change

Albert Einstein on Success

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment
On success

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“If A is a success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z.  Work is X; Y is play, and Z is keeping your mouth shut.”

Work.  Play.  Listen.  Einstein’s formula for experiencing a new version of life called A.

The questions that sometimes emerge in my journaling are about how to combine work and play so that they are seamlessly one.  How can I enjoy my work so much that it feels like play?  And how can I incorporate more play into my work, while still feeling like I am creating something that serves another?

Perhaps my answer lies in Z.   Maybe I am not listening.   At least not enough.  My mouth is open and expressing thoughts, feelings, and even complaints.  If I paused to meditate, breathe, pause, and listen, it is possible that I might feel more simpatico with life’s meaning, purpose, objective — or whatever it is that drives us and compels us to discover and contribute and, ultimately, feel more successful.

Work.  Play.  Keep my mouth shut.   Listen.  Pay attention to the promptings and follow through.  Play more music.  Take longer walks.  Look around.  Be still.   Follow.   Experience a success in life.

 

Your default: Do you welcome or fear a Change of State?

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flip-your-optimism-onLife has a way of grabbing my attention and reminding me daily of what’s important.  Loved ones.  Health.  Friendship.  Family.  Compassion.  Laughter.  My lovely dog companion.  Creativity.  Nutrition and exercise.  Meditation. Generosity of spirit.  Appreciation in the moment.  When I become distracted by the trivialities that numb this awareness,  I oftentimes find myself feeling confronted . . . or greeted . . . . by a Change of State.  Confronted or greeted?  How I determine Change’s perceived benevolence factor is how I shun or welcome it.

The other day I found myself frozen in a moment of experiencing a Change of State.  Frozen.  It was inevitable that a new paradigm was opening its doors to me.  And I was immobilized with fear.

The stealth speed Continue reading →

Don’t Give Up Your Poetry

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IMG_3112. true directionsExistence.  Being-ness.  Reality.  Mindfulness.  Presence.  Universal Time.  Whatever you call it, this Force we call Life has an inimitable way of standing silently behind us, removing its hands from our eyes, and bringing the unexpected to us in the most curious of ways.  Its gloved hands fly away from our eyes and behold!  This is now your life, lovely person.  Now what are you going to make of it? 

That’s the thing about Life.  It offers startling choices . . . even when our stuck-o-meter is flailing and railing wildly in the red zone.  Surprise can Continue reading →

A Lesson from the Subconscious: the Evolution of Good

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Big-life-change-quoteIs there something you are doing that is causing you pain?  Or stress?  Or grief?  Or anger?  Or non-optimal health?  If the answer is yes, stop doing it.  Change your position.  Shift into feeling good.  Change now.  Life really is short.  There is no time for regret.

IMG_0975It is like when you wake up in the middle of the night and you realize that the way your arm is positioned is causing you neck pain.  Your subconscious is so strong, you have been allowing yourself to sleep through it.

You begin to wake up and Continue reading →

Never underestimate the power of perspective. It can change everything.

/ Kennedy Farr / 1 Comment

trochus_maculatus_01

When you change the way you look at things,

the things you look at change.

Perspective.  What is it?

perspective: (noun)

  1. the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point.

  2. a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.

Perspective. 

These two definitions connect well together and grab my attention.   Perspective as an art form and as a particular attitude.

As an art form, perspective is used to Continue reading →

10 Ideas a Day

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

use-your-idea-musclesThis is a good-to-watch TED talk from James Altucher.

His main points are really good to note:

If you don’t make the choices in your life, then someone else is going to end up making them for you.  Someone else is going to end up making the choices for you, and they aren’t going to be as good as the choices that you make for yourself.

Failure is unpleasant.  View it as an experiment.

4 distinct things that were working for him when he was on the way up:

1. Take care of your physical health: Sleep well, eat well, exercise well, laugh more.  Make improvements incrementally that will improve your physical health.

2. Take care of your emotional health: Be around people that you love and trust and be around people that love and trust you.

3. Spiritual/creative gratitude: Complaining is draining.  Express gratitude.  Look on the sunny side.

4. Use your idea muscles.  Use a waiter’s pad. Write down 10 ideas every day.  Become an idea machine.

5. Share your ideas.  Come up with 10 ideas for someone . . . for “x.”  Give your ideas away with no expectation of them sharing back with you.  Life changes by spreading your ideas like currency.

Interesting ideas.  I especially like the idea of writing down 10 ideas every day and then giving them away.  Altucher promises that life will change if we are generous with our ideas.  Sounds good to me.  For someone who keeps notebooks in every bag, purse, and pocket, I especially like #4.  Now . . . the trick will be how to give them away.

