Gardening in High Heels

cultivate a beautiful life

Sunday Lately 37

When did it get to be the 37th week of the year?  This is insanity.  I feel like it’s the time of the year when I’m giving up on the goals that I set for myself and saying, “Well, it’s almost the end of the year.  What’s the point?  I’ll just try harder next year.”  But any day can be next year.  You can start next year whenever you feel like it.

“You might feel sleepy. It might be tough. It could seem preferable to just sit this one out. But…Today is not over yet.” Alex Franzen is a wise woman.  And today isn’t over yet.  The year isn’t over yet.  It isn’t over yet.  Just remember that.

That’s neither here nor there.  On Wednesday, I attended a #StylishPittsburgh event at No. 14 Boutique in Lawrenceville and it was fantastic.  Everything was so chic and Pinterest-perfect.  There were cupcakes and prosecco and I got to spend the evening catching up with Marissa and I purchased the most beautiful leather jacket just in time for a spell of cool weather here.

 

Doing

I feel like I’ve been doing everything and nothing at the same time.  I’m definitely spinning my wheels with certain projects and time is slipping away from me.  Exactly why I feel like it may be semi-pointless to try to make this year’s goals happen this year.

Appreciating

There’s an opening in another department at work and I appreciate the chance to be considered for it.  And no, I’m not just saying this because my url is on my resume.  I really am thrilled to try to make the company I work for bigger and better.  And myself, too.  I realized that if I’m not learning and growing and challenging myself, then I am supremely unhappy.  I need that challenge and this is exactly what I’m looking to tackle next.

Designing

Pretty sure that 87% of the past “designing” prompts have been something about this blog.  But I really am working on a plan to beef it up and redesign it.  I want to split it into “blog” and “services” that are more clearly defined.  Right now, it’s a blog (which is fine) but I need to highlight what I offer in other areas too.

Humming

I’m writing this and listening to Fleetwood Mac.  Because why not.

Expecting

I saw a Clarity on Fire clarity gem recently that said, “Expectation is far more powerful than hope.”  Don’t hope that things will work out, expect that the results you want will happen.  Don’t hope for a good life, expect it.  I love the action in the word expect.  Sometimes it feels a little…like you just think it’ll magically fall in your lap without trying.  But it’s more powerful than hoping.  There’s action to it.  Something will happen.

What have you been up to lately?

Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup with Katy, Nicole and Meghan. Use their themes or use your own. Just remember to link up with them so we can see what is happening with you lately!

Life lessons learned at work

Work.  It’s my least favorite four-letter word.  I’m lucky in that my work environment is pretty laid back and I don’t have many complaints, unlike some places I’ve worked before.

Even though people mostly learn from the negatives, I like to think we can learn from all experiences both good and bad.  Here are a handful of things I learned (or am still learning) about the working world.

Work is my least favorite four-letter word! There are good things you can learn about life at work. Stay motivated, stay strong.

 If you’re not okay with something, speak up

This is something I’m working on actively.  There have been so many instances in the past where I didn’t speak up when something wasn’t right and it bit me in the ass.

Just right now, I’m trying my best to let my manager know when I feel overwhelmed with my work instead of just silently martyring myself and letting my anger and frustration fester.

You’re not there to make friends

I know, this sounds harsh, but really, you aren’t getting paid to goof off, you’re paid to work.  I’m not saying don’t form relationships with your co-workers.  I’m saying the primary goal isn’t to make friends with everyone you encounter.

I cannot tell you how much it annoys me when I’m silently martyring myself in my cube and I hear people just BSing.  So please, don’t be that person.

You totally need a work BFF, though, and if you happen to become good friends with your coworkers, that’s fantastic.  Just don’t treat it like a social club, mmkay?

Recognize your accomplishments

I’m so awful at speaking up (as I mentioned before).  So I have a Warm n Fuzzies folder where I’ll sort out emails of praise and good work.  It really helps to recognize my accomplishments when they’re sitting right there in front of me.

For example: I wrote a blog post for my company’s “Company Culture” series.  It was nice to have someone else recognize me as the writer I know I am.  It helped me to be like, “Yeah, I am a good writer.  Other people can see it, too!”

Here’s a great article about recognizing your accomplishments at work.  Thanks, Levo!

It’s okay to leave

I’m not afraid to admit that I was fired.  Yep, I got the boot.  Canned.  Sacked.  Let go.  Etc.

And that’s okay.  Sometimes if you can’t say no yourself, someone else has to do it for you.  It was one of the best things that happened.

Leaving, either willingly or unwillingly, allows you to make changes that you need.  Just like Rachel from Clarity On Fire says, though, recognize where the problem is.  Are you leaving and not fixing problems that are fundamentally wrong?  Maybe there’s a glaring trend that you just aren’t seeing.

What have you learned from your experiences at work?

Do you know what you don’t want?

I have had this Clarity Gem from Clarity on Fire saved to write about for such a long time and I haven’t created it.  It’s talking about taking what you don’t want and transitioning it to what you do want.

Go listen to it.  It’ll only take 8 minutes.

