The more I reflect on identifying my true purpose, the more the “You can do it!” message resonates with me. Just typing those words makes me feel energized, inspired, and motivated to work hard and find the right medium for my message. I can honestly say that I never felt that way when I was thinking about writing fiction (or actually writing it). This excitement and energy tells me that I’m on the right track.

I’m not quite sure yet what my ideal medium will be, but since I’m fairly certain (not 100% at this point, but pretty close) that it won’t be fiction, I need to realign my goals and objectives to be a better fit with my (admittedly fuzzy) ideas about how best to move forward. (Check out the revised writing/blogging section of my 101 Things list to see how I changed my goals in those areas.)

At least to start, this website will be the “hub” of my efforts. Here are some steps I plan to take to align it more closely with my purpose:

• Rebranding. I love the Semi-Charmed Wife domain name, so I’m definitely keeping that, but I’d like a new image for my logo/header and a new tagline. Any suggestions? Is anyone out there good with graphic design (on a fee or barter basis, of course) or have a recommendation for someone who is?
• Business plan. I’d like to write a comprehensive business plan to chart the course for my website. This will force me to look at areas I often ignore, such as marketing and revenue generation. Again, I’m not strong in this area, so if you are, I’d love your help! I’d definitely either pay for services or barter my services for yours (e.g., I’ll write/edit/provide coaching for you if you assist me).
• eBook. I’d like to write an eBook about finding your purpose (I have tentative ideas for others as well), and I’d like to make it available in my online store. Which brings me to the next item…
• Online store. I’d like to add an online store to my website where people can purchase services, eBooks, and potentially T-shirts and other merchandise. (Again, I’d need a good graphic designer!)

I think that completing these steps will put me well on the way to transforming my website into an effective vehicle for delivering my message. If you have any additional ideas for me, or if you think you could help me (or know someone who could) with the business plan or the graphic design (either for a fee or for an exchange of services), let me know!

Some of you responded yesterday that you know what your message is, and some responded that you’ve already identified your medium. What steps are you taking to fill in the blanks? What resources or topics for posts might be helpful for you?

Today, I’m kicking off Self-Esteem Week, so give yourself a big hug and pat yourself on the back! I’ve already got a few guest posters lined up, but I’d love to have as much input from you as possible. If you’d like to write a guest post or suggest a topic for this week, please let me know! If there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to arrange multiple posts per day or extend Self-Esteem Week to accomodate all the topics you’re interested in.

The topic of the day is forgiveness. In a previous post, I talked about my tendency to obsessively relive the past. Unfortunately, I don’t tend to relive happy or proud moments, but experiences that were negative in some way–usually incidents in which I “messed up.” Reliving those memories is accompanied by a barrage of negative internal self-talk. How could you be so stupid? What were you thinking? What’s wrong with you? It gets pretty ugly, and as you might imagine, it has a significant impact on my self-esteem.

I caught myself doing this again the other day, and it got me thinking about the importance of forgiveness. I don’t know about you, but I find it much easier to forgive someone who’s hurt me than to forgive myself for hurting someone else. All my mistakes and misdeeds just sit in the pit of my stomach like a stone. They’re weighing me down! Refusing to forgive myself keeps me trapped in an endless self-criticizing loop in the past, preventing me from fully enjoying the present and from planning for the future.

Forgiving yourself is hard, that’s for sure, but fortunately, it’s not complicated. In fact, it’s as easy as ABC (or to be more precise, ABCD):

1. Acknowledge the mistake. Admit what you did wrong–both to yourself and to the person you hurt–and offer a sincere apology. I’m usually pretty good at this step.
2. Become a good student. Why did you do it? What can you learn from it? How can you keep it from happening again. There’s a lesson in this experience–find it and internalize it. This is something I generally neglect to do. In fact, until I started researching this article, it never occurred to me to think about why I did something wrong. I was too focused on feeling guilty to think about learning from the experience.
3. Correct, don’t punish. Your mission is not to judge and condemn yourself, but to gently correct yourself. Heaping scorn, guilt, shame, blame, and criticism upon your head won’t do anyone any good. (One extreme of this behavior would be a self-harm response such as cutting.) It helps me to think about this in terms of the way I’d discipline my niece. If she did something wrong, I’d definitely correct her, but I wouldn’t punish her by shaming her for the incident or telling her she was a bad person.
4. Decide to accept yourself and move on. You’ve admitted your mistake and made amends. Now let it go. It helps me to do this out loud. “Yes, you snapped at your friend. You took her phone call even though you were feeling stressed and frustrated at work. Next time, you’ll know to just let the call go to voice mail when you feel that way. You already apologized, which was the right thing to do. You’re a good person and a good friend, and you’re going to leave this mistake behind you.”

Do you struggle with forgiving yourself? Do you have any tips for practicing forgiveness?

Are you ready to leave the “Balance Bandwagon”?

Sometimes a message comes along that makes you STOP in your tracks and reconsider what you have been doing in your life. For women, the message has been that we need to balance all the areas of our lives and look good doing it. Two amazing women and authors, Susan Guiher and Mary McHenry, tell us that this message does not work! According to Susan and Mary, the idea that we can balance it all is a myth and only leads to increased stress and feeling overwhelmed.

Stop Spinning Plates: How to Lose Your Balance and Become a Thriving Mother is a new book that shatters all the myths about how you “should” be as a working woman and mother. Susan and Mary will teach you how to stop feeling overwhelmed, stop doing things just because you think you should, and practice blending all the areas of your life through leverage and community.

