Tag: start

Getting things done: how I take notes + snapshots of my moleskine + my nerdy highlighter system

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Lots of folks have emailed me to ask me how I get everything done and what systems I have in place to keep myself motivated, on track, and organized. I love watching how other people work and learning what they do to stay organized–so I thought I’d share a behind-the-scenes peek into some of my systems. Here’s what I do when I start my day.

I have a lot of various systems and half-systems that work perfectly for me; a combination of analog and digital tools and, of course, several notebooks. I almost always start the day with a fresh list (on a real piece of paper) because it’s a way to clear my mind and it’s the habit that gets me into the day. During highly productive consecutive days where I’m focused on just a few things (a 3-day stretch of writing, or a week focused on creating a book), I’ll often use the same list for the whole week.

I’m well versed in David Allen’s Getting Things Done and the Action Method by Scott Belsky, and Stephen Covey’s urgent/important matrix, and I implement a bit of each across various projects (and type of work) that I’m involved in.

Here’s a quick behind-the-scenes look at how I take notes–using a fairly simple analog notebook (a moleskine) and 2-color highlighter system.

Making a list, the old fashioned way:

In the morning, after I wake up and have coffee (and do some reading or stretching), I open a fresh page in my moleskine. Based loosely in categories (such as errands, writer’s workshop, blog posts, guest posts, bills, etc), I’ll list out the things on my mind that I want to work on:

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Step 2: Adding a yellow highlighter (prioritizing).

The next step is pretty simple, but it keeps me focused. I take out my yellow highlighter and look back through the list and highlight the things that are the most important (or urgent) for me. Maybe I’ve got a big deadline, maybe I just got off a plane and I really, really want to clean up and settle back into my home, or maybe I’ve been itching to read a few books that I haven’t made time for lately. Whatever it is that’s the most important, I highlight. It’s a variation on writing a to-do list with only the three most important items, but it’s useful for me to add this level of clarity.

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Step 3: Highlight what you have done or accomplished in blue (reflection + tracking).

As I work through my ideas, projects, and tasks, I highlight what I did do in blue throughout the day. If something pulls me out or off of this list unexpectedly (an hour long call with my mom, an unexpected visit from the plumber, needing to fix my website if it goes down), I try to make sure to add this on and write it down to account for what I’ve spent time on.

At the end of the day, I can quickly see whether or not I was able to stay focused on the things I felt were most important. A successful day is one in which I can cross off all of those yellow highlights–that’s a slam-dunk day.

I rarely get everything crossed off. (That’s pretty normal).

Some days I’ve spent the entire day working and it feels like I’m making no progress on my goals. When I end the day, I like to recap quickly by looking at my notes and remembering what I did do (or noting if I’ve had a completely off or strange day), and then assess whether or not I made progress on the big things I’ve been wanting to work on.

Throughout the week, this system also serves as useful feedback. If I’ve had an item on the list for five or six days in a row and I’m still not making progress on it, I know that I need to adjust my strategy and spend more time focused on that piece. Maybe something’s holding me back (mentally, emotionally, logistically, structurally), or maybe I need to allocate more time (and energy) to the project than I anticipate.

Other systems I love + making sure it’s not all about “productivity.”

I love lots of systems–from David Allen’s Getting Things Done to Scott Belsky’s Action Method. Yesterday I saw Danielle LaPorte’s Entrepreneurial Time Management post which made me very excited (it’s similar to what I do, but mine isn’t defined as clearly as this–so this makes me want to up my game), and Amber Rae’s post in Fast Company about scheduling your days around your peak energy is GREAT. As always, the insanely organized Jenny Blake has an entire toolkit that I love drooling over and perusing to discover new things.

Lately I’ve been adding a short box to the upper-right corner of my page, asking myself (based on Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map program) how I want to feel throughout the day. I’ll jot down the notes, something like: “Less stressed out, excited, productive, peaceful.” Writing them down and having them there to look at helps me remember what the point of it all is–not to crank through yet another list, but rather, to work on things (and in ways) that make me feel the way I want to feel.

But what else goes in this notebook?

Ahhh, great question. It’s a catch-all notebook that I use to take notes during meetings, calls, reflection periods, and on books that I am reading (or want to write). I use up 5-15 pages a day between notes and lists, and each notebook can last me for a month or several months, depending on how much writing and sketching I’m doing.

I have a two-color pen system that I (loosely) follow. Black are my ramblings, personal notes and lists; blue are my reading notes or specific program notes. If I’m reading a book and jotting down notes, out comes the blue pen. If I’m on a tele-call or taking a class; again with the blue pen. That way, I go back and can flip through and find my notes fairly easily.

A final note on systems and organization:

Of course, there’s a lot more than just a list and a highlighter–I use calendars, visioning days, big maps, plans, online notes, Evernote, Google Docs, and many other tools. More on that later. For now:

“The only system you need is the system that works” – tweet!

The ultimate metric for me, however, is whether or not I’m getting what I want. “The only system you need is the system that works” is one of my key phrases for evaluating–you don’t need to adopt any new systems or strategies unless you want to make a specific change. You don’t need to fix what’s not broken! If you’re not saving any money and want to save more, change the system (the one you’re using isn’t working). If you like the outcome you’re getting, however, you don’t necessarily need to switch things up, unless you’re up for an experiment.

The only system you need–is the one that works for you.

What other tips and tricks would you like to know about? I’m happy to share tons of my how-to’s and systems, and I hope to share a lot more of these in the near future. What works for you? What do you want to know more about?

 

Jumping is terrifying. Or, behind the scenes of the last few months: Life. Mind Work. Change. Here. Now. Hello. Breathe…

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

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I wake up in a panic, nerves sending a fear signal up and down my trembling arms. Adrenaline pours into my veins, shooting up my skin like a shock to my system. My brain races, full of questions and doubts and fears. I can’t sleep again, even though it’s dark. The light from the streetlamp outside my window glares at me, accusingly. I get up, I start pacing.

I wonder if what I’ve done is the right thing. If what I’m doing is the right thing. I feel like I’m jumping out of an airplane, a rug pulled out beneath my feet to reveal that I’m far too high up in the sky and gravity’s tugging on me. I don’t know if I have a parachute. I’m not sure what a parachute would even look like. I’ll need to figure it out later, but probably fairly soon.

Sometimes I’m soaring with the incredible high of experimentation, and other times my mind wonders if it knows just exactly what I’ve gotten myself into. I cling to my practices of yoga, journaling and other meditative daily walks, but they don’t fully temper the fact that I don’t know what I’m doing. My mind is a scramble. I can’t understand the illogical things I’ve put it through. It’s probably for the best that I don’t understand.

Trust.

There’s no easy way to jump other than to put both feet out and trust the world around you. Trust that you’ll land, that you might fly, that it’s okay to fall, or that some other iteration you can’t predict will come to fruition. Unlike the time I went zip-lining with my sister, where my jump off the platform was so timid that I smacked my butt against the wooden platform below as I launched, I need to lean, and lean so hard that it feels like falling.

