Can't believe I'm on camera doing THAT

Ohh I do NOT love having my picture taken!

I spent years as a travel blogger, and from alllll that time there are probably only a handful of photos of me. 

I'm usually the one BEHIND the lens! 

(Big mistake, I now realize in retrospect. If someone's going to be interested enough to check back and follow your adventures, they want to know who's actually having them!)

Even now that I've done more video work, webinars and (eek!) Facebook Lives, and spent time coaching myself through the discomforts of being visible and putting myself out there, it still feels ... weird ... to plaster my face all over my website. 

But that's exactly what I was up to all afternoon yesterday as we prepare to update The Uncommon Way...

Not just getting photographed, but getting pictures IN MY HOUSE! With my dog, and my baby ... and all my STUFF.

At times I felt my mind wandering down a dark path (People will judge me!), so I took a deep breath and a sip maybe three of wine, and focused my thoughts on the amazing opportunity it is to open up, show the real me (spoiler: travel obsessed), and thereby find common ground with people I've never even met in states and countries far away.

And you know what? Thinking of it that way actually made it ... kinda fun. Who knew?! 

Meanwhile, my husband documented the whole thing on his phone ...

...making sure to capture all the living room furniture moved around...

...and me juggling a baby that refuses to be put down and a puppy that still gets jealous...

...until those times when the baby really wants nothing to do with me because there are LEMONS within arm's reach!

...and I really can't believe he snapped an image of me doing this ... but it was too funny not to share with you all.

So yes that's me, smearing mayonnaise on my orchid plant. Because there's absolutely nothing better for making those leaves look super green and glossy. (Credit for this secret goes to my German landlord.)

And there you have it. The kind of things that will never make the final cut for the new website...

Here's to turning the lens on yourself,

Jenna

2 steps to master your to-do list

To list, or not to list? 

Last week I pointed out that to-do lists can actually make us less productive. If you’re a compulsive list-maker like me, that’s pretty deflating.

On the one hand, you need some way to get the thousand ideas, projects and tasks floating around in your head into some sort of organizable format. A girl needs her clear mental feng shui, after all.

But on the other, you don’t want to feed a habit that makes you feel worse about yourself and reduces your performance, regardless of the dopamine goodness you get in the short-term.

Luckily, there’s a way to have it all. And it only involves two simple steps, both of which will make you happier in life and less overwhelmed if you just stick with them.

A quick caveat

These steps are deceptively simple. In reality, this might be one of the hardest things you’ll do. In fact, it’s what most of my clients struggle the most to implement.

Why? Because you have to reward yourself for the things that you do each day,even when you’re not sure you did enough.

And focusing on the positive doesn’t come naturally to us, as I also pointed out last week.

The good news is that this works. It gets you out of the future tense and into the actionable present in a manageable way.

Remember those days of coming across old lists with projects that still haven’t been accomplished? No longer your problem.

Making friends with your list

Ok, ready for the steps? Here they are:

1. Prioritize (aka whittle it waaay down):

So you’ve got 20 items on your list and you just know that today’s the day you’re going to knock them all out? I love the enthusiasm, but it’s a) probably unrealistic and b) certainly unsustainable.

Instead, prioritize your top 1 to 3 tasks. Do it at the end of the workday or the end of the workweek, so that when you start the day you can look and see exactly what’s ahead without getting consumed by everything else you coulda-woulda-shoulda been doing.

(You’ll probably still think of other to-dos. That’s ok. Quickly add them to your master list and forget about them. You can check out your master list at the end of the day – or week, if you have a more advanced practice – when you re-prioritize.

And if you find that some items linger on your list and never really become a priority? Say adiós. This is about slowing down and returning to the fundamentals, not accumulating mental clutter that weighs you down.)

2. Celebrate

Once you’ve completed your 1 – 3 tasks, reward yourself. You’ve accomplished what you set out to do and are proving you can count on yourself. If you keep this up, imagine the real progress you’ll have made in a year….

Curl up with a new book, meet a friend for a martini, splurge on a sitter for the kids or a dog walker for the furbaby … it doesn’t really matter how you choose to reward yourself. I like to set up small celebrations on the daily followed by something extra special at the end of the week.

You’re developing a positive feedback loop, and that will help you way more in the long run than whatever extra 3 or 5 or 10 things you might’ve done today.

This might happen…

In the beginning, don’t be surprised if you conveniently “forget” to celebrate, or if every bone in your body is lamenting the stupidity of the exercise given that you’ve ONLY done 3 things and there’s so much else you should be doing!!!

