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Gardening in High Heels

cultivate a beautiful life

January 22, 2017

Sunday Lately, 108

January 22, 2017

Sunday Lately is a weekly link up brought to you by the Blogger Tribe. Link up and see what's been happening lately!

Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup hosted by the Blogger Tribe, which is fearlessly led by Katy (Wild and Wanderful) and myself. We e-hangout every Sunday, sharing a small glimpse into the past week of life in our own worlds. We’d love if you could join us!

This week’s themes: Searching, Relying, Addressing, Praising, Singing.

Searching

…for a new planner. Kidding. I feel like it’s tradition for me to write about a planner at some point every Sunday Lately. I’ve been searching for some good organizational systems. I was able to participate in the #createlounge Twitter chat on Wednesday and it made me realize that my space needs a creative refresh. I can let go of a lot of extra things and streamline my office. What’s your favorite storage item?

Relying

I’m not sure what I’m relying on. Myself, I suppose. I’ve been part of a mastermind with Propelle / Rock It this year and our first project was a Chalkboard a la Being Boss. So I mapped out my client goals and blog goals for Q1 and it’s just staring at me and I have to get shit done or else (not that the mastermind will do anything, but I like eating dinner and sleeping under a roof.)

Addressing

My to-do list. If I don’t have a list, I feel like I’m floating. When I have a to-do list, it’s easier to focus and get to work. (I wrote a post last week that talked a bit more about this and why having a list is awesome for your mindset.)

Praising

I’ve been writing every morning and I always try to include a section of what I’m grateful for and a bit of praise of what’s been going on right. Even a little bit of gratitude has been going a long day. Last week was a little rough and this practice really helped me to write what’s bothering me then release it so I wasn’t dwelling on it.

Singing

I don’t sing. I’m not a singer. I can play musical instruments, but my talent stops there. That said, Anberlin is my go-to for car singing.

What have you been up to lately?

An InLinkz Link-up


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2 Comments · Labels: Sunday Lately Tagged: sunday lately, weekly link up

January 16, 2017

Break the Imposter Chain

January 16, 2017

Does it ever feel like you’re afraid to make any noise out of fear someone will discover you and call you out for being a total and complete fraud? Like, imposter syndrome on steroids just jumps out and yells at you to go away? Not fun, especially when you know you’re good at what you do, you’re qualified to do what you do, you work hard to do what you do, and you just want to do what you do.

Yup. Been there. Still am there on occasion (sometimes Google Maps gets drunk and steers me there then leaves me for dead).

That’s when I like to refer to my list of magic spells (in Molly Mahar‘s words). It’s a road map you set up that says, “When I feel like this, I’ll do that instead.” It’s so handy to have this ahead of time so you can get yourself out of the woods faster and not rely on shitty cell reception and Google Maps to play nice again.

Here are a couple things you can add to your list of magic spells to get you on your way to feeling like a rockstar wonder woman again instead of wallowing around hoping Google Maps will re-route itself.

Focus on Something Further Away

Does anyone remember the movie “Dr. Dolittle” with Eddie Murphy? When I was a kid, my dad took me to see it and one of the scenes became a running joke for us. In it, Murphy is driving with a guinea pig, Rodney, who keeps saying “line” each time he sees a dashed line on the highway. It understandably is annoying, so Murphy yells at him to focus on something further away.

Whenever I get too caught up in the details of what’s going on and how I’ll be a complete business failure because I should be doing these big projects, but I’m not even keeping up with emails and group Pinterest boards, I know I need to focus on something further away.

Write down that big project, then break it down into smaller, more actionable steps. See, you’re focusing on something further away, but making a move to get it to happen. Then you can add deadlines and goal checkpoints. All because you focused on the abstract big picture further away.

Break the Pattern

Lots of times, you fall into a routine and conditioned thinking takes over. It could look something like:

  • Checks bank account
  • Sees a low number
  • Starts to freak out about financial security, paying bills, or the like
  • Falls down the well of thinking, “I’m always going to be struggling for money, who would pay me for what I do anyway, I really suck”
  • Doesn’t actually do any work for the rest of the day thanks to crushing doubt and fear that it will suck regardless

This could also look like checking an ex’s Facebook page and then thinking you’ll be alone forever, wanting to lose weight but constantly relying on takeout burgers and fries and then guilt tripping and comfort-eating an entire cake by yourself…anything where you just automatically fall into that behavior. That’s your If/Then, except in a bad way.

But when you notice the pattern ahead of time, you can identify and isolate the trigger. Then you can break it.

How do you break it? Physically get up and do something different. Paint your nails (you can’t properly enjoy a juicy burger with wet nails). Clean the bathroom. Organize your DVDs. Anything that occupies your mind for at least 15 minutes.

