This is not your Year – This is your Life!

I’m not really one for New Year’s Resolutions. In my past attempts I’ve learned that setting these specific goals has never really gotten me anywhere. After giving it my all in the beginning, the excitement quickly wears off within a few weeks and I’m back to my old habits. But I have a feeling this year will be much different 😉

Last night I spoke with two of my best girlfriends and we got onto the topic of 2011 being our year! The year we are going to take more initiative and make things happen. A few minutes into the conversation I realized that many of the things I want for myself in 2011 are already happening. Because I’m making them happen. And I’m making them happen because I am ready for them, not because 2011 is just around the corner.

Together, we decided to create a list of what we want in our life. Not specific to 2011, but specific to our lives in general. What is lacking in your life? What do you want to achieve, accomplish, gain, or even lose? I challenge you to create a life list! And I challenge you to do it when you are ready, not when January 1 rolls around.

My list:

• Work toward being a more genuinely happy person
• Continue to be successful in my volunteer work with the Yellowknife Community Foundation and the SPCA
• Introduce more volunteer opportunities to my life
• Obtain my business license (the process has begun!)
• Spend more time writing and posting to my blog
• Finalize my original screenplay and direct and produce it
• Attend film festivals
• Do more networking in and out of town
• Spend a week in LA on my own relaxing, writing, reading, enjoying coffee, discovering
• Take my mom to New York! Spend an afternoon lounging on the grass in Central Park with a coffee and a good book!
• Go to New York with my girlfriends to watch the tree light up, drink hot chocolate and go skating
• Enter a contest to win a Bravo Award for my work in Public Relations
• Pick up my acoustic and brave the public
• Start painting again and showing my work  in shows
• Lead a healthier and more mindful lifestyle

And the list goes on! It will change and it will grow, as does life. But it is my life and I am going to make it what I want it to be. And you should too. 2011 doesn’t need to be the year for change. When you are ready, the changes will naturally come, as they have for me. This is not your Year – this is your Life. Make it what you want it to be.

And for those who need some musical inspiration…get ready to be Extraordinary!

Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own

Over the past couple of weeks the phrase “When you don’t know what to do, do nothing” has been surfacing from a variety of sources. Coincidentally, I am in a place where I don’t know what to do, so I have been taking the advice of this phrase and doing nothing about it. My situation is this: I have to choose between two amazing things. And both of them give me two completely different things I need in my life.

Option one: Stay where I am, doing a job I love (most of the time, and had hoped I would get right out of university) that cost me $40,000 in university fees to get, volunteering my PR skills for an amazing non-profit organization, surrounded by my friends whom I love, and having countless opportunities to travel, invest and do extra-curricular activities I love.

Option two: Leave all of this behind for the love of my life, the person I have/had a home and a life with, the person I have planned to marry and spend the rest of my life with, but working in a field I didn’t go to school for (because it’s impossible to find PR work in this place), lacking in the friend department, and having limited opportunities.

This might be a very simple decision for some people, and at one point it was a simple decision for me. Because I made a decision. But having spent the last few weeks doing nothing about it because I don’t know what to do, it is all coming crashing down on me at once. I can be an indecisive person, but this is beyond any decision I’ve ever had to make. I am really having a difficult time figuring out the right thing to do, and distinguishing between what is in my head and in my heart.

At this point in my life I don’t know what will make me happy – following the dreams I have had since high school, or the dreams that are suddenly occurring to me. I know I will make a choice, or one will be made for me. But to discover why this is happening I am enlisting in the help of a professional. Sometimes you need the help of others to determine what path your life is supposed to take. Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own.

Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own

Small Source of Inspiration

For as long as I can remember, I’ve known exactly what I wanted to do with my life and mapped out exactly how I would get there. Short version: college for two years, university for one year, work for two years to pay off my loans and save enough money to move to NYC and start my career. Having this plan kept me motivated and got me through many times where I easily could have just given up. 

 

Once I started college I felt refreshed, excited, motivated, and I knew that I belonged. I thrived on the long hours, strenuous assignments, countless days of volunteering, deadlines, and overall stress. But there does come a time when, while as much as you love being absorbed in your work and studies, the motivation begins to dwindle. I didn’t reach this point until my second year of college. Overall, I was still enthusiastic to take on the amount of work I had the previous year and, in fact, took on more. But I needed another source of inspiration to get me through. Many people use affirmations or quotes, or mentors and people they aspire to be like to keep them on track. In my life, music has gotten me through every obstacle so I chose a song: Suddenly I See, by K.T. Tunstall. 

 

The first time I heard this song it didn’t make an impact on me or even stick with me for that matter. But then I heard it at a point when I needed to hear it. It realized that it was the perfect song to keep me motivated. With lines like: “Everything around her is a silver pool of light, people who surround her feel the benefit of it”, “She’s taller than most” and “She makes me feel like I could be a tower” it quickly became my theme song. I made the choice to listen to it every night before bed to keep positive thoughts in my mind and every morning while I got ready to remind me of why I was there and keep me motivated for the day. I contribute much of my success to this song because it kept me inspired and empowered when I needed it most. To this day, though I don’t listen to it at the capacity I did before, I listen to it whenever I need a boost and it puts me back in the frame of mind I need to be in. 

 

Do you have a song, affirmation, quote, or person that inspires and empowers you through the day? If not, maybe this is just what you need!

Take a listen ↓

Suddenly I See – K.T. Tunstall

Soundtrack of My Life

Opening credits:

Its a Beautiful Day- U2

Waking up:

Suddenly I See- KT Tunstal

Average day:

The City- Joe Purdy

First date:

Firecracker- Ryan Adams / You’re My Star- Stereophonics / Perfect Day- Lou Reed

Falling in love:

Desire- Ryan Adams / First Day of My Life- Bright Eyes / I’m On Fire- Bruce Springsteen / Tonight- Lykke Li / Sweet Disposition- The Temper Trap

Love/sex scene:

This Years Love- David Gray / Just Another Old Love Song- Joe Purdy / I’ll Be Your Lover Too- Robert Pattinson version

Fight scene:

Smack My bitch Up- Prodigy / Why You- Joe Purdy / Lovers in a Dangerous Time- Barenaked Ladies

Breaking up:

Harder Now that It’s Over- Ryan Adams / Gardenia- Mandy Moore / Summer Skin- Death Cab

Getting back together:

Weightless- Black Lab /Only One- Yellowcard

Secret love:

Thinking About You- Radiohead / Secret Garden-Bruce Springsteen

Life’s okay:

Bowl of Oranges- Bright Eyes

Mental breakdown:

Globes and Maps- Something Corporate / Drive All Night-Bruce Springsteen

Driving:

Striptease- Hawksley Workman / 1901- Pheonix

Learning a lesson:

Airplanes- B.OB.

Deep thought:

Free Bird- Lynard Skynard

Flashback:

My Number- Tegan and Sarah

Partying:

I Got a Feeling- Black Eyed Peas

Happy dance:

Mother, We Just Can’t Get Enough- New Radicals / Valerie- Amy Winehouse

Regreting:

Come Pick Me Up- Ryan Adams / Best Laid Plans- We The Living

Long night alone:

Sugar Man- Rodriguez

Death scene:

Song To The Siren- Tim Buckley

Closing credits:

All I got- Newton Faulkner