Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Aspirations

Writing Someone Else’s Story

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I’m Kathryn. I write things.

I write all kinds of things. My most recent project with Familius, due out early this summer, is an adorable and hopefully hilarious ice cream cookbook, co-written with Barbara Beery to cure all of your terrible days with frozen dessert. That was a fun one to work on! I can’t wait to share the cover with you. Because it is rad. But I think it may still be secret.

I’ve published three short non-fiction books. I’ve written fiction, never published. I’ve written hundreds, possibly thousands of blog posts for several different sites.

But I still get writer’s block. Pretty much every time I sit down to write. I read something fun I’ve written in the past and think, “Who wrote that? I will never write anything fun again.” And the longer I wait in between writing sessions, the worse it gets, the less I believe I can string two coherent sentences together.

So, since my first attempt at fiction got side-tracked by several really fun (I’m so glad I did them) non-fiction projects, it’s been several years since I’ve attempted to make up stories. I keep coming up with ideas but when it comes to actually getting them typed out, I sit and stare at the screen, type a few sentences, delete them, and feel utterly and completely inadequate.

And so I keep reading. I read about great writing and how to execute it. I read great writing and drool all over it. And then I sit down to write and nothing measures up.

Well I’ve been focusing on streamlining my life lately, minimizing and essentializing, and I’ve decided to pour some real focus into fiction. 500 words per day. At least 4 days per week. That really isn’t a huge commitment. Unless you are crippled by overwhelming self-doubt and writer’s despair!!!

But this week I’m three for three. Three writing days, 1500 words. Woot. The first couple of days were super rough. But today I had an epiphany.

“Stop trying to write someone else’s book.”

I’ve read so many great authors in the past year. Shannon Hale, Jeanne Birdsall, Brandon Sanderson, Megan Whalen Turner, Grace Lin, Jennifer A. Nielsen. So, when I sit down to write, there’s some subconscious part of me that compares myself to them and tries to do what they do. And then my writing is crap.

The first two days I was writing like a poor man’s Shannon Hale. But I don’t write like Shannon Hale. I LERVE her! But our voices are way not the same. So, of course, if I’m trying to be her, to write one of her books, it will be sad. And not in a good way.

So for today’s 500 words, I wrote in my voice. And it was so much fun. Everything just flowed. Instead of saying, I need to sound more literary or sophisticated or artistic, I just wrote my story. My. Story. And I really like it.

So, you may not be a writer. But in some area of your life are you trying to write someone else’s story?

Stop it.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link I post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting my website!

Hey Girl Guy Goes to the Moon

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Dan and I watched First Man recently, or as I like to call it Hey Girl Guy Goes to the Moon.

It made me cry. But not for the reasons you might think. It wasn’t because of all the fatalities in the movie, although they were heart-wrenching. It wasn’t because of all the handheld camera, although that made my head hurt. It wasn’t even because Neil Armstrong was married to the flipping QUEEN OF ENGLAND and I read online that they ended up getting divorced after 38 years of marriage.

I cried because I’m too old to pull it together, learn to move my body, and audition for So You Think You Can Dance. I cried because I will never be the youngest swimmer ever to win back-to-back gold medals in the Summer Olympics.

I cried because, sitting in that theatre, I began to plan out exactly what I’d need to do to achieve my lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut. PhD in something sciency and fabulous? Probably. Get ripped and eat nothing but Kale? Definitely. I planned and plotted excitedly and then, as Apollo 11 was taking off, it hit me.

You are not going to space. Probably ever.

And I cried. Just a few tears. The tears of the bitterly disappointed.

Because the problem is, I believe I can do anything… if I really really try. I have an inexplicable and firmly held belief that any failure I have is due to a lack of effort. This can be great. It makes me want to try harder and it means I think my potential is limitless. And it can also be rough because when things don’t go according to plan, I can always find a way to blame the outcome on myself.

Long story short. I am not going to space. I just didn’t put forth the effort soon enough.

I could probably still get a flamethrower though…

 

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link I post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting my website!

Fire Hoses and Bon Jovi

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Yesterday was one of those days. From the moment you wake up, it feels like there’s a firehose pointed directly at your face.

Someone might ask, “But did the water taste good?”

And you scream back over the stream, “I don’t know! I can’t process it! THERE’S JUST TOO MANY WATER!!!”

The sheer volume of needs, my own, my kids, my friends, work, and church work just blasted me all day and I could never quite catch a breath and I could never quite finish any task before a new one popped to the top of the priority list.

