The other day as I was crossing the street on Clark and Diversey, I realized that my mind was occupied with thoughts about our new workshops, balancing Jess LC, and MML.

And I did a little cheer inside.

You see, for years I spend my time dwelling on what I had to overcome as a kid, what I needed to do to “fix” my body, or how to have the “right” relationship.

I had carried those things, though substantial struggles in my life, far longer than I ever needed to. It was like I had a heavy load of struggles, injustices, or imperfections that I packed in a heavy sack on my back.

And then I spent months, even years, walking around the same mountains ruminating on the same things.

Rather than actually getting me anywhere worthwhile, I stayed stuck moving forward in a circle around the same “woe is me” or “what’s wrong with me” attitudes. Over time, that sack of burdens became part of my identity and story. If I met people and wanted to share my life, I’d unpack my sack and lay it out for them to see.

And though I think there was a good aspect of healing in that part of my life, I think I kept that sack fuller than necessary for much longer than needed.

I remember so clearly a few wake up calls that struck me upside the head and helped me recognize that I could put down the drama and move on.

The first one was a few months after moving to Chicago. After having a long heart to heart with my older cousin, he mentioned that his dad once told him that he had to “stop holding his parents accountable for all the messed up stuff in his life and just move the hell on.” And though that specific scenario wasn’t an exact depiction of some of my “stuff,” it did point out that as much as I might have overcome stuff in my life, I couldn’t keep harping on it and blaming my past for my future.

The second wake up call came from Geneen Roth, author of Women, Food, and God. A few years ago she was on the Oprah Show and mentioned that she one day realized that she didn’t want to gain and lose the same twenty pounds until she was 80 years old. She didn’t want to constantly be trying to manipulate her weight. She wanted to just one day be “okay.”

And man did that cause an explosion in my brain. Of course, I didn’t want to think about my body for the rest of my life! 

Anyways, I will say that these little light-bulb moments didn’t automatically make me walk away for the well worn mountain paths of self-pity and restriction that I had created. But they did point out the fact that I could blaze a new trail, away from the Problem Mountains.

Little by little I started to unpack that sack of issues, setting each one down on the ground with a prayer and the hope for something better.

And over time I’ve moved past the crap and started to live my life without the negative weight. Which has helped me climb new, bigger mountains full of positive purpose and meaning. But had I not unpacked that sack as much as possible, I wouldn’t have the mental health or physical strength to try new things.

So if anyone else is out there struggling with a sad pack, I hope you consider putting it down or seeking help so that you can lay those things to rest and move on towards the possibility that lies ahead.

PS – Business in the City is tonight at Next Door in Chicago! 6:30-8:00. See you there!

Today I’d like to continue sharing my intentions for my life in my more extended DESIGN MY LIFE series. Yesterday I explained how I work in a balanced way and today is about my relationship.

Be in a committed relationship.

I would love to say that my relationship with Mr. Lively has been a bed of thorn-free roses, but that’s a lie.

It’s not that surprising, since no relationship is perfect.

But still, I was a bit shocked to find out that someone who is as amazing as Mr. Lively didn’t leave me feeling completed, whole, and perfect.

From all that I had heard about “knowing,” I was downright confused as to what “knowing” really meant.

If things felt perfect, then I would “know,” right?

I pretty much expected that I’d hear some Charlton Heston voice announce to me one day “Mr. Lively is your guy.” Then the angels would pop out of the clouds and I would be whisked away to some magical place were reality, cellulite, and student loans didn’t exist.

But that never happened.

Disappointing as that fact might be, it was nothing compared to the time that someone looked me in the eye and said that he wasn’t the one for me. That I was supposed to be with someone five years older than myself. This person was someone I looked up to considerably but did not know Mr. Lively. That blanket statement shook me to my core and made me question everything.

What if this person was right? What if there was someone else out there named Mr. Older that was supposed to make me perfect and would then cause those angel clouds to part so I could live in Never Never Land?

It was a confusing time, for sure.

But through all of my fears, Mr. Lively stood by my side. Instead of feeling offended or angry or sad about what that person told me, he felt empathy for me because he knew that was a lot of pressure and expectation from someone who didn’t know us very well.

(Yeah, he might not be perfect, but sometimes he’s pretty darn close.)

Anyways, I say this all so that it hopefully helps someone out there. I’m not sure how, but I pray that this situation in my life is going to be used for good.

So now it’s time to come to the point: I had a lot of sorting out to do about the whole concept of “knowing.” And I have finally come to a spiritual a-ha moment which has brought me a tremendous amount of peace, joy, and even more love.

I have finally recognized that what I want more than anything is to be in a committed relationship that lasts a very, very long time. And in the past, I was approaching everything backwards.

Before, I used to think that I would find “Mr. Right” and that he would be so amazing that I would suddenly be a perfect girlfriend/partner that was ready for a more serious commitment. That by falling “in love” with someone was going to be so amazing that I would be ready for forever, amen, and “I do.”

But all that did was leave me feeling a bit empty inside. All of that expectation left me feeling like I binge ate icing rather than eating a satisfying piece of cake. It clouded all the things that were amazing about our relationship and left me scanning our life for holes, leaks, and cracks.

Ugh. You are lucky you weren’t in a relationship with me at the time.*

However, I’ve since made a discovery that has literally changed my life: I’ve finally fessed up to the fact that I really do want to be in a committed relationship. That comes first. I want to learn what that relationship will have to teach me about myself, what it will teach me about others, what it will teach me about love, and what it will teach me about having a family someday.

This also means that I have to be realistic in what a committed relationship means: unconditional, acceptance, joy, peace, mercy, forgiveness, and real love.

It doesn’t mean perfect and it doesn’t mean “Mr. Right.” 

Then, once I owned up to that fact and I accepted what that kind of relationship would be like (both good and bad), it was up to me to pick out who I wanted to be in a partnership like that.

And the obvious answer was Mr. Lively.

By allowing myself to put the spiritual side of the relationship before the humanity of myself and Mr. Lively, I stopped weighing myself down with a bunch of expectation and illusion. It allowed me to fully enjoy all the amazing traits and love we have to offer one another. It stops me from looking for flaws to indicate that we aren’t perfect.

It let’s me see all that is good without a veil of ugly selfish expectation.

So now, whether we are cuddling or arguing I have my priorities set.

It’s not about him “meeting my every whim and expectation” it’s about choosing to be together through whatever comes our way.

Though that might sound disheartening or sad, it’s actually been the most freeing and loving experience of my life.

* Except you, Mr. Lively! I love you.

Over the weekend I thought about this new wave of truth that’s spreading online and I think there a few other personal boundaries that I’d like to smash.

Though I thought I shared most of my personal hang ups in my first Things I’m Afraid to Tell You post, there are other things that I’m also afraid to talk too much about for fear of judgement. I think on some level, I feel like if people really knew these other things that might not be “politically correct” some people will stop reading MML (or try to convince me to change).

These things don’t have any real bearing on my purpose: to help people design lives with intention. But I think I’m afraid that if people don’t agree 100% with my personal choices or beliefs that they will stop reading and think I’m a bad person.

However, since I personally encourage everyone to design to their own intentions for their own lives, I should feel comfortable sharing my intentions without being so scared of the condemnation I might face.

Okay, here it goes.

I eat meat.

Though I haven’t done anything to really hide this fact on MML, I do sometimes feel a pressure from reading blogs that I should be eating paleo, vegan, vegetarian, sans-carbs, you name it.

But the truth is that I am more “flexitarian” than anything. I love a good burger when going out with sweet potato fries, buffalo wings are great, and tofu is my go-to protein when I order thai. I don’t believe in diets for myself (not anymore), but I feel like there are a lot of “shoulds” out there in blog land (or in the media at large) that want to make me eat differently.

And though I could imagine myself becoming vegan or vegetarian in the future, at this moment, I am not.

I want to get our puppy from a breeder.

