Tag: do something

When you’re tired, worn out, beleaguered, scared, underfed, miserable, alone: a reminder. #dosomething

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

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I don’t care who you pretend you are.

I don’t care so much who you
pretend you are
when you’re well fed,
well dressed,
well slept,
put together, prepared,
And so called ready…

When the polish is fresh and the face
newly painted, airbrushed layers
covering freckles, pock-marked skin
with storied layers hidden;
the script locked on papers in hand,
it’s less interesting, this version.

No, see, I care who you are when you’re
tired, worn out, beleaguered, scared,
underfed, miserable,
alone.

I want to know
who you are when you’re not
caught up in the throngs or masses
styling yourself around other idols or dreams,
chasing a relentless reality of productivity in some Western idea of
what is Good.

No, I care you you are
when your soul flutters a bit and smiles,
when it sparks at the strange language of tender raindrops on dewy skin,
shivery hairs erect in the water’s spotlight, goosebumps
whispering hello to the wind.
When your feet fight to do the darndest, weirdest things, those
“silly dreams” and things no one else thought of; and
you almost don’t let yourself think them either,
because they’re strange, different, or seem
too obvious to you.

I care who you are when the world isn’t watching,
when the lights are down and
your hair is a scattered mess and
sweat stains pool in your armpit creases and
the sour smell of unwashed skin is the forgotten leftover of
your ambition’s messy chase towards your project, the thing at hand.

I want you (you want you)
crazy, tender, raw,
different, unique, silly, strange,
whatever you-ness is you, under
all that posture, pose and pretend;

My eyes flicker with green fragments of light against the roaring
C train’s metallic brakes squeal to a grunted stop
when I see the tendrils of humanity stream
uncannily in and out of subways, trains of thought
departing from each mind into the stuffy underground air,
mixed with kiosks filled with sugar and chips and
magazines of big-bottomed ladies tantalizing the sexual fantasies of thousands,
a cesspool of potential ideas, waiting,
for ignition, for permission,
a start that begins within.

In this, this messy
pursuit and nonlinear pattern-chase of never-ending arrival,
things fall down and apart,
logic feels lost and you feel so messy that you wonder,
is this it, am I doing it right,
am I doing it right?

Because who you are then —
when the worst conspires against you —
or the doldrums of daily commuting monotony threatens to close your creativity
when you’re lost, confused, meandering, processing, contemplating, cultivating,
this, this, is the essence of your humanity.

Show me who you are
when the ladder slips, when
you miss the subway by a moment, when
your face cracks, painted black smears blurring clarity tears
on makeup-caked cheeks, showing the beneath, when
your friends leave, departed for otherworlds
or better promises, when
your project busts, your pants rip down the center seam,
your mind breaks against the weariness of repetition,
and you breathe it in anyways, and
find a smile to give the departing train, and
hug your friend a tearful departure, and
laugh at the failed pants debacle and somehow,
you pour out gratitude and kindness and
showcase the kind of humanity that
is built from resilience,
grace,
pressure.

If you can do it then,
if you do it when
it’s not easy, –hah! easy—
when it’s difficult,
my eyes shine and spark with fierce
love for you, my sisters,
my brothers,
my partners,
my fellow humans,
working in the thick of it all
to find compassion, to showcase fierce grace,
to find the love deep
in the center of it all, to be
full of life.

If you can do it when
it’s a struggle, a hustle,
you can do it any time.

there is power, grace, and love buried inside
of the fiercest form of grace;
swimming taught me this—
when you’re tired, scared, unsure, insecure, and think you can’t:

do it anyways,
do it because you have no right,
because the odds are stacked against you;
because your mind plays tricks
and tenacity builds your soul

because adversity shouts You Can’t, You Can’t,
yet you still fucking can,
so
why not,
do it anyways.

And then
go on,
do it better than the rest of them,
knowing that if you do it now,
through this,
in spite of this,

then you can do anything.

do something.