Don’t give up. It can take weeks to form a habit, and you need to get to the point where you’re on autopilot. After that you’re free to customize at will … maybe you’ll find that 5 tasks is your magic number, or 2.

What you’re looking for is consistency, the discipline to celebrate your progress, and the power (someday soon) to shake off overwhelm.

Here’s to becoming happier and freer on your journey,

Jenna

What neuroscience says about your to-do list

I’ve got to confess: Even though I know better now, if I stop paying attention I slip right back into my old ways.

I’m a hoarder ... a hoarder of to-do lists.

They turn up everywhere – upstairs, downstairs, in drawers, tucked in journals, falling out of pockets, divided among countless sticky notes….

But how can I stop?! I get such a rush when things get out of my head and onto paper. It’s like feng shui for the mind.

And don’t even get me started on the joy of actually crossing something off….

But even though it’s a short-term high, the latest research tells us that to-do lists tend to make us less productive by negatively affecting performance in the medium and long run.

(Noooo!!!)

It turns out that we love to-do lists because we get a rush of dopamine every time we cross something off. Those dopamine hits are très addictive - like warm chocolate croissants from Starbucks.

Unfortunately, we tend to put way more onto those to-do lists than we can reasonably accomplish.

And the effect of NOT crossing things off our lists – or worse! watching our lists continually grow longer, rather than shorter – makes us feel even worse than we did before we made the list.

What ends up happening is that a negative feedback loop forms:

• We feel loss over the lack of dopamine

• We focus on what we DIDN’T do, rather than what we DID accomplish, and feel overwhelmed by everything there is to do

• We decide there’s something wrong with us (we’re lazy, we lack discipline, we’re too scattered)

• Subconsciously, we’re less inclined to tackle future projects because we know we end up feeling bad about ourselves. It’s so much easier to get a quick hit of dopamine from social media or some other source!

(All of this is completely human and completely logical. We’re wired to pay more attention to the negative situations in our lifex (after all, they’re more life-threatening than positive situations) and then avoid them at all costs!)

If this even remotely rings a bell, then hang tight. I’ve got a solution for you coming next week that will show you how to have your lists but keep crossing things off like a badass, too.

Here’s to getting your projects off of paper and out into the world,

Jenna

THIS basketball tip can help you beat overwhelm

Even as the buzzer sounded with a 92-73 upset, there were still a few fans left waving their country’s flags forlornly in the stands.

It was as if they were hoping for a last-minute miracle and their bodies had gone into shock rather than accept the truth:

The tiny island of Puerto Rico had just beaten the United States in basketball at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Prior to this moment, the United States had won 109 of their 111 Olympic games. Since 1992, when pro players were first allowed on the team, they had been completely undefeated.

Nobody had expected this.

So What Happened?

The analysis began before the game even ended, with opinions flying back and forth faster than the balls themselves. When the dust settled, one thing was clear:the Puerto Rico team had a better grasp of the fundamentals.

Puerto Rico played like a team, careful and steady, rather than a bunch of individual superstars. They took their time, they passed, they guarded, and they scored. Mentally, they were resilient and positive despite what seemed like overwhelming odds.

The United States team hadn’t spent much time practicing together. They slumped and pouted. They argued with referees, they failed to pass the ball during important plays and they rushed to the basket for a slice of limelight … only to miss the shots over and over.

Returning to the Fundamentals

Lots of factors contributed to the difference between players, but the one worth pointing out here is the decreasing time that U.S. players were spending at amateur levels before moving into professional careers.

It turns out that all those boring drills and practice games and mental maturation and sacrificing for the team … actually made people better players in the long run. Go figure.

What’s This Got to Do With Us?

It’s natural to be seduced by ‘shiny objects,’ whether that’s…

… a seemingly direct path to the basketball hoop

… a new business practice guaranteed to make you mega-money mega-quickly

… or any of a hundred to-dos that promise to make you a better human, partner, parent, gardener, chef, athlete, etc.

Usually we try to take on too many of those new tactics, often before we’re ready, and they don’t lead us to the Promised Land.

Instead, they just lead to overwhelm. Before you know it, your path to the hoop is blocked by three towering opponents, you frantically try to pass, but the ball gets intercepted.

Try This Instead

Slow down.

Do one thing at a time.

Master your current set of skills before upping your game with something new.

There’s a really distinct energy when you approach things this way.

