I Want It All

I Want It All. Not Even Kidding.

I want it all. Greedily, selfishly, hopelessly, romantically, I want it all.

Don’t you? You may be thinking, what in the HECK is she talking about now? But just respond instinctively….bear with me, ok?

Find Your Passion

Don’t you desire everything you want? The nameless, shapeless wants that are just a flashing picture and maybe a sound that reverberates deep within your bones…that ache that lets you know you’re alive and capable of dreams, of ambition and achieving it all? Well it happens to me, and if you don’t have those wants then you should start looking until you find something that ignites within you that passion.

I believe each one of us is given a specific talent or gift. What a shame to not squeeze every last DROP out of that talent that we can and turn ourselves into the most dazzling, the very best version of us that we can be.

In order to achieve those wants, I believe we have to make specific plans….and then work our asses off!

How To Get What You Want

What are you doing, thinking and planning this fall that is different than years past? A month can seem light years away to me, and then I look up and two years have gone by and my lifestyle and habits are stuck in the same rut as they were before.

My fix for this is two part: clearly defined goals and calling myself, even if I only whisper, by the name of what I want to be one day.  

The First Part

Goals are just stepping-stones to making your dreams come true and because of this, goals are incredibly important to me, as they should be to you.

If you have a vague idea of the type of person you hope to be some day and dream about the far flung fancies you might accomplish, but you have no goals, you’ll waste an awful lot of time and energy flaffing about and not getting much done.

*Flaffing….from the Greek meaning “to waste time”. Flaffing is directly related to the word “floundering” in meaning.

If you don’t have clearly defined goals, my advice to you would be, get your rear in gear sister and write out everything you can think of that you hope to accomplish in life. By everything, I mean everything. Emotional characteristics, physical attributes, business hopes, recreational outlets, financial goals….write everything down. For example, your list might look something like this at first:

·      I want to be able to do a handstand

·      I want to have a zillion dollars in savings

·      I want to loose 5lbs

·      I want to give “x” amount of money to (whatever cause/charity)

·      I want to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and rule the world

Hahaha just checking to see if you were paying attention!!! But seriously, once you have all the random things that you want to accomplish one day, it’s time to organize them into sections. I have mine organized into Financial, Spiritual, Career/Personal, Health and Physical sections.

After everything is organized according to category, I make monthly goals that will bring me closer to all the main goals up on top. At the end of each month I update my monthly goals. My goals for October looked like this:

Liz’s October Short Term Goals, 2012

·      Put away $200 dollars in saving account for emergency fund goal of $1000 by the end of December.

·      Start running again 2 or 3 times a week. Build up to ride bike for an hour at a time.

·      Maintain study habits that will get you an A in class. Read more of textbook every day.

·      Keep working on pushups! Goal of 30 at a time by the end of the month!

·      Learn last two songs in Suzuki piano book

·      Read Adobe (five pages every night) and work on it by yourself until you can afford lesson.

·      Shoot twice a week.

·      Start meditating for five minutes in the morning.

·      Write grandparents letters 3 or 4 times this month.

·      Wear sunscreen every day!!!!

·      Becoming educated is the goal! Keep working and continuously push yourself!

Tonight I’ll go through everything, reevaluate where I am and make new goals for the month of November so that I’m continuously growing and pushing myself. Yours of course will look different and everyone has different things that they’re focused on or that mean more to them at different times in their life. The important thing is to at least WRITE THEM DOWN. In high school I had my goals written out on a sheet of paper that was taped my closet door where I could see it and read over my goals every day. Now days I’m on my computer all the time for school and writing, so I have a folder titled “Goals” and I keep them in a word document. I read them over at least once every day and seeing how my goals have evolved through the months inspires me to try harder.

The Second Part

The second part, and what I believe goes hand in hand with goals, is to start calling yourself by the name of what you want to be. If you do that, you can’t help but start acting and thinking like it.

For example, I want to be a runner. I hope to run at least 15 miles a week one day and one day I want to run a marathon. My “run” at the moment is actually better described as a fast jog. So far, I can run 2 miles at a time and I run about 4 times a week and uh… it’s not pretty. But I believe that calling myself a runner will help me get into the mindset of a runner. If I take myself seriously, how can I not succeed? And if you take yourself seriously, other people around you don’t have any option but to take you seriously as well.

