — and whether you’ve failed more times than you can count, you owe it to yourself to keep trying.

It always seems impossible until it's done. Those wise words courtesy of Nelson Mandela say it all. 

I convinced myself that I’d never get my driver’s license — in fact, I convinced myself I was not meant to get my driver’s license and that my getting it would cause some sort of butterfly effect catastrophe. (That said, I did get it in 2001 — the same year gas prices surged — so I may have been onto something.)

After over a dozen years of driving, I can’t picture my life without it, and it's hard to remember being unable to manage a clutch or being too paralyzed with fear to go beyond a parking lot. 

Everyone has these things — these goals that they’ve picked up and then given up repeatedly. Maybe that S.O.B. known as parallel parking isn’t your stumbling block of achieving your unfulfilled long-term goals, but something is.

What’s holding you back? Fear? Taking the easy way out? Insecurity? Lack of time? Excuses? Yourself?

Just because your dream hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. But you have to look at what you want to achieve and why you haven’t done it, make some changes, and get back out on the road.

And remember you don’t have to be perfect. I still get beeped at at least once a day. 

Do Not Pass Go: How You’re Motivating Yourself the Wrong Way

My mother, God bless her, has always been my biggest fan. I’m lucky to have someone so supportive in my corner, but sometimes her blind support is a little unrealistic. If I applied for a job as, say, a neurosurgeon, she would say something along the lines, “They’d be CRAZY to not hire you!” And she’d believe it. (If it’s not apparent, I couldn’t be any further from neurosurgeon caliber. Write clever taglines, yes. Operate on brains, not so much.)

I’m a mom now, so I get it. I think my daughter is pretty perfect. I finally understand why my mom has such blind faith in my abilities. Having supportive people in our lives is important, but if you motivate yourself with the same uncritical belief  — and don’t back things up with real action — you’re likely to stumble, fall, and give up entirely.

To be fair, I’m all about the power of self-talk and believing in yourself. But often, when it comes to doing and not dreaming, it’s not enough to simply tell yourself, “I think can do this” or even “I can do this.” First, you have to SHOW yourself WHY you can do it.

To avoid puffing yourself up gratuitously, make sure you’re answering some honest questions:

• What have you done to prepare yourself?
• Have you done enough prep work or simply busy work?
• Are you just telling yourself that you’re ready?
• What else can you do to set yourself apart?

If you’ve only taken Biology 101, you wouldn’t dream of applying for a neurosurgeon position at the local university hospital, right?

So why are you attempting to call on prospects when you don’t even know your value proposition?

Why are you sending out email blasts when you’ve never evaluated your list?

Why are you championing your differences when you’re acting like everyone else? 

If you’ve told yourself that you’ve done enough, but barely scratched the surface of actual, real hard work, you’re setting yourself up for failure. And that failure will not only set you back now but can also make it more likely you won’t try in the future.

A little legwork goes a long way. You don’t have to have all the answers to start, and not everything needs to be perfect.

Just make sure you aren’t about to attempt the final step when you haven’t actually even taken the first. 

Baby Boom: Unexpected Business Lessons from Life as a Parent

I’ve been a parent for 17 months. In the grand scheme of things that’s not a very long period of time, but I continue to be astounded how this parenting gig has helped me learn and re-learn more life lessons than all my (insert mumbled number) years combined.

While many of my observances include a laundry list of the impractical — like blueberries travel really far when you squeeze them, and previously vegetable-adverse canines will gobble up spinach if a baby delivers it — they are primarily made up of powerful takeaways that often can be applied to business.

Here are a few that stand out:

You are stronger than you realize. Once you get on this parenting train, you do things you never thought you were capable of doing. Terrifying things that, given the choice, you certainly would opt-out of entirely. But you can’t. So you don’t. And it’s worth it. In business, you are faced with choices every day. If you opt-out of the terrifying ones that really put you out there, you and your business won’t thrive. Force yourself to take a chance on yourself and your ideas as though you don’t have a choice. Because, in reality, you don’t. 

Trust your gut. Instincts are incredible things. We all have those nagging little notions telling you something is wrong. If you ignore problems, more often than not, they won’t go away. Many times, they’ll only get worse, right? This applies to your kids’ behavior just as much as the behavior of your business. So what are you ignoring in your business life? What keeps you up at night? Sometimes the things we worry about are telling us something needs to change. Listen to yourself, and learn what your intuition is trying to tell you. 