I’m falling. This is falling.

While it’s been quiet around these parts lately, that’s just an illusion–a set of unwritten essays and the silence that is days passing a surface skin for a mind and a life that’s been in flux for much of this summer and this year. I look back at my writings for August, noticing that I’ve only scrawled two posts this month; those posts are just a scant glimpse into life behind the scenes and what I’ve been up to. For those familiar with astrology, the world’s been ablaze with the recent Grand Trine, the idea of a shift so large and a planetary arrangement so powerful that people will feel huge changes, up-endings, and fluxes in their life; that dreams become reality; that things get messy; that things resolve — and I don’t just read this, I feel this, I know this, I am living this.

Hello, world. Shall we dance?

Sometimes I struggle with what to write about on this blog—is it a diary? Is it a travel trope of my own adventures? Is it strictly related to writing and communications? It’s not always clear; I share my personal stories and lessons as a window into how I’ve practiced (and continue to practice) the philosophies and principals that underline most of my work, scratching out and re-writing as I go, editing as I learn. I don’t profess to write about myself because that’s the topic at hand; I do love telling the stories I live as a means for sharing bigger ideas and stories. But when I leave myself out of all of the writing and start to write just about rules or teachings or hollow lists, it starts to feel a bit empty.

Like I’ve forgotten to tell you something. Like I’ve left part of myself out.

The past six months have been a whirlwind, to the point that it feels as though I’ve been hiding something. The past year has been a challenge, and I’m not always comfortable talking about all of it. Some of the hands-down-best-things in my life have happened in recent months, but so have some of the scariest and hardest. It wasn’t shiny and glorious; much of it came in a package that felt like I was being thrown repeatedly against a wall like a rag doll and left in a crumpled heap to stand up and fight a bit more. The great moments came with adrenal fatigue, medical problems, extensive biopsies and visits to the doctor. Moments at conferences after months at home, working all day and late nights, and having to look at someone else and not quite share. Not quite tell. These months and moments have been filled with Doubt. Insecurity. Changes. Lives beginning. Lives ending. Leaving my job, starting a new one. Selling my car (finally). Meeting incredible people. Shifting careers, changing tack.

You, too, are probably noticing something in your own life and in the lives of others around you. As I talk with friends and clients and colleagues, I notice that these big shifts aren’t happening in isolation. We’re all experiencing it, the universe seemingly sending the earth into the spin cycle a few extra times, the players and movers jolted into new realities of their own doing–or as a surprise. The economy has been moving and un-sticking; opportunities are opening while entire industry verticals are left career wastelands; some generations are in huge loss while other people are starting to move around much more in jobs and vocations and practices.

I hear stories of daring and adventure, of incredible romance, of deep pain and loss, of glimmers of beauty within the deepest tragedies. Sometimes the suddenness with which you realize a dream can be incredibly unnerving, pressing you forward into a new sense of self, a new definition, a new story before you felt like you committed to the wanting of your dream. And yet the universe sends you out the door and through three new ones, pressing you to discover your readiness through action, not thinking. And other times it seems unfairly agonizing to wait, years of debt and doubt and pain layered into the pursuit of freedom, a tantalizing notion that seems just out of grasp. Change is rattling. Waiting is painful. I’ve watched people get all that they’ve said they wanted, and fall apart. I’ve watched people try for everything they’ve dreamed of and crumble, stall, wander into places they’d never wish to be. They’re surviving. The universe is doing something.

Change is not easy.

… I’m not sure there are many people who say that it is.

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Welcome to solo-preneurship*, to adventure, to freedom, to creation.

In my world, a big shift happened a few weeks ago. At the end of July, I parted ways with my wonderful and dear company, SWA Group, the place that has been my home for the last five years. Along the way, we created a number of digital and print communications initiatives — sharing the perspective of landscape architecture and describing how the built world works through books, magazines, blogs, and stories. My colleagues are some of the most talented physical and spatial designers I’ve ever met, and they challenged me constantly to learn how to create physical, built spaces within the tricky world of patterns, codes, rules and regulations–learning how to engineer and design places for human enjoyment. Understanding urban patterns and landscape systems is immensely appealing to me, and something I’ve focused on for a long time.

And yet, I leapt.

It’s exciting–and terrifying.

Transitioning from a wonderful job and a space with colleagues who have been extremely supportive of my adventures and experiments was not an easy choice, and it took several weeks and months to iron out the details and to wrap up my final projects and head out. Out into the world of clients and projects and writing and self-employment. Also the asterisk in the title is a note of caution–I’m not headed straight into “solo-preneurship,” because it’s never truly “solo”-preneurship, like Tara Gentile so aptly reminds us. “Business doesn’t happen in a bubble,” she writes; rather, it happens with teams and clients and support and evolution. And markets. And needs. Further, solo-preneurship is not about late nights hustling indefinitely; while hustling is a part of the journey, it doesn’t need to become the entire journey.

And then, I was here.

Shoved out the door and onto the sidewalk, suitcase in hand. I’m taking all the knowledge and chops I’ve got and doing the best I can.

Starting yesterday.

When did this happen? 

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”– Pema Chödrön

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But Sarah, what are you working on? How will you spend your time?

I’ve been avoiding conversations that pull up that dreaded question, that accusatory, “so, what are you doing?” statement, the question that permeates what seems to be nearly every conversation. The rush to fill time—or worse, to apply a story or a definition to how we will spend time—is a national disease we all have, one that requires us to chase productivity and results over holistic being and space for mental clarity. It’s no wonder Time Magazine features a different cover for Americans than the rest of the world when we’re a market more obsessed with our own job performance (and resultant anxiety) than the civil unrest happening in the Middle East. Prayers to Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Israel, and all of the countries in need of deep healing. Including our own.

“The rush to fill time—or worse, to apply a story or a definition to how we will spend time—is a national disease we all have, one that requires us to chase productivity and results over holistic being and space for mental clarity.”

We ask each other what we do before we ask how we’re doing, a quick question that rolls off the tongue faster than you can truly hug someone and look into their eyes, wondering how they actually are. When you’re in transition (and transition is not a temporary state but perhaps an always-state, as Pema Chödrön has gently reminded me in her book, When Things Fall Apart), it’s much harder to answer that question definitively. I have an answer that sounds good, I have an answer that’s short and sweet, I have the answer that helps my parents worry less about my finances (So… how are you supporting yourself?), and I have a few ways to broach the conversation with friends.

The short answer is that I’m writing. And teaching. And learning. And living. The shift, if you put a definition on it, is that I’m no longer working full time with a single employer; I’m working in freelance mode with several clients and project across the country and around the world. Part journalist, part documentarian, part strategist and mostly writer, I’m building a new set of tools and skills and building a new business plan for myself. It’s liberating. It’s thrilling. It brings up every uncertainty I’ve ever had and puts them flat on the kitchen table and stares me square in the face.

