by Jill MacGregor

They say it’s all about the journey. The sometimes maddening, confusing, frightening, interesting journey that moves you from Point A to Point B in your life.

I hope you’re wearing comfortable shoes.

Just some thoughts as you make your way.

Avoid the comparisons

One of the toughest parts of your journey may be seeing others pull ahead of you. It happens. Instead of making it a negative– as in I’m behind and not keeping up, look at it from a different angle. What can you learn from the forward motion the other person has made? What can you replicate in your own life that may help you? Instead of considering this person competition, maybe what you’ve really done is identify a person who can help you along the way.

Find resources along the way

Speaking of resources, your journey is about new things and you will need some new tools. Things, people, information will be falling onto your path as you travel. Are you going to step over the mound of potential helpfulness because you’ve got places to go or are you going to spend time learning all you can? Take the time you need to absorb what these new resources offer. If you do, you’ll be more prepared as you travel.

Consider your original map as more of a suggestion

Because…really? I know you think you’ve got it all worked out…See, I’ll show you, you say. Look, the most efficient way to get from here to here is this straight line, you tell me as you vigorously point, point, point to your map. Easy, cobra. Great idea, in theory, but chances are, life may have a different route for you full of detours, possible road closures and unexpected pee pee breaks. The world is full of surprises and what you may consider deterrents or possibly setbacks are more accurately described as course corrections that will reveal all in due time.

You will always be fraught with forward motion whether you can sense it or not.

Gauge your progress on how far you’ve come—–not how far you have to go

We are an impatient people tapping our toe while we multi task Scrabble and texting on our iPhones, managing our processes and ordering a triple venti latte. STUFF TO DO! Things never seem to happen fast enough for us.

That’s really what it’s all about. Things rarely happen at the speed we wish—which would involve us cracking a few G’s, our faces pushed back from the pressure, a barf bag in our hand.

Unpleasant.

Throw a look over your shoulder once in a while and take a look at how much ground you’ve already covered. I understand that may not be exactly where you want to be at this moment but LOOK! You have some serious momentum here! Alright, enough of that. Now, eyes forward. No resting on laurels. That was just designed to give you a little boost as you bootstrap it and keep on.

By the way, great job.

And building that bridge? I think the bridge already exists. Perhaps your job is to put one foot in front of the other without looking down, without running back from whence you came or without jumping over the side.

You’re almost there. I wonder what you’ll discover today…

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Leave me a comment–I’d love to know your thoughts!

By Jill MacGregor

leverage (le*vrij): a strategic advantage; the power to act effectively

If you are starting at *hard*, you are probably starting at the wrong place.

One upsmanship. Upper hand.

Yea, I don’t mean that.

Leverage is identifying your natural abilities—your passions, your talents. Identifying the things that make you lean in and giving them the credit they are due. Sometimes, we don’t embrace our passion—we try to replace it with things that feel more practical or more profitable. We treat our passion like a vacation, maybe experiencing it once or twice a year for a short period of time. We keep it in a drawer. Each of us has an ability that comes easy to us; we understand we can do it in a way that’s different from the rest of the pack. It makes us special.

Let’s clarify: the fact that it comes easy doesn’t mean aiming low. This isn’t about “Oh, well that’s easy so I’ll do that.” This doesn’t mean settling for the simplest task. Following your passion comes with its own challenges. People may not understand your zeal—but that level of excitement will be what wins people over. Your own fan club…you know, we all have one whether we admit to it or not. I bet if you took a moment, you could even identify the governing members of your fan club—the friendly rabble rousers, the organizers, the cheerleaders. A lot of people cheer you from the stands. Take a minute and soak that one in—because you spend a lot of time pretending that your fan club exists only in your head.

Nope, it’s very real.

As much as you may be compelled to do this thing you love, there are going to be moments when you stamp your little foot and ask if it’s worth it. Much as you love it, you may start to feel like it’s your bad boyfriend—“I give and I give and for what?” *dramatic, angst-filled noise here* “I’ve committed to you—and you don’t take me seriously!” *fists curled, cue tears* “Why do I bother? You’ll never amount to anything. Leave me alone!” *door slam, aaaand scene* All the energy you put into this—and what are you getting back? But stop that tantrum—you know exactly what you’re getting back from your efforts. You’re telling the world who you are.

Valuable.

This thing—it gives you the words you need to express who you are. Your passion is a universal translator—by following your passion, you give people the words to describe your make up, identify who you are and what you’re about. Everyone understands more about the person you are when you are practicing your true talents. Your passion is your modifier…without it, you’re just a simple sentence. “See Jill run.”

With it, you’re more. “Clearly see Jill, in a new way, gracefully run with purpose.”

See what I did? You’re different in that sentence and so am I.

Life does not take kindly to you ignoring the gifts you’ve been given so don’t try to fight it. And Life will become dogged in Its determination to get you to see, accept and understand what you were put here to embrace. Your job is to find a way to integrate your passion into your life.

Wow, it sounds so much easier when I say it out loud…not.

But here’s your leg up—you will be gifted with endless enthusiasm, ever renewable resources of focus and a need to accomplish this task in a way you can’t explain.

Your passion is boundless.

Give your passions the credit they are due. Don’t discount your natural talents. You may think they aren’t fully developed but the beauty is that you’ve identified them and now you can exercise them, prance them around the track, locate the mentors who will further develop them—and help you appreciate the power they possess.