This is another thing I’ve been shamefully hiding because I think a lot of people have judgements about this choice. The truth is that I’ve actually been a volunteer at a local rescue myself, so I am definitely fully informed about the amazing-ness of rescues. And in the future, Mr. Lively and I do plan on rescuing dogs. However, for my first dog, I have had my heart on a Westie puppy since I graduated high school.

Having done my research, I know that the odds are extremely small of finding a Westie puppy in a rescue. So unless the Westie Rescue in our area happens to have one when we move, I will likely use a breeder to find our little guy or girl. As you can imagine, I’ve done everything possible to research the very best of the best breeders so I am sure not to support the horrible things that can go on in the industry. But overall, I think caring breeders are good people.

Phew. I’m glad I got that stuff off my chest.

I know you might be thinking, wait, that’s all you have to share? But to me, those things have been weighing on my heart. I’ve felt ashamed. And though I don’t have to mention them or make them a big deal, I think it’s important for transparency because they felt like a big deal to me.

If I want to make any impact on this blog world at all, I want to show that it’s okay for people to be themselves and not have to feel like they need to hide things out of fear.

And in order to do that, I need to walk the walk.

Thank you for reading.

download the full-size white wallpaper

Since today is the first day of May, it’s time for a new free MML wallpaper.

The quote for this month is taken from A Course in Miracles. I discovered the phrase in Gabby Bernstein’s interview with Marie Forelo (which I found quite interesting).

This month I have a clear vision of what I’d like in my life, but I don’t have much control over anything beyond my own actions. So this quote is going to remind myself to act as if I’ve already manifested those things. Which will help me relax, let things flow, and enjoy all the moments in between now and then.

download the full-size tree wallpaper

And as usual, I whipped up a photo version of the wallpaper as well for those who like a little sumpin’ sumpin’.

Enjoy!

Yesterday I had every intention of having a full workday. Though my desire last week was to take two full days off after the workshop to relax and recover, there seemed to be too much to do with Jess LC to really let that happen.

So instead, I got up on Monday and tore myself out of bed and got to work.

But as the day went on, no matter how much caffeine I consumed, I could sense my body and mind were on a strike.

And after trying to battle through for five hours, I finally at 1:00 waved my white flag and surrendered to the couch. Though there was still plenty to get done, I knew that the time off wasn’t just a luxury I was giving myself, it was the permission to be human.

With more on my plate than ever before, I’ve powered through launching the workshops as a midnight hustler at times and also by working double time during my work hours. I’ve pushed myself to accomplish twice the amount of work over the past few months.

And once the workshop finally ended, I really did need a 48 hour break.

But I didn’t give myself that time off and my body and mind taught me how important it really was yesterday.

In fact, once I finally allowed myself to lay on the blessed couch for eight hours of sleeping and Tivo, I felt great about my decision.

In doing so, I accomplished two things: I honored my inner-goose and upheld the example I hope to “preach” here on MML.

You see, in a world where so many people (especially women entrepreneurs and bloggers) are working harder than ever and chasing ever more illusive feelings of meaning, beauty, perfection, and profit through work, we are blurring the lines of work/life balance more than ever before.

And though my life is decidedly meshed with my career in my choice to work from home, be my own boss, and collaborate with friends in business I truly want to be an example of someone who designs a life with intention that is not overrun with work.

I’m not quite looking to drop off the map four months at a time, but I’m also not looking to constantly be tied to work 24 hours a day either. Though I’ve just completed a season full of hustle, it was not a permanent lifestyle.

So while I continue to push myself to deliver more value and meaning in my career, I’m also “working” on not working overtime in equal proportion.

The truth is that if I did that for any extended period of time I’d have a mental breakdown, physical illness, or emotional meltdown. Which is decidedly not what I’d want to exemplify on MML or experience.

Because of all of these revelations, I am now preparing ahead of time to make Mondays after workshops a mandatory day off for myself. This will involve shuffling intern responsibilities, preparing an email away message, and the discipline to allow myself to relax after a hard weekend’s work.

As a business owner I write my policies. And I have just added a new one to the list.

First of all, I’d like to share my immense gratitude for the success of the Business with Intention Workshop this Saturday in Chicago. Going into the workshop I had an idea of what things would probably be most important and helpful. But I think I massively underestimated the power of the in-person connection these women business owners felt from meeting one another. The MML and BWI community is a group of like-minded individuals looking to make an intentional impact in the world, their personal lives, and in the lives and businesses of their new friends.

I have a feeling the Chicago workshop participants will be reaping the benefits of knowing and sharing with one another for years to come. Which makes me feel so humbled. Instead of feeling like  the “one in charge” of something like this, I now feel like a steward that is able to facilitate this wonderful connection and experience for these entrepreneurs.

And I’m honored to do so in Washington DC as well as the cities yet to come. Clara [the coolest person ever] and I will be announcing the new locations soon.

Okay, now it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Today I’d like to follow up my video where I explain the difference between career, purpose, and vocation with a little case study to also illustrate my points.

Above, are my new crushes, Sophia Grace (8) and Rosie (5).

After discovering their immense talent on The Ellen Show, I was struck at how they perfectly illustrate the fluid nature of career, purpose, and vocation.

From watching their singing and dancing it is clear that they have the opportunity to use their talents to make performance a career, purpose, or vocation, depending on their intention throughout their lives.

First of all, it’s obvious that they can probably make money by singing via ad revenue on their insanely popular You Tube videos, Ellen performances, or other events in the future. Or, they can choose to not monetize their popularity.

Secondly, it is clear that they are delighting and bringing joy to people that watch their videos. This is an example of how they are helping to make other people’s lives better in the present moment. Sure, they may not do this once they are 12, 26, or 58 years old. But at this moment, their performances are making people happy and fulfilling their life purpose.

In the future, they may decide to become doctors, receptionists, or fire fighters and help people in different ways. This is a great example that what we do now to help people, does not need to be what we do for the rest of our lives. It can change and evolve with our stages in life and intentions.

When we are actively focused on helping people wherever we find ourselves, that is living our ultimate purpose.

Or finally, Sophia Grace and Rosie might grow up and find that they would like to dedicate their lives to singing and dancing. They may find that this unique talent is deeply fulfilling to them and they want to continue to preform as a vocation. Again, as I mentioned before, they can choose to to make this a vocation without necessarily making this their career. They could choose to be an engineer and build bridges (career/purpose) and sing for free (purpose/vocation). On the other hand, they could sing for money and craft a career/purpose/vocation out of their gifts.

It’s all up to them and no choice is “better” than another. Vocation is not something that is really any more “special” than purpose since they both involve what is truly most important: helping other people in the present moment.

To best describe the difference between career, purpose, and vocation, I decided to talk with you in hopes that it will make more sense verbally.

In the wake of my confession about my struggle with my relationship perfectionism, my gut tells me that there may be more people who struggle with this type of perfectionism in their career and purpose categories.

So today, I’d like to get a little feisty and share what I really think about career and purpose over-idealism.*

To be honest, more and more I notice comments, worries, and clouds of anxiety surrounding people and their “career” or “purpose.” Especially among Gen Y and Gen Z.

I think the idea we were all taught about “making a difference” in our childhoods has cast this shadow of expectation that we should all be rescuing the planet, curing cancer, and making hundreds of thousands of dollars while working a 9 to 5 job – from a sail boat in our pajamas.

And the truth is that all of those things are possible, and will happen for some people.

But the fact is that most people will not be doing those things. And that’s a good thing.

The world would not be quite as nice if we didn’t have people to do our taxes, send us Netflix, cut our hair, or cook our organic grass fed burgers on a pretzel bun.**

Yet it seems so many people are sitting in their cubicles stressing out over the utter “meaninglessness” of their jobs.

And I honestly want to say that I think that those people should deeply consider whether their current situation actually does have the potential to become part of their purpose if they dug in, changed their perception, and had a more proactive outlook.

I love you, so please let me explain.

Purpose is not a string of fuzzy warm feelings that naturally burst forth at every moment. The purpose equation explains that it doesn’t really matter what the heck you are doing. As long as you are using whatever you are doing to better the day of someone else, then that is purpose in action.

