Lesson 22a: Defining Success

Here I am on Lesson 22--what happened to the last 18 lessons?

Alas, I have been distracted, and I haven't done my Beyond Freedom. I have nothing to say, just excuses, excuses, excuses.

If I were going through this for the first time, I would pick up where I left off and do Lesson 5. But since I have done it before, and I really want to stick with with my monthly schedule, I am picking up at Lesson 22. It's pretty amazing, actually--that's the lesson we discussed last night on Shannon's Beyond Freedom call.

Exercise: Charting Your Life

It's kind of tricky to do this life chart in the blog--I don't know how to draw pictures. But I'll just list out the important events and rate them.

Birth-5

Like most people, I don't remember the early part of my life well. Though I assume it was, for the most part, happy. No tragedies that I know of. +10.

Kindergarten

When I was in Kindergarten, my family was in a pretty serious car accident. Though I was so young, I was kind of oblivious--I'll rate it a -2.

My mother was hurt pretty badly, so my brother and I were sent to live with my Uncle. I'll rate that a -4.

We had a good time, though, and we developed independence at a very young age. +6

Grades 1-4

These were very good years for me. I was "popular"--had a lot of friends, boys liked me. I was very happy. +10

Grade 5

This is where it started to crumble. I was starting to change. I wasn't pretty anymore. Other girls were starting to get the boys' attention. I struggled with my self esteem. -6

Grades 6-11

These were really the worst years of my life--around 6th grade, life got really dramatic, as hormones kicked in, boys became important, and popularity cliques started forming. In high school, my dad started suffering from a mental illness that would dominate the next 10 years of all of our lives. -9

Summer Before Senior Year

I had a brief respite the summer before my senior year. I spent the summer in San Diego working at Sea World. I had a chance to recreate myself with people I didn't know--people I hadn't grown up with. This summer changed the course of my life. +8

Grade 12

I was so stressed out from everything going on--school, lack of popularity, my dad's illness, my parent's crumbling marriage--that I ended up home in bed for a couple months. I missed so much school that I had to drop out of some classes and rearrange my schedule to catch up. As soon as I graduated, I moved out (in with my Grandma) and then went away to college as soon as I could. -8

First 2 Years of College

These were the best years of my life. I made incredible friends, had a BLAST, enjoyed my freedom, joined the church. +10

The Next 4 Years

The next four years were spent trying to recreate the magic from the first two. We all moved away, I transferred schools and hated it, I took a year off, I came back. I wasn't so concerned about popularity anymore, but I was itching to get out in the real world and live my dreams. +5

The First Year after Graduation

This was a tough year. I had fulfulled a dream and moved to the East, but I couldn't find a job. I was just about to give up. +2

The SoftMed Years

I finally found a job, and I LOVED it. I loved every moment of it. I couldn't wait to go to work. Life was awesome. +10

Theatre and Dan

I started doing theatre and got great reviews. One of the best moments of my entire life was being in the parade. I won an award. I met Dan. We fell in love and got married. +10

The Kids

The kids came quickly and were a joy. They continue to be. +10

The Businesses

Life started getting stressful when I started my businesses. The first was my own creation, built from scratch. I was SO excited--it was going to make me a millionaire. Then I started doing network marketing and found that I loved it. Then I started a website to help others with their network marketing business. +6

The Businesses Cont.

Life started getting really really stressful. So much time and effort and nothing to show for it. It lands me in the hospital with a suspected heart attach. -6

Enter Beyond Freedom

I join the Beyond Freedom community, and I'm really excited about it. But I'm not doing as well as I had hoped--what's wrong? +2

E-Squared

I never did know why I had joined the community. I felt like the Universe/God wanted me here and I was just blindly following. I hadn't plugged into my passion. I come up with an idea for a live theatre experience--Empowering Entertainment ("e" squared)--and I can NOT stop thinking about it. I start taking steps to realize the dream and business takes off. +10

Lesson 4: Some Simple Truths

What an amazing day...and it's not even over yet! The kids have the day off of school, and sometimes it can be challenging to find things that keep them occupied while still allowing me to do the things I enjoy. But today has been just delightful!

Our day started with a parent-teacher conference for my son. He just started Kindergarten, so we were anxious to hear how he is doing! The first thing the teacher went over was his score on a recent assessment. The benchmark as a score of 61. He got 177!!!!! Ha ha ha! Amazing...

Next the kids and I stopped by the theatre where my husband and I "work"--volunteer, actually. It's our favorite hobby--I'm onstage and he's backstage. We had to stop by to order some tickets for Awards night this weekend. My husband has been nominated for two awards--one for co-set design and one for set construction. I'm pretty confident that he'll win at least one of them--unfortunately, I won't be able to be there to cheer him on because I am performing that night at another local theatre.

Anyway, we had to pay for his ticket for the reception. Since I will be elsewhere, he's going to have to take the kids with him, and we weren't sure whether we were going to have to buy tickets for the kids, too. Turns out they are going to let them come for free! Woo hoo!

Next we headed out to the pool. Today is a training day for me (training for a triathlon!), and normally I would just go while they are in school. But, since they had to come along, they donned their suits as well and we checked out a relatively new pool quite a ways away from us. It was AWESOME!!! They had a kids area with sprays and a slide, the pool was only 18 inches deep, and there was a full time lifeguard there to watch them while I went and did my laps. And it was FREE for me because it was part of the county-wide system where I normally swim. Cool! We are definitely going to go back there again.