I learned this from Gretchen Rubin in Better Than Before. She says that any craving can be squashed if you distract yourself for 15 minutes. That’s it.

Similar to “focus on something further away,” when you notice you’re starting that one little dangerous thing, have a plan in place to break the pattern before it’s too late and you’re automatically in the bathtub drinking wine from the bottle. Forget what Fleetwood Mac says, we’re breaking the chain!

Go Outside

I know, it’s the dead of winter, but going outside if only for a minute is invigorating (albeit frost-bite inducing). A study by Stanford University found that walking has been proven to increase creativity by 60%. I don’t know about you, but I’m cool with being cold for a few minutes and be that much more confident and excited (and therefore focused and not thinking about the imposter feelings).

As Emily says on the Being Boss podcast, “Habits and routines allow you to do the work without thinking about the work.” So when you have a list of things to do, you focus on what you’re doing, not how you feel about what you’re doing. So get some fresh air and create a task list or work through a problem, then come back to your desk and do it instead of thinking about how you’d fail if you even tried.

How do you break yourself out of imposter thinking?

Imposter syndrome is the worst! Super smart ways to break the chain for yourself and "trick" yourself into getting your thinking and mental state back on track!

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4 Comments · Labels: Motivation Tagged: imposter syndrome, inspiration, motivation

January 15, 2017

Sunday Lately, 107

January 15, 2017

Sunday Lately is a weekly link up brought to you by the Blogger Tribe. Link up and see what's been happening lately!

Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup hosted by the Blogger Tribe, which is fearlessly led by Katy (Wild and Wanderful) and myself. We e-hangout every Sunday, sharing a small glimpse into the past week of life in our own worlds. We’d love if you could join us!

This week’s themes: Thinking, Finding, Allowing, Insisting, Repeating.

Look, it’s Sunday and I’m actually writing and posting a Sunday Lately! (Joke’s on you, I’m scheduling this in advance. But hey, it’s Sunday and there’s something here. I count that as a victory.)

Thinking

My goodness, I am STILL thinking about my planner. Like what? I don’t need to be using all this time for it! But planners and notebooks make me happy. Why are you denying me my happy, single-focused-planner thoughts??

Finding

To that point, I’m still finding planners that I like. I know, I know! Katy, this one’s for you, because I found another something SHINY. I want to keep everything together in one notebook and the Arc book I made for blogging is nice but BIG and I want something purse-sized. And then it hit me. A travelers notebook. I can keep everything together, but I can have separate books for each client, blog, home to-dos, and so on, AND not worry about sectioning off a regular notebook.

Allowing

I am allowing myself to feel the things, acknowledge them, and then not let it be the main focus for the rest of my day. A few Thursdays ago, I got totally derailed by imposter feelings in the morning and it drove the car for the rest of the day. Like Elizabeth Gilbert says, “Your fear should always be allowed to have a voice, and a seat in the vehicle of your life. But whatever you do — don’t let your fear DRIVE.”

That is a surefire way to crash through a guardrail and sail into the ocean in flames.

Insisting

I absolutely HATE asking for help. I will not do it. I think it makes me look like I can’t do something for myself and I was not raised to sit around and let people do for me. I insist that I can do things and I don’t need anyone’s help. Well I cracked and asked my step-dad to help me move a couch while he and my mom were here this past week. It kinda isn’t perfect in the room and I need to rearrange (I know I’ve made that comment before) things a bit more, but for now, it’s much better than the 30+ year old loveseat I was using.

Repeating

Plan, plan, plan. Basically I’m just repeating all the planning prompts, aren’t I? I’ve been repeating a morning habit and I love it. I get up, I make coffee, I sit and journal. I’ve been on a hot streak of writing since January 2 and it’s a great way to ramp up for the day.

How do you get yourself started each day? And what have you been doing lately?

An InLinkz Link-up


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6 Comments · Labels: Sunday Lately Tagged: blogger tribe, weekly link up

January 12, 2017

Sunday Lately, 106

January 12, 2017

Sunday Lately is a weekly link up brought to you by the Blogger Tribe. Link up and see what's been happening lately!

Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup hosted by the Blogger Tribe, which is fearlessly led by Katy (Wild and Wanderful) and myself. We e-hangout every Sunday, sharing a small glimpse into the past week of life in our own worlds. We’d love if you could join us!

This week’s themes: Redoing, Making, Choosing, Concentrating, Appreciating.

One of these days, I’ll get the hang of the whole “Sunday” aspect to this thing….