Good?  Okay.  I was initially going to follow up Why Getting Fired Was Good For Me, but now it has more meaning in a different form.  Things come back when we most need them.

Like I wrote last week, I’m a little stuck in planning and not focused enough on doing without Knowing what you don't want is better than knowing what you do.making sure everything is perfect first.  Along with that, I’m not sure where I want to go with SynEr and my career and freelance and such.

As Rachel and Kristen say, when we get stuck in the suckitude of what we don’t like, that’s all we can think about sometimes.  We know really quickly what we don’t want and what we don’t like, but it’s harder to come up with what we do enjoy.

“I would do what I loved if I knew what I wanted to do, but all I know is what sucks.”

Makes perfect sense to me.  It’s hard to turn around and say to myself, “Here’s what I’m so excited about.”  Probably just like it’s easier to forget the good and focus on the bad.

When that happens, they recommend to take a second and think about the bad.  What don’t you want?  Then turn it on its head and figure out what the opposite is.  The example Rachel gave is feeling pressure.  The opposite of that for her is ease, relief, simplicity.  Kristen felt stifled, like she was suffocating.  The opposite for her was feeling spacious, like she had room to be creative and wouldn’t have to hide who she is.

This actually came up for me before I listened to the clarity gem all the way through.  I was having a discussion with Marissa and the same feeling came up for her, too.

My advice?  Figure out what you don’t like first.

Then I was trying to figure out what I want to write about for PCBN because Jason, bless his heart, was like, “Write about anything!”  In a total nonsensical paradox, it seems limiting to figure out what to write since there are so many options.

The easiest way for me to narrow it down was to write down what I don’t want to do and what angle I don’t want to take.  It really helped to put it into perspective and figure out, Okay, this isn’t what will work, so I can cross those off the list.

I’m also going through the Holiday Council with Stratejoy, and creating my plan for next year.  I settled on my “word” a while ago, but I want it to have a little more oomph.  “Focus” is a nice word, but it seems more like a command than a directive.  With this method, I know what I don’t like about it, and instead can find a word that has a little more power.

I’m really quite enjoying this opposite thing.  It’s perfect timing with New Year’s; we’re all trying to figure out our grandiose new direction for 2015.  I’m totally employing it to help unstick whatever’s stuck with me writing-wise.

What do you do when you need to figure out the answer to a big “something”?

Not my circus, part two

I was reading a blog post from Clarity on Fire and it hit a nerve.  This was perfect timing because I was thinking something similar to the situation in the post it came from – not the part about breaking up with toxic friends, because I’m pretty good at the moment, the part about people not being respectful of my time.  Rachel explained my sentiments pretty perfectly:

Personally, I tend to get pretty miffed when people are rude. Take, for example, when I schedule a free breakthrough coaching session with someone, we confirm the call the day before, and then they totally ghost me. They don’t bother to send a, “Sorry, can we reschedule?” email or a quick text that they can’t make it. Nothin’.

Part of my day job duties include scheduling appointments with people so I can help them with their marketing strategy or program in general.  The other day, every single scheduled appointment I had didn’t answer when I called them.  It wasn’t like I was Rambo-ing into their day and catching them off guard, these were mutually agreed upon times.

It really kills my day’s momentum when I have to stop what I’m doing to make sure I call these people on time.  It takes time for my brain to shift gears and prepare for the next task at hand.  Similarly, it takes time to refocus on what I was doing.

It smacks of not having consideration for the people around you.  I understand that some people forget or something comes up last minute; I’m not begrudging anyone of that and I’ve been guilty of it myself.  I’m talking about people who make it a regular occurrence.  Why is this okay to say to give the message that you just can’t be bothered to be considerate?

We were taught to say please and thank you.  Well, I hope we all were.  How many of you didn’t get a thank you on Halloween when passing out candy, hmm?  This self-centered attitude we’ve adopted is a big problem.

What I loved about the Clarity on Fire post is this simple reminder:

What other people say and do is about them. Not me. In fact, it never says anything about me.

Their actions are not a reflection of me.  I am not responsible for people not answering the phone.  Thank goodness we have a good note-taking system at work to prove that I did call them if there’s ever a dispute!  I am also not responsible to parent someone’s child and demand a thank you for providing free candy.

I can only control my actions.

It reminds me so much of “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”  Rachel even said that in her post, too!

What’s great about this is it works in both the positive and the negative sense.  Of course, if you blow off an appointment, it says you don’t care much for other people’s time.  On the flip side, if you do give someone a heads up that you will be a few minutes late or you go out of your way to hold the door for someone, it says that you are a respectful individual.

So today I’d like to ask you to bring back politeness.  Leave something in the world today that shows you are a decent member of society.  Let’s bring back being considerate and thinking about how your actions will effect others and how your actions make you look in turn.

Comment below and let me know what you’re going to do today to make yourself a reflection of how you really want to be known!

What other people say and do is about them, not me

PS: Don’t forget to enter the Miglio Jewelry USA Giveaway!

Let’s Play

           

People Really Dug These

We Belong in the Garden Together