It’s full-on accountability.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

One of my first projects was a press campaign for a Y-Combinator company in San Francisco dedicated to helping aging seniors live gracefully. I joined Y-Combinator team True Link Financial, a tech start-up tackling the challenge of fraud target aging seniors. Seniors are increasingly vulnerable to misleading marketing and scams; the company’s cofounders Kai Stinchcombe and Claire McDonnell developed a new credit card with a customizable fraud-blocker that helps prevent your parents’ and grandparents’ money from being irreversibly stolen in the time in their life when they need it most.

Aging is an issue that’s fascinated me throughout my studies of cities and people, and with my grandparents aging and later leaving us, I wonder who will take care of them if we all don’t step in and take care of them. A society with no age diversity should alarm you: we need older people to be thriving within our ecosystems, visibly, or we should be concerned for our own future health. It won’t be long until we’re all old (hopefully–that’s the goal, right?). I wonder who will take care of me when I’m 70, 80, or 90.

“The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”

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My second assignment as an independent journalist this summer was joining 1for3.org as a documentarian and writer on a recent trip to Aida Camp, a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. I joined an exceptionally talented team of designers and human rights activists dedicated to making change in a part of the world that needs a lot of love. We traveled to Israel over the summer and spent time in several of the world’s oldest cities, and then focused on the problem of inadequate water access within a camp that serves 6,000 residents. A design and landscape-based challenge, the team built a variety of options to capture stormwater and rainwater, cleanse it, and re-distribute it as potable or recycled water for irrigation and play. While the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is long and complex (see this history of the conflict in maps), the challenge of capturing rainwater on a single site is something that can be implemented in real time. As a documentarian, I wrote 2,500 to 3,000 words per day, and we’re working on pieces for publication this Fall. Nothing in this paragraph suffices to capture what the trip was–I’m struggling for words. It was. I will write more.

And lastly, this Fall I’ll also be teaching again in the Writer’s Workshop, a private group for people who want to build a practice and a community around writing. Writing unlocks our minds and helps us clarify who we are, how we think, and how we connect with others. Last Spring, I opened up the first writing workshop to a group of twenty-five people from around the world and was blown away by the talent, enthusiasm, and dedication of each of the people in the class. I’ve updated and modified the program to make it into a four-week program that focuses on storytelling, imagination, creativity and persuasion–helping writers and aspiring writers of all fields learn how to add more detail, color, and story to their blog posts, essays, and other daily communications.

Writing well is critical to great living. It’s one of my core beliefs, as I dig into understanding the whys behind what I do: writing helps us clarify who we are, what we believe, and serves as an introspective tool for a journey into your own mind. Good writing also helps us get better at explaining ourselves, our ideas, our projects, our thought processes, and our deepest wants and desires. If you want to get better at any job, relationship, or project–get better at writing. Improving your writing makes nearly everything better. If you’ve been to one of my courses or live events before, come join us. ‘ll be sharing more information on the writing class over the next few weeks, and posting details here: http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/writers-workshop/.

SF-reflections Bay Bridge at night

And in addition to leaving my Day job, I’ve left San Francisco for a while. 

The distance a country puts between your old life and a new, unprepared, different life–a life now navigated within the corridors of unfamiliar yet strangely reassuring streets–makes me see my old self with more contrast, more clarity. Distance gives perspective. Change shows your edges. Challenges reveal where we have more work to do.

I left San Francisco, heading to Brooklyn, New York for the Fall to build my own writing, teaching, and consulting practice. My client roster was overwhelming my ability to stay sane and get sleep while working full time, and so–I jumped. I leaned, and I leaned hard, arms spinning, free-falling in the the glorious disruption that is change. After long conversations with close friends, my own coaches, and my mentors both at my company and in my life, I wrapped up my time with my employer and I’m in a bit of a free space right now. It’s wonderful, it’s open, it’s strange, it’s new–and it’s now. It’s here. I’m in it.

It’s less of a jolt and disruption, in some ways, because I believe that the old employer–employee relationship is antiquated, and the job that’s perfect for you three years ago is not the same job (and nor are you the same person) today. Everything shifts and is in flux, and the jobs (employers, clients, projects) that stick around longest are ones that match you and your evolving human talents and needs the best. This shift, then, at least for me, is one towards more project-based work; a move that I believe is more in alignment with how corporate and employment relationships should work.

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But the truth is, I’m avoiding the heart matter, the real reason I’m changing tracks, the deeper stories woven into this framework of self-employment and time management. It’s easier to talk about jobs and locations and moving, because those are things I can point to. These are the things that feel safer to talk about, for some reason. Yet one of the beautiful, albeit less publicly prominent, stories in my life has has been simply and glossily covered over with the use of words like “life opportunities,” and “strategic choices” and “changes,” and “new directions.” These words mask the beauty of a burgeoning and deepening and marvelous love story I can’t even fully grasp that I’m a part of (me? this is me? how is this happening!?) — and my heart is cracking open with this new adventure. My partner. In life. I can’t wait to write about it, too, whenever the time is right.

In short, I’m stunned by how much my life has changed over the last few years. I bow in deep prayer to the universe and to spirits and to energy flows with thanks and gratitude for the gifts in my life.

We can’t wait until later to work on developing beautiful relationships, to starting new adventures, to leaning, to jumping. It’s always time to practice and to push. It’s an adventure, and you’ve only got a few opportunities to live it.

Breathe. 

But let’s dig a little deeper. Even beneath the shift in my relationships and the work that I’m doing is even deeper heart work. Life work. Body work. The thing is, I’m doing some mind work. I’ve been running at full steam for nearly a decade, and in a grasp towards more consciousness and deliberate creation, I’ve slowed down the project roll and I’m consciously practicing choices that make space in my life for essential philosophies and practices I want to devote more time to. I’m continuing to practice saying no to opportunities that don’t quite fit right; no to clients that aren’t a fabulous fit; and no to things that make me tired, cranky, and uncomfortable–like sitting still all day.

And as this moves forward, I’m creating space–ample space–for projects I’ve long put on the back burner.

My critics–largely internal–tell me this is silly, self indulgent, a waste of time. They sit on my shoulders and grumble, moaning about the work I’d better be doing, about the nonsensical things my brain tries to write, cackling in the backdrop. Occasionally I meet a real critic–someone who voices what I’ve been spinning up in my head–and the conversation usually ends with a decent explanation of why I’m doing what I’m doing, surprising even myself.

It can be easy.

It can be now.

My new apartment has a blank wall on it, in a room we’ve devoted to art and creation and the expansive, contemplative work my partner and I are devoted too, and even though we’re not moving in for another week or so, I’ve already scribbled across multiple sheets of paper with ideas, brainstorms, and plans. I’m pinning them up in the invisible wall in my mind. The marked shift is not one of dreaming that I put movement and writing first in my life, but a life in which I actually do it, and continue to align my life according to my values and principles.

Mind work, body work, spirit work.

We are more than the work we create and the products we produce. We are more than the money we earn and the statuses we post. We are humans, to the core, with moving, living, breathing bodies. We are connected, in communities and networks and relationships, and all of the pieces and parts need to be nurtured and allowed; cultivated and fed.