So even if the job itself isn’t pulling samples for Vogue, saving orphans, or raking in fat checks, it can still be done with excellence, problem solving (aka creativity), and love.

Almost all jobs involve working and interacting with peers or customers. Those interactions are where you have the unlimited potential to step it up and become someone that really does make other people more joyful during the workday.

Take my label guy, Todd, for example. I have only spoken on the phone with Todd a handful of times over the past two years. But I always look forward to calling him for more labels. He’s friendly, happy, prompt, honest, and just plain fun to work with. Of the dozens of suppliers I have to pay, I actually look forward to giving him money.

He’s a label maker with a sh*t load of purpose.

Further, any transaction ultimately fills a need. So there can be a bigger goal to look towards for inspiration or meaning.

On the other hand, if that is simply impossible to find or the environment is unhealthy, there is always the option of leaving the place and going in a new direction.

Either way, we are not helpless beings in search of meaning and purpose. We are powerful. So powerful, we have the capability to transform our current moment into purpose if we put our minds to it.

We just gotta lose the cooky sense that we need to be doing something that we find fulfilling.

Fulfilling is in this very moment if we choose to honor it completely.

* Yep, I just made that term up, but I think it fits.

** And a million other careers. But you get my point.

While on the phone last night with my good friend Emily, I found myself repeating a few times “it’s good and real” in connection to my relationship with Mr. Lively.

As I noticed myself saying it, I connected a few dots and had a little a-ha moment.

To be honest, coming into our relationship, I was determined to make/have the “right” relationship with him. One that is perfectly intentional, is a perfect inspiration to others, and fulfills me in every way imaginable.

(This is back during the time when I had blond highlights too.)

As you can imagine, those high impossible expectations left me constantly worried and stressed during all the moments that the relationship didn’t feel “right” in the ways I described above.

I wanted to not only be a better person because of him, I wanted to be a perfect-ish person because of him.

I wanted to feel like running marathons again, making a million dollars, jumping out of bed every morning, and simply being in awe that “he would choose me?!?!”

Instead, I often felt like: running when I felt like it, growing my business organically and intentionally, and getting out of bed sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. And I was pretty clear on why he chose me.

I’m intentional, goofy, and I shower him with affection and attention.

(I’m also an anxious over-thinker [see blond highlights].)

Anyways, I have been unpacking this whole concept of “right” and have finally learned how to allow things to be great and flawed in our relationship simultaneously.

We have a lot of great things going for us as individuals and as a couple. But there are still things we both need to work on and things we need to accept about one another.

To many people, I’m sure this isn’t rocket science. You may be nodding and thinking, “duh, Jess, get with the program.”

And you’re right, I did know all along deep down in my spirit that this is the case, but my ego would not allow for those cracks, flaws, or imperfections to exist without the nagging feelings of doubt and fear.

It was a wrestle-mania smack down between my spirit and my ego, and thankfully my spirit won (again).

And this good and real concept also applies to our bodies, our careers, our purpose, our home, our business, our friendships, our parents, our kids, our hamster, and any other thing that exists.

So when our ego urges us to wage a war against something in our lives, perhaps we need to check in and see if we need to allow the duality of idealism and reality to exist.

Peacefully. With acceptance.

Then the joy can seep back in.

Ever since last week when Mr. Lively and I found our next apartment, I’ve been thinking about the importance of “no’s” in life.

While I would love to think that all of my wishes, dreams, and intentions will come true exactly as I expect and wish them to be, much of my life has been shaped by the rejections, denials, or no’s that I’ve gotten.

But when I inspect those events further, there are some important no’s that have fundamentally shifted my life for the better.

Had those fateful no’s not happened, I wouldn’t have many of the blessings I have today.

Here are just a few of the meaningful no’s that I’ve received and the happy outcomes that have since surfaced.

When I was in high school, I wanted to go to Notre Dame. Badly. But my dad, being pragmatic, looked up the rankings of business schools and found my in-state University of Michigan undergrad to be ranked higher than ND at the time. And thus refused to pay for the ND application fee. Since he knew that the extremely expensive out of state tuition would have been out of our family’s reach, I would have been putting undue stress on the family or taking out major student loans for an education that was totally on par with in-state Michigan Business School price tag.

Had I gotten into ND and not had a very huge scholarship (unlikely), I would have been weighed down with significant student loans that would have prevented me from taking my own business full-time right after graduation. I would have likely settled for a corporate job and perhaps never had the courage or financial freedom to be where I am today.

When I was in college, I interviewed for one full-time position after graduation and didn’t get it. The interviewer attempted to guess who I was in the lobby based on the fact that I noted on my resume that I was coxswain on the men’s crew team my freshman year. He suspected that I was a thinner girl in the room, since coxswains’ weight is important in rowing.

Once I said he was wrong, and that I was the one who had once been a coxswain, he remarked “I can see why you aren’t on the team anymore,” pointing out the fact that I was at that point about 22 pounds heavier than my freshman year. After that remark, I had to shake his hand, smile, and walk into an interview. Had I gotten that job, he would have been my boss.

I was badly burned from that offhand remark and was determined not to work for the company. Weeks later, I realized that I was better off working for myself while trying to fulfill my purpose. Which of course, has led me to where I am today.

In 2009 I had sales reps for Jess LC that opened 80 accounts for us. At the time, 80% of my business was wholesale. But to be honest, working with them was extremely frustrating and I had to rely on them for most of my company’s growth.

So as they eventually went off in a new direction and opened their own fashion line, I refused to let the dying relationship and sales channel keep me feeling helpless. I beared the sales dip that followed and refused to replace them with another company and relied on my own wits and sales channels to carry us over.

At the same time, I also started MML and devoted my energy towards online marketing and selling. Since then, I’ve been more in control and personally fulfilled by Jess LC than I ever would have had I continued working through showrooms or reps.

A few years ago I moved in with my boyfriend (at the time). Pretty soon after our move, it became clear that we were not meant to follow the path towards marriage. But we still had six months on our shared lease. Unable to afford the cost of breaking the lease, we stuck it out.

Then, almost exactly two months after the lease did end, I met Mr. Lively. An immediate and intense friendship soon turned into an intense relationship.

I cannot be more grateful for the way things have turned out and I am so excited about the future that lies ahead.

A few weeks ago I was looking for someone to sublet my apartment so I could move in with Mr. Lively when his lease ends in July. But despite a lot of interest, it wasn’t working out.

Then last week we discovered our next apartment which had almost everything we were looking for and more. However, the catch was that renovation would not be complete until September or October. Which actually worked out perfectly with my lease. Had we subleased my home earlier, this amazing situation would not have been possible.

So, when we find something isn’t working out as we hoped, we can remember that there might just be something awesome around the corner.

And in order to get to there, we might need to bump into a few no’s along the way.

Confession: the last two nights I have woken up at 3:00 or 5:00 am worried and stressed out. I toss and turn for a few hours, start feeling anxious, and wake up in the morning only to try to shake off the yucky feelings and begin the day tired.

And for a while I was suspecting “something must not be right in my life.”

But after thinking it over a bit more, I think I might be experiencing an Upper Limit problem.

You see, over the past few days, weeks, and months, things have been going really well.

Like whoa, that just happened?!?! Well.

Mr. Lively and I are doing great and looking forward to the steps ahead of us. After the announcement of the BwI Workshops, Jess LC has hit a new level and my consulting clients are doing great. Our upcoming Jess LC product launch is going smoothly and looks adorable. I’m pushing myself to new levels with the workshop and feeling more “on purpose” than ever with MML. Heck, I even lost weight and am now three tiny pounds away from my goal weight while not trying (I had craft beers, half a burger and fries last night!).

Sure, there have been some setbacks along the way, but not nearly as great as the progress forward.

Then came this week and our apartment hunt.

On a whim, I contacted a building Mr. Lively liked, which then led me to an amazing and helpful lady, Alexis. She gave me the scoop about the apartment building as well as an even nicer one in their community just down the street from me.