Maybe you feel like you haven’t identified your great talent. You know. It’s the little voice that whispers in your ear—it says “Follow me.” It nudges you in the right direction. Just listen. Watch. Remember that fan club of yours I mentioned earlier? Well, Life is in the stands yelling *hot!* and *cold!* and giving you all the signs It possibly can—eyes open, my friend. The answers are all around you.

You—you with that thing. Not everyone can do that thing.

by Jill MacGregor

As I stand on the threshold of every new venture, especially one that makes me feels shaky, one that confirms all that I do not know, I think of walking on a frozen lake. It’s so easy as you begin from the shore—your first ten steps are strong and fearless. The water is shallow and it hasn’t taken much for it to freeze solidly. It’s what happens the further you get from shore—when things begin to happen under your footing to make you feel like this was all a foolish mistake, like you’ll never make it across this lake and even though you’ve travelled so far, you suddenly feel that you’ll never make it to the opposite shore.

You start to calm your nerves but then you hear it, the ice cracking under you. At first, you tell yourself that it was nothing—it wasn’t a crack it was more like a give, like an old stair creaking under your weight. A few more careful steps and all is silent except for the trudge of your boots catching the last bit of snow and crunching it into the ice. You breathe a cautious sigh of relief and work to recover your confidence.

Alone. Because who is foolish enough to follow you out onto the frozen lake? They’ve been warned and they listened. They’ll meet you safely on the other side where they now wait somewhere warm.

And there you are, standing in the middle of a frozen lake. You begin to think how deep it is where you stand; you remember that you’re not allowed to swim that far during the summers. It’s not safe. No one would be able to reach you in time.

But there you stand.

If others knew what you were doing they would have encouraged you to stay on the shore. They would call you careless. There’s no reason to take chances like this.

You take your next step. You hear the crack, the crack that seems to emanate from the toe of your boot and create a vein through the ice. You freeze as if you can stop what’s already started by standing still. The noise fills you with more fear that the understanding that the ice is cracking.

You take careful step after careful step as you picture yourself falling through the ice, landing in the freezing water, being carried under the frozen ice and trapped.

I always wonder how to define bravery. Is it doing something even if it terrifies you? Or is it still considered brave if you have no choice in the matter and must move forward? You, who decided to walk across the frozen lake—are you brave with your first step or do you become brave after the ice begins to crack and you still walk forward to the other shore?

So you find the courage and the shore becomes closer. You are still on top of the ice, not under it. You begin to wonder what you’d been so afraid of, as you move closer to the shore—of course, you were going to be fine. The ice is feet deep and will hold you, even if it makes a few cracking noises. There was never anything to worry about—your fears had merely found a way to whisper in your ear and touch on all your weakest spots. Once you are on the other side the lake doesn’t seems so big or so deep.

It’s the same lake as it was from the other side. It’s you that’s different now.

by Jill MacGregor

I’m finding that I like to designate a new year *The Year of Fill InThe Blank* before I get too far into it. Sort of give it a theme, like a ride at Disneyland. It keeps me focused, as if someone’s posted a sign I can always glance up at in case I’ve forgotten what I need to be doing next.

This has been such an interesting last year and a very different year than I’ve had in a long time. I felt myself ramping during 2009. Making changes and having changes made all around me that put me in a unique position to (voraciously) need to know the inner workings of things around me in a new way. NEED TO KNOW like a starving person. I’m not sure why what brought this on. Therefore, 2009 was appointed The Year of Learning.

I felt this overwhelming need to be smarter in 2009.

Don’t get excited– I still round up on fractions (learned that from baking) and my high school friend, Anne, will make a very sad face while explaining my difficulties with Algebra…blah…

In 2009, I caught a sense of the speed the world was moving at, how it was picking up speed everyday and I didn’t find it scary. I found it thrilling. I understood in my bones that there was more I needed to know so that I could keep up with all this spinning.

Year of Learning.

So, what is this year supposed to be? It seems really important to label it…like the Chinese do. Some ideas:

Lovely choices, and annoying accurate, but possibly not what I’m looking for.

When I think about what the focus of this year should be, I want to see myself at the end of it, on December 31st, breathing a contented sign and feeling like my life is so much better than when the year started. That was how it felt this Dec 31st and I liked it. Maybe this coming year should be:

Honestly, The Year of Learning will continue, because once you start a practice like that it’s difficult to stop. The monster must be fed.

And if the only one holding me back is me—I guess the question is really how big can I make this year. How can I make enormity look small?

Oh my…I have to sit down.

Maybe this could be The Year of Risk.

Let me take a moment and step back. Sometimes when I ask myself big questions like this or when I lay my little head on the pillow, I find myself back in Hong Kong, for some strange reason. It’s not because I lived there for an extended period of time or even had a significant experience there. I did go there last year for business and pleasure and certainly enjoyed my trip…but didn’t feel a big urge to return to Hong Kong.

So why do very palpable memories come flooding back? I smell the streets, I feel the heat, I know what to expect around the corner where my mind’s eye has taken me…

Maybe it’s because I was a stranger there. I was foreign.

And I got lost a lot.

I really love those two things—being foreign and getting lost in a strange land. It turns you on your head and forces you outside your comfort zone. I am very comfortable outside of my comfort zone…well, maybe outside of someone’s comfort zone. It seems like there’s something about not understanding that makes you realize that you are on the verge of understanding something really big.

Perhaps I should call this The Year of Being on the Verge of Understanding Something Really Big.

That could do with some editing.

While I ponder my year, I’d love to hear what you think the focus of your year is going to be. Shout it out!