The problem with thinking too big…

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

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“Dream big. Reach for the stars. The only limit is in your mind.” How often do you hear these words? We’re filled with the power of positive mantras in motivational texts, books, and seminars. The problem with expansive thinking, however, is that too big can be just as much of a problem.

The problem of thinking too big, however,

is that you’ll forget to get started.

Or you’ll become afraid of getting started.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]The more you dream, the bigger it becomes, the harder it can be to begin.[/tweetable] And sometimes, dreaming can get in the way of taking action. Over time, the practice of not starting becomes the best habit you have—another day to practice not starting, not doing anything.

Action is difficult. Deciding is painful. Manifestation, by definition, requires limitation. In order to make something real, you need to carve out and throw out all of the possible ways that something will not be. To make requires substance and grounding. It requires physicality and reality. It inherently means you limit the dream.

As you sketch your dreams for your life and career, you can have multiple jobs. You can own multiple businesses. Make multiple projects. But dwelling in dream land can hinder action.

The longer you hold onto an idea, the more the idea becomes a part of your identity, and the more wrapped up you become in making sure that idea is what will become the reality. The more goal-oriented and dream-oriented, the harder it gets to start. And if you hold on for too long, that idea of perfect execution becomes so big and monstrous, that if you take action—especially if you take action and fail—you’ll have killed or damaged part of your identity, part of what you’re yearning and hoping for. By chasing the dream with action, you put yourself in a scary place: a place where you might not get what you want.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]Making dreams become real is a scary business.[/tweetable] Ignorance can be a blessing. You sidestep the part where you get distracted by all of your fears of failure because you haven’t been able to imagine them yet. 

Sometimes hope and patience can turn a dream into an enormous mental glorification, resulting in the worst sin of all:

Not starting.

Specifically, not starting because of fear of failure. Because if you fail, you’re not what you thought you would be.

Our minds get in the way sometimes. [tweetable hashtag=”—@sarahkpeck”]Stop that thinking.[/tweetable]

Get started.

Big-picture thinking has its place. So does action. Sometimes you have to get out of your head, into the world, into the making, and start testing. Start building. Make a small thing, make a bunch of mistakes, shake it off, keep going. Over time, you can iterate. Test a couple ideas.

Worry less about getting there and more about being here.

But if you don’t start—you won’t go anywhere.

Do something.

Do Something — Book excerptWant a bit more motivation? A few years ago, I put together a mini-book on motivation with hand-drawn notes, quotes, and words to get you going. The book is available by donation or for free through Gumroad. If you want a copy, grab your own—it’s free if you’d like it.

 

Hustle is a dial, not a way of being.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

There are appropriate times to hustle in your business. Sometimes you’re hustling for a year or two on the side, creating your escape route and freedom business to jump ship from your corporate job.

Sometimes you stay up late and hustle the night before a course launches, or when you’re putting the final tweaks on a project before a deadline. Sometimes you hustle in between gigs, moving across the country, lining the highways in a bus, or getting from bookstore to bookstore to sell copies of your book.

Hustling, however, is not a way of being.

Many professions and careers (and managers, unfortunately) make hustling an expectation. Too many companies create expectations that people will work non-stop, jump at an email, and stay up late with very little advance notice; this is hustling as a result of poor planning, not as a result of the ebb and flow of project schedules.

With few exceptions, hustling as an expectation and a way of life—when you’re staying up too late and waking up early again the next day, time and time again, without an end date—is not sustainable. You’ll get sick, fall into depression or adrenal fatigue, contract bronchitis, or want to quit. The advent and appeal of lifestyle design comes not from people who are lazy but from people who are fed up. People who want to regain a bit of control over their time and want their efforts to matter.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, an employee, a self-directed freelancer, or a consultant, constant hustling isn’t always indicative of a great environment. There is such a thing as too much hustling.

