Becoming Yourself

Developing a Better You

Tag: true self (Page 9 of 26)

5 Ideas for Navigating Troubled Times

March 21, 2020 / / 0 Comments

It was a heartbreaking conversation. A few days ago, my wife and I helped our son and his fiancé make the gut wrenching decision to postpone their long-planned wedding. Their immanent April celebration is now a distant October event.

It’s a challenging time. The reach of COVID-19 is affecting us all, but not in the same ways. Some of us have been devastated by the disease through personal illness, the loss of a loved one, or financial instability caused by industry shutdowns. For others, the impact to this point has been relatively mild, like adapting to the new realities of social distancing and sheltering in place at home.

Rather than write a “one size fits all” post, I decided to share a variety of suggestions to hopefully help you navigate this season regardless of where you’re at on the impact spectrum. You may be drawn to some suggestions while others might feel completely irrelevant to you. In the future, the appeal of these ideas may completely reverse as your situation changes. Here’s a list of thoughts and resources for you to browse as you choose:

1. FIND YOUR BALANCE

It’s okay to be scared right now. That’s normal and natural given the breadth and impact of this global pandemic. That said, huddling in the fetal position unable to function or stuffing an entire closet full of toilet paper is an unhelpful overreaction. Conversely, laughing this situation off as an overhyped hoax and not taking proper precautions for the good of yourself and others is also a dangerous extreme. Somewhere in the middle is a healthy place to land.

2. FIND YOUR PEACE

I use several apps to help me with this. The Calm app provides guided and unguided meditation experiences of varying lengths with soothing music, imagery, and nature sounds. For those with a spiritual bent, there’s the Pause app produced by author John Eldredge based of his book Get Your Life Back. It leads you through one, three, five, or ten minute reflections to quiet your anxious mind and realign your perspective. A friend also recommended Rob Bell’s latest podcast where he and his wife Kristen share tools they use to navigate these troubled times. Choosing your focus also really helps (you can read my post on that here).

3. FIND YOUR MOTIVATION

While not the right time for everyone, this may be an opportunity for you to get to some long-delayed or newly discovered home projects. Scanning old photos, decluttering (see my post on that here), deep cleaning, whatever. I plan on hanging picture shelves.

4. FIND YOUR FUN

In addition to binging that show you’ve been meaning to watch, break out the board games or coloring books. Curl up with a steaming mug and a novel. Check out Google Earth or the Google Arts & Culture web site and take a virtual stroll through the world’s greatest museums, cities, and sites of interest. My wife and I have a puzzle sitting out to noodle with during breaks in our writing sessions. For 94 different ideas, check out this great list of in-home activities from Apartment Therapy.

5. FIND YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

With many of us stuck at home, this is a great time to connect with friends and family on FaceTime or a good old fashioned phone call. I recently chatted with my parents then spent an hour and a half on speaker phone with my sister over lunch. Physical isolation doesn’t have to mean relational isolation.

So which of these ideas connect with you right now? Pick one and try it today. Keep the others in your back pocket as it looks like this “new normal” is going to be around for awhile. Find your BALANCE. Find your PEACE. Find your MOTIVATION. Find your FUN. Find your RELATIONSHIPS. If you do, you’ll make it through these challenging times, and you’ll take another step toward BecomingYourself.

The Beautiful or the Ugly? Choose Your Focus for a Happier Life

March 14, 2020 / / 2 Comments

Take a look at this picture:

That’s the view from just outside the door of our apartment in Sacramento, CA. Not so great. 

Now look at this picture:

Much better right? Wouldn’t it be great if that was our view? Guess what? It is. I took both of those photos from the same spot. I didn’t even move my feet. I just changed what I chose to focus on.

What’s my point? In life, there’s beauty and ugliness all around us. In our physical surroundings, in other people, in our circumstances, in ourselves. Whether we choose to focus on the beautiful or the ugly will have a huge impact on our mood, our attitude, and our outlook on life.

We’ve all known people who choose to see the ugliness, the downside, the negative in everything. Their glass is always half empty. They’re like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, minus being cute and cuddly. They are not fun people to be around.

On the flip side, we’ve all known people who are contagiously positive, upbeat, and filled with wonder at the world around them. Think Will Ferrell’s character Buddy in the Christmas movie Elf. Their glass is always half full. We’ve been envious of them. What’s their secret? They choose to see the beauty in every situation.

I’m not saying this is easy. I’m not saying “just put on a happy face.” Sometimes life is really hard, and some of us go through pain that most people can’t even imagine. And sometimes we should look at the ugly parts of life in order to heal ourselves or to bring help and hope to others in need.

What I am saying is that we have a choice to make. In every situation, every day. We don’t get to choose many of the things that happen to us in life, but we do get to choose how we will respond to them. How we will view our circumstances. What aspects of life we will focus on.

