A Little Breathing Room

A new friend of mine from the Start Experiment and I've been messaging back and forth. The other night she sent me these words of wisdom: "Give yourself a little breathing room - you've got a lot going on IRL". (IRL means 'in real life') This is in response to trying to get my new site up and having everything ready by Monday. It's Tuesday and I'm not ready to introduce it yet (although a few of you have already found your way over there).

This is an old photo from my Project 365 that I did awhile back which perfectly describes how I'm feeling today - stressed and rushed. I'm going to listen to that friends' advice because I do have a lot going on in real life. I'm working through some major changes which will shake up where I'm living, my friends group, my daily eating habits, my morning routine, my career, and pretty much everything else tied into all of that. In addtion to that, my Dad's been sick and I've been helping out with my sister which cuts down a bit of my hustling and dream time.

Right now though, there's not a deadline. There is no finite date. Jon Acuff won't be mad at me and say I'm never allowed to read any of his blogs ever again because I wasn't able to get my new site up how I wanted to by yesterday. That's just ridiculous. He has different things he should worry about. There's a deadline for some of the other things going on in my life which I really need to figure out.  The whole situation is overwhelming like a nightmare of ending up in a Calculus Test unprepared.

The reality is that sometimes, real life gets in our way and we have to attend to some other things first. It's easy to focus on the one thing that we feel like we can control in a time like this. For me currently, it's the layout of my new site. There are other things that I am desperately not in control of in any way. Those things I definitely can't change because I'm not in control, but I am in charge of how I react to this situation.

How am I going to react? I'm going to react by deciding to act on the things which most need to take precedence. I've got things I need to take care of. I've got things that I wish had already been taken care of. What can I do now? I can stop feeling rushed about things that don't really need to take place now and focus on things that need to be taken care of more immediately. It's time to focus on dealing with the real life stuff rather than a layout because at the end of the day, this real life stuff matters a whole lot more than the layout of a blog.

What do you need to stop focusing on? What do you really need to take care of this week?

Unpacking the Unpacked Adventure

If you've been reading here at my little corner of the internet for awhile, you'll see that things have changed stylistically (is that even a real word?) in the last 48 hours or so. I've decided to go undergo a new me, a new blog and become a new dream chasing girl - one that I've always wanted to be but what scared me so.

You see, it all started back in the days of xanga when I would read my high school friends blogs and posted one of my own. The problem with high school xangas is they are very high school. I say this in love though, I've volunteered with teenagers for over five years now and adore the age group no matter how awkward and confusing it is. As I moved up to blogger and wordpress though, I began to see true writers that posted hours and hours of content - funny, engaging, brilliant, thought provoking, life affirming stories and encouragement all surrounded by great designs and beautiful photography.

Well y'all, the comparison game is a thief of joy and I have been its' captive way too long. 

I'm at a definitive crossroads (I guess you really could say I have been at one since I graduated college) and it's time to step up and be the true me here. I don't know where it's going to take me. I know that there's a lot of adventures ahead. I'm currently on one now. Jon Acuff of Stuff Christians Like has been a writer of one of my favorite blogs for years now and he tweeted out the other day that he would like information sent to him about his followers. He wanted real information emailed to him to take us on an adventure that may include a machete and a passport. I don't usually respond, but I did.

He's invited me and 2000ish other friends to go on an adventure to punch fear in the face and start what we have wanted to start all along but have been too afraid of. He's named it the Start Experiment after his book I'm currently reading entitled, Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters, which I highly recommend (along with his other books - I'm a bit of a fan). Here goes my START!

Unpacked Adventure. It's a weird name. How do you unpack an adventure? Don't you usually pack for an adventure? Unpacking isn't the fun part - it's the thrill of getting everything together before a journey, packing your necessities and heading off. I don't know what the adventure looks like. I know what I hope it involves: transparency, a deeper level of writing, a consistent blog, some encouragement, a less fearful me, a few crafts, some reviews of some great restaurants, books and digs along the way, a few fashionable moments, a few thoughts and adventures, creative projects and photography.

Here's to dreaming!
Here's to hoping!
& Here's to STARTing!