I don’t really have any urge to dominate the world.

Domination’s great, as long as you’re the dominator. But in order to dominate, there has to be someone being dominated. There is no dominator without a corresponding subordinate. Me Conqueror, You Subject. That isn’t how I approach my business or my life. Domination is an “I win, you lose, I command, you obey” proposition. It’s counter to my core values. I don’t want to feed an ethos of power struggle, scarcity or battling.

Not even metaphorically. Words matter.

I’m also not particularly interested in crushing anything. Or killing it. Or destroying, pummeling, punishing or beating. I don’t feel the need to bring violence upon something, even metaphorically, in order to have a good day, be productive or be successful.

★ Here’s what I am interested in: Conversing. Engaging. Exploring & being really curious. Practicing. Expanding. Enhancing. Liberating. Awakening. Supporting. Adapting. Discovering. Understanding. Collaboration. Completion (begetting new beginning, begetting new completion…). Creation. Realization. Stretching. Making strides. Covering ground. Adventuring. Noticing. Acting, taking stock, realigning & acting again. Journeying. And being okay with not being the emperor.

And drinking tea.

Perhaps that’s my ethos: Less domination, more tea.

I’ll sip to that.

★ Pull up a chair, help yourself to a cup of tea & tell me: What are you interested in?

Image Credit: Luz Bratcher | CC License

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This is a photo of marathon runners who are notably Not Me.

I have a confession: I don’t want to run a marathon.

Running a marathon is a pretty common item on peoples’ Someday Lists (a.k.a. Goal Lists, Bucket Lists, etc.). It was on mine, too. Until today, when I realized: I don’t have the slightest desire to actually run a marathon.

It’s not like I only just now lost the desire to run a marathon. I never really had that desire. So why was it on my Someday List?

This realization prompted me to take a closer look at other items on my Someday List. I’d made a common mistake: I filled my Someday List with items generally accepted as excellent goals, things that lots of people include on their lists, experiences that are on the Someday List not because I long for the experience, but because other people deem it a worthwhile goal or put it on their own lists, and I figured I should experience it.

And that’s when I realized: my Someday List was really a Should List.

It’s no wonder so many items on my Someday List sit stagnant, me never making any strides closer to their accomplishment. I didn’t really want them. I didn’t have any spark of passion behind them. They were there because I thought they should be, or because I thought other people would applaud my accomplishment if I did them. I allowed other people–or, more precisely, my impression of other people’s expectations and preferences–to craft my Someday List.

What a waste of a Someday List!

So I’m revising that list. Any item that doesn’t fully and completely resonate with me doesn’t deserve a spot on the Someday List. Any item that I hesitate in scratching off solely because I think other people would approve of me if I did it? Gone. Any item whose foundation is Should rather than Passionate Need To Do? Outta here.

Running a marathon is off the list (as is climbing a mountain and transitioning to a 100% raw diet, among others). Maybe through the twists and turns of life’s journey I’ll still wind up doing those things–I’m not closing myself to possibilities, but they don’t currently warrant one of the spots on my Someday List.

Your Business’s Someday List

As I reflected on my personal Someday List, I realized many of us make the exact same error when we create our business Someday List. We include items like “Publish a book” or “Be the keynote speaker at a big conference” or “Get over 60,000 readers a month on the blog” or “Make six figures a year” because those are things we’re told we should want. (And if you really do want those things, then by all means, include them on your Biz Someday List & start making a plan to make them happen.)

But if what you have no desire to actually publish a book, and having 500 active and dedicated readers to your blog would make you happy and fulfill your business needs, and making six figures is neither necessary nor something you passionately care about… then it’s time to revise your list. Give the other items the boot and make room for the goals that spark your flame.

Here’s what is easy to forget: It’s our Someday List, and it’s our business. Our hopes for our business and for our life can be our own. They don’t have to match someone else’s. They don’t have to be approved by anyone else. They don’t have to follow anyone else’s example. We can be proud of others for accomplishing goals we don’t have the slightest desire to tackle. We can celebrate others who chase dreams we don’t want to pursue.

But when it comes to our Someday Lists, we can put the full fire of our own passion and abilities toward a list of goals and hopes that comport with no one’s definition of success or impressiveness but our own.

It’s worth noting that getting clear on your resonant goals, hopes and aspirations makes it that much easier for you to find and click with your right people. And if you’ve been finding it hard to figure out who your right people are, you might be surprised at how much that has to do with what’s lingering on your list of goals that doesn’t actually resonate with you. If you’re aiming at a target that doesn’t really reflect what you want, it’s no surprise that you’re probably surrounding yourself with people that don’t quite reflect your right community.