Were there good things in my day? Totally! But I couldn’t process them because THERE WAS TOO MANY WATER!!!

Then as I was driving home from Cub Scouts at 8:30 at night, I turned on the radio and Brother Jon Bon was preaching to me. “Livin’ on a Prayer.” And I thought, besides when I first work up, did I pray at all today?

The answer is nope. It didn’t even occur to me. If it had occurred to me, it’s totally possible I would have decided I didn’t have time. Because the fire hose. And because the exhaustion. But it totally would have helped. Because the fire hose. And because the exhaustion.

This comes back to water for me. I am a huge believer in staying hydrated, but the more dehydrated I get, the less desire I have to drink water. It seems crazy but it’s true.

The hungrier I am, the less I feel like making food.
The lonelier I feel, the harder it is to reach out to a friend.
The dirtier my house is, the less I want to clean it.
The busier my day is tomorrow, the more I dread going to bed, even though I know I’ll need the extra sleep.

When life is overwhelming, when we’ve let things get out of hand, it’s really hard to pull it back together. Sometimes we need to pause and refocus.

Tell ourselves:

You will feel better if you take the time to eat something.
I know it’s hard but the loneliness will dissipate if you have some company.
You can’t clean it ALL at this point but if you empty the dishwasher, you’ll slow the decline into chaos and make tomorrow easier.
Staying up late doesn’t actually make tomorrow come more slowly. It just makes it come with a punch to the face.

Even if prayer isn’t your thing, you know that taking a few minutes to breathe and mediate in the middle of a firehose day will help you refocus and be more effective. If you can’t drink all of the water, take a few minutes to turn off the hose and decide which drops you can actually consume. Then go get it.

This is what I was thinking about as Bon Jovi sang my way home. But I was too tired to write about it.

Today my hose is back down to a manageable stream. I still plan to turn it off for a few minutes and regroup throughout the day.

Pioneer Complex

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Alternate Title – Someone Would Really Enjoy My Life – Why Can’t it Be Me?

Let me start by telling you about two women I know.

Friend #1

She is nearly 40 and she’s fat. My friend suffers from plantar fasciitis and the doctor says it would improve if she would lose weight but she just doesn’t have the discipline to make it happen. She just can’t stop eating fattening foods.

Her husband works a lot, even when he’s at home. They’ve had some serious struggles in their marriage. This woman has three kids, all with busy schedules and most of the work of getting them where they need to be, taking care of the home, and other domestic duties falls to her. She doesn’t live anywhere near family so they aren’t able to help her or offer her support.

She lives in a modest home with an 80s kitchen and a backyard fence that’s falling down around her. However, she can’t afford to remodel or build a new fence so she has to deal with it.

Friend #2

My second friend is in her 30s. She’s beautiful and healthy except for minor aches and pains. She loves to work out and does so frequently. She’s competed in triathlons and enjoys challenging her body to do new things. She is an amazing cook and nourishes herself, her friends, and family with delicious food.

Her husband provides well for her family but also cares a great deal about work/life balance and spending time with family. He generally keeps his office hours to standard working hours and does the rest of his work from home so he can be around for dinner and to help out when he’s needed. He supported her through severe postpartum mental illness with grace and kindness, and when their marriage hit bumps in the road, he immediately agreed to attend counseling and address the issues. They are best friends and love spending time together.

She has three of the greatest children ever born, smart, healthy, and talented young people who truly care about being good people. Her wonderful and supportive extended family members are only a phone call away and she has a caring network of fun and compassionate local friends who never fail to provide her with love and joy.

This woman enjoys living in a beautiful home in the woods that stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Her home is filled with lovely treasures that remind her of the wonderful life she’s lived. There’s not always money to do every home project she wants because she chooses to spend it on travel and experiences with loved-ones.

Probably no surprise here, but both of these are descriptions of me.

Depending on the day, I choose one and I live it.

As I’ve been doing some soul-searching lately, I’ve been trying to figure out what it would take to make me truly happy most of the time. I’m not talking about constant giddiness. I’m talking about general peace and contentment 95% of my waking hours.

I’ve pondered a few thoughts.

1. There are many people who would be delighted to have my life. Why can’t I be one of them?
2. I have everything I need to be truly happy.
3. The world we live in encourages us to delight in misery.
4. The world needs to zip it.

So, let’s talk about number 1.

There are many people who would be delighted to have my life. Why can’t I be one of them?

