negativity – Promoting Passion

Dealing with Disappointment

brookeshaden — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 17:09:57 +0000

If I had to share one of my biggest weaknesses, it would without a doubt be how I deal with disappointment. I hold myself to extremely high standards, something that a lot of people do, and when I don’t meet those standards, I feel the effects tremendously. I received an email recently that rocked my world in about 5 words. It wasn’t life-changing. It wasn’t mean. It wasn’t anything but the simple truth: someone was not fully satisfied with something I had done.

Give me a nasty comment online about my photos and I shrug it off. If someone doesn’t like the work I create, it doesn’t hurt me. I don’t spend my time looking into negativity. I don’t spend my days worrying about if people like what I do or not. What does get me, every single time, is how people experience me as a person. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be at my best all the time, and it physically pains me to think that I have given someone less than that.

Everyone deals with disappointment in different ways. It might be disappointment in a product, in someone else, or in yourself. In my case, I have trouble dealing with disappointment in myself. I hold everyone and everything in my life to high standards, but none more than me personally. I don’t deal with disappointment well. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I get physically ill. Sometimes I want to stop everything that I’ve worked for so as to never feel that feeling again.

Just a couple hours ago I said, out loud, that I wanted to quit my job. I didn’t want to move forward with any of the projects I’ve been working on for fear of being judged, rejected, or disappointing someone. Yet even as I thought about quitting, I could hear my future self, the one who wants to push harder and move further, talking rather loudly in my ear. She was telling me that if I never put myself out there I can never be a positive influence in the world. If I never put myself out there I can never do what my heart is set on doing. Yet the other side, like a little devil sitting on my shoulder, told me that I will do too much harm to make it worth it.

I will let people down. I will be a disappointment. I will never be what someone wants me to be.

Yet all the while, I will be myself. I will try to work on my journey and how I see the world and how I interact with it. I will try to be a better person. I will try to touch people’s lives for the better. I will try, and trying is all we can expect of each other.

That is a truth that I know intimately. It is a truth I have come face to face with many times. There are days when I want to quit. Right now, at this very moment, I have that desire deep in my bones. I don’t want to mess up. I don’t want to be a disappointment. Yet even greater than that is the knowledge that when one perseveres, tries harder, and becomes a better person, other people will benefit as well.

I might fail a hundred times, but if I succeed at only one thing, I hope it is to help someone, somewhere, in some way. In any way. To spread the love that I feel inside. And should I fail, I will welcome that failure with open arms. I will regret nothing because I tried my best. I will work to correct my mistakes. I will progress. I will challenge myself. I will try.

Let yourself feel what your body wants to feel. Let yourself be emotional and scared and understand, in those moments, how terrifying it is to put yourself out there. But when that feeling passes, even if only in a small amount, remind yourself of how incredible you are. You are only one small human, and yet in being so, you are powerful beyond measure. Next time you fall, remember that if you never did, you could not understand the immense honor of reaching peaks. All of life is made up of valleys and mountain tops that seem out of reach, yet both are attainable. We will fall and we will rise again, and we will do so understanding more about life each time.

What Twitter Can Teach You

brookeshaden — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 14:52:18 +0000

So often when I think about social media and how I interact with it, I think in very vague terms about making connections and furthering my business. These are, after all, the reasons why social media exist…at least largely. When I talk about how I use social media personally, not so much as a business, I often groan about it. I don’t particularly love sharing intimate details about my life, or extraneous details either. I love talking about my passions and inspiring myself.

Yet sometimes social media allows me to inspire myself without even knowing it. Case in point – Twitter. I use twitter fairly frequently because I like to share about the things that inspire me. Yet every once in a while I start to write something that starts with negativity, either about what happened to me or how I felt about something. Every single time I find myself writing something like that, Twitter gives me a swift and constant reminder to stop thinking so negatively.

Bad things happen to people all the time, small or big or something in between. How we react to those situations defines us. So when I start to post something on social media that is in any way a negative outlook of the situation, I then solidify my belief in that negativity. I never want to perpetuate the idea that a negative outlook is the healthiest one to adopt.

So now, every time I start to write something negative, I stop myself. I realize that what I am saying does not portray me in the way that I want to be seen…or rather, as the person I want to be. I re-evaluate the situation and decide, wholeheartedly, to see the situation differently. The great thing about being on a computer is that you can edit yourself and change your opinion through carefully chosen words. It allows you time to really think about who you want to be, why you want to be that person, and how to put that out there in the most genuine way possible.

So next time you take to Twitter or Facebook and you want to say something negative, think about the impact you can have on other people and yourself. Sharing negativity, even in the smallest, seemingly insignificant ways, can bring other people down. It can bring YOU down as well. Take that 140 character box as a challenge to put goodness into the world. Take the photos you post on Facebook or the words you write in your status update as an opportunity to be the best you that you can be.

Have enough courage to encourage; have enough strength to support.

Share your Twitter link below, and then be sure to write something on your Twitter that puts positivity in the world. Something personal, something technical, something insightful…anything you wish. I’d love to read it.

My “Person I Want To Be” Twitter.

5 Affirmations

brookeshaden — Fri, 09 May 2014 14:12:23 +0000

This morning I woke up in a bad mood. I can’t say why, I just felt a general grumbling toward the world. I felt unproductive and unmotivated. I wanted to crawl back in bed yet I wasn’t even tired. I walked around the house in circles, not sure of what to start working on first, as I waited for my friend to wake up so we could start the day. But then, as I was bending down to pet my cat, the sun came bursting through the window and hit my face. I was suddenly warmed and blinded and it stopped me in my tracks…the smallest hint of a glow and I was starting to feel better.

I realized, in that moment, that I was making a choice. I did not choose to wake up in a bad mood, but I was choosing to stay in one. No one was forcing me. When I evaluated what was wrong, I came up with nothing at all. There are some days when I feel this way and it lasts, and I listen to my body and rest. But on this day, something was different, and I wanted to explore how to change my feelings.

I thought more about change, and how powerful we are to create it. We can create change in ourselves, and only then can we change others. So today I decided to proactively take control and make myself happier. Instead of choosing to be in a bad mood, I decided to focus on the good…after all gratefulness is the best mood enhancer there is.

I thought about 5 different things, be it places or people or situations or ideas, that make me grateful to be alive.

1. I am creative enough to express myself.

2. I am thankful for my other half.

3. I am fortunate to be surrounded by nature.

4. I am powerful enough to overcome negativity.

5. My life is just beginning.

I took my number 5 from this wonderful article on the Huffington Post about affirmations, that I think is a fantastic list that I’ll go back to frequently. And this is just my list for today. Who knows what will work for tomorrow, for there are endless affirmations to inspire us as our situation changes.

I saw this quote the other day by Eckhart Tolle that resonated with me so much, and really brings this post full circle:

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but the thoughts about it.

Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.”

So true in so many ways. We must remember that whatever our feelings towards our circumstance, we have the power to control our reaction and move forward with a brighter outlook.

What are your affirmations?

*Image courtesy of Russell Andes, taken of me when preparing for my last creativeLIVE class.*