I am not sure how this will materialize into action — this idea of giving away ideas — but I like the idea of thinking of ideas as currency.  If ideas are currency, then many people I know and love are rich and wealthy.  Idea Rich.  I like it.

Woot!  This makes me wealthy beyond wonder.  Do I have ideas?  Yes.  I have been told that I have too many ideas and not enough follow through.  Hmmmmm . . . maybe this is someone speaking who is simply envious of my wealth.  Someone who wishes that s/he, too, could come up with a real purpose for dark matter or who could contrive an extraordinary purpose for eggshells or who could invent a gizmo for churning garbage disposal waste directly into the garden as compost.

Ideas.  They are the things that grow and that grow us.  We conceive them and then are oftentimes daunted by them.  Who wants them?  What do we do with them?  How do we implement them?  How do we move them out of notebooks and into the hands of people who will develop them into reality?

After all, I read once that there are Innovators and Implementers.  And rarely shall the twain meet.  I am an Innovator.  It only follows that it is time to find an Implementer.  Caution All Implementers: Ideas Ahead.

I don’t know. This is all tricky stuff for an Innovator.  We are idea-based, not roll-up-your-sleeves-based.  But it is time to start giving Ideas away.  Perhaps not entirely unsolicited.  I don’t want to wax eloquent to the stranger next to me on the ferry about my brain storm for the next Super Bowl ad . . . I can see them switching seats now.  But I actually have one.  It involves breakfast cereal and babies and all sorts of action moves.  There.  I just gave away one of my more brilliant ideas.  Sweet!  Only 9 more to share before the day is over.

 

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Making Change

/ Kennedy Farr / 1 Comment

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Making change.  Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in You Learn by Living: “Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart.  Don’t be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren’t paying any attention to you.  It’s your attention to yourself that is so stultifying.  But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible.  If you fail the first time then you’ll just have to try harder the second time.  After all, there’s no real reason why you should fail.  Just stop thinking about yourself.”  In other words, Just Do It.

A few things that keep me focused while flowing with change:

  1. As Eleanor says: Just stop thinking about yourself.
  2. Let your history of reward and success encourage you. Remember a time when you tried something new or different or risky . . . and it really felt great while in the process or it, ultimately, led to a really fun outcome.
  3. Surround yourself with quotes that inspire you to be bold.  Words are powerful.
  4. Tape up index cards with the definitions of words like courage, brave, risk, happiness, wealth.  It is always good to see such large, sometimes seemingly unattainable, words defined into smaller, simpler parts.
  5. Write about the journey.  It secures what you are experiencing to your heart and emboldens you.
  6. Be happy. Tell your family and friends how happy you are while you are flowing with change.
  7. Don’t think outside the box. There is no box.  Let yourself slip into flow mode.
  8. Seek the company of generous people who are happy that you are happy. Stay away from naysayers who don’t share your happiness or who feel threatened by your vision.
  9. When in doubt and you feel you are at a crossroads, flip a coin. By the time the coin lands you will know what you want.  This works.  If you still feel uncertain after seeing that head or tail or if you find yourself flipping the coin again for 2 out of 3, you will know what your preference is.  Go with it and trust yourself.
  10. Extend love to others. It is always returned and it will guide you as you make change.
  11. Dissolve fear. Give it the gamma rays and zap it.  Let it go.  Silence it.  Replace fear with trust.
  12. Pay attention.  Always pay attention.
  13. Think affirmation rather than negation.
  14. Believe in CAN.

Eleanor also wrote: “Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.  For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’”

It can be done.  And it will be done if you allow yourself the freedom of choice to make change.  Follow the change.  Enjoy the change.  Be the change.

Nothing that I have written here is new.  It has been spoken, written, repeated, and recorded throughout the ages.  It has been sermonized and it has been put into song.  Repetition of platitudes is not the best teacher.  Experience is.  Embracing life is.  Taking the first step is.

But I somehow seem to need the reminders.  And it is empowering to foresee possibility and then feel the zing that coincides believing and knowing deep deep inside.  But it involves taking a ride, sometimes on the wild and brave side, to get to the good stuff.  Achieving is fantastic, but taking the ride is the true experience.  Taking the ride is the change.

 

 

 

What’s in your complaint box?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

834px-complaint_department_grenadeWhat’s in your complaint box?  Any chance of turning those complaints around and thinking of them as blessings?

I’ve been doing an experiment.  Every day I write down as many things that I can think of from the day under the heading: Good Things That Happened Today.  It isn’t hard to think of things.  As with anything in life — when you pause to take an inventory — there is much more going on than that which skims the surface.

After I finish my Good Things list, I then write as many things that I can think of under the heading: My Takeaways on Life in the Current Moment.  When I pause to think of My Takeaways, all sorts of good things start to burble forth — things that hitherto felt like an obstacle or a challenge or a frustration.  It’s like magic.  The weird stuff suddenly starts to transform into a better place.