So if you want to be an actress, you should think of yourself as an actress and call yourself an actress, even if you only whisper it while you’re washing your hair in the shower. If you want to be an incredible cook but you’re only capable of boiling water, start thinking of yourself as a cook! Use the term over and over and see what happens. Bet you start acting, thinking and cooking like a cook!

Putting It All Together

So go ahead…get greedy (In the good sense! Not the materialistic sense!), and want it all. You have the tools and skills to make your, hopes, dreams, wants and desires come true. Maybe the dream you have, floating around in the back of your mind scares you because you COULD accomplish it. And if you’re capable of achieving that goal, what’s to stop you from achieving anything you set your mind to? There is safety in the known, the ordinary and sometimes that holds us back, keeps us from going after the unknown and the frightening. And the thought of us being extraordinary can be a little terrifying.

Find your passion.

Listen to your desires.

Make your goals.

Think of yourself as that person.

Conquer the world.

Go get ‘em tiger.

xo xo Liz

Just A Different Way Of Lookin At Things

What is the point of being positive?

My question for you, my dear, dear reader, is why do you try and remain positive throughout your day, thoughts, and life?

Because honestly it can be exhausting. Right? I mean, sometimes it would be so much easier to give in to doubt, despair and let the waves of depression roll over you and sink down, muttering to yourself that it’s no use and nothing ever changes.

The Negative Cycle vs Positive Cycle

The problem with that approach is that giving up breeds insecurity, insecurity breeds contempt for yourself and contempt gives way to half hearted expectations about life and yourself.

When you’re caught in this vicious cycle, if you attempt to accomplish something, be it starting a new relationship or a job or learning a new skill, in the back of your mind you’re quietly wondering when you’re going to fail. You’re wondering when it’s all going to go wrong. And then when it does, you crow triumphantly, “See! I knew it wasn’t any use! I can never do the right thing about anything!”

Our expectations have a tendency to come true, in my experience at least.

Maintaining a positive outlook starts a different type of cycle: positivity instills confidence, confidence makes you try more things, which generates more confidence and excitement, which creates the biggest and most important attribute of all….COURAGE.

Why I Believe In Being Positive

The reason I know these cycles exist and why I try to be positive no matter what the situation, is because I’ve experienced both first hand.

I have chronic Lyme disease and almost 3 years ago I was so sick I couldn’t walk on my own. Lyme manifests itself in a lot of really unpleasant symptoms, but my main contender is pain. Chronic pain in the shape of joint pain, back pain, muscle pain, head pain, bone pain…you name it, I’ve dealt with it. During the time when I couldn’t walk, my pain was so horrible that I was on Vicadon pain pills around the clock. When I fell asleep at night, even while I was asleep I hurt. That doesn’t give you much rest or relief, and I was trapped in a cycle of expecting the worst.

I wasn’t being negative per say, but I wasn’t trying particularly hard to be positive either. I was just existing, trying to make it through each day without being overwhelmed at the prospect of living through an entire week with the pain. When I woke up, I expected that the day was going to be long, hard and physically painful, because the previous day for a few years had been like that.

Can’t Take It Any More!

And then a funny thing happened that helped bust me out of my negative cycle...I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t handle being trapped in my own little world of pain, sad expectations and not living life to the fullest. I asked my DR for some help and his solution was Medical Marijuana or Oxytocin. The only people I knew who’ve taken either of those were either stupid, or dead, respectively. I desperately didn’t want to be stupid or dead, so I changed a few things.

Makin’ Some Changes

I decided to take control of my life and not just exist anymore, but live. I tried to think positively about how my days were going to go and when the pain became too great, I would get someone to help me and I’d stretch a little. I also changed everything I ate to non-preservative and organic and slowly learned to listen to my body.  

And just making the decision to take control of my lifestyle and thought process, gave me a spark. And that gave me some confidence which led me to have the courage to make bigger and better changes in my life….and well here I am now! I ran 2 miles today. For some people that’s just the warm up on their daily run, and while I hope to be one of those folks one day, for me just knowing that my legs can carry me all that way and back...it’s incredible.

I’m overwhelmed everyday because I’ve been at the bottom, depressed and hurting, and today I can look back at how far I’ve come, and I feel joy.

Real Life

It’s not all bubbles and giggles and plushy life all the time now. Far from it. I have to work to remain positive, to make a conscious decision every day to wake up and make it the best one yet. I have to work to make choices that will only make me better, not hold me back. Some days I still have pain that shocks me and frightens me with the thought that I could go back to being the way I was before.