After swimming, we went to lunch and ate outside in the beautiful, warm, but-not-hot, 85 degree weather. It was just delightful. As soon as we got home, I got a call from someone wanting to find out more about my business--how much better can it get?

So, now on to my Beyond Freedom...

Exercise: The Ideal Me

The first time I went through the program, I completely skipped this exercise--like I blocked it out, and it wasn't even there! Hmmm...I wonder what that is a sign of? Perhaps I am afraid to write it down in the event that I don't BECOME it--a psychological avoidance technique to protect me contradicting myself. Even now, I have done everything I could to avoid the exercise: I took a short nap, I put dinner on, and now I have caught myself surfing the web. I wonder why this is so frightening for me?

When describing the ideal me, I have to categorize it by area. There are just so many facets to a person!

Physically

I am beautiful. People notice me right away and comment on my beauty. My body is thin and lean. I am strong and healthy. My skin is soft and supple. My hair is thick and attractively styled. I am energetic and full of life.

Intellectually

I am smart, funny, and quick witted. People love to be around me because I challenge them to be better while at the same time I make them feel good about right where they are. I make people laugh. People love to be around me.

Artistically

I am a true performer. I love singing, acting, and dancing, not only for how I feel doing it, but for how it affects the people watching. I am instrumental in bringing to the stage works of theatre that empower and inspire. People thank me for changing their lives--for allowing them to see their own true worth in a way they never could before. Through theatre, I make a real difference in people's lives, and I leave them better than I found them.

As a Wife

I am loving, supportive, and available. I encourage my husband to live his best life, and I support him in achieving all that he sets out to do. I am loved and desired--I make my husband feel so good about himself, that he cannot get enough of me.

As a Parent

I am an encouraging and guiding force in my children's lives. I provide the freedom for them to make their own choices and experience their own consequences, yet I teach them all that I have learned so that they may make good choices and experience the rewards that come from living in harmony with God's laws. My children respect me and trust me. I encourage them to live their best lives and support them in achieving all they set out to do. I am loved--I make them feel so good about themselves that they always want me to be an important part of their lives.

As a Force for Good in the World--a Child of God

I stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that I may be in (Mosiah 18:9). I take a stand for the potential for greatness in every human being. In everything I do, I encourage, lift and inspire. I stand as an example for others to follow by living my own life in harmony with God's laws. I actively seek ways to help spread the message of truth and goodness and the power of every individual to rise up and step into their own divinely appointed seat as heirs to the kingdom of God.

Wow...that felt good!!! I can't imagine why I was avoiding the experience. Just like the description of my ultimate day, I need to make it a practice to write this out every day! So awesome...

Lesson 3: What is Possible

I am so grateful for my life!

This morning I was tidying the table and found that my daughter had left one of her school books here. So I got in the car and drove to school to bring it to her. I am so grateful that I have the freedom and flexibility to do that! Other moms might have to be at work and wouldn't even notice or have the time to take it in.

I went to the school and signed in. The secretary saw me, but walked away before I had a chance to tell her why I was there. So I just headed to my daughter's classroom and dropped off the book. When I came back to the office, I commented that I figured she trusted me. She said that if it had been any other parent, she would have stopped them. How cool is that? I am able to be involved with my kids, their lives, the school...life is great!

So, on to today's lesson...

Exercise: What derailed you?

Part 1: Excuse

When I look at the goals I have set recently and wonder why I got off track, it seems to always boil down to one thing: being tired.

Being tired seems to be my standard excuse for everything: not eating right, not keeping the house clean, falling behind in my commitments to the organizations I am involved in, not doing my reading for my class, not stepping up my business--just about everything.

Sometimes I am physically tired (for example, from truly not enough sleep), other times I am overwhelmed (and I just want to sleep and "turn off"), other times I am intellectually tired (like thinking of a solution--I know if I just relax it will come to me).

The problem is that this creates a viscious cycle: if I'm too tired to eat right, I eat unhealthy food, which in turn saps my energy and makes me more tired. If am overwhelmed and want to sleep because I have so much to do, sleeping just makes the work pile up more, which makes me want to sleep more, etc.

Part 2: Solution

Knowing that this was going to be the lesson today, I was thinking about this yesterday and I had a powerful realization.

I am passionate about the overcoming story. I love to hear about people who have triumphed over poverty, abuse, disability, and other disadvantages. I always imagine that if I had that problem, I would be one of those success stories! And yet, when it comes to my own challenges, I succumb! I fall back on the excuse!

I need to persevere in the face of my challenges, just like I would expect others to persevere in the face of theirs! That means doing things even though I am tired. Not using it as an excuse to keep me down!

Of course, there are also some strategies for managing my energy so that I feel less tired in the first place. In fact, I recently read an incredible book called The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. This book is what spurred me to get off my butt and start exercising--ultimately to train for a triathlon! I am committed to going back to this book and applying more of the strategies they teach.

The key, however, and this is something we hear all over the place in the Beyond Freedom community and, for example, in the movie The Secret, is not to focus on the problem, but instead to focus on the opposite of the problem--the goal. So, instead of saying, "What can I do to make me less tired?" (which just makes me think of and focus on tired), I need to say, "What can I do that will give me more energy?" Or, "Will the choice I am making right now give me more energy?"

And then, of course, when I have more energy, I must focus it on what matters. But that's a lesson for another time.