What’s on your Someday List? And just as importantly, what’s off your list?

I don’t want to run a marathon, but I do want to speak conversationally fluent German.

I don’t get excited over climbing a mountain, but I do get excited over skydiving.

I don’t want to be fully booked as a Virtual Assistant, but I do want to get fully booked with clients who want me to help them get clarity around their Big Visions and engage with their Right People (a change I recently made to my Business Goal List!).

What about you: What’s on your list because you think it should be there? If you scratch the Should off your list, what experience or goal could you make room for that you really want?

Image Credit: Martineric | CC License

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• Gratitude Sundae

I want permission…

• To do it my way.
• To do it wrong.
• To say, “I don’t want this,” without giving any further justification.
• To bask in the spotlight.
• To frolic through the meadows of off-brand-ness.
• To be angry.
• To grieve–still.
• To let go on my own time.
• To ask the questions I really want to ask.
• To believe in magic with childlike wonder.
• To totally screw up–and just keep on keepin’ on.
• To enjoy raw cookie dough and raw green juices with equal amounts of enthusiasm.
• To speak the unpopular truth.
• To lay down my armor.
• To shed the fear that protects but stifles me.
• To still be afraid.
• To amplify the soul stuff and the brain stuff.
• To not know.
• To yearn.
• To be more than–or other than–my expectations.
• To celebrate what’s dying to be born, and what’s dying to be born.
• To drop the pretense.
• To do it because I want to so badly I can taste it–and for no other reason than that.
• To greet where I’m at in this moment with love, even when I’m grieving, even when I’m angry, even when I’m afraid. Especially then.
• To branch out.
• To paint my contradictions onto a giant imaginary canvas, & hang it on my wall as one of the universe’s grand masterpieces.
• To act on passion.
• To craft my manifesto moment by moment, breath by breath, even if I can’t put it into words. Yet.

Just for the hell of it…
I’m giving myself permission.

The best is yet to come.

What do you want permission to do? What needs to happen for you to give yourself that permission?

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The Precipice is always beautiful & frightening, simultaneously, and equally.

The Rush of the Start

Getting started on something is easy in a lot of ways. There’s the excitement of a novel undertaking, the rush of charging headlong into a new foray. There’s a lot to learn (my favorite part), a lot to explore for the first time, so much to figure out.

There’s something safe about the Start. You don’t have to have anything really figured out at the Start. It’s new and exploration is celebrated.

Plus, when you’re just starting out, there’s such a vast array of possibility all sprawled out in front of you. The outcome is a conception, an idea, but the reality of what comes next is amorphous and moldable with each new step. We feel the high of breathing deeply all that Could Be, and exhaling all we might create.

The Safety of the Doing

There is safety in the Doing. There is inspiration in the process and the hands-on creation. A rhythm develops in how you relate to the project–when you knead it and when you let it rest. When you dive into it and when you float around in it, letting the next steps wash over you. The Doing is when you get to be in the heralded “Zone.” When you get to get lost in the developing project and its potential.

Down the middle of the path, during the incubation of the project, it’s still yours. It’s yours to nurture, tweak, trim, fill, mold, weld, do with. It’s under your purview and your domain.

Fear of the Finish

Finishing something is scary in a lot of ways. Completion signals an end to the tinkering, the building, the exploring. That which was novel and ripe for exploration is routine and known. The vast array of possibility has been whittled down to a few possible outcomes.

Plus, and perhaps even scarier, completion brings an end to the control you have over the project. When you finish it, turn it in, release it, publish it–you let someone else see it, have it, use it, read it, form opinions about it. And that’s terrifying.

The Sacrifice of Completion

Completion is a sacrifice. A sacrifice of your rhythm and your control and your sole dominion. It is a release into the great ether, and an act of faith that the elements the Completed It encounters won’t harm or mar it too much.

Finishing and sending a Completed It into the world leaves It vulnerable to others viewing it. Noodling on it. Crafting a discourse around it that may or may not accord with all you hoped for it when you were at the Start.

Completion is an accomplishment and a loss. It is a goal and a fear. It triggers all of your feelings and experiences of Letting Go. Is there relief? Perhaps. Pride? Often. Celebration of what’s been done to reach completion? Sometimes.