The next few months–nay, longer, please–are about mind work; about spirit work; about body work. We create a career and chase financial gains for consumer-based tendencies; in an effort to challenge these assumptions, the next few months of my life are deliberately about experimentation. I want to push myself (or yield, or soften) into experiments with mind and body. With doing more movement, and less computer work. With changing routines to learn what suits me best. With spirituality first and mental work first. With practices that develop the mind, body and soul. I’ve opened up space in this new life, this new day, for more writing and more movement. More teaching and more learning. More being.

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This means its messy, it’s different. There are a lot of late nights (or early nights) with tears. I’m not good at this; I’m not good at being composed and balanced at all times. I don’t expect myself to be, either. I get really stressed out and I want to throw things against walls and I make hyperactive sets of lists and then I feel like a complete failure when I’ve only done one or two things on my list. I put the list down. I listen to waves of anxiety roll across my body, and I practice trying to observe it—not critique it. I spend months in places that don’t feel right and only when it really really doesn’t feel good to I finally leave; and I learn that next time, I’ll listen to my intuition a little more closely. I shift, I dance, I fall.

Finding calm in the midst of chaos is not easy. Today is a day just like any other, and there is no arrival. Pema Chödrön’s “When Things Fall Apart,” has been a close reminder that the idea of chasing a completeness or an arrival–that feeling of having arrived is a false premise. We are not arriving, we are always arriving. We are always moving. Life is more often a state of chaos than calm; the fleeting satisfaction of completion erodes, too, as time passes and we seek more challenges, learning, opportunities.

The entire process—this ongoing, transitory adventure, this journey—provides fodder for stories and writing and ongoing exploration and journey. The more I grow and learn, the less I feel as though I have any answers at all. I document to track my brain’s inner workings, to train my mind, to place markers in the ground, to discover myself. I write because it’s such a gift to my soul and a beautiful way to connect with others. I teach writing because I hope to share the journey and discovery with like-minded individuals; I learn as much from the talented people I work with as I hope to share.

Thank you for joining me on this journey, and for listening. I’ve created beautiful friendships from this blog and I am grateful to be able to share with each of you.

To living life, to mind work, to creating space.

XOXO

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Tell me what you’ve been working on: I’d love to hear about it in the comments. How has your life shifted and changed over the past year? What’s become clear to you, and what are you working to prioritize? How do you deal with change and transition? 

Is It Too Late?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

“For what it’s worth, it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

– Benjamin Button

Why I say no to meeting people for coffee

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

If you struggle with balancing your time and wondering when and how to meet people for lunch or coffee, read on. Sometimes (and a lot of the time, actually) I have to say no–and here’s part of the reason why.

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Ever say yes to something and wish you hadn’t? Or get stuck in a situation where you’re not sure how to say no to something? Or better yet, get asked for money and you don’t know how to say no? I have a hard time saying no (an impossible time, sometimes, because I want to say yes to everything), so recently I said no to meeting someone for coffee and it was the right call. I had to use a phrase I rarely say (okay, now I say it more often):

“No, I won’t meet you for coffee.”

Those words were really hard to say. For some reason, saying no feels like an impossibility for me.

Usually I say no only if I can’t–if I’m on a plane or in another state, for instance. If I’ve maxed out my credit card cycle for the month, so I can’t donate for another two weeks. Things like that.

But is this a good behavior pattern to adopt? It’s certainly proved wonderful in my life–but I know there are times when saying no is prudent. When you need to say no because there are other priorities. When meeting for 5-6 various in-person interactions during the week totals as much as 20 hours per week, and 20 hours per week of transit, travel, follow-up and coordination time could be better spent writing a book or finishing projects for my clients–I have to prioritize. And while I love you; if I meet with you, I won’t write my book.

And that dang book won’t write itself.

(Trust me, I’ve tried that route).

But how do you say no? How do you know when not to meet with someone, or when donating or giving money is going to put you in more trouble than help someone else? Granted, I just raised $29,000 for charity and asked a LOT of people to help me out–so the world works on a big cycle of people saying yes. I’m not going to dispute that. And for every person that said yes, there were hundreds of people who said no–and that’s also absolutely fine. It’s the way the world works. So, when can I say no?

I talk a lot with people older than I am, and they mention that they only learned later in life how much they value their own quirks and life preferences. Being at home. Staying out late. Spending time with their friends. Read any end-of-life list and you won’t see someone say,

“Boy, I wish I had said yes to more appointments and meetings.”

Me? I love writing. I love reading. I absolutely adore being home, by myself, with my computer, rationalizing and thinking and mulling over ideas and pieces. Picture Tina Fey in 30 Rock delighting over organization. That’s me and books and my open screen made for all my words to spill onto.

It takes me time–a lot of time–to put these ideas together. I typically need uninterrupted space, for hours, to really sort things out and put them together and string words into phrases and meanings. On a lot of days I get up really early just to do this and I often stay up late or find time on Friday or Saturday night to write posts because I want and crave the space for my ideas.

So meeting daily for 10AM meetings or 7PM meetings is not ideal for me. (In fact, and more on this in another post, I try to schedule all of my meetings on what I call “Meeting Thursdays,” so I can enjoy most of my other days sans-meetings).

And I start to wonder how people with more demands on their time do it, because I’m not a big shot by any means (and never will be)–and yet I get a lot of requests for coffee, meetings, one-on-one events, and space on my calendar, as I’m certain so many working and busy people do. It’s more than I can handle, in fact, and I’ll have to say no to them if I want to get any work on my personal projects done.

I did the math, and I realized that if I were to meet with every person for coffee each week, I’d give up 10-20 hours a week of time, or 80 hours a month, and for someone who’s been saying she wants to write a book for several years now, I’ve got to stop and ask myself–

Is meeting for this coffee worth more to you than doing the writing you want to do?

And while yes, I would love to meet you for coffee, and I’m overjoyed at the prospect of spending time with so many lovely people, I know that in order to get the projects done that I want to get done, I sometimes have to say no.

I have to say no.

Same goes for subscriptions, memberships, and many other things. And I used to feel bad–sort of–about saying No. I felt like I ought to say yes, take the opportunity, do it. It might have some opportunity! I might be missing something! Classic FOMO.

How do you say no, kindly? There are two key phrases that really help–try these out:

For time:

“I wish I could join you. However, I need to carve out space for myself this week and I don’t have time to meet you.”

Shorter still:

“I can’t. I need to carve out space for myself this week.”

And for clients wanting the ubiquitous “pick your brain” option (see Laura Roeder’s excellent post on this)–

“If it’s a quick question, send it over and I’ll answer it quickly! If it’s a longer query, while I’d love to chat,  right now my lunch hours are reserved for clients. Here’s my current rate–let me know if you’d like to book a lunch session.”

And for money:

“It’s not in my budget.”

It’s your decision to say yes or no. And in a world with an abundance of yes, sometimes I need to select the “no” answer.

Need more help in this area? Marie Forleo has a list of go-to scripts that have helped me immensely. Enjoy!

