The Hardest Battle

This morning Ben made fun of me for hanging this quote from a binder clip slung over a sharpie resting on the shelf above my desk. But I needed the reminder right in front of my face, and I had to get resourceful (and for some reason tape...yeah, that didn't even cross my mind, and is, of course, a much simpler solution).

Sometimes being yourself doesn't seem like enough. When it seems like everyone is more successful / more beautiful / more creative, it's hard to think that you are enough, that you on your own are all of those things too. But you are.

Find your strengths. Make a list of them. Then brainstorm how you can use those strengths in your relationships, your business, your brand, your projects. Nobody else has your exact list of strengths and it is that combination that sets you apart. That allows you to do your thing in a way that is different from everyone else.

You are an original. You will be successful/beautiful/creative too, in your own way, and it has the power to inspire others just as they've inspired you.

Wish Granting Factory

Last week, I read The Fault in our Stars. It was NOT one of those books that if you asked me three pages in if it was good or if I liked it that I would have said I haven't read enough of it yet to know. I knew from the first paragraph that it would probably be one of my favorite reads ever. It was so good, so moving, I read it in two days...just couldn't put it down.

The story is simply beautiful - it is, on the surface, about a girl who is going to die, but then again, we all are. It is sad, but not in the way you would necessarily expect a book about dying to be. Anyway, they probably repeat it twenty times throughout the book, but I've decided to make it my mantra for the year: the world is not a wish-granting factory.

I'm sure it sounds depressing, but I find it inspiring. When I wish that things would just materialize in front of my eyes - that I would be an overnight success, that exercising would have more of an effect on the unwelcome belly (and arm and leg) jiggle, that dinner would make itself and the dishes would do themselves, that making my business come together would just be easy - I've started saying this to myself. And it gets me over the hump of dispair that things aren't going the way I'd like and encourages me to do something about it. Because the world isn't going to do it for me.

I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to go after my dreams, to make a way for my art and my passion. And it's probably good that the end result is not being churned out by a cookie-cutter wish-granting factory...because I have the chance to do things my way - to succeed and fail as only I can - to make my greatest wishes come true.