You could feel the collective intake of breath as the music swelled.
From the very back of the Disneyland Hyperion theater to the front row, the audience prepared to belt out the words along with the cast.
Let it gooooooooooooo! Let it gooooooooooooooo…
Obviously the song was in my head the rest of the day and now it will be in yours.
Letting go so I can grab on.
I had to get a new computer about a month ago. That’s what happens when you continually drop your computer on the port while it is plugged in.
The Apple store transferred all of my old stuff to the new computer, except for my desktop background, which I’d had for 15 years, faithfully downloading and moving it to each new computer.
It was a picture of the first public garden where I worked after graduate school. My dream job. The culmination of my training. I love what I do now but I’d be lying if I said I don’t ever miss working in public gardens. I miss it all of the time. Looking at that picture every day reminded me of what I was not doing and kept me with one foot in the past.
In the din of a crowded Apple store on a Sunday afternoon I changed my desktop wallpaper to this, a picture I snapped this spring at the Keukenhof gardens.
Since I changed that picture I’ve noticed what an actually big deal doing so was.
Instead of constantly thinking of what might have been and what used to be, I’m thinking about what the future might hold. I’m thinking about possibilities, not bygones.
That trip was really fun. I want to do another one. And another one and another one.
The only way I can do that is to keep growing my business and streamlining it so I have money to book trips and a system and people that will keep my business running while I’m away.
The Only Way to Grow My Business is to Let Some things to Go
I put this out there because the way to grow is with a little bit of work on something every day and I want to hold myself accountable. Here’s a non-exhaustive, in no particular order, list of things I need to let go of. Maybe you’ll find some on there that you can let go to grow.
• Other people’s emotions. People pretty much call me when they have a problem they need to have solved. That can be exhausting for me unless I focus on solving the problem and not the emotions involved. I need to guard my energy.
• Jobs that aren’t profitable and that don’t benefit me in another way(like helping a charity, or making me feel good). That’s hard when you are hardwired to help everyone you can. It’s also hard if you don’t know what the heck’s going on with your business. (So I’m working on deciphering what is actually profitable.) I need to guard my time.
• My own expectations based on past performance. This one goes both ways. There are some things I can’t do as well as I used to be able to do (like run). There are other things that I can do much better than I used to be able to do (like build websites). I need to not limit my potential.
• Waiting for other people to change. The best indicator, in my experience, of how people are going to behave is how they’ve behaved in the past. The only thing that can change is me. If I need a project or relationship to change, I need to change my policies, my response, and my actions. (I come back to this example all of the time, but that’s because it works and it is low-hanging fruit: I was getting anxious on the weekends and not feeling rested, so I stopped checking my email. People can email me whenever I want. When I check it and then how I respond is up to me.)
What are you letting go, big or small, so you can grow this year? We’re about halfway through. There’s still time for a change.
Bookmarks of the, let’s face it, month.
Mrs. Everything
I loved this book and I think it’s important, but read the reviews. It might or might not be for you. In the author’s note she said that we all have the tendency to look back, even on a broad, decades-spanning scale, and wish for the “good old days.” She said she wanted to actually dive into what “the good old days” meant for different groups of people.
Amy Stewart’s Newsletter
It’s alway packed with fun stuff: cocktail recipes, book reviews, art, and writing advice.
Two sides of the same coin (re: decision making):
One side
The other side
Getting More out of your Screenshots
How to take screenshots, no matter what type of computer you have, where to store them, and how to convert them.
Have a great rest of the week!