With love, and a kind “no,” to preserve my sanity in the in-between times.

sarah signature

Are You Too In Love With A Dream to Make It Real?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Where does your mind go when you daydream?

That big dream, that thing in your mind–the really big one. Yes, that one.

What’s your big, scary, hairy, crazy, totally unrealistic dream? The one you wish for fervently and find yourself thinking about on and off while wandering?

Have you thought about making it real? Making it actually, seriously, part of your life?

Taking a dream to reality is risky.

It requires the real risk of failure and discovering whether or not you’re capable of what you believe. Whether or not you can actually accomplish all of the steps towards making it real. Whether or not you’re willing to do the work and go through the (sometimes painful) process of getting it to real.

Attempting to make a dream come true is a reality check. The possibility if a different reality is painful. It is quite possible that along the way towards going after your dream, you find out that you won’t get there. It’s too late. The pieces didn’t work. You don’t make it.

Behind the course of taking a dream to life is a possibility of not getting there.

To protect ourselves, we cling to the dream. We stay behind, saying wistfully to ourselves and others the story of the dream, but we don’t chase the dream itself.

Our words start to sound familiar. We tell stories that sound like were going to so that or we could have done that…

To take steps towards your dream requires uncertainty courage, bravery. You might discover that your dream window has expired. You might discover that you’re no longer in love with the fantasy you created. You might discover that the person you were has changed.

Taking the journey will change you. Taking the journey is unpredictable, uncertain, and scary.

You will emerge a different person. Your solace is that the other side of this today is a new place, and we are creatures that require change to grow.

And what if it does work out? What if your wildest dreams actually could come true?

Would you have the courage to go free them?

Or are you enjoying the dream more?

Building a Space and a Voice on the Internet: Is It Time For You to Join In?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

To Be A Person Is To Have A Story To Tell
Where are you telling your stories?

This past Monday we kicked off the first Writer’s Workshop with a group of 22 participants from more than a dozen states and countries around the world. I’m so impressed and inspired by the talent and hard work coming from the group already—and we’re just in week one! Writing is a journey into yourself, your ideas, and your memories—and taking the time to create something in words is a beautiful (albeit intensely personal) exercise. Several people have emailed me to ask if I’ll be teaching the course again and the answer right now is more than likely yes! I’ll be teaching the class as a summer session in mid-July, with details for signing up coming in mid-June. Sign up to get notified via weekly blog updates or send me an email if you’d like to join. Speaking of creating… is this something you’re dreaming of doing more of? Keep reading…

Building your voice on the internet: is it time for you to join in?

Have you been thinking about joining the online conversation? Have you been dreaming of starting a blog, website, or writing more?

By far, the most frequent thing I hear in my coaching and teaching is a remark that seems on everyone’s mind:

“I want to start a blog, but I’m not sure where to start.”

“I have an idea, but I’m not sure anyone wants to read it.”

“I have too many ideas, so I end up never writing them down!”

The internet can be an intimidating place—we see people who seem to write effortlessly, and publish often; they have crowds of people gathering and listening, and it seems like that’s something you’ll never get to—so why bother? Should you join in at all?

These are my arguments for why YOU should speak up.

The goal isn’t to have the loudest voice on the internet. It’s to have a voice. Your voice. The internet is a gold-rush right now, as people create content and the connections and communities born are exploding and multiplying faster than Google’s Spiders can crawl them. Should you join the conversation? There’s already enough noise and buzz anyway. What would you have to offer?

The point of writing isn’t that it’s for anyone else, at least not at first. (If your goal is to attract fame and fortune immediately, examine that desire and assumption. What is the deeper root? What are you hoping for?)

Writing and storytelling are about developing a relationship with your voice and ideas; it’s about finding (and practicing) ways of expressing them to yourself and others.

Carve out a home on the internet.

If and when you DO want to connect with others, however, it’s important to carve out your own “home” on the internet. In the world of Google-ability, we are quickly researching each other in order to learn about their skills and talents.

What do people find when they put your name into the Google machine?

The good news is that you can own this answer pretty quickly. If you want to craft three articles on a particular topic that’s interesting or a hobby to you (ideally something you’d like to be known for), you can start a Tumblr, Weebly or a WordPress domain for free or almost free (less than $50, max, if you want to own a domain name and buy a theme) and post three articles under a header with your name and contact information on it. This can be done in as little as four weeks. All of a sudden, when someone types in your name, or better yet—the topics you’ve written about—you can now be found. Your ideas can be known.

Resumes are static, and we’re searching for ideas through our web-maze of online information. Make yourself “findable.” Put your information onto the web so that search engines–and people, and serendipity–can stumble across it. Without putting yourself out there, it’s a lot harder to be found.

I get so many emails from people that say, “I was looking for an article about how to improve my writing, or how to write a thank you note, and I started reading your blog and sat down with you for an hour lastnight. It was so fun to read your thinking. Thank You.” 

By putting my words and ideas into a space where other people can find them–I’ve let myself be found. I can become known for my ideas. If you have an idea and it’s stuck in your head, there isn’t an easy way for anyone to know that you have it. Serendipity comes through connection and collision, and when people can find you and your ideas, possibility sparks.

Now – these interactions didn’t happen right away – I definitely blogged for at least six months with only my mother commenting, gently correcting most of my typos and spelling or grammar errors. My sister discovered Grammar Girl and gleefully pointed out my mistakes as well, which, as a younger sister, I’m sure delighted her. (I then hired her as my editor for my print projects, which probably made her happy as a clam–she got paid to point out all of my mistakes. Oh, life).

Starting small: creating a project, not a life (for now).

The other thing to remember is that some of my favorite websites aren’t by people who show up every week. You might not have the stamina (or the resources) to enter into a writing relationship that’s indefinite in its time frame or scope. In fact, I think that’s a terrible way to start. For people starting a blog, I recommend thinking of it as a “Project” and not a “Indefinite Relationship.” When you commit to a blog and say to yourself that you’re going to write every week for the next two years, the minute you mess up or miss a week, you’ve essentially failed the project. Who wants to be disappointed that they tried something?

The alternative is to create a project that you can do well at, by changing the parameters. Instead of promising an indefinite relationship, drastically reduce it in scope and start with a reasonable project that has a defined ending from the beginning. When you can close a project successfully and complete it, you’re much more likely to continue on to a phase two or phase three of a project, rather than let it taper off into the land of incomplete projects. You also change the feeling relationship you have with yourself—instead of creating an inevitable failure-situation, with resulting disappointments and twangs, putting pressure to show up in a way that might not be reasonable for you because of all of your various commitments–you’re creating a success situation, where you can end the project within a concrete time frame and still be very happy that you did it at all.

I recommend creating a project that says, “I’d like to talk about _[topic]_ in 4 posts, within the next two months.” Give yourself a start time, and end time, and a quantity. Specify a topic. Perhaps you want to blog about four fabulous meals that you cooked and created. Maybe you want to chronicle your science journey behind the lens of a microscope. Maybe you want to document your notes on a new class you’re taking. You could start a Tumblr with your favorite photos of doorways in your quirky city. The possibilities are endless, but you must pick one small one (and only one).