Then, she went on to say that next door to the super nice building, they are now completely renovating a three story walk up from start to finish. And that the units were open for leasing, though they wouldn’t be ready until the fall.

At first this renovated building seemed untimely because we were looking to move when Mr. Lively’s lease was up in July. But since my apartment hadn’t been subletted yet and we hadn’t found a breeder for our future Westie puppy yet, we are able to stay put in my apartment until the new building is ready.

And not only was this new building going to be new, it was going to have almost everything we wanted on our wish list (private balcony, large kitchen, gas stove, in unit washer/dryer, space for Jess LC, and central air). You freaking name it, it seems to be in this unit.

Except for square footage.

There we were a bit wary on whether we could make it work. The unit we were looking at in our price range is 890 square feet. Which is a bit larger than my 725 square foot apartment now, but may not grow with us, Jess LC, and a new puppy very well.

However, yesterday when we went to get more information and give Mr. Lively the tour of the big fancy apartment building next door (we are allowed to access to their insanely nice amenities while living in the new building next door), we found out something new.

Instead of our proposed rent being for the unit you see above on the left, it is actually for the one on the right.

Holy crapballs.

1250 square feet of awesomeness for us to live in at less than what we each are paying combined right now. 

Insane. Simply insane.

As you can imagine, like many people, my home is one of the most important things to me outside of friends, family, and meaning. I live and work in my home often for what seems like every moment of the week. And I love that fact.

So to get a place that seems like a palace, have an amazing and sweet boyfriend, growing my business and purpose to new heights, and have lost weight without even trying, I don’t think I’m able to accept that it’s happening.

Instead, I’ve been waking up and worrying about stupid, tiny things like “is the apartment living room 15′ wide or just 12′ or 13′ wide?” “Why don’t I feel like Mr. Lively ‘completes’ me?” “What if this apartment deal somehow doesn’t turn out?”

Even writing it out, I can sense the ridiculousness of it all. Yet the pit in my stomach remains.

So this morning I looked up a post I remembered reading a while back by Marie Forleo which talks about her own Upper Limit problem and how she experienced similar discomfort during a time of prosperity.

Immediately after re-reading the post, I started to relax a bit.

I honestly think I’m having trouble accepting that all of this good stuff has happened to me.

I’m more used to struggling, pushing, striving, and falling just short of what I want. I’m used to sacrificing and stressing over money, my body, my relationship.

And I think I need to work on accepting that I might be in a new phase of my life which is different from my past.

Though I know there will always be challenges on my journey, I may have reached some new level of success I’m not yet comfortable with.

And that is okay. I can take things one moment at a time and push through this Upper Limit problem. I can learn to accept and bask in the gratitude that I wish to have for it all. Rather than making up things to feel stressed about just so I feel more “comfortable.”

I never thought I’d feel stressed with such blessings, but I think it’s good to be open about this in case it helps anyone else who feels this way too.

After yesterday’s Purpose Equation, I feel like I’m sensing more people are starting to “get” the whole concept of life purpose in a much more realistic and true way.

It’s exciting.

I feel like we as a community are going to make great progress once this is understood!

And there is going to be a whole lot less stress and frustration for those who are still in the process of discovering their purpose.

Which, will lead to more happiness, joy, and peace.

I love it.

Okay, to explain the Purpose Equation even further, I’m first going to do a quick recap. Here is the simple equation for purpose:

It’s really that simple.

In fact, it gets even simpler, really.

Anything that you are doing right now, whether it’s a talent or not, that helps people is part of your purpose.

Think about it: we all say that we “want to leave a mark” on the world during our lifetime. To do so, all that really means is that we want to leave the world better off than before we were alive.

We don’t want to just take up space, we want to invest and give back.

And to get inspired, we look at the famous people who have given back in astronomical ways. We look at Gandhi, Oprah, Buddha, Jesus, Bill Gates, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr, or Danielle LaPorte.

So, we try to be kinda like them. Famous, making a big impact.

However, when you think about who has made the biggest impact in your personal life, did any of those people directly help you in any way? Sure, they may have helped us slant-wise. But the people who make the biggest positive impact in our lives are usually:

Our parents, extended family, significant others, friends, teachers, doctors, neighbors, and online friends (I had to throw that in there too!).

These people are the ones that make us smile, pat our backs when we get bad news, cheer us on, and help us make our dreams come true.

When I die, we won’t be thinking of thanking Mother Theresa for what she did for me. I will be thanking my mom for spending most of her life dedicated to raising myself and my two brothers.

So this isn’t a knock on the scale of your purpose dreams, just a reality check that fame and recognition does not the only way to make a deep and lasting effect on the world.

Helping people we come into contact with, on any scale, is the true meaning that we seek. 

So, that means… whatever the heck you are doing in this moment is an opportunity to find purpose and meaning.

You may not be in your dream job, but purpose is not about having a “job” or “career.” So whatever you spend your time doing, is a chance to bring purpose to the table by helping those around you.

Here are a few examples of how purpose can play out in our current situations:

So basically anything done with love and concern for others is in some way, our purpose.

And, if you find that whatever you are doing now doesn’t feel like “enough,” find a way to help out a new group of people who need your talents or current profession even more.

If you are a fashion blogger, for example, consider helping out with Dress for Success or some other program that helps women look their best who need new jobs.

If you are an accountant who is not allowed to help others with accounting based on job restrictions, consider tutoring an under-served  high school student in math.

If you are a mother raising three kids, that seems like a lot already. But, you could also volunteer at their school or give advice to new moms.

If you are a college student, there a million programs and non-profit opportunities to help out in meaningful ways on most campuses. Go get busy doing something that you love which helps others.

But above all, please, please, please, never say you don’t know your purpose again.

Your purpose is always to help others in whatever way you can in this present moment.

Lately, I’ve been working longer hours than ever before, but stressing less.

How you might ask?

That’s because Future Jess is working overtime.

Yep, that’s right. I’ve cloned myself and the second Jess is living somewhere off in the future working hard for Jess LC and my personal life.

My Future Jess is pretty awesome, she doesn’t get worried or anxious and her hair is always perfectly smooth and soft. (She has shiny white teeth, too.)

Because of Future Jess, whenever I come across a problem or decision that needs to be made, I simply leave it on Future Jess’ to-do list.

Q: When am I going to find my westie puppy?

A: Future Jess will figure it out closer to May when that becomes a more important possibility. 

Q: What should I do with the remaining stock we have left when collection is finished?

A: Future Jess will figure that out once we get to that point. 

Q: Who is going to intern for Jess LC once our summer interns have gone back to school?

A: Future Jess will find some great girls to help out in the shop in the next few months.

Q: How am I going to balance the workshop travel, Jess LC, MML, and writing an e-book this summer?

A: Future Jess will decide what is best once July comes around.

Q: Where am I going to live July 1st?

A: Future Jess is going to take a look at the options on the market with Future Mr. Lively in May when July leases start popping up.

You see? Future Jess has a lot of work on her hands while I enjoy this present moment and the macaroni and cheese I’m about to eat for lunch.

Sometimes I need to be reminded of my own lessons that I share here on MML.

Today was a great example. As I was running around trying to finish what felt like a million projects across MML, Jess LC, and BwI Workshops, I stopped for a moment to check my Twitter on the bus. What I found was MotorCityMoxie’s tweet staring me in the face.

My own words greeted me and said, “hey, why don’t you follow your own advice?”

So I cut myself some slack. I’ve decided to accept my own limitations as I move forward with more on my plate than ever before. I don’t have to be a pro at the juggle just yet. I can just get better day by day and let that be enough.

Thanks for the reminder, Monique.

When designing a life with intention, the first step is creating a vision for your life. But be careful, if you don’t take this step seriously and do it with authenticity, you could end up miserable (and annoying to be around).

I should know. I made this mistake myself last summer.

You see, I have always been good at creating a vision for my life and then designing my life around it. I’ve been doing it since I was a junior in college after reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and discovering my purpose.

