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

Yea, you heard me, change the world. Too many times, the brakes get put on the process of change: sometimes out of fear, sometimes because you’ve given the power to proceed to someone else and sometimes because you’re uncertain as to which of the many directions before you is the best one to choose. Here are some ideas on maintaining positive momentum in the face of fear, uncertainty and those moments when you leave *the driving* to someone else.

“The question isn’t who is going to let me, but who is going to stop me.”
Ayn Rand

Focus on the can

I am just never going to get my leg up over my head and spin in a tight circle like the figure skaters. And that’s ok.

Advanced math—algebra, trig? NO. And I’m OK with that. Although it would have been helpful the other day when I was running late and trying to figure out how fast I would have to drive to go 10 miles in 5 minutes…but that might be a time management issue.

But I am certain, unwaveringly so, that the list of things you and I don’t even realize we can do is vast and limitless. You have barely scratched the surface at what you can create and learn and what new ideas will come from that. I am quite certain that you and I can do anything—given enough time—it may not always be pretty, but we can get it done right. It’s not so much that there are pieces you don’t perform perfectly, the possible stumbles you make as you move something new and possibly daunting. The important part of the process (elocution) is that you have moved yourself toward completion. Do you know what’s on the other side of completion? Accomplishment. That is a great big can, my friend. (I am purposely NOT saying loudly “You can’t spell Accomplishment without CAN.” That would just be way too Zig Ziglar of me…)

The thoughts I do want to leave with you are you can do it, don’t let perfection keep you from the task and you may be the only impediment standing in your way.

Handle Fear regularly

Fear, the little bastard, helps remind us that we’re doing the right thing. Like the sharp stick in your side, fear prods you to do all the things you shake your head at because you can’t or you’re afraid or you just don’t wanna. Fear says *shut up and do it* on a regular basis.

Fear can feel like the annoying relative at the holidays. The minute Fear shows up at the doorstep, you’re first thought is “Oh, you, again. I am just remembering the fun we had last time.” But the more time you spend with Fear, the more acclimated you become to its overly loud voice, its sharp gestures as it tells you what you should do next and its inability to ever be wrong.

The dread begins to dissipate and Fear becomes one more of those things you understand how to handle. You even begin to see, with all its brashness, Fear is always thinking of how you will benefit more than anything else.

Fear has very few agendas.

“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”
Plutarch

Let your change affect others

I have some wonderful friends, whom I’ve touched on before in this blog, who made a huge life change and decided to leave a city that they’d lived in for nearly 20 years and take a year off. No jobs, lots of family, lots of travel and lots of thinking about what would make them happy in the next chapter. So many of their friends applauded their choice (with tears in their eyes) and were possibly envious…but more than anything else, you know it made their friends think.

We spend so much of our lives comparing and contrasting our situations with other’s situations…why not give people powerful distinctions when they look at your life and wonder how their life could be different if only they made similar changes.

We’re all examples, regardless of meaning to be or not. It’s your choice whether you’re an example of hazard or best practices…or just a top that spins.

Never discuss with the fish how to bait the hook

Blah, blah, blah. Really, could you talk it to death? Let’s see some action. Absolutely, get feedback from people you trust. Do update people on your progress—it’s a great way to keep yourself accountable. But that whole talking about doing it without ever doing it and it’s the same conversation over and over again just with different modifiers…Shut Yer Piehole.

There are so many ways to waste our time. Building things only to tear them down. Circular conversations. Getting input from the wrong people. Avoiding the thing our gut is telling us to do. Just shut up and do it already.

Tame a fox

There is a beautiful portion of ‘The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery when the Little Prince meets a wild fox who explains to him how the fox could be tamed and what it would mean for the Prince to tame the fox.

Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you’ve tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat…”

Establishing trust is a careful bond. Valuable connections with others require time. People want to know they can count on you. We all get busy. Sometimes we forget important things…and important people. Remind the important people in your life over and over why they are special and how they make you love the sound of the wind in the wheat.

Don’t ever underestimate the power of letting people know their importance in your life and reminding them that they can rely on you. Heartfelt words and meaningful actions can make for a powerful alchemy. Honestly, this is what changes the world.

Build a baseball diamond—with lights– in your cornfield

If everything we did was expected and the norm, there would never be any innovation. Real change begins with an idea that others don’t always understand at first and that can sometimes be dressed in a bit of compulsion and a side order of risk.

Ooh, just makes you uncomfortable talking about it, doesn’t it?

In other people’s eyes, you may approach your live like that all the time. It’s only when we take an inner look at our lives that we often think we’ve barely moved the needle—that reaction seems to come from a gauge that is designed to tell us that we should be doing more.

Plow that cornfield.

Become transparent

Secrets, secrets, secrets. Secrets become our cloak of invisibility—yes, you can hide behind your secrets and feel safe under their weight. Secrets aren’t ammunition others use against you unless you’ve made your secrets more powerful that they deserve to be. We all want to be understood. And we all have secrets, things we hide behind, things were afraid to share for fear it will drive others away.

We think it makes us weird.