But I believe with a little positivity, confidence and courage, I can overcome anything. I know you can too.

Time For A New Outlook

So start today, and make a few changes towards being positive in your outlook towards life if you’re normally a Debbie Downer. How do you start to do that?

You can start by waking up in the morning, and looking at your coming day. Tell yourself that THIS DAY, you are going to approach it with a smile. Tell yourself that you will try your hardest at whatever it is you have to do, be it roping cows or finding a cure for cancer, that you’ll give it your best shot. And if you mess up and make a mistake, or everything just goes horribly, totally wrong? Then take a deep breath and challenge yourself to think of the situation in a new light. Instead of blaming yourself for not being perfect (Um, hate to break it to you but NO ONE IS), take it as a challenge to try again. To be better…To show the world what you’re made of…

It can take a while to get into a habit of thinking and acting positively if you’ve been on the negative cycle for a while, but hang with it. You owe it to yourself, and you are so worth it.

xo xo Liz 

Learn To Listen To The Screaming Of Your Secret Dreams

Secret dreams are the fuel that keeps our inner fire burning.  The quiet voice inside us that whispers, “Maybe…maybe I could do that one day” or “Maybe I could be like that one day”. Without a secret dream, we loose ambition in life and lack the sparkle and zest for living that people project who have something bigger that they’re working towards. The secret dream is the drive that pushes us onwards when everyone else has fallen to the wayside, bored with the work and dedication it takes to make a dream come true.

I had a secret dream when I was about 12 years old. I wanted to cowboy on an outfit, like my dad, in Nevada. When dad was cowboying in the early 90’s, girls would help out if they were family, but it wasn’t very common to see a whole bunch of women at a branding. “If you marry a cowboy, you might be able to work with your husband, but I wouldn’t count on getting to work on a place as a single girl.” I took what my dad said and figured that he was probably right and I decided I would focus on becoming the best that I could be at starting colts. And yet, a quiet voice inside me kept whispering that maybe, maybe one day, if I worked hard enough…maybe the impossible would happen and I would be able to cowboy on my own. That secret dream is what made me write out a list of skills I decided I would need in order for the impossible to happen….that secret dream is what made me wake up at 3:30am every day to do my school work so that I could work with my horses during the day…that secret dream is what made me give up fun trips with friends in order to work on what was important to me…and you know what? At the end of the day, at the ripe old age of 19, I got my secret dream. I got a job in Nevada that I never should have been able to get as a single woman and I got the chance to work for an outfit that friends that I respected and looked up to had worked for as young men. Because of that secret dream I got the chance to work with horsemen that I had idolized from a young age, I got to work with people that MY dad had worked with and made friends with people that I respected not only as cowboys and horseman, but as people too. And even though I don’t cowboy anymore, my secret dream of cowboying gave me the skills and experiences that are applicable to my secret dream now. Without the absence of cowboying in my life, I would have never had the courage to pursue writing, and writing is now my new “secret” dream. The quiet voice inside me saying, “You could maybe do this, Liz.” And because of that, I know that the impossible, secret dream is possible. And I want you; yes YOU reading this long post, to know that you have all promise and ability to achieve your dreams.

Don’t squash that small, quiet voice inside you.

Don’t you dare say that it’s impossible. And if someone tells you that it’s impossible, don’t discuss your dreams and hopes and fears with them.

Cultivate your desire, feed the want and watch it grow. No one else will go out there and make your dreams happen for you. You have to have the courage to admit to yourself just what your secret dream really is (for some reason this can be the hardest part), and then set out on the journey to making it happen.

Good luck! And just so you know, I am your biggest fan, and I know that you can succeed.

xo xo Liz

Darlin, I Wish You Well

Wherever you end up going, whatever you do, I hope you do it with passion.

I hope your breath quickens at the thought of your passion and your ambition increases. I hope the excitement of the coming day fills you up to the brim and your zest for life expotentially builds. I hope you forget about caring what other people think and that you always remain honest with yourself; no matter how painful or rewarding it may be. I hope you meet people along the way and that you encourage, help and teach them along their way. I hope you take the time occasionally to look around you and realize that this is a beautiful world and that we have a fleeting chance to make our mark upon it. I hope you realize that you are one of a kind, and your story needs to be told to the rest of the world. So get up there and shout if from the rooftops. 

xo xo Liz