Don’t believe me? Blake Master’s compilations of Peter Thiel’s lectures is one of my favorite sites to read and there’s a fixed (static) amount of content – 13 lectures – accessible indefinitely for those that want to self-teach and read the series. He’s not adding more content. He’s creating great content and sticking it up in a place for people to find it.

What I find with myself–and others–is that if we start too big, we actually fail to start at all. When we dream the big dream of master projects and hundreds of photographs and best-selling books, many people fail to start because the dream is too big. I’m all for big dreams and goals–and relish in them, dance in them, and visualize them–but when it comes to the implementation, start with something small enough to do in a day or a week. Want to write a best-selling book or post? Start by researching your ideas, one at a time, in short posts. You can collect them later. In fact, the short pieces will serve as your building blocks for the bigger pieces.

Almost everyone I know that’s created something big started one, small, tiny step at at time.

Bottom line recommendation? Create a fixed, small project that’s do-able within a time frame of less than 3 months.

What about creating a community? How do you get people to read your stuff?

What is a community, anyways? Traffic is a collection of people “listening” or knowing how to find you and your new internet home. Traffic is built by pointing people, one by one, to the content you’ve created. Without arrows pointing in your direction (and that comes from giving people a way to find you in the form of an email, tweet, verbal share, facebook post, or link from another site as some examples), you won’t have very many people who accidentally stumble across your site. If the content is good, each person that sees it might share it with a few more people, and the site will grow slowly over time.

While I believe you should begin by sharing directly with your immediate colleagues and friends–emailing them to tell them you’ve written something; the absolute best way to grow traffic to a website is to write a guest post or article for a website that already has a built-in community or audience. It’s far easier than trying to coax one person at a time to your site. Scavenge the web for places that accept guest posts in your topic or area of interest, and spend time writing 2-3 posts that could be submitted at these places.

How big should your desired community be? Does it need to be a big community?

Before you jump into needing more traffic, however, I have many thoughts on how big a community needs to be.

The simple truth is that your story is important even if only one person hears it. Even if you’re the one who needed to write the story in the first place. We tell stories and share information to connect with other people, and your experience may mean the world to someone else, even if there are only a handful of people reading the site. Maybe the one person who reads your story desperately needs to hear that there’s someone else in the world like them, and you’re that person. Never underestimate the power of a small audience.

The best way to share your stuff is to think honestly and authentically about the work you’re creating and who you’d like to read it. Then, select a couple of friends and colleagues and send them an email that says, “I just wrote an essay about my experience with ____, and I thought you might find it useful or enjoy reading the story. I’m building my writing craft, and I’d love it if you would take the time to tell me what you think or if you thought the story resonated with you.”

Why traffic is not the same as community.

There’s a bit of pressure to garner a lot of attention and traffic to a website, and I think that only looking at the raw numbers misses the bigger picture. A lot of people get frustrated when their traffic count doesn’t seem as high as they’d like to be. While more can sometimes be better, it’s not (to me at least) about creating a site or a post that millions of people see. It’s about creating a post that resonates with a group of people that want to see what you’re writing about.

When you think about traffic, I believe that you first need to start by understanding your own personal goals. What do you want to achieve? Why is traffic important? What are your aims?

Why are you building your site, and your community? Is it documentation, analysis, understanding, connection? Who do you want to connect with? What are you hoping to achieve?

Does it matter if 20,000 people visit your site or that 2 people “convert”? Conversion is a term that indicates when someone has behaved in a way that you want them to–often measured in sign-ups or purchases. In the case of Landscape Architecture, where I work on projects that have 10-, 20-, or 30-year time frames, many developers and architects are clients that work with us on projects over many years. What this means is that we don’t need hundreds of thousands of people visiting our site (although that’s fine that they do)–our desired conversion (our want, our outcome), is getting the people who visit the site to connect with us and hire us to do incredible urban design projects around the world. If only ten people visited our website–but ten of our right people, developers or architects who want to hire us for multi-million dollar city-design projects or urban landscapes, that would be 100% a win.

For me, on this website, I am intentionally creating a space where first and foremost I get to learn and practice the craft of writing out loud. I simply LOVE storytelling and describing things to people. I enjoy it immensely when people enjoy what I have to say and engage in conversation about ideas or questions that I’ve presented.

I have grown this site by developing relationships with people one by one, and I’ve tried to take the time to answer almost every email that comes my way via this blog. Sometimes it takes me a week or two, and some weeks I have to shutter down and I miss a few – but for the most part, I cherish the interactions that have come from two years of blogging and getting to know people around the world who are interested in similar ideas. I believe strongly (and think we should all remember) that everyone on the other end of these fiber-optic cables is a human person and should be treated as such. Even in my writing, it’s not “my readers,” but lots of individual people forming a relationship with me (or my writing). A relationship involves two people! The more you can connect on a human level, the more you resonate—as a friend, as an author, as a creator, as a business person, as a marketer.

What does success mean for this blog? I started it as a space where I could think (through writing) about particular ideas I love–philosophy, psychology, motivation, storytelling, entrepreneurship and innovation, strategy. It became a place where I could connect (via ideas) to souls around the world who found resonance in what I was saying (and vice versa). I’ve met thousands of people through this blog, taught workshops across the country, found homes to stay in while traveling abroad, and had morning after morning of delightful coffee conversations with hundreds of people who reached out just to say hello.

I’ve built a small side business around this internet home, specifically by teaching writing courses both online and in person, coaching and consulting with people looking for someone to reflect and analyze their ideas or projects, and doing high-intensity work with folks who sign up for the Start Something Project that I built last year. One of the things people ask me for the most is to be their buddy while they build a project, and coach them along the way as they build their first project–I get it. It’s helpful to have someone there who can show you some of the ropes while you figure out what you’re doing. (Don’t worry–I take the training wheels off pretty quickly after one or two calls). But to be fair: I think you can do this all on your own.

Knowing your “right size.”

Interacting one on one, for me, also gives me huge value: I learn what people are working on, I develop new ideas for posts, I have “ah-ha!” moments where I understand how to describe something, and I get better at crafting things that are actually helpful. This post, in fact, is largely born out of a long conversation I had with a recent client developing her own blog and writing practice (thank you, for inspiring this post!).

One of the reasons I’ve been trying to “grow slowly” on the internet is because I want to develop real relationships with people, give myself space to breathe, learn and mess up, and also because it’s not about mass quantity. Do I want to be on the New York Times within the next few years? You bet. Would I like to write stories for the New Yorker? Absolutely. I also know that the best way to get there is not through a magic wand or sudden change, but through showing up, practicing, and moving forward on a consistent basis.

The other fallacy is that you need to have an audience of tens of thousands to make a viable business work. The reality is that the business you’re running might only need a handful of clients or customers. In fact, I might argue that having 10,000 people look at your stuff and only 10 people “convert” is poor efficiency.