However, last year I found myself in a situation where I was content and satisfied with the direction of my life, yet I was told that I wasn’t dreaming big enough.

So I took this advice to heart and decided that I really needed to amp up my vision, to super charge it.

I needed to make it really special impressive.

What followed was an intense few days where I “dreamed bigger and further into the future than I ever had before.”

After it was all over, to be honest I did not walk away with an inspiring vision that I could use to push myself further and find even greater joy (which was the whole point).

I walked away with a rigid perfect standard with which I measured my current life and relationships against.

Instead of holding my vision with open hands, letting it evolve and grow, I had a death grip on my life. I did everything I could to make my life look exactly like my vision.

And you know what?

I ended up miserable in front of this beautiful home on Mackinac Island with a really bad hair color.* 

Sure, I don’t look miserable in that photo. But inside, I was desperate, scared, and mean.

In my turbo-charged vision of my life I had a beautiful mansion that looked exactly like the one in the photo in the exact area of the country that I wanted to live in (outside San Fran) with sandy blond hair.

So by taking this photo I was trying to make my vision that much more likely to happen.

I was desperate to have that vision come true in my life. From the exact color of my house to the exact brass knobs I’d have on my kitchen cabinets. All of it was extremely important and had to come true.

Failure to achieve any of it was not an option in my mind.

Which of course, made me scared.

Because let’s be honest, when you have 1,001 things decided in your mind, there is a good chance that most of them might not come true. And if they all didn’t come true, then I would be failing at my vision life.

This fear of course led me to be mean and demanding. I had a laundry list of attributes I wanted in all of my stuff and my relationships. And heaven forbid if Mr. Lively didn’t stack up to each and every one of them too.

Ugh. I hate just thinking about how I acted for those few miserable months.

However, I am happy to report that eventually my house of intentional cards imploded on itself in a firestorm of frustration and anxiety.

After feeling terrible for about three months, I finally abandoned the grandiose life vision in favor of peace.

I dropped all the illusions and lived intention free for a few months to decompress.

It was a slow, but glorious process.

Now, I have slowly gone back to creating a vision for my life but it is much more focused on who I am, what brings me joy, and how I want to live that also brings me peace and excitement for the future.

I don’t know what my future will hold exactly. But I have some ideas and suggestions, not rules and regulations.

So the next time you start creating a vision for yourself, look inward. Don’t let society, friends, family, blogs, or fortune cookies tell you what you should seek.

After all, you might end up like I did: too blond and pining after someone else’s summer home.

* Don’t believe me on the hair color? Take a look and judge for yourself.

Words to the wise: Just because you have a vision or intention to look awesome with blond highlights doesn’t mean that you will.

One of the biggest things I’d like people to take away from MML is the belief that it is totally freaking okay (and normal) if you don’t know your purpose yet.

I feel like there is a sense out there that there is something wrong – especially for those in their early 20′s – if people aren’t crystal clear on their life purpose.

To be honest, sometimes I want to scream,

“It’s not that big of a deal!”

Because you know what? It’s not.

It make absolutely no difference whether you know your purpose or if you haven’t the foggiest idea.

That is totally fine.

Because from all of my own understanding of my purpose and the purposes of those around me, the truth is that life purpose is much larger (and simpler) than a career, service, or transaction.

Life purpose at it’s core is about extending love, care, and concern for others in a way that capitalizes on our unique talents and gifts. 

That’s it.

But so often people make life purpose another word for their “career,” “job,” “business,” or other money making device. Or heck, even a volunteer or non-profit venture.

That is so not true.

Careers, jobs, charities, and inventions are the tools and channels with which we help other humans improve their lives. That is all.

The juice inside the Gusher of life purpose is the love and energy we expend helping improve other people’s lives.

So that means it makes no difference whether we know what our purpose is yet. We can still take whatever situation we are in this very moment, and transform it into part of our purpose by making sure that we are helping those around us live a better life.

We can do that in a crummy job, while in college, while staying at home with a baby, or while sitting on the bus next to a stranger.

Over time, as we help others throughout our lives we might discover – by accident even – that we are really, really good at helping people when we do x, y, or z.

Then, we can take that feedback and go a little further in that direction. And over time we might just find that we feel deeply compelled to help people in one way, or in several different ways, throughout our lifetime.

The point is that we can always be living our life purpose no matter what we are “doing” at the time.

The rest will come when we keep an open mind and heart.

Can I get an Amen?

Hopefully, some people are feeling more relaxed about their purpose search now.

(Or at least pretend to.)

And last but not least, as the title of this post promised, I wrote a column about three things to do while you are searching for your life purpose over on The Everygirl.

I love you and you will discover your purpose in time.

Let it be shown to you.

Though I like to think I’m pretty much an open book online, there are things about me that I hide for fear of rejection or judgement. This is silly to my logical brain, my experience has shown that the more we are real online, the more people can connect and care about us as humans on the other side of the computer screen.

But my emotional, fearful mind freaks when I think about sharing some things in my life.

So today I’d like to push that fear back – a little bit or a lot – I don’t care. I just want to see what it feels like to really push past my own self-imposed boundaries and share my thoughts that don’t often grace MML.

[Deep breath.]

Here it goes:

• Yesterday after a tense customer service call, I cried in front of my assistant and new intern. (Not the “ugly cry,” but pretty close.)

• Mr. Lively and I try to count our drinks per week and limit them to 14 per week total. (Sometimes we are under, sometimes we are over.)

• I have PCOS, so I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to have kids. (This has made me pretty rigid in terms of dating and relationships, more than I’d like to admit.)

• I have been jealous of married friends who have businesses. (I sometimes wish I could supplement my income with a spouse’s paycheck.)

• I have been worried about getting seriously injured because of my self-employed health insurance. (My deductible is high and not that awesome. Luckily I’ve been blessed these past five years, knock on wood.)

• My bank has declined a recent business credit line increase. (So I paid for inventory with my personal savings.)

• I watch Joyce Meyer’s TV show everyday even though I’m not Christian. And I’m sometimes afraid if I mention her too much here, it will come off as preachy on MML. (So I call her Mrs. Meyers now half as a term of endearment, and half so people won’t think I’m pushing a Christian agenda.)

• I get jealous when I see the extensive wardrobes of some of my fashionable friends. (I know money isn’t everything. But sometimes I actively ignore that fact.)

• I’m terrible with names. I’ve reintroduced myself to people I’ve met before. Many times. (I wish I was better at this, but I’m sure I’ll do it again.)

Thanks for listening. Though I don’t know what the fallout from sharing these facts will be, I’m hoping that it’s not as bad as I’ve always feared.

Today Mrs. Meyers reminded me of something that I keep in mind while working to fulfill intentions in my life that I find very helpful. So of course, I’d like to share it with you.

When we get serious about creating intentions for our lives it is easy to make sweeping goals and grand gestures.

I will start eating only healthy foods, from now on.

I will pay down my debt to zero this year.

I will get along better with my father.

I will stop picking at my nails, immediately.

And, when we may not complete these intentions according to our personal deadlines, it’s easy to be come discouraged, or even give up and “go back to normal.”

We want to see the progress rightaway.

But as Joyce points out, we gotta give ourselves as much time getting out of the mess as we did getting into it — if not more.

The ingrained patterns we have created that get us into our not-so-great situations are often difficult to change overnight. And if we are serious about making lasting change, we have to be willing to take it slow and steady.

We have to be willing to persevere for as long as it takes.

So while we can aim at never picking our nails again from this breath onward, if we find ourselves picking unconsciously six times in the next week, we can return back to the intention once more and begin again.

In my own life I’ve found this understanding has played out in two food intentions I’ve had in my life.

The first intention was to stop letting my ego control my weight. After 10 years of obsessing over what I ate and controlling it with my brain, I desperately wanted to break free of the constant food thoughts, beliefs, and restrictions. I didn’t want to obsess over food and weight the rest of my life.

However, once I stopped eating according to my brain and listening to my body’s signals, it took me a full year and a half, 547 days, to finally break free of the itch to want to get back on a diet, a plan, or just “try to lose some weight.”