When you’re overwhelmed, trying anything and everything, you feel frazzled. Maybe you don’t feel like you’re good enough, or maybe you feel like you’re better than those around you. Either way, there’s a sense of lack – and maybe even frustration or anger – that’s driving your actions.

When you take time to master the fundamentals, you make sure you’ve covered the basics first. Then, because you know your boundaries and priorities so well, you feel like you've accomplished what you set out to do at the end of the day. There’s a sense of fulfillment.

And Then a Funny Thing Happens

Out of that sense of contentment comes a tiny little nudge … of curiosity, of change, of excitement. Like a college MVP moving onto the pros, it’s time for the next phase.

Chances are, there are parts of your life that can be put on auto-pilot because they’ve become absolutely fundamental to who you are and how you do. If not, maybe they no longer serve you and you’ll want to retire them.

Either way, it frees up space, and into that space flows our basic human impulse to grow, strive, and expand.

And that’s the place where true superstars are born.

Here’s to getting back to what really counts,

Jenna

Keep up with projects when you’re just too busy (Or, ‘How to maintain your business when you’re buying and selling a house while moving cross-country and six months pregnant’)

Does it ever feel like you’re just too busy to work? Or move forward with that dream project? Or spend time with your family or partner? Or exercise…?

Life happens. I get it.

I’ve been having one of those months myself:

We had houseguests. We packed up all of our worldly possessions and headed out on a cross-country move after a vacation week on the gorgeous, sunny coast of Maine.

Overlooking a schooner race in Portland, Maine

We worked on buying one house and selling another (in that order). I juggled restless nights with an ever-increasing belly. And perhaps the most upheaval of all: we air-freighted our fur-baby Skye off to Grandma’s so that she wouldn’t have to endure the road trip and dislocation. (She survived just fine and now is being pampered beyond belief.)

It’s been the kind of season where you’re so busy focusing on the urgent that it’s almost impossible to spend time on the important.

Deadlines get delayed, projects get scaled back, things get put on hold. It happens to the best of us, right? No shame.

So what’s the problem?

The problem arises when people try to burn the candle at both ends for too long and then burn out – or worse – they feel so upset over the difference between what they expect they should be doing and what they’re actually doing that they decide to stop completely.

You know, "I’ll just take a little hiatus until things settle down…"

But once you lose momentum, it can be really hard to resume.

Months go by. Sometimes, years.

And there’s not a lot of incentive to start up again, because last time it wasn’t sustainable. Why invest the time and then deal with feelings of inadequacy and disappointment?

What to do instead 

Here’s what to do instead: Do NOT put your projects on hold.

Instead, scale back.

Your ideas and goals are important. (If you don’t believe that, who will?)

And anything that’s important is worth your commitment and continuity.

Lots of us take an all-or-nothing approach. Don’t be that person. Be the person who makes it to the finish line even if it means slow, steady and persistent.

Next week I’ll share how you can do exactly that, even if you’re up to your eyeballs with a million competing priorities.

Here’s to keeping the ball moving no matter what,

Jenna

Skye, playing hide and seek with Grandma

Why curiosity beats waiting for intuition, inspiration, or complete information

*Do you feel like if you could only figure out what you want to do next in business or life, you’d finally be able to close that gulf between where you are now and where you actually want to be?

Last week I suggested that your best tool for making that happen – even if you have absolutely no idea what you want to do – has been sitting right under your nose.

It’s your curiosity.

This tool is simple and effective! It worked for me and so many others, including Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. Right when things seemed darkest in her life she decided to sign up for an Italian class, and that one decision eventually led to her writing the bestseller that would change her life forever.

Let me show you why it works:

Both intuition and inspiration are tricky

If life were a Hollywood movie, you’d wait until you had an intuitive hit that told you exactly what you should be doing. It would happen when you were staring out over the ocean, or while reading a passage in a book.

In real life that doesn’t happen very often, especially if what you’re considering is something that feels risky.

Many times what we think is our intuition (telling us to cool our jets) is actually fear (telling us to play it safe).

Sometimes people wait to feel inspired in order to write that great novel or take the next step in their business … but that waiting can go on for decades.

In a crazy twist, the best way to activate your inner motivation and tap into your creativity is to show up regularly for yourself and your dreams.

Just think back to school and how many times you dragged your feet over writing a paper, only to find the words flow once you actually sat down and started writing.

That’s probably why a woman who has inspired thousands of people to launch and grow businesses loves to remind people:

“Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.” – Marie Forleo

What if there were no wrong decisions?

