Being a Force for Good

Refresh

Tomorrow I'm heading home to Newfoundland. It's going to be full of family, friends, food and fish and chips. Usually when I head away I manage to keep up my daily blogging. I've decided this time though to give myself a little break.

It's been busy getting to this point in the year and when our feet hit the ground again in Calgary we're into the third trimester and needing to actually start doing a little prep for ourselves and this little one before our next journey as a family. 

So I'm going to really take the time for me right now. If I'm inspired I might pop in and write, but I also may not not. 

Enjoy a little view of my beautiful bay that I'll be soaking in while I'm in recharge mode.

 

 

Owning Our Question

A little inspiration from a dear friend. 

Moment for Changing

I'm so fortunate to have a job that allows me to be of service to the greater good. To get to spend my days dreaming and bringing to life ways of making the world a better place is a truly amazing thing. To be able to fully commit myself to work that I love is something I'm very grateful for.  

I'm also really grateful that this year I get to become a Mom. I know I will have many moments for change tied up in that journey. I'm still very much in the midst of wrapping my head around how I'm going to have space to fit all of this in. I know that some days I'll feel better about this balance than others and that change is the new reality from here on out on many fronts. 

What I know will be consistent through all of this is the village I'm so lucky to be a part of. My friends, family and broader community. Leaning into that village life again is taking me back to my roots of how I grew up and that's the moment for change I'm looking forward to the most. I know it won't always be easy for me to ask and receive, but I saw what the power of being raised by a village did for me and it's fueling my courage to pay that forward to our new little one. 

Helping Hands

Tonight I got to help out at Inn from the Cold's Big Refresh. The shelter is re-doing all of the floors that families live on who are guests of the shelter. 

It was a good reminder that sometimes the best thing to do is just get in there with our hands and contribute. We needn't spend too much time worrying about the greatest way to achieve an impact long term when we can see the change we can make today. 

 

New Parts of Ourselves

It's not an easy thing to figure out how to meld new parts of our identity in. Those times when our life leaps forward in a moment and we'll never be the same again. Whether it's losing a loved one, starting a totally new career or becoming a parent. 

For me right now it's preparing to become a parent. It's funny the little ways we see that our old and new self are not totally integrating yet. I noticed it when I was tallying up the books I had read for my 26 books in 2018 goal and I had consciously not counted any of the books to do with babies/parenting. For some reason the books in my goal needed to be "real" books. They needed to advance my skills as a leader or thinker or broaden my perspective on the world around me. 

It seems silly to read that. I know that being a parent will become as important or more than the other roles that I hold at the moment. Why did I feel a need to separate that learning out? Already I can see a little preview of the struggle I know I'll continue to hold over the coming years between being Mom and being everything else. Being a force for good is about to get a little more complicated and, hopefully, a lot more joyful. 

Freedom of Choice

Post-Mamma Mia, I got to thinking about the amazing and diverse career of Meryl Streep. I have loved her in so many movies and her characters in all of them could not have been more different. From Miranda in The Devil Wears Prada to Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, she can capture the essence of what seems like anyone real or imagined. 

I admired her even more when I started to read more of what she's said and stumbled upon this quote. This further cemented my belief that one of the key traits of successful individuals is that they believe they have control over what affects them. We can never control the events in our lives; however,  we do have the ability to choose how we move forward from them. I'm not surprised that someone of Ms. Streep's calibre embodies this too. 

 

And when you get the chance

Something to uplift you this weekend. Because I got to spend part of my afternoon in a movie theatre watching the Mamma Mia sequel and it's apparently scientifically one of the most uplifting songs on the go. Be your own dancing royalty. 

 

 

All Access Mentors

I'm often hit and miss on my subscriptions to newsletters and blogs. I read like 60% of them and usually assume that those are the ones I was supposed to connect with. 

Ozan Varol's latest article about why to stop looking for a mentor is what I got to spend a little time with this week. It reminds us that the mentors we long for are always right in front of us. Whether it's a book, TedTalk or podcast, we have any number of amazing minds, both alive and passed on, to leverage as our mentors. 24/7 access to some of the brightest minds throughout history are always at our fingertips. 

I've never met Brené Brown, Seth Godin, Danielle Laporte or even Ozan. It doesn't take away from all of the wisdom and lessons that I've learned from them to become a better version of myself and to pay that forward in my life.   So the next time someone mentions you should find a mentor, don't forget to look on your bookshelf,  podcast app or favourite album - the possibilities are endless.  

Our Deepest Sense

Sometimes it's easy to quickly jump to the reason that someone else is being mean, cruel or selfish because they are a bad person. More often than not it's because there's an insecurity that stems from not belonging. That comes from being unsure of if they love themselves or if others truly accept them as they are.  

That's why, as hard as it is at times, to think about how we might answer a situation with love hopefully helping to reframe how they perceive the world. 

Acting Admirably

I was initially inspired tonight by what turned out to be a fake Buddha quote. A good reminder to always look a little below the surface of any information you encounter. However, I did find this legit one to be inspired by today. 

It drove home the idea that if we strive to act admirably we'll have a fulfilled life.

Only we can know what admirable looks like for us. Sometimes it's playing the quiet listener and other times its having the courage to speak a truth. It's a feeling that we have when our actions are congruent with our values and our most authentic self.