Keep Reaching for the Stars

Hello everyone! I hope that you had a great weekend and that your start to this week is rocking. I know my week kinda already got to a rocky start, but I’m getting past some hurdles and working my way thru it. One of the ways I’ve gotten thru some rough starts to the day is due to the community that I’m privileged to be with, especially among my blogging friends, mentors and companions. This thought kinda hit me the other day and I wanted to share it with you.

 

Everything can get VERY overwhelming, VERY quickly and makes things VERY confusing. There’s no magic pill to fix it all or make it stop or disappear all together. There’s no textbook to read to take notes and put it all into practice. No one has the final answer. It takes time, like a crossword puzzle. You are given the clues, but you have to fill in the blanks.

 

Life is like a crossword puzzle. You are given the clues, but you have to fill in the blanks Click To Tweet

 

Life could be more like a jigsaw puzzle. You get this beautiful box with the finished product on it, you wanna make that. You open the box and you get these weird but cool looking pieces. Not what the picture looks like. Then you have to figure out how to match up the pieces to fit to make it to that picture that you want. What’s the best strategy? Like-colored pieces together? Start with the edge pieces first? Find the center of picture (ie. an animal or a landmark in the landscape)? There’s no right answer on how to start, but to start and work at it.

 

It takes time, the grander the picture, the harder it takes to match the pics and the longer it takes. I don’t do 1000 piece puzzles. It drives me INSANE. My best friend loves doing them, it just speaks to her. After about the 500th piece, I’m done or get distracted or my cat decides I need to take a break and lays on it protectively *cough* and guards it with her life.  What’s your puzzle journey like? Are you struggling to put the pieces together or is the puzzle making going smoothly? 

 

What's your life puzzle journey like? Are you struggling to put the pieces together or is the puzzle making going smoothly? Click To Tweet

 

 

 

I’ll admit, I’m kinda struggling right now. But that’s ok. Its in the midst of struggling and frustration that we find what matters most. We find the things, and sometimes even people, that are toxic in our lives and to what limit we’re willing to accept and at what pressure will we possibly break. Right now, I’m struggling with fear of inadequacy/failure, not feeling smart enough and I have definitely lost alot of my self-confidence right now. This scene from a more recent Disney version of Alice in Wonderland kinda sums up how I feel:

 

 

 

So, I ask you as well as myself:

Want to be unstoppable?
Want to be wiser?
Want to be more confident?

 

Knowledge + Community = Power.

 

 

Almost everything in our lives revolve around this equation. Day-to-Day (even the mundane) routines and all the way up to BIG topics like politics and religion function on this equation. Having the know-how, the skill set, the handy dandy resources and adding it to the backing of community (whether in success, mellow or failure) is a recipe for positivity and success. Failure is a learning tool. It shows you that yes, you may not have gotten what you wanted [at that time], but it shows that YOU, you TRIED. YOU made the effort. YOU were brave to go after it. YOU physically did something. Hindsight can be a real b***ch sometimes. But guess what? You may not haven’t gotten the result you were looking for, but sometimes that’s a blessing. If I had gotten everything I had ever strived for, oh boy, who knows where I’d be or even WHO I’d be. Failure shows us that sometimes what we think we want isn’t really what we wanted and it allows us the opportunity to tweak things/re-group/re-write the action plan/wipe the dry-erase board clean and gives us a new slate to start on. As Thomas Edison said upon the many “failures” of getting the lightbulb to work: “I have not failed. I have simply found 99 ways how it won’t work.”

 

 

 

 

Dear Frustrated,

You haven’t failed. You just found a different rabbit hole than what you wanted or expected. Brush it off love and keep calm and carry on. You’ll get it next time and you’ll be more successful than you can imagine if you don’t give up, even after 100 “failures.”

If you find yourself in a rut, don’t forget: you’re never alone.

Sincerely,
Keep  On Truckin’

 

 

I won't give up, even after 100 failures... Click To Tweet

 

 

But thanks to my community, I know that I can lean on them for support thru these tough times. And I know that I’m not the ONLY one having this feelings. Ashley Beaudin  over at Fire + Wind Co recently hosted a 3 day challenge called the #theimperfectboss where she asked all of us to be brave and confess something, whether or it was “I didn’t shower today,” “I’m not wearing pants during this webinar/Skype call,” or “I’ve had 5 business launches that have failed.” This campaign was raw and to the point. It was hard opening up and being vulnerable. I had posted that work + my future marriage + managing 2 households w/2 future stepsons + my career goals + my sick mom was overwhelming. People I knew liked my tweet and we supporting me. We supported everyone. Here the numbers from her post-challenge newsletter:

 

In three days, this is what happened:

Over 670 women took part.

Over 1200 posts on Insta.

Over 1,100,000 impressions on Twitter and Insta.

 

How’s that for support?!

 

Recently, Allie Williams over at Allie Williams Co. (http://www.alliewilliams.co/) hosted The Daily Ten Challenge, a blogging and community support challenge. We were given tasks each day via Slack (love it, love it, love it) and together as a team we helped brainstorm, throw ideas off each other, upload our homework for positive criticism and support each other from afar. My team had people from all over! Working with each other (and each other’s time zones!) made the challenge so much fun. Allie’s prompts were great too. We ranged from target audience, to opt-in/content upgrade, to email subscriptions, to Canva to do social media works, creating e-books and other templates.

 

 

Knowledge + Community = Power.

 

Knowledge will get you far and keep you sharp and community will help you keep going thru the good, the bad, the ugly and the SUPER ugly… combine them together and you have the power to get thru anything.

 

Shine bright.

<3 Jenn