Hey you!
Tomorrow is my birthday and if you’ve followed me long enough, you know I get very contemplative around transitions.
While age is truly just a number, I adore the invitation I feel to step into this space of contemplation every blessed March 18th and this year is no different.
However, this year, instead of elaborating on one theme like I normally do, I’ve intricately stitched together 33 little nuggets of wisdom I’ve gleaned and am giving them back to you as my little birthday gift.
on love:
- be generous: always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and your time and resources can impact others in a meaningful way
- to see someone and be seen is one of the most precious gifts in life
- compliment people more: we all have trouble thinking of ourselves as smart, pretty, or kind unless reminded by others – you can be the first to help them out
- it’s not an apology if it comes with an excuse
on life:
- allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind: in the end it’s more rewarding to understand than to be right [even if that means changing your mind about a topic]
- when people tell you who you are, believe them. when people tell you who you are, don’t believe them: you get to decide that.
- a multitude of bad ideas is necessary for one good idea
- compliment people behind their back, it will come back to you
- compete with yourself and cheer on everyone else
- your life is limited by the language you use to describe your emotion
- work to become not to acquire
- calm is contagious
- your calendar doesn’t lie about your priorities
- if your purpose doesn’t scare you a little bit then it’s not big enough
- innovation is a reflection of creativity birthed from feeling stretched with our resources
- upon waking, make the conscious decision to “go pro”
- we choose our boundaries rarely, but we have to live with them every day
- asking “is this right“ is a red flag because it means you’re waiting for external validation before you act- “Is it possible” is the language of intuition
- “Failure is a badge of honor; it means you risked failure. If you don’t risk failure you’re never going to do anything that’s different than what you’ve already done, or what someone else has done.” – Charlie Kaufman
on wellness:
- stillness is medicinal: stitch pockets of stillness into your life by going for a walk with no destination, meditating without sound, and breathing with a longer than expected exhale
- it’s amazing what a glass of water will do for you when you’re feeling irrational
- presence is more rewarding than productivity. while our culture measures worth as efficacy and earnings, joy [and the divine] meets us in the present moment
- busy is a choice: this is of course borrowed from the wise and wonderful Debbie Millman but it reminds me how much ownership I have over the word busy
- consistency is superior to motivation: the body and brain prioritize what you repeat
- make starting a new habit as easy as possible: progression wins over perfection every time
- it’s easier to spot the bad things that happen more dramatically than the good things that happen gradually: endeavor to keep track of the good things to avoid inaccurate dismissal of the step-wise beauty of positive transformation
- if you can’t tell what you need it’s probably sleep
- procrastination comes easily to us: leverage it! “I really want to mindlessly snarf _________: but I’ll drink some water and come back to it in an hour!” – works every time
- if your goal doesn’t have a schedule, it’s a dream
- the greatest transformations in all areas of life live in the 1% daily shifts
- “doing”: the greatest teacher
- everything worthwhile is hard before it’s easy: breakthroughs often start as a “stupid idea”
- you can do anything you want but you can’t do everything all at once
While I’m confident this trip around the sun will entail its own challenges, I’m inviting this next year in as a master teacher guiding me towards growth, bravery, courage and the art of possibility.
I’m committed to the process of deep transformation garnished with playful joy.
I feel the magic and am determined to show up each and every day to let it find me.
What does this year hold for you?
p.s 3 fun facts on the number 33 I couldn’t help but gather along the way:
- when Dante wrote his Divine Comedy, his work had 3 parts, each with 33 stanzas
- the atomic number of arsenic is 33
- +33 is the code for international direct-dial phone calls to France