Someday Syndrome

A Clean-Dishes Junkie

Monday night, I told Raul that I would wash the dishes in the morning before heading into Bilbao with Cate for her last day. He told me not to worry, just go enjoy myself, but I couldn't do it. The dishes hadn't been done for a day and a half (guests tend to play havoc with cleaning schedules). Plus, there were still things out of place from my birthday party on Saturday night. I couldn't leave the house without putting everything to rights.

For anyone who's known me for any period of time, your jaw must be on the floor. Alex needing to do dishes? Yup, that's right. I'm addicted to clean dishes.

Last month I made a conscious effort to create a lasting change in my life and we'll see how successful I was the next time I need to edit a large story. When I wasn't paying attention, however, I made another fundamental change in my behaviour without even knowing it.

Up to quite recently I hated doing dishes, but then I started to include it in my daily routine. Every day after lunch I wash the dishes. I use it to relax and gear myself for an afternoon of working. I've been doing this for a few months now and unwittingly I've created a clean-dishes habit.

Someday Lessons:

• We can create habits (good or bad) without meaning to, simply through repetition.
• Sometimes we only become aware of our habits when we take a break from them.

I Really Like to Work

Last Tuesday I met my friend Cate down in Madrid where we wandered about, ate and drank for several days. We then returned home on Friday and repeated the Madrid activities in San Sebastian, Pamplona, and Bilbao until she left last night. Totally relaxing and lots of fun.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, on Sunday night when I found myself wishing I could just go back to work on Monday. I was having a great time; I just missed working.

I've never missed working. In fact, I have always thought that I'd be happiest retired, spending my days puttering about. In reality, however, it was simply a case of not doing the right sort of work. I'm too independent to suffer a boss, except on a very part-time, hands-off basis (like with my teaching English). When I started my own business, I thought I'd want to work, but actually I just avoided working, to the point that I made more work for myself (through volunteering on my industry's national association and writing endless business and marketing plans).

Last year when I lived in France, I considered myself retired, but I actually had a part-time job. I wrote, I blogged and I kept up at my business-related networking. It was on a part-time basis, but it was work. I just didn't consider it so because I enjoyed doing it so much. Now I work about thirty hours a week on various writing and blog-related projects.

And I miss it when I don't do it.

Someday Lessons:

• Supposedly laziness might just be a case of a square peg in a round hole.
• If you aren't aware of what's going on inside, you'll miss important self-discovery moments.

Get a Free eWorkshop

I need your help.

Remember that project I've mentioned a few times but haven't talked about because I actually wanted to get it done?

Well, it's ready for testing. So just what is it?

Over the past two years I've worked hard at getting rid of the word someday from my life and now I want to share what I've learned with you.

There are three varieties of Someday Syndrome:

• Someday My Ship Will Come In - waiting for the world to provide you with your dreams instead of realizing them yourself.
• I'll Get Around To It Someday - procrastinating and thinking you'll have time to realize your dreams later.
• But I Might Need It Someday - cluttering your life with unnecessary objects making realizing your dreams more difficult.

The workshop I've put together is a nine-week email course based on the first variety - Someday My Ship Will Come In. Through this course you will learn how to choose the dream to pursue, how that dream interacts with your current reality, how to decide what in your current needs to change, and how to get started actively pursuing the dream.

For the first five people who email me at alex DOT fayle AT gmail DOT com, I'll send the whole workshop at once (instead of over nine weeks) - a $39 value. In return, all I ask for is feedback on the workshop so that I can make it even better.

Someday Lessons:

• Contrary to what we might think, no one knows everything - ask for help.
• Listen to feedback with an open mind and without ego.

Do It Now, Not Someday

Yesterday we hopped on the train down to Madrid to celebrate Pride and return home Sunday. Next weekend we go down to the Barcelona area for a friend's birthday, then Cate's visit starts the 22nd and I return to Madrid to meet her.

When I lived in Toronto, I never did this much traveling. Montreal was no farther away than Barcelona is now and yet the last time I went to Montreal for pleasure was in 1990. There was always a good reason not to go – lack of money, lack of place to stay, lack of time… but really it all came down to a lack of momentum. When I had a house, had a large group of friends, had full time work, I fell into a comfort trap.* I said that I wanted to travel more, but I never got around to it. I told people that I would do it someday.

Now, I travel when I want to. I don't live for someday any more. I live now. Of course I'm not extravagant about my traveling – for example I did say no to Cate's suggestion of doing Bulgaria/Romania this summer because I didn't want to travel on my credit card. I might be more adventurous now, but I'm certainly not reckless.

After all, if I don't do it now, when will I?

Someday Lessons:

• Don't live for someday – break free of your comfort trap.
• So, what's the someday you're waiting for?

*As always, I highly recommend Judith Sills' book, The Comfort Trap.

Recording My Progress

(Part 5 in a series where I'm working on creating a profound and lasting change)

The final step in the process of creating change that lasts is to write it down. I already do this every day through my online writing group. At the beginning of each week we tell others about our goals and then comment on what we've done each day.

Next week I will look at the five other tips Tina mentions in her blog post. This weekend, however, I won't think about my writing at all as we're heading down to Girona province (near Barcelona) for a wedding (and finally the weather has turned hot and sunny!)

Someday Lessons:

• Sometimes what you're already doing will dovetail nicely with what you want to be doing.
• Progress is best made when you take time off as well.