When looked at objectively, I have a pretty great life. I live in a free country. I am educated and work the hours I choose as a writer. When life gets busy, I don’t need to worry about making money because I have a husband who can support our family financially. This frees me up to support our family physically and emotionally. We don’t have any real stress about finances. I am healthy. My whole family is healthy. I like my kids and enjoy being with them. My parents and siblings and Dan’s parents and siblings are all living and all wonderful. I live in a safe and beautiful community with great schools and fun activities. I’m good at stuff. I’m never bored.

So, if my life’s so darn awesome, how do I find so many things to complain about?

That teacher was rude to my kid. My daughter’s friends are causing drama. The world is scary. The person I voted for didn’t win the election. My husband was snoring last night. I never have enough time to do all the things I want to do. My foot hurts. This carpet is hideous. I’m sick of my clothes. And on and on.

By noticing and dwelling on every little thing that bothers me, I’m choosing to take a beautiful life and not enjoy it the way it deserves to be enjoyed. If I can’t enjoy this life I’ve been given, who can? And why do I do this?

I think part of it comes down to a thing I call the “Pioneer Complex”.

I’m Mormon and our early history includes countless stories of pioneers who were driven from their homes, persecuted, killed, and deprived of basic necessities. These faithful people believed they were doing God’s will and traveled thousands of miles on foot to find a place where they could worship freely. We are grateful for their sacrifices. We honor them. And we talk about them. A lot.

Sometimes I think we get in the mindset that if we’re not suffering, we’re not acceptable to God. If our lives don’t suck enough, we’re phoning it in. And I’m not just talking about members of my church. I feel like many of my friends of all faiths (or none at all) get into this mindset. If we’re not struggling or complaining, then we’re not really alive, not trying hard enough. Pioneer Complex.

It’s like bragging about how sore you are after a workout.

If you can lift your toothbrush the next day without agony, you obviously didn’t push yourself at the gym. So, we overload our schedules and we look for and emphasize the hardships in our lives. Because they make us feel hardcore or worthwhile or valid.

So many of the conversations I have with my friends revolve around how busy we all are, how much drama we’re experiencing, what health problem we’re facing. While it’s therapeutic to share our legitimate struggles with caring friends, I feel complaining has become a competitive sport. We need to one-up each other.

“Oh, you think that’s bad? Wait until you hear how crazy busy my day was.”

The truth is, so much of this suffering is by choice.

We choose what to add to our schedules. We choose what drama to focus on.

I recently had this conversation with a friend.

Friend – “Oh gosh. I have so much freelance work. It’s killing me.”

Me – “Oh no. Do you hate writing? Maybe you should change jobs.”

Friend – “No. I love it. Writing is my passion.”

Me – “Okay. Is the time commitment too much? Do you need to cut back your hours?”

Friend – “No. I’m working exactly the number of hours I want. I have the time to do it. It’s just so much.”

Okay…. So, you’re really in demand. That has to feel good. You’re working as a freelance writer because you chose that profession. If you hate it, think about changing careers. If your current load is too much, cut back. But if you love it and it’s what you chose to do, why are you sighing and talking about it like it’s your greatest trial in life?

Because we are social complainers.

If we’re complaining, it means that what we’re doing is hard. If what we’re doing is hard, then we must be strong and capable to accomplish it. Complaining makes us feel important. Pioneer Complex.

My ancestors did super hard things. Therefore, I revere them. If I do super hard things, I will be worthy of love and respect. Therefore, I must make my life as hard as possible or at least not let myself enjoy it fully because if I’m enjoying my life fully, I’m obviously not doing super hard things. Ergo, I am a loser.

The truth is, I have everything I need to be truly happy.

All the elements are there. And I want to be happy. So, I’m gonna be.

When I’m standing at back-to-school night and everyone is sighing and eye-rolling about the trauma of back-to-school shopping, I want to smile and nod and think, “I’m so grateful I have money to buy the supplies my kids need and that I live in a country where we have such great access to quality goods.”

When the news stations are playing terrorism clips or disaster coverage over and over again, I want to pray for the people and donate money and take whatever reasonable steps I can to assist. And then I want to be grateful that my family is safe and dry.

Rather than vicariously living Hurricane Harvey 24-hours per day from my safe warm house in Seattle, I’m going to enjoy living in my safe warm house in Seattle. And I’m going to help people who aren’t so lucky.

We will all experience our own share of real trauma in our lives. And we will deal with it and ask our friends for help and commiseration. But when the weather is calm, and our lives are good, we should enjoy them.

I offer you a couple challenges.

1. Write two descriptions of your life like I did at the beginning of this post and choose which one you’d rather focus on.