Redoing

Thankfully, there isn’t much that I feel like I’m redoing lately. I am remaking my business cards with my new Twitter handle, though. Oh shoot, that should go into the next topic.

Making

So I’m not sure if you heard, but I’m making business cards with my new Twitter handle. It took me forever, but I finally narrowed down the handle I wanted to use to a few options and I just say down and chose the one I wanted, no thinking, just typed something that came to mind. Wait a minute..I could have used that for “Choosing.”

Choosing

It took so much back and forth to pick a new Twitter handle. I didn’t want to replace the blog-specific one I had (@GardeningInHH) but I wanted to have one for AngelicaRoss.co without having yet another Twitter account to keep track of. So I decided to have one handle for all things writing. I picked @AngelicaRossPGH, not the most original, but it’s easy-ish to remember.

I’ll still concentrate on tweeting about cultivating a beautiful life, but with more focus on helping small business babes and bloggers get found and grow. It’ll combine what I’d write about for a lifestyle blog and a content marketing business. I think it’ll work. Hang on…concentrating…I’ve seen that somewhere…

Concentrating

Crap. I did it again.

Appreciating

I don’t know about you, but I appreciate my sense of humor. And I appreciate my Blogger Tribe girls for bearing with me while I think Thursday is now Sunday!

What have you been up to lately?

An InLinkz Link-up


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2 Comments · Labels: Sunday Lately Tagged: blogger tribe, weekly link up

January 2, 2017

Sunday Lately, 105

January 2, 2017

Sunday Lately is a weekly link up brought to you by the Blogger Tribe. Link up and see what's been happening lately!

Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup hosted by the Blogger Tribe, which is fearlessly led by Katy (Wild and Wanderful) and myself. We e-hangout every Sunday, sharing a small glimpse into the past week of life in our own worlds. We’d love if you could join us!

This week’s themes: Picking, Telling, Debating, Mixing, Humming.

Okay, so I somehow am already behind on this year and it’s just barely started! I hope you enjoyed your holidays. I was driving around like the kid in the Family Circus cartoon (you know, with the dotted lines going all over?) and definitely didn’t get to power down like I wanted to last week. So I’m doing it this week. My life, my business, my rules, right?

Picking

I have yet to settle on my official planning system for 2017, but I do have a planner picked out. It’s a simple paper planner that will house my appointments and dates to remember. I think I’m going to use an Arc system notebook to plan all bloggy things for here and AngelicaRoss.co and a Happy Planner to scrapbook daily memories so it looks pretty (I know they’re doing this big #functionalhappyplanning push on Instagram, but seriously, if I’m spending all that money and they’ve designed it so pretty, I don’t want it to be a mess of cross-outs and Sharpie markers). I have a mini and a classic size thanks to insane deals at Michael’s, so I haven’t decided which will be used. So we’ll see.

Telling

I am telling myself this week is a week “off” or as close to “off” as I can get, once I catch up on tasks from last week. My mom will be in town this weekend and all of next week; I’m trying very hard to wind down this week so I can clean up and relax a little before she gets here. I’m always a crazy woman when she’s in town, seriously cleaning every inch of my house that I can reach, and I want to have a quiet moment first.

Debating

A massage. I mean, a massage is always a good idea. But I’m debating if it’s a good idea right now. I guess I can schedule it now for mid/late-week and use that as motivation and a reward to get things done sooner rather than later.

Mixing

I’m mixing up the furniture in my house. One of my favorite things is to move furniture. It makes everything feel fresh and new, even if it’s still the old hand-me-down stuff you’ve had for ever and ever. The other day instead of writing, I re-arranged my office and it’s so much more productive for me. I used to face the wall, but I turned my desk so I can see my room and my calendar. Keeps me on track. I can’t wait for the day I accidentally knock my Post-It pile/pen box off the back of the desk and all over the room, though….

Humming

I watched the Lego movie the other night and I just got that everything is awesome song out of my head. And now it’s back in because I wrote this.

Here’s to a fantastic and fresh new year! I know Katy and I have a LOT of fun stuff planned for the Blogger Tribe and I have a lot I want to do with this space and AngelicaRoss.co. Keep an eye out for that!

What have you been up to lately? Link up and share!

An InLinkz Link-up


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4 Comments · Labels: Sunday Lately Tagged: blogger tribe, sunday lately

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Who’s Angelica?

Life Un-styled Blogger, Gardener, Shoe Lover..among other things

I'm here to encourage and empower you to grow where you're planted and embrace the weeds that sometimes pop up. I'll share inspiration, products I like (and you may too), and stories from the garden.

Gardening In High Heels is for badass babes who aren’t afraid to get a little messy. Want to learn more? Start here.
           

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