Don’t put it off. If you put something aside with the intention of doing it after your kids go to bed, bedtime will take twice as long. Or your kid will get sick. And it will happen all over you. And all over the bed. And you won’t have a spare set of clean sheets. And you will end up eating dinner alone standing in your kitchen at 11pm. The same is true in your work life. If you tell yourself you’ll finish something later, something else will pop up (it always does). There will be a problem with an order. Or you’ll get pulled into a meeting. Maybe two. And the end result will still end up being you eating dinner alone standing in your kitchen at 11pm. And it will probably be ice cream.

Expect the unexpected. This could also be called, “Murphy’s Law is real, and it is here to destroy you.” If you are out with your child, and you do not have a change of clothes, ungodly things will happen. It’s a fact. A scientific fact. The same holds true in business. If you do not prepare, thing will inevitably go wrong. Plan ahead as much as possible, and then plan some more. Start earlier than you think is necessary, and then be agile and flexible when problems arise — because they will. And rush shipping is a lot more expensive than baby wipes.   

Don’t waste time on things that don’t matter. Time is more precious than gold. You can always make more money (yes!) — but no matter how hard you try, you can’t create more time. You can only use it more wisely. Are you spending time on tasks that are bringing you no return? Are you worrying about things but not taking action to address them? Are you having meetings for the sake of having meetings because that’s the way you’ve always done things? Look critically at how you’re spending your hours and make whatever changes necessary to make the most of them — all of them.  

You don’t need as much sleep as you think. Okay, that’s a lie. You do. Just trying to make us all feel better.

I’ve only taken one and a half trips around the sun as a parent so I still have a lot to experience and learn. What big things lessons do I have to look forward to? What am I missing? What has parenthood taught you about life and business — or both? 

Get Going: 6 Tried and True Ways to Get Out of Your Way and Start Getting Things Done

When it comes to creativity, if you’re anything like me, you’re filled with ideas — tons of fun, interesting, lucrative ideas. Things that you want to accomplish. Things you want to do for yourself, for others, for your business. Dreams, big and small. You think about them in the shower, when you’re driving, when you’re walking the dog, but for some reason, when it comes to doing them, you start to doubt yourself, second guess your brilliance, and talk yourself out of your bold new approach.

Everyone feels this dread from time to time, but the difference-makers stop the self-sabotage, get out of the way, and get things done.

Here are six ways you can do instead of dither:

Change Your Mindset – You don’t need to get zen and meditate (although, that’s incredibly helpful), but take stock of how you talk to yourself. If you are constantly telling yourself what you’re doing is subpar, a waste of time, not as good as so-and-so’s, how do you expect to get anything significant accomplished? Once those thoughts creep in, push them aside. If it helps, you can promise yourself you will review whatever you’re working on critically upon completion. That might be enough to silence your inner critic enough to get something accomplished.

Get Real – There are only so many hours in a day. Too often, we overwhelm ourselves with all we need to accomplish and end up getting very little done because we overscheduled a day or didn’t prioritize appropriately. All the productivity apps in the world aren’t going to help if what you’re scheduling is unrealistic. Create a master list and then assign tasks for each day. Some people like to do a big, hard task first, and others prefer some easy tasks off their list first to get into their groove. Experiment and find out what works for you and stick to it.

One Thing at a Time – One of my favorite books is Anne Lamott’s book “Bird by Bird.” She talks about how when her brother was 10-years-old, he was cramming to finish a report on birds that he’d been assigned three months earlier. He had one day to do it and was immobilized by the fear that he’d never get it done.  How could he complete a task so immense? Their father sat down, put his arm around the boy and said, “Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.” So whether you think of it as one thing at a time, step-by-step, or bird-by-bird, instead of overwhelming yourself, focus on the small tasks that lead to big results.

Create Hard and Fast Deadlines – Speaking of deadlines, create them, and have the discipline to stick to them by whatever means necessary. Sometimes that means scheduling it and setting reminders. Often it means having someone who knows your deadline and will keep you honest and not let you come up with excuses. It can be a coworker, a spouse, a friend, your dog. Find an accountability structure that works for you and force yourself to stick to it. No matter what. Even if it’s 11:57pm and you know your child is going to wake up any minute, but you made a promise you would finish today (because you flaked yesterday)…not that I would know anything about any of that.  