Hustle is a dial. Dial it up, ratchet it back. A mode that you can press to apply a bit more pressure, and ease up when it’s time to rest.

Hustle is a dial—play it up, pull it back.

Play it like an instrument. Step on it gently or firmly like a gas pedal. Know when to apply the hustle. Know when to apply the brakes. (Brakes are there for a reason, and it’s not just to slow down).

And as a counter-point: if you’re not hustling, I suppose it’s time to find something worth hustling for. Once in a while. It’s alright to love something and want to work on it a lot. Ratcheting up the dial can make downtime so much sweeter.

But if you’re hustling non-stop, it’s probably time to step back.

Easy?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Shouldn’t it be easy?

An inside look at what it feels like for me:

There are some days when I can’t get out of bed. Some days when I feel so overwhelmed, tired, and disappointed in myself that I don’t know what to do, or where to begin.

The signs I hang up and the pins I post and the words I copy? They are just reminders to myself, first and foremost. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. Most of the time. I’m just here, trying, just like anyone else.

It’s not easy. “Yoga teacher training,” for example, sounds like an indulgence when I type the letters into my social profiles, cheerily posting about heading off to practice, but the reality of practicing these twenty hours each week is a face-to-face awakening with the mindsets I live with. Each time, I struggle with being too tired, with being scared, and with confronting my “samskaras,” or the past stories and patterns of truth I’ve got imprinted on my brain. I struggle mightily with quieting my mind, and this devil of a mind drives me bat-shit crazy. A lot.

A lot.

Seriously, who writes 20,000 words a week… just to stay sane?

I write to let it out, to maintain my sanity. I’m afraid that I’ll be insane by fifty and mumbling to myself in poverty huddled in a torn jacket in the corner of the subway entrance, and that no one will see me.

None of this is easy.

Here’s the thing, though. It’s not promised to be easy. It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be weird, and there are going to be plenty of days where you’re in a puddle, confused, lost, lonely, or wondering where to go. When I left my job to begin my own company, it was hard—I had to learn (and I’m still learning) new systems, new organization patterns, new habits, how to prioritize—again and again. I had to learn how to work alone. How to be accountable.

The lessons keep coming.

The promise of “easy” is a delusion, sometimes. Is that the point, though? I don’t think any of us, if we really thought about it, said—yes, the only thing I want in this life is the easy stuff. Forget about the rest of it, I’d just like it to be easy.

No, it’s not about the easy. (There is ease, but that’s a different conversation). First, it’s about what you do when it’s not easy. It’s about realizing that even if it’s hard, it can still be beautiful, and you can still make things that matter when you’re tired, lonely, scared, depressed, or bothered.

In the words of my coach, during a particularly arduous sequence of events: “Just f-*king do it.”

“Show me you can do it no matter what.”

This is when you become better than the best. Not when circumstances are perfect. It’s when circumstances are shit and you do it anyways.

Easy?

When did someone sit down and promise you that it was supposed to be easy? Or better yet, fair? It’s not guaranteed to be easy or fair, and the people who get what they want go after it–in spite of and because of–each and every advantage or disadvantage they are thrown.

Sometimes, things are easier than you could have ever imagined–pieces fall into place, the actions a result of agreement finally locking into place in your mind.

Other times, the fight for what you want, what you desire, is harder than you’d ever imagined; it begs you to give up, to stop, to drop. You doubt your desires, you fear the pain. You quiver, you stall. Many give up–no, most give up–and say, you know what? I don’t want it as much as I thought I did. I’m not willing to fight.

But if you want it, if you really, really want it, you’ll make it, you’ll do it, you’ll fight for it.

You’ll keep going even if it’s years of pain and labor, if it’s a fight worth fighting.

You’ll give up the excuses and the hards and tireds and you’ll find a way.

This is when you become better than the best. Not when circumstances are perfect. It’s when circumstances are shit and you do it anyways.

Do it anyway.