Wave that freak flag. It is who you are. Embrace your contradictions because if you don’t, who the hell will? You can spend a lot of time crafting the version of yourself that you think others will accept. So there it is. The version of you that you think people will like or the version that is you, good, bad or ugly…

By the way, wouldn’t it be interesting if those two versions were pretty indistinguishable?

The power is in your hands. Don’t waste a minute.

by Jill MacGregor

People have an idea of who you are and what you’ll accomplish.

They’re not always right. Sometimes they miss the mark and coat you in a secret sauce of not quite enough. They can miss the power that runs your engine because you don’t wear your determination like a smile for all to see. How often we allow others limited point of view to control how far we go with our plans and dreams?
It’s time to shake it off.

You know what it feels like to have people believe in you and be 100% in your corner. It makes you feel strong, fortified. It’s the whisper in your ear that tells you “You can do it” when you feel like you are failing. Those people and their belief in you can become the cheerleaders in your head when things aren’t going your way. If you know how right it feels to be supported, why, oh, why do you believe others who don’t see your full potential?

And what is it about these people? You don’t give everyone the power—just certain people– some that you trust more than anyone, others that you don’t care for at all. Amazing. Still you allow the negativity to seep in and limit you.

Why would you choose to lean in for the punch when the choice is completely yours to dodge it? But you close eyes, smile and point to the weakest point on your chin so they will know where to land the punch and do the most damage.

And it builds. Your submission, your passivity, your acceptance, your inability—bit by bit, their red mixes with your blue and before you know it, you forget that everything wasn’t always purple.

Breaking patterns starts with a choice. It doesn’t mean you’ll change things overnight, but it does mean that you are beginning to change.

Ask for what you want

Clearly state what you want whether you think you deserve it or not. Better yet, say it especially because you think you don’t deserve it. Grab it. Run, screaming “mine, mine, mine!!”. This is also the perfect moment to turn around and shake it in the face of the person who said you couldn’t, said you would never, said it was there’s not yours—the person who clouded your judgment and made you forget that you could do anything.

Because you can do anything.

You make a difference

When you decide to embrace certain opinions that people have about you, embrace the positive opinions. You could, oh, I don’t know, just decide to focus on the positive instead of wrapping your arms so tightly around the negative. Do you need a reason? Remember the importance you hold in people’s lives. There is a ripple effect that starts with your words and actions, they kindnesses that you’re not even aware that you offer up. It’s all very important. That ripple makes a wave that touches others and leaves your wake on their shore. You don’t get to witness everyone you touch, with your words and your actions, but it happens none the less.

Get beyond the expected

How do you move past what others expect of you and become superlative? It’s so easy to pause as your back is getting patted, soak in the moment and just stay there. Stop dead in your tracks. Or you fatigue, tell yourself you’ve reached the point you were aiming even if it’s not the case, because you were shooting for ACHIEVMENT.

Your dream has a destination. You chose it before you started on this path. Don’t short yourself.

by Jill MacGregor

So often we tuck our ambitions and dreams in a safe, little compartment, hidden from view. Such a safe place to keep our hopes and dreams—no one ever has the opportunity to squash them. I know I’ve done this–its one reason why I didn’t show anyone my writing for years.

It wasn’t because I thought I was a bad writer. I worshipped the words I wrote on a regular basis. But I was very shy about sharing my writing with anyone—even my closest friends and family. Very few people even knew I wrote. Writing was vital to me—why wouldn’t I share something so important with those who were closest to me?

The truth of it was I feared that people wouldn’t see any value in my writing. If those closest to me thought my writing was bad, that would affect how I viewed my writing—I would start to see it through their eyes as flawed—and eventually, something that was so significant to me would wither. So I just kept it to myself.

So unnecessary.

Sometimes, I think we don’t give ourselves permission to follow the important things that speak to us. We think they aren’t practical. Really? I bet I could make a long list of things we all do that are ridiculously impractical/detrimental—that hasn’t seemed to stop any of us from doing them yet. Maybe we feel we’d have to defend our practice of it. Or worse, we fear we may not receive the praise and reinforcement we’d hoped for. It would be similar to when someone asks “Did you get your hair cut?” and you respond, “Why, yes I did.” PAUSE CRICKETS PAUSE Get it? Because they have nothing nice to say about you gettin’ yer hairs did.

I allowed other’s imagined opinions to carry more weight than mine. I was cultivating a lot of fear around what others might think of my writing. It takes just as much effort to cultivate fear as it does openness—but its all about your focus.

I wrote about the difference between dreams and goals in Lucid Dreaming and I started to feel like there was more to this topic. What makes us flip the switch on our dreams and put them into motion?

One day I decided to put on my red cape, created a blog and wrote. People said nice things. They encouraged me. And with every post I began to enjoy writing and sharing it.

Here are some of the things I did that helped me get to the cape stage.

Embrace Your Ambition

Be compelled—Do a gut check. When you think about that dream of yours does your gut scream *DO IT!!* We all have moments in our life when we discover things we MUST do. I discovered this with painting and writing. If I go for awhile without painting or writing, I feel off balance. There is nothing else in my life that affects me in this way. It’s a component of who I am—the need is embedded.