But none of that negates or stays the discomfort of the Finish. The rush of the Start, the hope of the Could Be, the incubated safety of the Doing, are each exchanged for Completion. For reaching Done.

And Done can be a harrowing, uncertain place. A precipice. A fragile and eroding edge near a deep and jagged chasm.

Forward from the Precipice

Isn’t it odd, though, that it is when our Completed It is released to the foggy unknown and our toes shuffle a few loose rocks off the ledge of Done, that we’re most likely to notice a path we hadn’t seen before. Maybe a bridge that appears to cross the chasm (though we can’t be sure). Perhaps a steep but traversable staircase into the chasm. Sometimes a road heading in a direction we never considered, that we would have sworn wasn’t there yesterday.

And in that moment, as we take our first tentative steps toward this recently revealed path, just as our muse mourns the Completed It that is no longer in our nest, we find ourselves starting off again.

In a new direction.

With a new curiosity.

The excitement of a novel undertaking, and the vast array of what Could Be stretched out before us.

The rush of all that is fecund and possible is salve to the tender fear and loss of what is finished, and suddenly, we find ourselves in the Start once more.

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I used to say that I’m not the “entrepreneurial type.” Except, apparently, I am, because I’m living it.

I also used to say that I like stability, and not taking scary leaps. Except I don’t (I get bored and restless when things are too stable), and I totally do get a positive charge from leaps.

Learning to tell the Little Right Lies

Those “untruths” above are from my days as a job candidate, an interviewee, and an underling (either a secretary or a young associate attorney).

I learned to believe them about myself because I knew it was the “right” answer to offer to an employer or higher-ranking colleague (especially one that would get nervous at the prospect of having an entrepreneurially-minded individual on staff–which, in the steeply hierarchical world of large law firms and entrenched Powers That Be, is more the norm than the exception).

We’re taught to tell the truth. But we’re also taught that only socially-acceptable truths should be told.

We’re taught that lying is bad… unless it makes us fit in better or meet certain expectations, and then it’s passable.

And eventually, if we’re being good kids (or students, or job candidates, or employees) we learn this skill of telling only the “right” truths and lying the “right” lies so well that we call it our Truth. We call it our Self.

But just because we say it’s so doesn’t make it true.

The Little Right Lies of My Own Business

When I left the world of Big Law Firms and corporate structures, I felt liberated. And true, to a large degree, I was. I was free to admit that I hated “cute work shoes” and thought that “corporate dress code” is more about showing off for one another than it is about how proficiently we worked. I was free to seek out people I wanted to work with, rather than being told I had to “put in my time” working for someone else. Hugely liberating!

But I wasn’t totally liberated from the Little Right Lies… I just changed which ones I told on a regular basis.

For instance, I used to say that I didn’t mind how often someone needed last-minute tasks done, or whether they needed to be “on call” for them at all times, including weekends. Those were Little Right Lies borne of the belief that if I drew boundaries, I’d lose clients and I’d wind up penniless and living in a box.

The truth is that drawing those boundaries has been tremendously powerful, and has helped me work with more of the right clients–the ones who really fit and vibe well with me and me with them. (And so far, no box-living has been necessary!)

I used to tell people that I was a Virtual Assistant with a catchy title. But that’s not true either. I held on to that Little Right Lie because I believed that good entrepreneurs quickly find a niche, and find one that’s easily identifiable/categorizable by others–so being a high-end VA was mine.

The truth is that I’m not a VA. Or, at least, I’m definitely not just a VA. That’s perhaps only one component of what I do. I’m also an “Ideal Day Consultant.” And an architect of systems and structures that support a creative entrepreneur’s business. And a wordsmith for difficult communications. And a collaboration analyst. I don’t have a clue what my niche is, and I’m not particularly easily categorizable… and my whole business (and how I serve my clients) has improved drastically since I began acknowledging that.

And I still find myself falling back on the most insidious Little Right Lie of all: I can do it all myself. (I’m not just a fiercely independent entrepreneur, I’m also an introvert, and a highly-sensitive person… so I’m supposed to need to do it all myself, right?)

But as I continue to learn and be reminded, a community is vital and energizing and inspiring. I don’t want to do it all by myself, let alone need to.

Living beyond the Little Right Lies

Being an entrepreneur simultaneously frees me to let go of the Little Right Lies, and challenges me to stop using them as a built-in safety net.

Sometimes it’s easier–almost reflexive–to fall back on the Little Right Lies I’ve told so many times. And sometimes I still do.