To make a business work, you need to offer something of value to people who are interested, want, or need what you’re selling. I believe in business relationships that are highly satisfying to all parties involved—you learn, you grow, you get attention, mentoring, ideas, strategy, advice, review—and I also learn, grow, and cherish the working relationship and enjoy the service that I’m giving. To do my client work, I only work with two or three people a month as my “side hustle,” that is second to my full-time day job. In my recent writing course that I built, I’m not looking for 500 people; I’m looking for a small community of 20-30 writers interested in learning and writing in community.

How many people do you need to reach to make this business work? You don’t need 10,000 readers, you need the right amount of the right people–the ones who find high value in what you’re offering. To develop a community, you need to build the right audience for the product or service that you’re creating.

Perhaps there’s something to developing medium-sized communities or “tribes,” as other people call them. I love and cherish the people that I’m getting to know—and I’m constantly in awe of the talent, ideas, and personalities that cross my radar just because I happen to write stuff on the internet. I thank you.

As You Grow

Things change. As you build a space for yourself on the internet, everything will change, as things tend to do. I’ve always said that the first 1000 people will get a response, and as the community and shape of my work changes, I’ll shift my strategy to create a strategy that’s satisfying and pleasing in service of my best work for the most people that I can reach.

But before “growth” in the numbers or traffic sense comes growth as a person, and growth in your skill sets. Just as I’m trying as a novice in dance class each week, a tall gangly female of all legs who keeps moving in the wrong direction, building a writing practice and a craft takes practice. It’s okay to start small, and it’s okay to have just one essay at a time. Start with the right sized audience and a single essay, and go from there.

Resources I love:

There’s a whole world of amazing people and products on the internet, and you don’t have to start from scratch if you don’t want to. For an investment of $100 to $2000, you can find someone (or a couple of great lessons) to show you what steps to take and how to move forward. $2000 may feel like a lot, but most people who went to college spent about $5000 per class, as a point of reference. I’ve taken probably thirty-odd classes from $25 to several hundred dollars in order to learn more about all of these. (You get to keep the skills you learn, by the way.) Here are some of my favorites:

Enjoy:

  • Jenny Blake’s May Mastermind For Side Hustlers and Solopreneurs–If you’re curious what a mastermind is or how it works, her May “sampler” is a month-long mastermind group that focuses on creating optimized schedules, financial roadmaps, finding your ideal client, and building an action plan for your business. Priced at the ridiculously low $75, she said she’s offering this alternative class as a way for more people to access her programs (and to make it “impossible not to sign up”). Speaking of amazing content, Jenny’s Behind-The-Business blog updates are one of my FAVORITE things to read. She shares her process for building, creating, and all of the nitty details you wish someone would talk about, but rarely do. Not publicized as a blog, it’s probably better than most blog posts.
  • Think Traffic, by Corbett Barr, a website with tricks and tips and ways to build a blog (with traffic–if that’s your goal!). His product, Start A Blog That Matters, has been well-received and I’ve heard rave reviews.
  • Fizzle, another product by Corbett Barr, Caleb Wojcik, and Chase Reeves is an online community of business training and video training for $35 a month ($315 for the year).
  • Anything Danielle LaPorte, but mostly her latest, The Desire Map, as a way to discover your true desired feelings and help create a new way to think about goals and desires.
  • Tara Gentile’s MasterMind Group, 10 Thousand Feet–a coaching and mastermind group to “pull you out of the trenches and give you the big-picture view on your business.” Creator of the ‘New/You Economy’ movement, Tara gives wonderful no-nonsense business advice and I’ve treasured her speaking events and engagements. This one clocks in at her early-bird $1800 price, and it’s a 3-month intensive for people with new/early businesses who want a summer of focused, personalized work to build their work to the next level. Most small-group masterminds are at least $2000 or more, so this one’s a great value for those initiating businesses or in the earlier years.
  • The Live Well Space, by Suzannah Scully–I met Suzannah via Twitter (after a very public swim) and we realized that we were walking down the same street(s) in San Francisco. We both had heard of each other and wanted to know more. After a long and lovely morning laughing with tears streaming down our cheeks, we convened a fast and cherished friendship. Her blog channels yoga + philosophy + movement + strategic wisdom, and the focus of her work is on living, working, and loving well. Her coaching work builds 3-month relationships with clients to unpack and restructure your life’s focus towards greater clarity and happiness.
  • New Minimalism by Cary Fortin–another soul sister whose creation rocks my socks off — Cary’s work looks at how less clutter and fewer things can bring more freedom and happiness to our lives, but takes the edge off of the extreme nature of many minimalist movements that trends towards absolute nothing. Believing that enjoyment and luxury can also be a part of simplicity and specificity, her new blog is a delicious discovery.
  • Hannah Marcotti’s Community Grace–I’m a few days late in sharing this, but Hannah’s lovely, raw, real community for women has periodic 30-day group sessions for a $49 registration fee to join in learning about blogging, growth, and community-building. I love and admire her work, and think you’ll love her blog if you haven’t seen it already.

My takeaways for you? Build yourself an “internet home,” even if it’s only to enjoy making something by yourself.

I’m biased–I think we should all participate in this new form of community space, this digital world where we can place our creations. If you’re wavering about creating something, let me be clear: I think it’s time for you to join in.

To make it easy on yourself, start small. Pick one topic or project that you’re interested in, and make a small commitment to create a collection of pieces–drawings, ideas, words, notes, stories, essays, paintings, photos, or other–around this topic.

Give yourself a deadline of 3 months or less (ideally one month). And finish it.

What happens? It gives you something to point to. It’s a reference point for the future. It’s a means towards executing your projects. It’s a way to start a conversation. And it’s a way to do the things you’ve been talking (or thinking) about doing.

And best-case scenario? You get to meet a few people along the way who like talking about what you’re doing.

It’s an incredible place. I hope you’ll join in.sarah signature

Bravery

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

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Bravery.

Bravery is showing up.

Bravery is saying what you believe in. Out loud. To the people who need to hear it. Even if that person is you. 

It’s having honest communication with your self, your teams, your communities.

Bravery is saying no when you know you need to. It’s saying no to the wrong things so that you can say yes to the right things.

Bravery is having the courage to quit when you know you’re on the wrong track, even if hundreds of thousands of people are headed in one direction. It’s knowing when the path you are on isn’t the one for you. It’s taking that scary leap, swimming upstream, or wandering down unfamiliar trails.

Bravery isn’t fun, macho, or full of gusto. It’s not always done in one big sweep.

Bravery is all the heroes in Boston, visible and invisible, local and global. 

Bravery is having the courage to stand out on social media and remind people to collect the dots, not connect them too early.

Bravery is saying something different and showing empathy for our peers around the world. It’s not jumping to conclusions too quickly. It’s remembering what we stand for and believing in the best of us.

Sometimes bravery is remarkable, unfathomable courage by the youngest and oldest of human souls who rush forward to help everyone and put their lives on the line to save others. The runners in Boston who kept running to the hospital to donate blood were Remarkable. Beautiful. Stunning. Incredible.