Whether you are a Mom or a woman who is mothering a project or passion, Susan and Mary want you to learn to create a new way of being which allows you and your family to grow, develop, change, make mistakes, and feel good at the same time!

Several friends and colleagues of Susan and Mary (including me) are thrilled to be offering you special bonuses collectively valued at more than $1000 when you purchase the book today. Not only that, a portion of all proceeds will be donated to Kiva– the world’s first person-to-person global micro-lending website.

Don’t miss your opportunity to get this warm, funny, down-to-earth, practical guide to thriving! Go here to pick up a copy of Stop Spinning Plates and claim your $1000 worth of bonus gifts. 

Anyone who reads this site regularly knows that I’ve been having what’s technically referred to as “a hell of a time” at work. My job has repeatedly driven me to the brink over the past several months. I would have sworn to you yesterday that there was no hope of redeeming the situation. But I had a personal breakthrough this morning–I simply can’t put into words how much my outlook, attitude, and emotional state have improved. What happened? Well, it went something like this…

I got real. The reality is that I choose to do this job. No one has the power to force me to stay, and I can walk away from it at any time. Yes, it’s been miserable, but I must be getting something out of it or I wouldn’t do it. In this case, what I’m getting is money/financial freedom, health insurance, interaction with my colleagues (whom I love), and well… the challenge. I was acting like a victim–oh poor pitiful me, abused and mistreated by evil agents of my client! Why oh why must life be so cruel? That’s just B.S. I’m not a victim; I’m a willing participant. This realization made me feel much more empowered to change the situation.

I played make-believe. I took a hard look at what I believed to be true about my job. (1) My job makes me miserable. (2) The only way for me not to be miserable is to quit. (3) I can’t stop working right now because we need my income. (4) I can’t change jobs right now because we might be moving. I wrote those statements down and looked at them for a while. It occurred to me that there’s no objective truth there. These things are only true if I believe they’re true.

So I decided to make a new set of beliefs. (1) My job is challenging. (2) I can ask for help with those challenges. (3) I enjoy the benefits of my job. (4) I can make this work. So I talked to my supervisor. Now, I’ve complained to him many times before about how horrible things are, but this time, I did something different. I proposed a solution–what if the client assigned someone to work with me part-time? That person could manage the part of the job that is most frustrating to me, and I’ll do the rest. One phone call and five minutes later, I had a partner. It’s so mind-bogglingly simple that I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.

I got positive. That simple step–assigning someone to work with me–was enough to improve my outlook dramatically. This person hasn’t actually started working with me yet, but the mental relief of knowing help was on the way was immense. I began to see how negative I’d become about my job. I was missing the good things that were happening around me all the time–the thank you emails I received from my clients, the sense of satisfaction when I achieved a goal after a long battle, the positive recognition from my supervisor and colleagues. I didn’t register any of it. All I saw and felt was frustration, anger, and misery. That was (and realizing this was kind of a blow) entirely my choice. That realization was like a ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds. I don’t have to experience misery and frustration any more. I can choose to experience something else!

Since then, I’ve been on Cloud Nine. Yes, my job is hard. Yes, I’m busy. Yes, things don’t always go perfectly. But I have the power to change this situation, and more importantly, change my experience of this situation any time I want.

Let’s hear it for personal breakthroughs!

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It started when my alarm clock went off this morning–stomach churning, head crushing, gut wrenching anxiety. Why? Because I knew it was time to get up and get ready for work. My work situation is extraordinarily unpleasant and stressful, but I need to stick it out at least for another month or two. Unfortunately, that means that the anxiety is not going away any time soon and I’m going to have to find a healthy way to deal with it. In wondering how in the world I’m going to make it through the next couple of weeks, I remembered an article I once read about self-soothing.

The purpose of self-soothing is to provide emotional comfort by calming the mind and soothing jangled nerves through non-harmful actions. These actions are sensory experiences that allow you to focus your full attention on what you are physically experiencing in the moment. This withdraws your attention from troubling thoughts, feelings, and impulses. Self-soothing is useful not only for anxiety, but is also a powerful tool for battling cravings associated with addictive behaviors (e.g., binge eating, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, compulsive spending). And for parents, it’s great to teach self-soothing skills to children so that they manage anger, fear, anxiety, and hurt in healthy ways.

Here is a list of self-soothing behaviors that I’d like to try. I’m including both actions that can be done at work and actions that are more appropriate for home. Again, the purpose of these actions is not to solve your problem, but to find a healthy way to comfort yourself when you feel upset.

• Light a candle and watch the flame for a few moments. Focus your attention solely on the flame and release all other thoughts.
• Go for a walk and look for five beautiful things.
• Look at a beautiful piece of art (you can even do this online from your desk at work).
• Listen to nature sounds or calming music (or invigorating music, if you’re feeling lethargic). It might be best to focus on classical music without lyrics so that you don’t inadvertently internalize any negative messages.
• Practice aromatherapy.
• Apply a scented lotion.
• Take a luxurious bubble bath.
• Bake cookies or bread and let the smell fill your home (or visit a bakery).
• Have a soothing, non-alcoholic drink like hot chocolate, warm milk, or decaf tea.
• Eat mindfully. Focus on every bite you take and really TASTE your food.
• Cuddle with your significant other or a pet. Think about how wonderful it feels to touch and be touched.
• Get a massage.
• Soak your feet.
• Put a cold compress (or a warm one in the winter) on your forehead and lie down for a moment.

Do you have any self-soothing practices that calm you down when you’re feeling upset?