But one of the greatest gifts of this entrepreneurial adventure I’m on is being free to explore life beyond the Little Right Lies. To see what happens if I drop my own facade. To meet people who really dig who I am without demanding I fit into the Little Right Lie mold.

And the times when I shed the protection and the patterns of those Little Right Lies and state my truth with confidence (maybe even with moxie, depending on the day) my soul does a little happy dance. I can feel it in my bones when I’m living in alignment with what’s real, rather than perpetuating the Little Right Lies.

All of which is not to suggest that it’s always easy to live beyond the Little Right Lies… but the adventure that unfolds when I’m courageous enough to do so has, thus far, consistently proven to be worth every ounce of difficulty or uncertainty I’ve encountered.

Viva la truth, baby.

What’s in your little black book of little right lies?

Do you catch yourself telling a few Little Right Lies here and there? Who do you tell them for? Or what feels scary about living beyond them? What’s happened for you when you’ve let yourself live beyond them?

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I’ve been reading (and enjoying) Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project blog for a few years… which means I’ve been thinking about crafting my own set of personal commandments for a few years as well. Over the past week, while I’ve been unplugged (mostly) and in a ponder-ful state (mostly), I created my list.

Each previous time I’ve started jotting down my list, I stopped because I got entirely too precious about it and wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted it to be book-worthy. Or audience-worthy. Or… well, you know, perfect. This time, I gave myself permission to pay attention to what felt solidly right, even if not “perfect,” for the sake of actually completing the exercise rather than halting myself mid-step for fear of not being perfect. (Perfection is such a vicious and unyielding bitch.)

So, vicious and unyielding bitch be damned, here is my list of Personal Commandments, with due hattip to Gretchen.

1. Be Marissa.

Trust my gut. Allow me to be wholly me, and not a watered-down half-version of me… all the time (including when it’s scary). Honor my voice the same way I encourage others to honor theirs. Live fully in my own light and outside the shadow of the “who I think I’m supposed to be” judgments.

2. Observe much, judge little.

My unquenchable curiosity nudges me to observe a great deal–but my quick-to-solve, always-analyzing superprocessor-and-synthesizer brain is quick to add a great deal of backstory and framing to the observations. And that backstory and framing is what opens the floodgates of stress and fear, assumptions of judgments from others and assumptions of understanding on my part. When I remember to keep my observations plentiful and my judgments minimal, I’m much more present and mindful, not to mention significantly less bogged down by internal dialogue and stress.

3. Honor what is.

Honoring what is reminds me to act in the moment with what is actually there, rather than wistfully galavanting into the mire of wishing for something different or creating fantastic scenarios that could play out “if only.” For example, certain aspects of this moment are within my control; many are not. Certain parts of this day are very light; others are heavy and sticky. There is an element of learning and necessity in each, but only if I first acknowledge what is. I can flail blindly forward–and often do, god knows–but the road is much smoother if I’m mindful about what actually is.

4. Allow others.

Just as I grant myself permission to “Be Marissa,” I must allow others to be and act as they are and do. Being a self-confessed control freak (admitting it is the first step, and whatnot), a great many of my struggles boil down to me forgetting that I cannot control someone else (and that, when it all shakes out in the end, I wouldn’t want to even if I could). “Allow others” also reminds me to allow others to support me when they’re willing and able, another practice the control freak part of me deftly avoids. And it reminds me to honor the boundaries the I set for myself–I cannot properly honor my own boundaries if I’m simultaneously refusing to allow others their own actions and space.

5. Show up.

Be present, even when it feels safer to escape. Notice the here-and-now before deciding to hide out (hiding out is still a completely acceptable decision, as long as it’s done as a choice and not a default). When it’s all craptastic and hard and frustrating, just show up–fully–and then see what’s what. Don’t forecast the entire outcome of whatever before even showing up. Be there. Then decide.

6. Let go.

Is that a zen non-attachment reference in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? Show up–but do so for the sake of showing up, not for the sake of the outcome. Revel in the process, not in the promise of the endgame. Love those days when I get lost inside the creation because the creative process is rocking my socks, not because I think someone might give me a metaphorical gold star for the end result. Kiss the projection goodbye, and go home with the journey instead. Show up, and just let go.