Be Confident – Did you know that being shy and cautious is the natural human state? Most people are not born self-assured and confident. Bummer, right? Not really. For most people, confidence is a skill you develop as you learn and grow. You aren’t doomed, even if you don’t feel especially confident at the moment. Put your lack of confidence in its place, and when self-doubt rears its head, remind yourself of all you’ve accomplished in your life or in your career. It’s nothing to sneeze at, and you’ve certainly pushed yourself through moments of real adversity to get there.

Done is Better than Perfect – This is a hard one for me, and it’s hard for most creative types. I can overthink anything. I ponder. I debate. I consider. And then I reconsider. It’s very hard for me to deem something complete or finished. But in most cases, done really is better than perfect. So whether it’s feeling prepared to make a call to that prospect you want to nail, submitting a proposal for a big job, sending out an email blast for your company, or even, like me, and publishing this very blog post. Do it. Seal the envelope. Send it out. Fin. End scene. 

Pull Up a Chair and Make Yourself Uncomfortable: 5 Do-Able Ways To Get Out of Your Comfort Zone Right Now

Okay, we all agree that breaking out of your comfort zone is one of the biggest keys to success, right? Everywhere you look there are inspiring quotes telling you to do it. Nearly every speech you’ve ever heard — from class valedictorians to keynotes to viral TED Talks — emphatically declare it. Everyone who inspires you in this industry and beyond lives it. 

So if you believe in its importance and desperately want to do it, why aren’t you out there shaking things up and reaping its glorious benefits? Because it feels wicked hard, and the siren song of security is too difficult to resist.

Want to hear a little secret? It’s not hard. Is it totally scary? Yes. But it’s not hard to get out of your comfort zone. And it’s worth it. Here are some do-able (and not-so-terrifying) ways you can get started today.   

Remember how many times you’ve done it. You have changed things up countless times throughout your life. Each time you moved up a grade, switched jobs, went on a first date, traveled to a new city, and even tried a new hairstyle, you exited your comfort zone. Sometimes the change was momentary; sometimes it was revolutionary. Was it always easy? No. But the point is you did it more times than you even realize. You’re just out of practice.  Get yourself back in the game. You deserve to play. 

Make peace with failure. When it comes to trying new things or getting out of our comfort zones, the fear of failure holds most of us back. What if what you have to say isn’t good enough? What if you blow your chance with that coveted prospect? What if your idea gets rejected? Recognize that along the way, you are going to fail. It’s inevitable. It happens to everyone. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Learn from what failure has to tell you. Make it your friend…okay, frienemy. Use it to adapt and grow. You’ve failed before and are still here to tell the tale. And the tale is probably better because of it.

Watch those around you doing it innately. We were all born with a natural ability and desire to try new things and test limits. I’m reminded of this when my 16-month-old daughter does, well, everything. Every day, she tries something new (except for green veggies — bleck!) and tests limits. Survey your life for those around you who live in the moment and own it. It could be a colleague, your colorful old aunt who just doesn’t give a…,, or even (and perhaps especially) your dog. Whether they are young or old, feline or canine, you can apply their determination to your life.    

Put. Yourself. Out. There. Going up to someone you admire at a tradeshow or hitting the send button on an email is scary, but more often than not, the person responds in kind and you can learn even more. Ask for a one-on-one meeting to get some perspective. Ask questions about what they do to challenge themselves, how they stay positive and motivated and more.  People — especially in this industry — are incredibly generous with sharing their time and knowledge. Send that email. Make that phone call. Your day will be better off for it. Do it. Right now. It feels so good.

Try something new. Every day. Speaking of trying new things. When was the last time you did it? When we live our lives in the exact same manner every day, it’s easy to get into a pattern of playing it safe. But trying something new is one of the easiest ways to stretch your personal boundaries. So look for big and small ways you can change up your day and your life. Take a different route to work (bonus points if you do it without GPS). Listen to a podcast on a topic you know nothing about. Sign up for a class. Join a regional association. Try a different ice cream flavor. It all counts.

We all belong, and we all have something to contribute. It has never been easier to have your voice heard, and it has never been easier to get involved and learn from others.  I’ve only scratched the surface of putting myself out beyond my natural comforts, and it’s exceeded my expectations. Let this former wallflower be a lesson to you. It is possible, and it is awesome.

What is one way you can get out of your comfort zone today?