Once that urge started to seriously subside, so did the weight that I had once been so desperate to lose. My body did it for me, though it took all the self-control I had to refuse to give in to my ego’s insistence that it knew best.

If I had become discouraged sooner, I might easily have given up and gone back to the way things were for the last decade of my life. I could have found a new “plan.” But Mrs. Meyer’s message helped me stay strong even when I felt fed up.

More recently, I’ve also been feeling an urge to cook more at home. Though I’m not a bad cook or baker by any means, I’m usually impatient and uninterested. I’d rather split nachos with Mr. Lively at Terascas than spend time making a recipe that takes longer than five minutes. Mr. Lively thinks I’d eat popcorn every night for dinner if I lived alone.

For this intention to be fulfilled, I found that what I really needed was not a huge amount of time, but rather a more compelling reason to want to cook.

In years past, this intention was fueled by the “cooking at home is a good thing to do, saves money, and is something that I admire in my friends – so I should do it too.”

Did that work? Nope. Not more than a few days at a time. Then I’d be back on the phone to Pho and I calling in some Pad See Ew with tofu.

However, I finally got my true motivation to cook more: I want to prepare better, healthier meals for Mr. Lively and I, so we don’t spend our whole lives eating out.

Though I work from home and eat breakfast and lunch in my apartment, Mr. Lively is busy working or hanging out with me or our friends. He often doesn’t have time to make anything besides dinner for us. And even then, we usually didn’t have groceries in my kitchen to cook with, so we order take-out for dinner or eat a frozen Trader Joe’s pizza. Which left him often grabbing something on the way to work for breakfast, getting lunch with co-workers downtown, and eating out for dinner frequently.

For me personally, I knew that I could show my love and care for him by preparing simple foods for his breakfast and lunch. Nothing too involved or fancy, but at least homemade and fresh.

To make matters even sweeter, Mr. Lively himself does enjoy cooking and making more complicated recipes, so he’s volunteered to cook our dinners – the thing I least like to prepare. Since I’m caring for two of his meals a day, he’s excited to return the favor at dinnertime for me.

So though I’m sure we will still do our fair share of eating out on the town, we are now mutually invested in cooking at home for one another. Which ultimately gives me a genuine reason to cook, to show my love for my boyfriend.

So whether it feels daunting to break a long held negative pattern or if you are struggling to genuinely commit to your intention; reflect, look deeper, and just keep going.

Last Friday I was chatting with a friend who is going to be moving soon. As you can imagine, she has a lot on her plate and the move is just one more big thing on the to-do pile. I happened to mention that she might want to take some time choosing her thoughts over the next few weeks while this craziness ensues.

She asked me what I was talking about and while I explained it to her, I thought it might be helpful for others as well.

One of the biggest themes I find in the spiritual teachings of Mrs. Meyers, Buddhism, and The Course in Miracles, is the idea that we have the power to choose our thoughts.

As Joyce likes to say, we don’t have to just think whatever stinkin’ thinkin’ falls into our heads. 

We have the power to choose excellent thoughts, positive thoughts. We have the power to turn our attention wherever we like.

And this year I have been working diligently to make this a part of my own thought life.

But to be honest, I know that I have to make a very consistent effort to really get the benefits of this power. Pretty much everyday, multiple times a day, in fact.

More than anything, I have found that if I take time in the morning to “select my thoughts,” my day can go from average to awesome, or from stressful to not-so-bad.

It’s kind of like picking out my spiritual ”outfit” for the day. To do this, I sit on the floor with a candle in front of me. I clear my heart of anything that I might have done wrong the day before, and give thanks for the awesome people and things in my life. Then, I move on to pick out the thoughts I’d like to think during my day. Some of my chosen thoughts recently are:

• I have favor in business.
• I have everything that I need.
• I am enough.
• I am blessed and I want to be a blessing to others.
• I will have the grace for anything that comes my way.
• I am positive, happy, and thankful.

To me, it’s like a mix of praying, meditating, and what I’d write in a journal.

After I run out of things to say and I feel ready to ease into the morning, I get up and start making the bed and getting ready.

Though I hope to one day make this an everyday ritual, right now I’m batting about 40%. I don’t find myself doing it on weekends or every weekday. But when I do take the time to do it, I have a much better attitude and approach to opportunities and challenges. I am quite simply more joyful.

And surprisingly, I do find myself re-thinking the thoughts from the morning throughout my afternoon. Over time, it really does stick as long as I’m consistently doing my morning practice.

As usual, it goes without saying that this what I have found to be personally helpful, but perhaps it is worth considering for others as well. It doesn’t need to be sitting in front of a candle, it could be writing in a journal, thinking on the way to work, or a million other things. What I think the core of this practice does is help us consciously think about what we want to spend our days dwelling upon.

We can think what comes to mind without any censorship or choose otherwise.

It’s up to us.

When it comes to cake, I prefer the icing more. In fact, when Mr. Lively and I stop by Molly’s Cupcakes, my treat of choice is an icing shot – which is a healthy dose of icing in a small plastic cup, sans cake. Though to some that might seem gross, to me it’s heavenly.

However, in real life, I’m finding that I need to keep my metaphorical love of icing in check. I’ve struggled with this before as well, I even wrote about it in my bio. In college I tried to be perfect and happy through physical “stuff” only to be disappointed and later to get my major a-ha moment – peeling back the layers of our lives leads to the most happiness – not adding to the layers.

Once I had this revelation I discovered my purpose, moved to Chicago, and have been promoting the benefits of making under ever since.

But recently I’m starting to notice that I now have two lenses with which I evaluate my life. The first lens is the lens of “The Real World,” the in-person experiences and relationships that I have. And the second lens is the “Online World,” which is comprised mostly of lifestyle blogs, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook.

According to my Real World Lens I am doing fine – great even! I am grateful for all that I have in my life, I am thankful that I have a career and purpose that I’m passionate about, and I have a great relationship.

But my Online World lens tells me a different story. My Online World lens makes me feel not quite “enough.” Sure, what I have is nice, but my life could be so much better if I had bright colored jeans, a floral blazer, a puppy, a hunky husband, a baby on the way, and a knack for cooking and entertaining like Ms. Stewart.

Then my life would really be something. 

I get swept up in the beautiful images and their promises of perfection and forget all that I have learned from my Real World experience.

This needs to stop.

Photos online are more beautiful, styled, edited, Photoshopped, and professionally done than ever before. Inherently much of the photography that I consume online is telling a beautiful story that only depicts the icings of life.

And if I’m not careful, I find myself disrespecting the cake (read: substance) of my life. I trade my gratefulness for the dissatisfaction of never having enough icing.

My hope is by taking the time to share this with you that I’ll begin to re-program my values to go back to true North. That I’ll reconnect with the epiphanies I had in college and begin to apply them to my Online World lens as well.

Because I want to be in the icing, but not of it.

Earlier today I tweeted about how I was frustrated about a situation that I’d like to share. Here’s the story, and the (eventual) happy ending.

Since January I’ve been dealing with a bank about a student loan and the relatively simple process is still going on. What should have been a one time encounter, has taken four or five letters and four or five phone calls over the past two months. Every few weeks I think the situation is complete and each time I find that there is Something. More. To. Do.

The last time this happened I was on a call and was almost in tears out of sheer frustration at how this has been handled and how this continues to be an unresolved issue. After majorly venting on the last call, I implored them to send me the proper forms and details so I could finally put this all behind me.

Today when I opened the letter I found that the form which has been the source of this whole debacle was not included in the envelope, which now continues this whole process and warranted a fifth or sixth call to this bank.

This time I started with a cooler head than the last call, yet I found my blood starting to boil as I was forced to explain the ridiculous scenario again.

Though I didn’t get quite as upset as before, my mood was properly sullen after the call.

Hence the tweet.

However, over the past few weeks I have been doing really great at keeping my mind clear of a lot of “muck” and negative thoughts. So contrasting that extremely positive recent outlook with this afternoon’s mood felt… itchy.

