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I don’t know about you, but 2022 seemed to fly by. It might not have been the year that I’d hoped it would be, but it wasn’t a complete write off, either. Looking back, 2022 offered some really memorable moments… [Read more…] about A Final Shoutout to 2022
At the beginning of October, I received an e-mail with the subject line: “Your Last 3 Months of 2022.” The e-mail was from Jeff Fajans, a creative performance consultant with whom I had worked in the past. I did not open it — not until yesterday — because the subject line alone sent me into a tailspin. Three months left in 2022? WTF? For the previous nine months, I had been chastising myself for not doing more, for ‘wasting’ time, for being unfocused. I knew I had to change, but sometimes change is hard. Still, was I going to spend the last three months of the year doing the same thing?
Last week, I finally sat down at my desk and took time to look at everything that I want to do before the end of the year. In some cases, it is a matter of what I need to get started on. But to make any sort of real progress, I knew I needed more than a mental game plan. I had to write it down and face reality. I needed a plan to hold me to account … because change is hard.
I cannot tell you how uncomfortable writing out the plan made me. Seeing all the goals on paper — and the concrete actions I would need to take to achieve them — had me, once again, doubting myself and my worth. Could I really do it? Who do I think I am? At what point will I fail? The negative chatter was trying to hold me back before I even made it out of the gate. Because change is hard, and I was already looking for any excuse to let myself fail. [Read more…] about Change is Hard
Lately, I’ve thought a lot about a line from a hymn we sang often in church when I was growing up: “Keep me safe till the storm passes by.”
Because I’m in the storm, battered by high winds, trying to outrun the tsunami aiming for me, buried under thirty inches of snow and trying to claw my way out. Translation: trying to do it all and getting nowhere fast.
And like a hurricane, this storm has a name: change.
As a writer with a day job, I’m searching for another one that will give me more time for my writing (working with an increasingly impatient and abusive public is constantly testing my patience and my commitment to being kinder). I’m struggling to reduce my sugar intake … it seems harder to do this time. Still sidelined from running with a foot injury, I’m trying to find another way to stay active. [Read more…] about Into the Storm
2020 is over. But the gift it gave us — COVID-19 — continues to impact millions around the world. Here in Ontario, we entered a province-wide lockdown on 26 December 2020. The City of Toronto has been locked down since 23 November 2020. Tough days are still ahead, but we will, together, weather this storm. I’m still hanging on to hope because, in the words of Desmond Tutu: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness.” [Read more…] about 2020: Imperfectly Perfect
When I started my vacation on 10 March, it was just days before the world began to turn in on itself because of COVID-19. Nothing had really changed for me, though. I was still waking up around 3:30 or 4:00 to write while the rest of the world slept. Then, after a run, I’d return to the business of writing for a good chunk of the day before prepping dinner late in the afternoon. My evening ritual of either reading or watching reruns of Two and a Half Men rounded out the day. I had my groove on.
But as my vacation transitioned to an involuntary leave of absence and then a layoff, there was a shift. Since I had the condo to myself, I started going to bed later, which meant getting up later. Still writing in the morning, I’d unexpectedly become an early afternoon runner (lesson learned: not my greatest time to run). Something else was at play, too. My body was adjusting to not zipping through time zones. I had lost my rhythm, fell out of my groove. [Read more…] about How I Lost and Found My Groove