One of the biggest mistakes we make is taking our options too seriously.

We do that because we’re worried about making the wrong decision, and then being locked into that wrong decision forever.

But what if the majority of our decisions weren’t completely right or wrong, they were just different? And each one would teach us what we needed to get us to our final destination faster than if we’d done nothing at all … like two roads that meet at the same intersection.

If that’s true, then 50 years from now you’re going to wish you had lightened up and enjoyed the ride.

Think about it this way: 

You will never have completely perfect information.

And even if you could make the absolutely most “right” decision – if there were such a thing – eventually you’d change course anyway. Whatever it was you had or were doing just wouldn’t completely fit anymore. 

Because that’s what people like us do. We evolve.

You’re missing the bigger picture

Wasting too much time on just one decision is short sighted.

I’m a huge advocate of inner game work and introspection … up to a point. But eventually you need to get into action.

Because if you look at the big picture, you’ll see it’s not about whether you’re a person who lives here or there, or does this or that, or wants widgets or wodgets.

It’s not about the specific life change you make. It could be as dramatic as running off to a Buddhist monastery or as benign as planting a garden.

What matters is that you’re a person that evolves, or takes risks, or won’t settle, or whatever else resonates with you. And your next step helps you learn, gain momentum, remain limber, and walk the walk.

It all comes down to who you are, and your transitory choices are mere reflections of that identity.

When thinking about your business, remember that it’s not about the specific step or even the specific business.

It’s about you being an entrepreneur. And the next step helps you acquire skills, and understand both your customers and your own preferences more fully. It helps you walk the walk.

So when you’re not sure what to do, think less about your choices, and more about what making a choice says about you.

Live in integrity with how you want to be in the world, and you’ll probably end up surpassing your original destination.    

And your curiosity – because it’s almost always instantly available, because it’s lighthearted, and because it’s a reflection of who you are - is the best place to start.

Here’s to walking the walk,

Jenna

P.S. Extra credit: Watch Ruth Chang’s TED talk, and ask yourself if there really are right decisions.

P.P.S. I'd love to know what YOU are feeling curious about! Are there times when you've waited too long to take action? Let's talk about it in the comments.

What to do when you have absolutely no idea what to do

Right now you’re here in life, and what you really want is to be there.

So you plug your destination into GoogleGoals and it spits out a plan. If you speed a little, you can even arrive before scheduled. Simple, right?

If only! 

In reality, we often only have vague outlines of how we’d like our life to be, and absolutely no idea how to get there.

The problem when people tell you to get started now

The problem with reading posts like Why You Need Clarity Now is that they can make you feel worse about yourself.

They tell you why you need to Seize the Day! and Get into Action! … but how are you supposed to do that if you can’t figure out what direction to take?

If you knew what to do, you’d be doing it.

Can you tell me what I’m supposed to do?

I’ve written before about the West Village fortune teller who broke my heart when she wouldn’t tell me what I should be doing with my life. (It was one of those end-of-the-rope moments. Don’t judge.)

She said that I, unfortunately, was the only one that could decide. 

She was right, of course. But it wasn’t what I needed to hear. It left me more confused than before and didn’t move me even one step in the right direction.

Here’s what I wish she had said:

It’s time to follow your curiosity.

This is how it works. 

I call it the Curiosity Concept.

If you’ve done your brainstorming, your journaling, your reflection, your research, and your meditation, and yet you’re still exactly where you started…

It’s time to get moving.

And in the absence of clear direction, the best way to find clarity is to follow your curiosity.

Here’s how the Curiosity Concept works in business: 

If you have no idea what kind of business you should launch, but you’ve been feeling curious about whether there would be demand for that thing that comes so easily to you…

If you’re struggling to decide which social media platform to focus on, but there’s one that seems more interesting…

If you’re undecided about which provider to use, but you’re intrigued by a package offered by one of them…

…then follow your curiosity.

Ask yourself, “What would I be interested in learning about, writing about, and speaking about for the next six months or a year? What would I be curious to work on or with?”

Here’s how it works for life in general:

If you don’t know what to do with your life, but you’re feeling curious about a course at the local college…

If you know something needs to change in your life (but don’t know what), and you’re feeling curious about Toastmasters…

If you want to meet the partner of your dreams, and you’re feeling curious about rock climbing…

…it just might be the stepping stone you need. 

