Ugh! We Need More Inspiration!
Human sunbeams! Listen up: sister girl Rose is suffering from some serious vitamin D deprivation right about now, and I know I'm not alone. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real thing, and even if the lack of sunlight doesn't have you dusting off your coffin backpack, the evermore fatalistic peeps surrounding you have probably inspired that black lipstick you're sporting. It's time for some alternate inspiration... and I'm not talking this kind of alternate (unless Hello Kitty Vamp is your thing. Power on, girlfran!) I'm talking a list much like my Thursday Inspiration List: catalyst of a thousand kind response emails... ok, ten kind response emails. I'm all for spilling your guts - your goals, your ideals, the patent keys to happiness you've already got janglin' on yo' chain - to the universe, and I think the message is all the more powerful when we band together for a collective holla. So let's holla! More ways to thrive in this gloom:
- Wake up early. All right... I can literally hear you guys X-ing out of this screen, but let me explain! If you go to bed by 10:00 p.m. and wake up before 6:00 a.m. on any given weekday, you get your beauty sleep and a couple hours of you-time. I hold my early mornings sacred to the extent that it takes major goading to keep me out til midnight during the week... because truth be told, my morning ritual grounds me for the whole day and without it, I'm sort of a lobotomized chicken. Said ritual is this: wake up around 5:00 a.m., put my french press and blender to good use (my neighbors may hate me but c'est la vie), caffeinate/break the fast while writing - either a blog post or morning pages - and then hit the gym for some meditative exercise. No, I don't actually meditate at the gym. I'm not Sting! I either zone out in spin class or do some brainless running/elipticaling. Either way, I turn my mind off, and in between Rihanna videos and bumpin' techno music, I'm usually struck with some pretty cool thoughts. Sweet!
- Eat well. Pretty, pretty readers, all health is mind-body health... you really can't separate the two. Surely, there have been brilliant creatives who've survived on chicken wings and grilled cheese (Idk?! What are the kids eating these days?), but you can have nine Pulitzers and a Mensa pin on your lapel and not be mentally healthy; see: van Gogh. Okay, so that was a bit of a tangent and I have no idea what Vinnie the One-eared liked to eat, but I do know that we are all emotional eaters. Even if a meh day doesn't send you straight to the (coconut milk) ice cream aisle, in which case, you're a mutant and I'm jealous; a night spent consuming crap will lead to brain-fog and a bad attitude in the morning. Aside from lack of sunlight in the winter, everybody's crabby because they're on a mission to self-insulate! Check in with yourself and ask what your body needs. Ask aloud if you want! Afterwards, just make sure to insist to company/eavesdroppers, "I am mentally healthy!!!" For real, though, I have to check in with myself after dinner every night. I always need something sweet, but I find that I usually feel better with fresh fruit and some peppermint tea than I do with too many raw vegan nutella brownies. Usually. You all know that sometimes a girl need a REAL dessert. But sometimes is not every night.
- Troll the internet for ladies who are living your dreams right now. The sooner we accept that successful women in creative fields weren't all born with freak-genes and trust funds that we don't have access to: the sooner we realize that we really can do it, as soon as we figure out what it is. (Loving the random bolding today, can you tell?) Not gonna lie, though... it helps to know rock stars personally. Check out http://lovebombnyc.com/ to see what Alessandra's up to, and then vist my fabulous friend Michelle at http://www.dogfishaccelerator.com/in/. Two true to themselves, down to earth women in their twenties. Changing the world. There are so many more of you out there taking part in this honest to goodness grrrrrl revolution in our midst and I've got to tell you... I. am. so. excited.
- So last time we did this, we talked about our vision... our future selves, doing our future things, chilling in our future happy places. Today, since I'm all about must-haves, (that post was the catalyst of a few less-than-gushy email responses. Sorry men. I know what I like.) I want to chat about the absolutes we need in our life's work. Maybe you don't know what you want to do yet. That's cool - I barely have it figured out myself - but you probably know how you want to feel once you're doing it. Writing down your personal career/purpose essentials puts you one step closer to making your dreams happen. When I'm finally fulfilling my life's work...
I'm free. Free to navigate through my day on my schedule and my terms. If you're passionate about something the way I'm passionate about tapping into our inner muses and letting those girls the Hell out, you'll never walk away from your desk at the end of the day thinking "did I even accomplish anything in the past eight hours?" Business hours be damned - I want to work when I want, where I want (home, France...). I don't know about you, but nothing about a cubicle's feng shui screams PRODUCTIVE to me. Future Rose is a slave to no office!
I'm perpetually inspired by my work, and I'm able to use the tools I've collected for my own purposes to uncover inklings of inspiration in my clients. Future Rose is able to provide encouragement for extraordinary women because she knows, firsthand, that you find real, soulful, wallet-full success when you do what you love.
So naturally... Future Rose loves what she does. And she can pay her rent. :)
Anyone else out there need some inspiration right now? How do you keep your focus on your dreams? How do you solidify those dreams? I promise that answering those questions will help get you there!
Stay strong, winter warriors! XOXO,
Rose