7. Nurture the personal.

I’m great at making sure that my clients’ communications get due attention. I’m jolly swell at keeping other peoples’ inboxes tidy. I write glad missives of good tidings on my clients’ behalf every day. But my own personal connections? Sadly neglected. Nurturing the business is a given–but it is “Nurture the personal” that receives a spot on this list, because that’s the one I forget about and let fall to the wayside. Connect on Twitter, make the phone call to catch up, or just respond to my personal emails with the same dedication I give to other peoples’ emails.

8. Stoke the fire.

Attend to my own creative voice. Pursue my whims. Even the ones that don’t seem to have some direct connection to my business. Perhaps especially those. Do that which makes me feel fluttery and excited, since that’s usually when I do my best work. Care for myself in ways that leave me most able to set the world on fire however I might feel called to do so.

9. Identify the source.

When I’m feeling resentful or frustrated or just pissed off, pause, and identify the source. If it’s really the person whose email I read when I started to feel resentful, then fine–notice that and determine what to do to address it. But if it’s not that person and is, perhaps, the feeling of being tied to my email every hour of every single day, then that calls for a very different action. Either way, I can’t really take a step forward until I identify the source of the problem. Likewise, when I suddenly get a jolt of fluttery excitement or a wave of motivation, identify the source. Was it the blog I just read? Subscribe, and get that jolt on a daily basis. Does it tend to happen after getting a massage? Make room in the schedule for the massage on a more regular basis. I’m great at figuring out what step to take next… as long as I first identify the source.

10. Take one small step.

Like I said, I’m great at taking a next step. But I have a tendency to take great leaps, rather than small steps. That tendency serves me well in many ways, and I don’t intend to purge it from my vocabulary of movement. What I want to nurture, though, is granting myself permission to take a small step where one is necessary, or when I simply don’t have the reserves or ability to take the giant leap. Where a giant leap isn’t right–for whatever reason–my fallback is abandonment of the action altogether (and accompanying disappointment). I want it all, and I want it in one fell swoop. (Poster child for Type A, much?) One small step is permissible… and often, preferable. If the choices are: no action at all for lack of giant leap or one small step forward, take the one small step. (This goes nicely with nos. 5 & 6, yeah?)

…And you?

Do any of these personal commandments resonate with you? What rules of thumb serve you well? (Or, on the flipside, which have you tried out that really didn’t work?)

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Six-Word Memoirs are popular right now. They’re challenging, but actually really fun to create.

Here are my 20 favorite six word memoirs that I created (click the links above to view other peoples’):

1. Happiness is always the best revenge.
2. Challenges crumble; wit and grace remain.
3. Could say something. And I will. (credit to my Grandma)
4. And now I’ll sing for you!
5. What popper? No idea, little brother.
6. No Mommy, my ears aren’t tired.
7. Can do! Can’t be that hard!
8. Serenity to accept; strength to change.
9. Was self-portrait; head fell off. (credit to my brother Alex)
10. It’s a legal term. Trust me.
11. When a**h**** strike, strike back harder. (credit to my uncle Lamont)
12. Things happen with reason; just believe.
13. Can’t get worse? Don’t tempt fate!
14. I don’t know anything about reality. (credit to my brother Chaz)
15. Tim Gunn’s right: “Make it work!”
16. When going through hell, keep going. (credit, of course, to Winston Churchhill)
17. Life: fiction was never as strange.
18. I could too be a CSI.
19. Got enough jewels in crown, thanks. (credit to Mums)
20. Dad’s humor, Mom’s brown eyes… me.

Try it… It’s addictive!

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My knees don’t even scab no more
Been pushed down so many times
Just calluses now, rough and scarred
I can get up and get up and get up again
But I can’t be your victim no more

Down again but by my own misstep
Still breakable, I don’t wear no cape
But wounded I’ll walk
With or without your hand
But I can’t be your victim no more

You prophesy bad luck and harm
From deep within your cozy fear
But I’ve been out once and I seen
I seen it ain’t fear I fear
So I ain’t gonna be your victim no more

My today don’t match up with yours
Don’t got time to teach it again
I done learned it once, your turn now
Can’t just run round that tree til I fall
I ain’t your victim no more

Just cause knees don’t scab
Don’t mean the tears don’t burn
Can’t callus up my eyes–I tried
I been beaten raped struck and died
And you tell me bout fear outside?
I ain’t your victim no more
I ain’t your victim no more
No more.

–Lola Tyrole

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Just for fun, head over to my Johari Window and select the five or six words you think best describe me. (This will take you all of about a minute; it’s nothing lengthy.)

Thanks!

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