reinvent yourself

Blizzard Conditions

February 1, 2016 By Arminda

In the midst of a blizzard, traffic lights still blink red to green, pausing momentarily on yellow.

Yet there are no vehicles to pay attention, to slow down, to stop or to go. And if there were, the snowy conditions would most certainly impact the capability of those vehicles’ performance.

Are we sometimes like blizzard-bound signals — rotating through our three indicators assuming the traffic around us will heed our signals without question?

Do we keep flashing directions when there’s a blizzard swirling?

Stop.

Notice the blizzard.

Consider what messages you’re sending out on repeat.

Review your messages’ purpose and content in context of the current situation.

Ask for whom those messages are intended, and whether they’re being received.

Reinvent yourself from a blinking lamp that’s become irrelevant in the storm into the maker of snow angels, the spontaneous thrower of playful snowballs, the shoveler of new paths, the clearer of slippery stairways, the Zamboni of all icy surfaces.

Props & Costumes

November 2, 2015 By Arminda

I well remember our childhood toy chest, hand-crafted by my Uncle Tom, large enough to hold three to four small children, along with (but not comfortably) some metal Tonka trucks and the Fisher Price Little People, their house and their barn.

Buried inside that big box (in addition to a generation of toys) were an assortment of hats, dresses, shoes, jewelry, purses, briefcases, and general bedlam: the perfect combination for any child’s imagination to soar.

We never needed to wait for Halloween to reinvent ourselves; we only needed a few props from the toy box plus our very active minds to create and recreate and create again who we would become on any given day.

And wow — the feeling of being someone else is magical — I can still easily connect with that emotion from my younger years!

While Halloween may be the perfect excuse to play dress up and to “make believe” and to transform ourselves into whoever and whatever we want, it’s not necessary.

Today, right now, just do it.

With a few props you already have at home and the raging imagination that’s lain dormant for too long inside of you, you have everything you need to become whatever you want! Try someone else on for a day or for an hour or for an afternoon.

Your big proposal to that potential new client who doesn’t know you? Wear a power suit or a brightly-colored tie you borrow from a friend whose presentation skills you admire.

Need to conduct a performance review and you’re nervous about saying the right thing? Practice using some words and phrases you wouldn’t “normally” say but your favorite tv personality would.

Not the type to rush in and “save the moment”? What if you were wearing a cape? Imagine you are and step into your greatness. Better yet — buy yourself some adult superhero underwear and WEAR THEM. No one but you will know and just like Clark Kent you’re suddenly walking around with superpowers.

Who’s your hero? Your better version of yourself? The person you wish you could be?

What props are buried at the bottom of your toy chest? Dig them out, shake them off and try them on for a little while.

When you believe you can’t, simply pretend to be the person who would and then do.

Easy.

Charlotte’s Web

September 14, 2015 By Arminda

Meet Charlotte.

She lives in my herb garden. Directly behind Charlotte to your left is my mint and to your right, the rosemary. Charlotte cares nothing for my herbs. She’s much more interested in the garden fence between which she constructed her large web. A common yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia), Charlotte is completely harmless to humans and unrelenting in her efforts to live fully each day.

I check in on her every morning. I have a chat with her, acknowledge her latest catches, express astonishment at her ingenuity, speed and cleaning of her dinner plate.

Notice that fancy vertical zig zag running through the center of Charlotte’s web? Every single night before she sleeps, Charlotte eats that center zig zag portion of her web and weaves a new zig zag center, strong and reinforced, ready for her next day’s unknown adventures.

Charlotte believes in the power of reinvention.

She isn’t wasting any of her precious time missing yesterday’s web.

She chooses daily to come from an even stronger core.

She is ferocious in protecting her center and is relentless in her efforts to make it better.

The center of Charlotte’s web is her epicenter for growth.

Charlotte is remarkable.

She’s not messing around. She’s living out loud.

Need me to weave the metaphor for you into the web?

Nah. You’ve got this.

Channel your inner remarkable.