Other times bravery is calm, methodical. Sometimes it looks quite peaceful. Sometimes it’s shaking off the noise and clamor and distraction and realizing with simple focus that your next steps require you to take those steps and walking forward is the best and happiest way forward.

Bravery might not be visible to anyone else at the time that you’re being brave. Bravery might be broadcast on national television (but that’s not the point).

It’s showing up, little by little. 

It’s putting yourself out there, even if “out there” is pushing past your own mental barriers.

It’s deciding that now is a better time than later.

Bravery is bravery, even if it doesn’t look that remarkable to anyone else. You are still brave.

It’s continuing to press on, even when your stomach drops in fear, your hands shake in nerves, and you collect sweat in your armpits faster than fog droplets in a San Francisco “summer” day. It’s taking a step forward in the midst of whirlwind gusts of wind and shouting into the windstorm, I’ve got this, dammit! I’m still going to do it! I have to! 

My soul tells me I have to do this, and I have to listen.

Start small. (It’s okay to start with a bang, too, but small is still very brave).

Watch for the mental overwhelm, and give yourself kindness and space to freak the heck out (although maybe not publicly just yet).

Be very kind to yourself.

And also, remember,

in your quest for bravery:

In order to do something new, you often have to let go of something old.

The trouble with starting something is that it requires a different behavior than what you did before.

We are creatures of habit, yes, but we are also creatures of continuous change.

Spring is the perfect time for creative bursting, for unfolding, for the skin-shedding, cocoon-bursting metamorphosis that transforms you towards your next self.

The world is waiting for you to grow into the next version of you. 

Bravery doesn’t always feel like bravery.

It can feel like whirl-wind, mind-bending, all-changing upset, filled with unpredictable whims and whammies, stomach upset and nervous twitters, body aches, starts and stops, trial and error, and a whole lot of messy.

Sometimes bravery feels nauseating, overwhelming, scary, and downright hard.

It’s still brave.

 

A little insider’s story–my story:

When I opened the doors and launched my writing class last week, I was terrified. This was my brain:

What if I wasn’t ready? What if no one showed up? What if nothing worked? What if this dream of mine, that I’ve been working and crafting and creating for so many months past, resulting in a big giant internet wall of silence? 

Intellectually, I know that I can do this. I’ve been ready to do this for years. I’ve taught workshop after workshop and coached folks for years. I have a chart on my wall of the things I’m leaning towards this year, and the one big thing not lined up for the longest time was creating a course for writers. I can’t confess to understanding all of the reasons that I’ve avoided doing it, but I can speculate.

It means so much to me.

I knew deep down that I would do it even if only one person showed up. I would do it even if no one paid me the first time, and I would keep honing my chops and my offerings until I found the right fit.

That still doesn’t mean I’m not incredibly terrified. I get scared! Scared SHITLESS. My brain, many weeks ago:

What if no one shows up? What if I’m a terrible teacher? What if I can’t get it all done? What if it doesn’t work? WHAT IF NOT ONE PERSON SHOWS UP? What it I can’t do it on top of the work I’m already doing? What if this isn’t what I’m meant to do? WHAT IF, WHAT IF, WHAT IF EVERYTHING???

WHAT IF IT’S ALL JUST WRONG?

So scream the fear-monster voices in my head.

Yes. They are there. I have them. 

When you get close to your dreams, fear can rage like a giant monster. Every thing that could go wrong seems to loom large. The website broke. I stayed up all night, nervous about prepping the materials. Funky characters showed up across my website. More things went wrong. Before launching the program, I waited for months. I studied stacks and stacks of books, compressing more knowledge into the course documents in order to make it even better. I stalled. And then stalled some more. I thought about not doing it at all. I almost said to myself, “Nah, one wants this. It’s not worth trying.” 

And then someone thanked me. People went out of their way to reach out and tell me how excited they were. 

Several more people signed up. The class started filling up before I had all my ducks lined up and my posts ready to go. (I have so much more promotion I’m planning on!)

In the form: “Yes. I’ve been waiting for this. This is exactly the class I want.” and “I’m so excited I cannot WAIT until the 29th!”

Holy shit. I’m so excited. And thankful. This is going to be good.

Today, with the class more than half full already, I could laugh away those fears and pretend with a big shiny smile that everything is all and well, but it’s not the truth. I’m scared, too. The fear monsters hit everyone. I don’t know all the answers. But I do love writing!

I’ve learned, slowly, over and over again, that the scariest part of doing anything is not doing it and wallowing in thought. 

And wrapping your thoughts around all those fears? That’s a scary space.

Be brave. Get started.

The best way to do anything is to do it. If you’re afraid of starting, make it smaller and simpler. Want to have a conversation with your boss about something you’re frustrated about? Don’t write a big report or delay on it. Write a quick, simple email that says: “I’ve got a couple of items I’d really like to talk to you about–including a couple of frustrations I’d like to work through. When’s the best time to chat, and is there a format that’s easiest for you?” Do it as soon as you know that you have to have this conversation. Stop by and say what you think. Look for solutions.

And be brave. I know it’s terrifying, I know it’s not easy, and I go through it all the time.

Be brave.

With big love this week,

sarah signature

 

From love or hurt?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

An overwhelming number of human reactions come from a place of love or pain. 

When someone offers you criticism, look at what they say (no need to internalize it immediately; instead observe it and ask yourself if the critic-giver is an important person or voice in your life, and how valuable it is); then: ask yourself if it’s coming from a place of love or a place of hurt.

If it’s coming from a place of love, they want the best for you and are telling you an honest opinion. It may sting, but it’s good for you.

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When someone comments on your work or character from a place of pain in their life, it’s not actually about you. That person is hurting in some way, and lashing out. The issue is not about you. Bless them, wish them well, and realize that the commentary you need comes from a place of love.

Like it? Tweet it: “An overwhelming number of human reactions come from a place of love or pain.”

 

Are You Over Thinking?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Sometimes the answer is just doing it.

Not thinking about doing it. Not writing about doing it. Not talking about doing it. And not waiting on it, or giving it more time.

Sometimes you just need to do it.

Anticipation can be deadly. Every time I have to jump into cold water or a cold pool, I can’t think about it too much. The more I think about it, the longer it takes to do it. The longer I think about it, the harder it gets to pull the trigger. The longer I think about it, the less time I spend actually doing it, and the more time I spend lost in thinking about it. The worst part is always the first three minutes as my body acclimates to the change in temperature from the outside air to the colder pool. And magically, after those three minutes, the sting wears off and I even begin to forget those moments pre-cold. Adaptation happens quickly. We forget our fears the minute we go ahead and get started.

The worst part is starting. Scratch that. Sometimes the worst part is the anticipation of starting. Sometimes the worst part is all that dang thinking you do before you start doing what you really need to just be doing. It’s all that thinking about starting that can paralyze you.

Quit that thinking.

The antidote to anticipation is action.

The hardest part can be just getting started.