Like wearing a wool turtleneck in today’s warm weather. I just wanted to take off the frustration and chill out.

But I couldn’t shake the itchy mood until…

I forgave the bank for all of the hassle I’ve gone through the past two months.

Though they have no idea that I’ve forgiven them for this experience, I needed to mentally sincerely forgive them in order to forgive myself for my own behavior towards them. Otherwise the negative smog was going to pollute my interactions the rest of the day. And I really didn’t want that to happen.

As long as I was holding them accountable for their mistakes, I was holding myself accountable for my own negative malevolent reaction.

My behavior the past two times was ultimately what had me holding on to the anger and frustration I felt about the situation as a whole.

I know that customer service is a tough job, it’s something I do everyday with Jess LC. But I didn’t let that stop me from venting to the customer service reps. And all that venting didn’t change anything, it just kept me stuck in the itchy turtleneck long after we got off the phone.

For me, withdrawing judgment from both parties was the key to letting things clear up.

Sometimes it’s easy to point fingers at other people who make mistakes and then continue to feel crappy much longer than necessary. Because we ultimately need to hold ourselves accountable for our own reactive behavior – and forgive accordingly.

Thanks to Mrs. Meyers, I found this great story.

Leaving the City of Regret

By Larry Harp

I had not really planned on taking a trip this time of year, and yet I found myself packing rather hurriedly. This trip was going to be unpleasant and I knew in advance that no real good would come of it. I’m talking about my annual “Guilt Trip.”

I got tickets to fly there on Wish I Had airlines. It was an extremely short flight. I got my baggage, which I could not check. I chose to carry it myself all the way. It was weighted down with a thousand memories of what might have been. No one greeted me as I entered the terminal to the Regret City International Airport. I say international because people from all over the world come to this dismal town.

As I checked into the Last Resort Hotel, I noticed that they would be hosting the year’s most important event, the Annual Pity Party. I wasn’t going to miss that great social occasion. Many of the towns leading citizens would be there.

First, there would be the Done family, you know, Should Have, Would Have and Could Have. Then came the I Had family. You probably know ol’ Wish and his clan. Of course, the Opportunities would be present, Missed and Lost. The biggest family would be the Yesterday’s. There are far too many of them to count, but each one would have a very sad story to share.

Then Shattered Dreams would surely make and appearance. And It’s Their Fault would regale us with stories (excuses) about how things had failed in his life, and each story would be loudly applauded by Don’t Blame Me and I Couldn’t Help It.

Well, to make a long story short, I went to this depressing party knowing that there would be no real benefit in doing so. And, as usual, I became very depressed. But as I thought about all of the stories of failures brought back from the past, it occurred to me that all of this trip and subsequent “pity party” could be canceled by ME! I started to truly realize that I did not have to be there. I didn’t have to be depressed. One thing kept going through my mind, I CAN’T CHANGE YESTERDAY, BUT I DO HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE TODAY A WONDERFUL DAY. I can be happy, joyous, fulfilled, encouraged, as well as encouraging. Knowing this, I left the City of Regret immediately and left no forwarding address. Am I sorry for mistakes I’ve made in the past? YES! But there is no physical way to undo them.

So, if you’re planning a trip back to the City of Regret, please cancel all your reservations now. Instead, take a trip to a place called, Starting Again. I liked it so much that I have now taken up permanent residence there. My neighbors, the I Forgive Myselfs and the New Starts are so very helpful.

By the way, you don’t have to carry around heavy baggage, because the load is lifted from your shoulders upon arrival. Here’s wishing that you find this great town. If you can find it – it’s in your own heart – please look me up. I live on I Can Do It street!

source

Two nights ago Mr. Lively and I were reading The Way of the Superior Man (yes, we are still working through the book) and one of the quotes struck me. David Deida said “You are that which you seek.”

I liked it and wanted to keep it in mind as I continue to grow my career and help more people. I don’t want to constantly be “seeking” when I’m in so many ways where I wanted to be when I started out four and a half years ago in my tiny little studio apartment taking Jess LC full-time. Man have I come a long way. And man, do I have a long way to go!

Anyways, out of the blue I decided to reach over to my phone after Mr. Lively read the quote aloud and I told Siri to remind me everyday at 9:00am that “I am that which I seek.” By having the alert each day I am less likely to let it slip past my awareness.

It is kind of like putting my focus point on automatic pilot.

I share this because it could easily be done with any automatic alert system and any personal intention.

Today I’d like to return back to the post It’s Not Over Yet and continue the conversation in a slightly different way. That post, which is about recognizing that we may feel like we need to be successful online rightthisverymoment, hit home for many people.

So now I’d like to propose a new way of looking at our blogs – and lives. Rather than constantly pondering whether our reach is “big enough,” we should also be looking at the depth of our actions. It is often assumed that a wider reach breeds a wider influence, but that is not always the case. Rather than constantly focusing on how fast we are growing, what if we start looking at how we are helping the people following our blogs right now?

What about finding gratitude and meaning from the fact that someone tried our recipe and added it to her recipe book for years to come? What about the person who found the perfect little black purse in your post? What about the person who wears the earrings you made to give her the confidence she needs when she interviews for a new job? What about the person who got the courage to paint her bedroom yellow after seeing how great it looked in your home? What about the person who has the courage to follow their dream thanks to you sharing your own journey to do the same?

That level of impact, I feel, is more important than statistics. That level of impact is what usually brings us to our computers each day. And although we might see a few indications of this, we can easily undervalue that depth in favor of being “popular.”

I see myself do it sometimes, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

Of course it goes without saying that popular is not a bad thing, in fact, popular can bring about more improvement in more people’s lives. But it is not everything.

Helping people should be the focus on any scale.

Further, we must look at our lives outside of blogging as well and reflect on our overall impact. We cannot hinge our self-worth on our online persona when the impact we can have in the real world is usually much deeper and lasting. A mother’s influence on her children is miles deeper than in the blogosphere, and for good reason.

Our lives and value are infinite, blog reach is just a drop in the bucket.

Over the weekend Mr. Lively and I somehow completely missed that it was daylight savings time. Which made for a bit of a confusing morning for me as I switched between my phone clock and digital clock.

What appeared to be a 45 minute nap turned out to be 1:45 long.

Anyways, the time change along with the springtime showers we have in Chicago are all signs of the changing season. Which  is a perfect time to re-focus on yearly intentions or future letters.

After re-reading my future letter I found that some of my intentions are well underway, like being grateful for my body, delegating at Jess LC, and reading (slightly) more frequently outside of work. And a few that I predicted no longer apply, like focusing career-wise on only Jess LC, consulting, and MML since the Business with Intention Workshops are going to be an important part of the mix very soon. In addition, I didn’t mention my intention to get a puppy (!) this summer with Mr. Lively.

But most importantly, I recognized one specific intention had the most room for improvement, growth, and transformation. That intention for me was reflecting throughout the day on my thoughts and continually re-focusing on a positive, thankful heart. I truly believe that if I can hone this trait in myself, I would have a transformational year.

Right now I’m good at having spurts of this, but to truly make this my norm would be incredible. So I’m re-committing to making this a daily focus for me this week.

I’d love to know what intentions or future letter goals others are focusing on this week!

Lately I’ve been sensing in myself and others, especially online, that there is a feeling of urgency to be successful. Now more than ever it is awe inspiring to see the shooting stars of the internet world have great success in what they do. It’s amazing to see the big corporations start to reward these bloggers with attention, features, and sometimes a bunch of loot. And some people are seeing corporate level paychecks from their passion projects. While others are getting dozens and sometimes hundreds of comments.

The internet is gaining steam and many of us want to be on that train to huge success right this instant.

So we are leaning in, pushing ourselves, and trying to break into that special spotlight that casts its light on the “big” people of the internet.

But in most cases we are all striving for levels we have yet to achieve and it can be disheartening over time to feel like despite all of our efforts, we just can’t quite get there.

We haven’t made it yet.