This anonymous quote was found scrawled on a cellar wall in Germany during the Holocaust:

“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when I cannot feel it. I believe in God even when He is silent.”

Beauty and hope can be found in the most desperate of situations if we choose to look for it.

So how about you? What do you choose to see? Where do you fix your eyes? What do you notice? Where do you focus your attention? Give yourself, and those around you, an amazing gift. Choose today to see the beauty in everything and everyone. Train your eyes to see the good. If you do, you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

Spiritual Sidebar: 

For those of you with a spiritual bent, this idea of choosing where to focus your gaze is something that’s written about a lot in the Bible. Here are some examples:

“Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.” Psalm 105:4 (New International Version)

“Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.” Psalm 39:6-7 (New International Version)

“And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” Hebrews 12:1b-2a (New Living Translation)

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2 (New International Version)

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (New Living Translation)

“Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves. About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. In their fear, they cried out, “It’s a ghost!”

But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here!”

Then Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.”

“Yes, come,” Jesus said.

So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted.

Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?”

Matthew 14:24-31 (New Living Version)

This post was originally published August 4, 2018.

Creative Change: How to Carve Out the Life You Want

February 29, 2020 / / 4 Comments

When the last of our kids finished college a few years ago, my wife Lisa and I brainstormed about the kind of life we wanted in this new season. We desired to live in a walkable area near one of our kids, eliminate home maintenance, have flexibility to travel, and help me transition to a writing career. To that end, I phased out of my twenty-six year music career, we sold most of our possessions and both vehicles, and moved from a house in Phoenix AZ to an apartment in walkable midtown Sacramento CA. Making those significant changes took time, intentionality, and effort, but the benefits of our radically different lives have been so worth it.

I love the flexibility and creativity of writing, but it has two significant drawbacks – it’s tough to break into and hard to make money. I’ve written three novels so far and am working with my literary agent to edit and submit them to publishing houses. There’s not much I can do about the slow pace of the publishing world – it often feels glacial. But I’m not complaining. I’m the luckiest aspiring author in the world because my amazing wife, New York Times bestselling author of twenty-four books Lisa McMann, is not only my writing coach, she’s also paying the bills while I’m in this career transition.

To help make this life change possible, I’ve gotten creative on how to create a “salary” for myself during this initial period where my work is going out but no money is coming in. It’s not actual paychecks, but I’ve found ways to put time and effort into money saving activities that have had the same impact on our budget as if I had a part-time job:

I MOVED US TO A NEW APARTMENT

We loved our beautiful apartment in a great location, but the rent was high. I asked our maintenance person what other units were available in our building. To our surprise, one was perfect for our needs and significantly cheaper. I contacted management and jumped through all the hoops to change apartments mid-lease, then went through the hassle of moving. Now we’re settled in our new place and saving a significant amount in rent every month.

I CHANGED OUR HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN

I think health insurance companies count on the difficulty of change. They know that once they’ve got you, you’ll likely stay with what you have even as the rates go steadily up and the quality of care leaves a lot to be desired. I went through the complex and incredibly frustrating experience of switching companies. Even with the help of a broker, it was time consuming and sometimes maddening. But after a few months of headaches, we had the same coverage at a more user-friendly company that was way cheaper. Another solid reduction in our monthly expenses.

I DUMPED OUR TIME SHARE

Many years ago when I was young and naive, I got suckered into buying a time share. If what the company told us at the time had been the whole story, it would have made sense, but of course, it wasn’t. They neglected to mention that even after we paid it off, we would not have “free vacations for life.” You’re on the hook forever paying increasing annual maintenance fees and random assessments that you have no control over. We were shelling out over $1,100 a year for something we weren’t using anymore. After seeing the pathetic value of the resale market, I researched a way to just give our ownership back to the time share company in exchange for getting out of our lifetime contract. We’re now free of that painful annual bill.

I RENEGOTIATED OUR INTERNET SERVICE

Often when you sign up with an internet service provider, it’s for an appealing introductory rate. But when the honeymoon’s over, the cost goes up significantly. When ours made the big jump, I called our provider and asked what my options were. It was surprisingly simple to switch over to their latest promotional offer which was even cheaper than our introductory rate. This was another “one and done” lowering of our monthly expenses.

I know our situation is unique in some respects, but I share this story to give you an example of how Lisa and I have been able to carve out the life we really wanted by being willing to think outside the box, make significant changes, and work non-traditionally.

So how about you? What do you want your life to look like? What could you do now to help today’s dream become tomorrow’s reality? Brainstorm. Investigate. Research. Plan. Make a timeline. Start small. Ask for help and accountability. If you do, you’ll be on your way to the life you really want, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

More on this topic and some helpful resources:

RISK = The Price for the Life You Really Want

How to Manage Change: A Story 26 Years in the Making

The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion by Elle Luna

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey

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