Harness the Energy—is there an intense vibration that moves through your core when you think about your ambition coming to be? Use this rare commodity. Its the boost up when you can’t quite reach the next step.

Develop Your Ambition

Find a mentor—there is someone out there who is doing what you want to do and I bet they’re not hiding—find them! Read their books, their articles and blogs, reach out to them via their blog comment, twitter, email. We live in a world where it’s never been easier to have a conversation with practically anyone. Try!

Learn how others did what you want to do—you have an endless resource on the internet and there’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. Learn from others mistakes as well as gleaning from their most successful moments. Take that information and let it spark new ideas.

Blog about it—blogs are all about people’s passions, whether they be niche or broad. People like to read about the thing that makes you tick in a way that may surprise and fuel you. This is a great way to share what makes you special on a larger scale.

Find a path to it—do you need some additional education to move forward? Take a class, whether it be non credit adult education or signing up for a certificate/degree course work. Do you need to get a map to begin or just find the door? It’s up to you to blaze that path.

Launch Your Ambition

Step over the threshold—there’s a thin line between talking and doing. How can you put things into motion? Maybe it involves putting your energies toward a non-profit that supports your ambition. It might involve changing jobs or going into business for yourself so that your new dream surrounds you thoroughly every day. Maybe you need to write and distribute and e-book. It may mean establishing additional contacts who have found ways to incorporate their dreams into their everyday.

Set goals and make yourself accountable—you are in charge of making this work. Set some goals that have dates attached to them to keep you honest. And here’s the kicker, tell people about your next steps because they will also help keep you honest. Do you know why? They are excited about what you’re doing. They believe in you and want to see your end product. People believe in you. Make sure you are one of them. I mean, come one…

Maintain momentum—Wow, you’ve accomplished several goals, which is fantastic—and makes this a horrible time to start coasting. My friend, this is a *rinse and repeat* scenario. Ideas beget ideas. (It’s in the Bible…) The new goal is to keep things moving forward. Why not make a list of 50 things you would like to accomplish as you put wheels on this dream of yours. Keep that document open—you’ll be surprised how it grows and how new ideas become what you are all about.

You are officially bravER—what else can you accomplish? I found that when I stopped being afraid of other’s judgements about my writing, I felt a lot freer to work on other things that had previously seemed out of my reach. Overcoming a big hurdle is empowering—use that momentum to accomplish other things!

by Jill MacGregor

I’ve been thinking a lot about goals lately, what they mean, how we reach them and how they change us.

I have to tell you this post started out differently from what you are reading. It originally was all “Do you love that goal? You better love it! Because it’s going to be really hard to accomplish and just when you think you’ve caught the golden ring, you’ll realize you’ve only just begun the long, hard voyage to reaching your goals.” Drop and give me ten.

My.

I realized the problem. I started to understand that I was seeing goal achievement as this fully manufactured trail of tears we put ourselves on to get to a place we feel we should be. Wow, fun. And another thing , whooshpttttt—that was the crack of my whip.

Oh my. Goals. Dreams. Dreams. Goals. They are different.

Should they be? Is there a need to differentiate?

Here’s my take on it. Goals have measurements attached. There’s a logical progression to their achievement.

STRIVING TO REACH HER GOAL. There’s really only one use for the word *striving*—and it’s in relation to accomplishing a hard fought and hard won achievement. Struggle implied. The path to reaching a goal can be a long one because there’s usually a process, a series of steep steps you have to take to finally reach that goal. As you encounter obstacles and find a clever way to outsmart them, you think about that goal. You’re almost there. You can smell it, like cookies in the oven, and every step puts you closer to the kitchen.

But, dreams, well, dreams live in a tender box next to our hearts. We often feel shy about our dreams as if we are undeserving— even though we would happily work 10x harder to realize our dreams than to accomplish our goals. We recognize them as fragile and translucent winged and we feel fortunate when they light on our shoulders. Dreams are fueled by want and must and I don’t know why, I just have to.

LIVING HER DREAM. It doesn’t reflect struggle—more of a choice. But I do sense an adjustment, things being left behind and others taking their place. Shedding of skin, a metamorphosis.

How many times have you reached your dream only to realize it’s not quite what you thought it would be. You spend years honing a craft, carefully bringing it into the light for public consumption and sometimes you find that the business of your dream can pinch the magic out of it.

Let’s bring our dreams out into the open and talk about them as practically as if they were goals. Achievable. Reachable. Nothing to be shy about.

We all have something that we’re striving for, big or small. Whatever it is, I bet you think about it a lot. You think about the steps required to reach it, the length of time needed, obstacles that may impede you —and if you will succeed.

So ask yourself this—do you love that thing that you think you want so badly? Whether you’re focusing on dreams, goals or a mélange of the two—you better love it. It better be the thing that makes your bomb tick because you are spending a huge amount of time, effort and energy to ensnare it. Only to see where it takes you next…

The finish line is never the end of the race.

It’s just the beginning of a new one.