Ask yourself, “What would I like to spend time doing? What’s something that has always seemed interesting, and keeps turning up in one way or another? What’s something I’d like to know more about, talk more about, and experience more?”

That’s way too easy!

Sound too good to be true? It’s not. Next week I’ll show you why this works.

You don’t have to quit your job, invest in an MBA, then move across the ocean in order to make your dreams happen. You just need to take one tiny step forward.

Don’t do what I did. Don't waste over a decade waiting to “know.”

During that time, I talked myself out of literally hundreds of business opportunities. (And tens of potential life partners, too.)

In the end, it took a combination of thinking AND moving for things to begin to gel.  

Here’s to the power of your curiosity,

Jenna

P.S. If you'd like to speak to someone personally about your specific fork-in-the-road, let’s hop on a call and see if it makes sense for us to work together.

Use this to get unstuck and give perfectionism the boot

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”  

- Ira Glass

What Ira’s describing here – the belief that crappy beginnings will turn into mastery with enough practice and trial+error – is a “growth mindset.”

Embrace it, and you can watch your confidence, perseverance, and learning ability soar. It will even help you cultivate self-acceptance when you’re starting something new, so you can escape the death grip of perfectionism.
 
That’s why it’s usually the very first thing I dive into with my confidence or performance coaching clients.

Unfortunately, the growth mindset has an evil alter ego that you need to watch out for: the “fixed mindset.” And it's much, much more common!

A fixed mindset assumes that if your initial product is crappy, then you’re probably just not very good at that kind of thing. (Sound familiar?) Extra work won’t change reality.

Here’s an example. It doesn’t surprise us that we can 10x our athletic performance and mold our bodies if we sweat it out at the gym long enough with a great personal trainer. 

But as for things like talent or mental performance? Well, most people think they've either got it or they don’t.

Not so fast. It turns out that cognitive performance can be increased. (And according to Ira, so can creative mastery.)
 

Dr. Carol Dweck, the Stanford psychology professor who first coined the terms growth and fixed mindset, found that many underperforming children held the belief that they weren’t smart (or “just weren’t good at math,” as I used to tell myself). 

But when those same children began believing that learning was a process of trial and error where they could always assume they’d get better over time, the children not only scored better on tests but became more motivated to learn. 

Once you start to pay attention to real-life examples of the fixed mindset, you’ll be amazed by how limiting they are … and how they start to sound like excuses:

>>> I couldn’t build a website. I’m a dunce when it comes to technology.

>>> I’d never be able to afford a trip like that! I’m just not a good saver.

>>> I could never write a book. I’m just not disciplined enough.

So next time you’re unsatisfied with your work and tempted to use that as an excuse to stay stuck, give your crappy first efforts some love and remember that they’re what’s getting you closer to the mastery you dream about. Your next tries will be better because of it.
 
(And usually, it’s really not as bad as you think.)
 
Here’s to our incredible ability to choose, change and grow,
Jenna     

P.S. What's one area where you'd love to gain mastery? Get the support and accountability your need at the Uncommon Way Community Facebook group. Go ahead - tell us something you commit to working on ... declaring yourself in public has incredible, lasting power! See you there.

This old website makes me cringe!

As a recovering perfectionist, I know a thing or two about hiding my projects away. 

For most of my life, whenever I looked back on something I'd produced that no longer met my standards, I'd make it - um - disappear. And don't even get me started on all the things that never saw the (public) light of day.

But in the last decade-ish, I've started thinking about things in a different way. And to prove it, I'm sharing my old travel blog with you, Follow Ben and Jenna.

To be honest, I still cringe when I look at the blog. They layout is all crowded, there are broken links, the menus on the mobile site hardly work at all, and some of the writing is ... ahem. (Especially my earliest posts, like this one. "First we went here, and next we went here, and then we went here....")

But now I cringe in the way I do when I see a gawky preteen photo of myself. It makes me laugh and remember how awkward and new everything felt at the time. It makes we wish I could throw my arms around my earlier self and tell her, "Believe me: It's all going to be okay."

Coming to terms with the fact that we all start somewhere, that most of our early work is kinda crappy, but that it's totally okay and expected because that's exactly how we learn and get better, is the single most important thing for an entrepreneur or creative to wrap their head around.

Plus, people tend to be far more understanding than we might fear.

Fail to give perfectionism the boot, and you'll waste A LOT of unnecessary time and subject yourself to much unfortunate self-flagellation.

And next week I'll talk more about how exactly to start doing that.

Here's to giving perfectionism the boot,
Jenna