For example, imagine that you are making an offer to purchase what you perceive to be your Dream Home.  And we’re talking Dream Home, people.  You are convinced that this house is It.  It is exactly what you want to buy and to live in for the rest of your life — or at the very least the next decade.  In your Good Things list, you write: I made an offer on my Dream Home today!!!!!

But then life intervenes.  Another offer comes in on the same day as yours, but $10,000 higher than your offer.  And to make matters worse for you, their financing is in perfect order.  Guess whose offer gets accepted?  You feel bummed!  That was your house!  Not theirs!  

The days pass and you search for things to put down on your Good Things list.  You might even write under Takeaways: I learned that it is best to remove such high emotion from a business deal.  Something like this.  But then.  Something really crazy happens.  You read about an opportunity to go to Ireland and serve as an intern at this amazing art school.  It’s your dream!!  You apply.  You get accepted.  Guess what?  You’re going to Ireland for a full year!  Woot!

This adventure gets listed under Good Things.  In addition to recording this adventure to Ireland on your list, you write, I‘m so glad that that house deal fell through!  Thank you!!! on the line directly below your entry about the Ireland opportunity.  You see the correlation so clearly.  In fact — even better yet — you feel the correlation and you experience an understanding that calms your soul and quells your frustrations about the house deal falling through.  All is right with the world and you marvel at how things just work out!

You get the idea.  The seemingly bad breaks that occur in life have all the potential to set us up for something even better.  You just have to be looking.  Be aware.  Be open to seeing the “bad stuff” as “potential good stuff.”  That there are Takeaways, if you only look.  Life events aren’t always easy to dissect into lists, but I find that if I really stretch and embrace both the Good Things and the Takeaways . . . I learn a lot about me and how I can be happy in the flow of the present moment.

How about you?  Do you want to join me in my Good Things/Takeaway challenge?  If you want a PDF to download to get you started, just submit your email address and I’ll send it to you.  It’s fun to turn things around to a place that allows you to embrace that which seemed like such a bummer.

As for me?  Well, I thought that it was going to be smooth and perfect sailing as I prepared to go forth to Ireland . . . but the art internship fell through — something about something occurred, which meant I wasn’t going away to Ireland for a year.

Now, this unwelcome news certainly wasn’t expected, but I am learning as a result of my daily lists.  Instead of listing the loss of my Ireland trip in my Takeaway list, I recorded it immediately in my Good Things list.  After all, I am learning about this life stuff in a new way that is changing my mind and my heart.  I know that something good is happening right now . . . and I am trimming the unexpected starboard list of the boat that I thought was set to sail for Ireland.  It’s a good thing that there were life rafts on that boat!

And I am ready for the next adventure.

Who knows what’s next?  I don’t.  Be it a Good Thing or a Takeaway, I am learning that what works best is for me to be open.  To understand that I don’t have a bird’s-eye view of every little piece that has been set in motion.  To be me and to be happy and to have a light heart.  To stop complaining and to start paying better attention.

You’ve got this!

/ Kennedy Farr / 4 Comments
flip-your-optimism-on

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When some positivity is just what you need, flip your optimism to ON.

  • When things don’t feel like they are going quite right and discouragement is hovering and waiting to swoop into your heart, it’s time to flip your optimism to ON.
  • Replace those voices (the voices that tell you that there isn’t any hope or that you have already tried and tried but to no avail) with inner shouts of joy that say, You’ve got this!   
  • Let your little light shine and eradicate those dark  thoughts that try to convince you that success is for those other people who, of course, were bound to be successful anyway, right?  (Wrong!)
  • Your light?  Let it shine and shine some more.
  • Believe.  Trust.  Know.  You’ve got this.  You truly do.

When you think you can’t.

You’ve got this.  I used to go to the gym each night after work, the kind of gym that offered those maniac spinning classes.  I used to look in to the classroom and watch those spinning pedals and sweating bodies and think, “That looks way above and beyond my physical abilities.”  I wanted my body and my mind to perform like the spinners in that class, but it looked so exclusive — like it was for people who were in far better shape than I was, both physically and mentally — and kind of technical really, what with having to adjust your bike just so.

Well, I met the instructor, Scott, one day when he was coming out of one of the classes.  Scott asked me if I would ever be interested in trying a class.  He told me that spinning is for everyone, and that he thought that I would love it.

I decided to just try.

I decided to try it.  I went to that first class and Scott was there, ready to help me adjust my bicycle so my ride would be comfortable, write down the adjustments so I could do it on my own for my next class, and make sure that I had a full water bottle.

