ideas

Saying Yes

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Something weird happened to me today. No, really.

I was having a perfectly ordinary day at work when I noticed this tweet:

Intrigued, I checked my email. I had a note asking me if I could do something online in about an hour. It was really short notice (especially considering I had never done it before), but I thought “why not?”. (Note to my work peeps: I made sure I was reasonably caught up with my work first.)

This is how I ended up being part of a panel on HuffPost Live earlier today. The subject was ‘changing your name after you get married’. I believe the producer found me via my post I wrote last year about why I hyphenated my name after I got married.

I’ve never done one of these segments before. It was done via a Google+ Hangout, which I had also never used before (they’re easy). Once I got the confirmation I was in, I hustled to a spare office with my laptop so I could set up and talk without interruption and my cubicle mates thinking I was crazier than normal, talking to myself about my choice of nomenclature.

Here is the link to the discussion.

 I chatted with the other panelists beforehand and they were lovely women. I hope the woman who couldn’t decide what to do about her name (she’s getting married in a month) comes to a decision that works for her and her husband.

I’m not so sure how I did as a first-time panelist with no experience or guidance. I am happy that my microphone worked. I didn’t say a lot – the joys of being an introvert.Too much listening.

I’m proud that I went for it though. If they had caught me on another day, I probably would have just said “No, I’m at work – can’t do it”, and spent the rest of the day wondering “what if I had done it?”

Saying yes can be just as powerful as saying no.

I need to say yes more often. Get out of my rut. Try something new. Have adventures. This feels like a good start.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

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I’d love to tell you that I’ve been having crazy awesome adventures and that’s why I haven’t written here in the last six weeks. While we had a good summer, it hasn’t been anything extraordinary. No big trips, no life-changing events. Just an ordinary life. And that’s okay.

No big stories, just lots of little ones.

Family life is so routine-based that anything new feels weird and hard. Then we adapt and the change becomes normal.

I’m in the headspace where I’ve got so much to say, but I’m not sure how to articulate it. I have loads of ideas jumbled together in my head and no time to figure them out. Then when the time does show up, I waste it by trying to get everything perfect to Express That Thought. By the time I get my act together, the thought is gone and I’m left disappointed in myself and full of doubt.

I can do better than this. I need to reset my routine too. What do you do when you feel like this?

#reverb10 – Day 13: Action

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December 13 Prompt

Author: Scott Belsky
Making Ideas Happen
@scottbelsky

Prompt: Action. When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

reverb10.com

The next step depends on the idea I’m trying to make happen.

Sometimes I write a list of things I need to do to put my idea into reality. I follow the advice many productivity gurus give and separate each large task into smaller, easily completed task. It feels good to check the tasks off that way, whether I’m using pen and paper or Remember the Milk, my favourite web-based to-do list app.

I’ve also written the occasional blog post detailing my to-do list for that timeframe. Not big-goal to-dos, but the little things that add up and need to get done, like cleaning the bathroom. Posting those to-do lists online tends to shame me into doing them. Using the <strike> tag also feels good to cross items off these lists.

Sometimes crossing the first item off the list makes the rest of the list a little easier to complete.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada
This work by Melissa Price-Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.
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