Living Change Now

(Part 4 in a series of creating profound and lasting change)

Today I started living the new reality, as if I have already achieved my goal. Therefore, when editing my novel today, I focused on the words, on every detail in the text, but while doing so I kept asking "so what?" The "so what?" refers to the big picture – what does this particular detail have to do with the big picture? I cut out so much text and rewrote a whole bunch other.

The one thing I need to do still, however, is articulate the big picture – actually two big pictures, the novel big picture and the chapter big picture. I know this story deep in my bones, having worked on it for 18 months now, but I want to put it in clear writing.

I don't look forward to that though. As my sister said in a comment yesterday – we're divers, not lookers. I know in the long run I will improve my book for doing this exercise before I continue editing, but it doesn't produce a word count and doesn't produce any immediate progress.

However, as I said Tuesday, I've committed to the process and the change, so tomorrow morning before I start editing the next chapter, I'll write down all the pieces of the big picture. It's like hanging a shelf – you can hang it without prepping, and end up making a mess of the wall, or you can get all your tools lined up, beforehand, measure a couple of times, and hang the shelf with ease.

Someday Lessons:

• Prep work, while it might not look productive, makes later work easier and faster.
• Make sure your prep work is just that – preparation, not procrastination. It's easy to turn planning into a technique to avoid doing.

Trying Something New

As part of my goal to put more focus on the details in my writing, I'm using Tina Su's blog post on profound and lasting changes as my method of change.

The first step is to articulate a reality, that is to state the thing I would like to change, to describe it with nuances and details, what the Law of Attraction types refer to as the first half of the clarity through contrast process.

I call it unproductive.

Being a talker (and a bit of a Drama Queen), when I start describing a situation I want to change, I blow it completely out of proportion. And then I wallow in it, reveling in the concentrated negativity.

I would much rather paint the current and future realities in wide brush strokes and keep my energy for the actual change – the fine brush strokes needed to turn a rough sketch into a masterpiece.

I have, however, committed to this process, so will do every step as written.

Someday Lessons:

• Don't dismiss advice out of hand – there's a slight chance you might be wrong.
• When you commit to something, commit to it wholly.

My articulated reality follows after the jump...

Making Change Stick

I'm really proud of myself. Starting last week, I've suppressed my usual procrastination tendencies and hardcore editing my novel. As of today I'm 30% through the first pass. I say first pass because I'll need to polish out the editing widows, typos, grammar, and a million other little details to make the whole thing shine. For those who know me, there's a word in that last sentence that I never like to think about. Yup, it's "details" – I hate them, but I've realized that if I want to get my novel published (and future novels too), then I need to pay attention to the details in my writing. This means not just working harder than I usually do; it means making a profound change in how I view the world.

To help me with that change, I went surfing on the web (because you can find help for just about anything out there) and came across a great article on profound and lasting changes on the ThinkSimpleNow blog. I'm going to try the advice Tina Su gives in the blog, which means you as readers get to see the process I go through to get there.

Su outlines four actions and five tips, so starting tomorrow and going through to the end of the month I'm going to do and write about each of them one by one. The actions and tips aren't  radically different from what I've posted many times here, but I'm like most people and rarely take my own advice.

Someday Lessons:

• Follow someone else's path for a while – it'll open up new ways of considering old problems.
• The same thoughts expressed by different people in different ways produce different results – don't get trapped into thinking just one way.

Recommitting to All of You

I wasn't going to post today, and not just because it's Lazy Tuesday. This week I'm marathon editing my novel, as well as working on another project. I had thought that blogging would divert my creativity from my other projects but then I read a post on the Problogger site about The Dip – the posting-fatigue every blogger experiences.

I set up my weekday themes specifically to avoid the The Dip. If I take a break for a few days to write other projects then I'm setting up a bad habit of giving up the blog whenever I want to increase my productivity in other areas.

So, no unplanned breaks (except for the occasional Friday) and no Dip. I have some thoughts on how to spice things up and I'll be rolling out these new ideas over the summer.

Stay tuned!

Someday Lessons:

• Habits of inactivity are easier to create than habits of action.
• Periodically reexamine your reasons for and approach to doing something to confirm your continued passion.

Achieving an Abandoned Goal

In 2003 when I started my business, I also decided to change my body. I made it my goal to reach 17% body fat, the North American healthy percentage for adult males (in Europe it's lower). Using the US Government's waist-neck ratio charts, I sat at 24%. During my anti-yeast diet year, I lost 30 pounds but only 2% body fat. A year later, when my ex-boyfriend started doing WeightWatchers, I did it with him, only managing to lose 5 pounds and nothing off my waist or neck. Plus I was hungry all the time, so I abandoned the goal.

When I moved to France in 2006, I walked lots and lost more weight, but again not off my waist or neck. Then last spring I spent three months working outdoors and toned my body. I lost weight again, but who knows from where because I put it back on (and more!) during my two month stay in Canada last fall.

In February of this year I went back on the anti-yeast diet and then in April went on an anti-reflux diet (which I've bitched to you about many times). With this latest cleanse, I've slimmed out completely, finally reaching my 17% goal (as well as rediscovering my jawline).

My change in eating patterns had nothing to do with weight and I'd almost forgotten about this goal, but then I was cleaning up my computer and came across the body fat chart I'd saved as reference. Curiosity got the better of me so I took my measurements and discovered that I'd finally completed my goal.

Someday Lessons:

• Dreams may come true even after you've given up actively pursuing them.
• Although you may decide to put aside a goal, keep it in mind as the opportunity to achieve it might come up later.