It didn’t take long into that first class and I was hooked.  Scott wasn’t one of those class instructors who shouted and berated exercisers to push beyond their perceived abilities.  His mantra throughout class was always positive: “You’ve got this!”  Scott understood that optimism and encouragement were what helped people to grow and to be excited about new challenges.  The class was not only fun but spiritual, too.  The hard workout put my head into a new place that out-rode (pun intended) the thoughts from the day that were still chasing me.

While we pedaled like crazy, added resistance, stood up, sat down, and stretched to cool down, Scott told everyone how great they were doing.  He adjusted all of his instruction accordingly:  for those who were struggling with a particular ride, he offered alternatives so that everyone’s workout would be rewarding . . . and he ramped things up for those who had been coming to the class for a while and wanted even more challenge.

Success is a good fit for everyone. 

It was one of those very rare classes that fitted everyone.  We all added some visible muscle during those classes, and we all grew a good measure of inner strength as well.  We learned that we could do our best and feel good about it — no matter what we each had accomplished in class.

I don’t know if I fell in love with spinning or if I simply so appreciated Scott’s much-needed encouragement.  Maybe both.  In the ways of time and change, Scott moved to Portland, and I moved to an island.  I live where there are zero spinning classes and the mountain behind my house serves as my combination elliptical trainer, spin bicycle, and treadmill.

The elevation gain up the mountain is a gentle master and is much less challenging than the spin classes.  When I am out walking, I think about the other challenges in my life that have nothing to do with breaking a sweat or making another loop before heading home.

 

Encouragement is key.

We all need someone or something in our lives that motivates us to reach for that light switch — that extension of ourselves that pushes us to exceed our own expectations.  I used to hear from Scott from time to time, but it’s been a while.  When I do hear from him, he always has encouraging words to say.   Scott is one of those people who helps others keep their optimism flipped to On.  Thanks, Scott.  I’ve got this!

How about you? 

  • What have you been wanting to try?  To explore?  To do just for the fun of it?
  • Think about what it is and imagine yourself doing it, sensing it, being it.
  • Take the first step — it can be a Baby Step or a Giant Step — but take the first step.
  • What have you got to lose? [Nothing, right?]
  • What do you have to gain?  [Exactly!  Everything!]
  • Find a Scott in your life to help you stay focused.  Ask for encouragement and for accountability.
  • Remind yourself: You’ve got this!  Tape this message up throughout your home, in your vehicle, at work.
  • Be a Scott to someone else.  When you give encouragement to others, it makes such a huge difference and, like any kindness, will be returned to you many times over.
  • Keep the cycle going.  Thank the Scotts in your life.  It will make their day and it will encourage them to give even more to others.

 

Author bio: Kennedy Farr’s passion for writing first caught light at the age of four when she learned how to write her dog’s name P-e-p-p-y on a sheet of lined tablet paper.  Kennedy is a daily writer and blogger, a lifelong learner, and a true believer that something wonderful is happening right now in this very moment.  Kennedy lives view-high on the mountainside of an emerald-green island in the Pacific Northwest.

 

 

Celebrate Transition

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment
last weeks of summer

theunseenwordsproject.com

Although I very much enjoy the heat and sunshine of summertime, I always look forward to the change in season.  The cooler temperatures, the colors of the leaves, the crispness in the morning air . . . these things are like a happy pinch to the soul, reminding it to appreciate the warmth and the sunglow, as it is soon to be replaced by gray skies and rainy days.  Rain, rain, and more rain.

Living in the Pacific Northwest, it helps if you like the rain.  Well, I like it a lot.  The rain sheds a whole new slant on life.  It draws your attention to how nature feels on your skin.  It replenishes the air with something indefinably sweet.  It helps you appreciate your inordinately high volume of cute rain boots, puddle jumpers, and lightweight coats.

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The rain encourages you to linger a little longer over that second cup of coffee.  In fact, it might be mid-afternoon and you think about having a mid-day cup to brighten the day. You lose track of where you last left your sunglasses because it has been a while since you needed them.

The muted colors and shifting fog also mark the fall and winter days.  There is an exquisite softness in the air that reminds you to pause for a moment and breathe before getting into your truck.  You wake up in the morning and you can smell the salt in the air.  The birds are quieter and the squirrels are more active.

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As much as I enjoy a beautiful autumn rain, I do appreciate these lingering weeks of summer.  The days when I go to work, having forgotten my raincoat.  The late-evening walks that spell out a crimson and peach sunset.  The warm afternoons when I forget that fall is soon to arrive.

It’s all so beautiful, isn’t it?  These periods of transition awaken us and embolden us.  We feel inspired to try new things when we feel nudged by nature.

What is one new thing you have been wanting to learn?  To try?  To do?  Visualize your New Thing inside the box below: 

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Now visualize your New Thing outside the box:

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Maybe now is the time to prioritize your preference and just do it.  There is no time like the present to create your own season of transition and change.

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