But that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. One thing I continue to remind myself comes from Gary Vaynerchuk. He is always quick to point out two things: how young the internet is and how much longer we are going to be working in our lifetime.

He always has his eye on the much bigger picture, he feels like a kid at 36 with so much left to give and with so much room to grow. While here I am at 27 feeling exasperated thinking that after 13 years of business and three years of blogging I’m still not “where I want to be yet.”

His paradigm on life always gives me a reality check when I’m feeling frustrated. And I think this is something many of us can keep in mind for our web efforts or life intentions.

With any luck, we are going to be adding value in our lives, possibly here on the internet, for a very long time. So perhaps we need to sometimes take a chill pill when it comes to the grasping and “now now now” mentality. The internet moves so quickly with tools like Facebook and it’s easy to think that our success needs to come at the same pace as our Twitter feed.

But that’s not the case. We just need to remember to just keep going and pace ourselves for the long haul. If we really are in this for the foreseeable future, there is no need to stress over where we are today. There is plenty of room for us to get “there.”

As Tony of P90X likes to say, “just do your best and forget the rest.”

Fact #1: I have run two marathons.

Fact #2: I have trained for five marathons.

Why the huge difference in completed marathons versus training attempts?

It all comes down to the difference between goals and intentions. 

You see, during the first few training attempts I had two very heavy weights on my shoulders. The first was a “goal” and the second was a healthy dose of perfectionism. Combined, these two elixirs made for a cocktail far worse than failure; a fear of trying.

When I went into training for my first few marathons I had set a goal to run 10 minute miles the entire race. This meant I needed to finish in four hours and twenty-two minutes. Notice that I said needed? That’s where the perfectionism came into play.

For me a goal was a benchmark that differentiated success and failure. And my inner-perfectionist could not handle the thought of failure. So I put a tremendous amount of stress on myself to do things perfectly when it came to my training. Kind of like my years of incessant calorie counting.

I was quite good at being obsessive and goal oriented.

Therefore, each time that I would train for a marathon early on I would do my best to run at exactly 6mph. As any runner can attest to, some days my runs were easy and some days they were hard for no reason at all. No matter how hard anyone trains, marathon distances can be tricky for so many random reasons like weather, hydration, hills, and pain.

So over time, it became clear to me that running 26.2 miles at exactly 10 minute pace would be a challenge was near impossible. And rather than accept that fact and continue training, I eventually stopped training altogether.

In my mind when I would think about the race, I imagined myself at mile 18 unable to keep my Perfect Pace. And in my mind I could see myself walking off the course and stopping the run. I could see myself quitting.

Over and over I trained for marathons only to get to a point where I imagined myself quitting mid-race and then I’d quit my training. I didn’t want to face the fear of failure to meet my pace goal or the fear that I might actually not complete the race at all.

However, as I’ve stated at the beginning, I have indeed overcome these fears and completed two marathons because I did one simple thing differently:

I created an intention instead of a goal. 

Now there is obviously semantics at play, but please stick with me. To me, the idea of an intention represents something much different than a goal. An intention is something that is a guiding principle or value that I have which I can return back to at any moment. And a goal is a benchmark that is either met or unmet.

So while training for my two successful marathons, I created the intention to run 10 minute miles during the race. But if I was unable to keep that up, I gave myself permission to slow down, speed up, take my time, or walk if I needed. It was a soft gaze on 4:22, not a white knuckled death grip.

As Tal Ben-Shahar likes to say, I gave myself the permission to be human. 

And that permission to slow down and “fail” at my intention allowed me to run two great marathons – in neither of which did I hit 4:22. In fact, in both races I was about twenty minutes over my goal. But that didn’t dull the success of ultimately focusing on what what was truly most important all along: finishing the race.

As you can imagine, marathon training taught me a lot about expectation, intention, and perseverance – just like Jess LC. And the blessing out of all of those miles is that I now approach my whole life with the paradigm of intention.

So now whenever I get bogged down and discouraged that I’m fulfilling my intentions as quickly or well as I’d like, I gently return back to the intentions and commit again. Straying from an intention or not reaching it in a certain time frame is not a “failure,” but simply a chance to come back and begin from where I left off.

download the full-size white wallpaper here

A new month means a new free wallpaper here on MML. For March I decided to do a throwback to the popular and now retired Franklin intention necklaces. When work gets crazy and things seem unending, it’s helpful to remember to breathe.

Things will get done.

Things will turn out okay.

We just need to take one breath at a time. 

download the full-size flower wallpaper here

I also made it in a flower format as well.

Enjoy!

Guys, I’m feeling kinda feisty. I’m gonna let it all out and hope that it comes out making sense, ok?

As you know, the idea of authenticity, flaws, and blogging have been swirling around the interwebs and here on MML lately. Something’s in the air and it feels like the honest breeze is a welcome change for a lot of people.

But I’m feeling feisty about the fact that though it’s great that this transparency is surfacing, it really is not essential for our own self-confidence. Yes, it’s wonderful to see the less ideal side of the people we admire. But even if we don’t see it all the time, we should first know that they are still human beings who have struggles and may not be comfortable sharing them at that moment (like Dooce and her separation or Joanna and her depression), and also that we are no less awesome than they are.

While every now and then I personally do feel pangs of jealousy when I see someone with a rare gift or talent (I can’t sing, don’t have a ton of money to buy all the clothes I like, and cooking just is not in my blood), it usually doesn’t sit with me for very long.

And while there may be a small element of my personality that is to blame for this, I think it also comes from my own journey toward truth.

You see, if you’ve read my about page, you know that I faced a lot of monsters in college and was one of the most insecure people that I knew back then. I wanted to be like everyone else, have what they had, and look like they looked. I wanted a guy to make me complete. And with every candy bar that I binged, bag that I bought, or lipstick that I wore, I hoped that I would suddenly be the perfect person that I so desperately wanted to be.

I wanted to feel Complete. And Happy. Oh, and Perfect was good too. 

But each attempt at completion through these external things left me feeling empty inside and could not satiate my appetite. Quite literally.

… Until I read the quote by Michelangelo that changed my life and showed me my purpose. When asked about how he could create the David statue out of just a simple piece of stone, he replied that it was easy; he saw the potential within the stone and simply needed to remove the layers that were hiding it all along.

A-ha!

I had been approaching my troubles by adding layers to my life in the form of clothing, men, candy bars, purses, you name it. And none of this excess really changed me at all. My physical and mental clutter just covered up the person that I wanted so despeartely to be.

I didn’t really want to be someone else, I really wanted to be the “me” that was dormant inside of myself all along.

So I first attacked the physical clutter that I didn’t need, use, or love. Then, I worked hard for several years to work on only eating and exercising according to what I needed, used, and loved.  After that it was about making my career about what I need, use, and love. And most recently it has been about removing completion expectations from my relationship.

All the while, it’s clear to see that I stopped looking outside myself for anything beyond gentle inspiration. Sure, I love how skilled Oprah was at delivering her gift, and how effortlessly Kendi gets dressed. But I never tried to be Oprah or Kendi.

As my lady Joyce Meyers has said, just recognize that in some way the blessings in people’s lives balance out the other negative things in their lives. If you knew everything that they went through in their lives to be where they are today, chances are you would not want to trade lives at all. I keep this in mind whenever those pangs of jealousy start to crop up when reading online and they seem to dissolve pretty quickly.

Though I’d love to be as influential and helpful as Joyce or Oprah, both were severely sexually abused in their childhood. Which is something I would never trade for the fame and popularity that came with their careers.

So I go back to focusing on my intentions for my life and the progress that I’m making. It’s about producing my own success story.

Therefore, for those who might be struggling with these envy pangs and the rat race of comparison, I beg you to study The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (or some other book that will help you focus on yourself), write a future letter to yourself that explains what you want out of your own life… and just keep working on YOU.

For the rest of your life, not just the next two weeks. Forever.

As Mrs. Meyers likes to repeat, “I may not be where I want to be, but thank God I’m not where I used to be. I’m doing okay and I’m on my way.”