2. Next time you are in a conversation where friends are complaining about their lives, listen but don’t one-up or add to the drama. If a true complaint about your own situation comes to mind, go home and ponder what you can do to change your situation.

The pioneers didn’t walk across the country, losing family members along the way, so they could look cool to future generations or feel good about themselves. They did it because they had to. And when times were good, they enjoyed their lives and played the fiddle or something.

Take a look at your life.

Is it good right now? Truly? Then go play the fiddle. Your trek will come. And when it does, you can deal with it. Don’t invent one for yourself now just so you can fit in with the cool pioneers. Life is too short to put on a frostbite-starvation face when it’s actually square-dancing time.

A Midlife Reflection

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I’ve been struggling since mid-September and I’ve been hesitant to share about it publicly. Much. But I’ve been meditating and journaling (because that’s how we do in Drops of Awesome Land) and I’m finally surfacing. It feels like it’s time to pull back the curtain a couple of inches and share.

I don’t love the term “midlife crisis” but I’ve been throwing it around for the past several months. It seems self-centered and indulgent to refer to something as a “crisis” when it’s completely based on internal angst and has nothing to do with actual trauma.

I am getting older and my life is changing and I don’t know what that means for me.

I want to know.

And I’m learning.

But it’s taking time and a mom-load of effort.

So, let’s call it a “midlife reflection”. It’s also a transition.

I’m not sure when it started but it really got going a few weeks after the kids went to school in the fall.

It was a transition for me from being a Stay-at-Home-Mom to a Stay-at-Home-Something-Else.

I was free. I could be whoever I wanted. And I could do literally anything. I took that seriously.

Several friends had told me about their experiences with this change, the good, the bad, and the unattractive. Some had gone back to work fulltime. Some had taken up long-forgotten hobbies or dismantled their homes completely in a decorating binge. Others told me they’d taken a full year to sleep and recharge from their many years of full-time parenting.

I’m a planner and an optimist, so I wanted to make the absolute most of this new phase of life.

I spent a lot of time questioning and mulling things over. What mattered? What was I doing with my life? Was I okay? Were my kids okay? Was I wasting my time? Should I go back to work? Should I go back to school? I started thinking in circles and I’ll admit I got a little lost.

Do I want to go back to school and become a doctor? I could.

Maybe I should get Crossfit or take up tai chi.

What if I learned how to be a contractor via YouTube and remodeled my entire house?

I settled on getting ultra-serious about my writing career.

It’s fair to say that my career has happened to me over the past ten years. I started blogging for fun. People started asking if they could pay me. I said, “Sure.”

I wrote a novel a few years back and worked to get it published and failed. When I actually did get published, it was a non-fiction book deal because a publisher reached out to me. He liked the message of my post Drops of Awesome and wanted to capitalize on my platform and all the people it resonated with.

I was excited, but again, I just rode the waves of my life.

“I want to publish fiction.”

Squirrel!

“Someone wants to take me on a non-fiction journey? Okay. I’ll do that instead.”

And it has been amazing. I’ve met wonderful people, spoken to crowds of inspiring women and girls, had TV and radio and podcast appearances and all kinds of other fun and hoopla. I’ve defaced books with my signature multiple times and people have seen that as a good thing.

How is it then that after years of blogging for pay and selling thousands of books, I still wince when someone refers to me as a professional writer? I mean… yes… I am one?

But there’s a part of me that sees it as a happy accident.

It’s like I tripped and fell down and now I have a writing career. But I don’t feel focused or driven in a particular direction. And I feel a tremendous amount of guilt, like I’ve been given this great opportunity and I’m somehow throwing it away, like I should be doing it better.

I have books, but I don’t know how to market them well. I have a blog, but I’m stuck in limbo, not knowing what or how to write anymore. I have so much freedom in my home life, but feel glued to the spot by the sheer number of options open to me each day.

So, with the kids in school, I decided now was the time for me to research and plan and become a focused career writer. I started out strong, scheduling writing time each day.

But soon, I got roped into a cause.

I had the time, so I spent the first couple of months my kids were in school standing up to a billionaire TV-star turned politician as I volunteered several hours each day on a quixotic presidential campaign.

When I got back to writing, I found I was absolutely paralyzed. I had time. I was supposed to write or market or something. Okay, go. Be brilliant.

What had mostly been a hobby was now a vague career and it felt daunting. In the past, when I wanted to contribute to the family financially, I’d blogged for specific clients so I had clear direction. Now that I was making the rules and setting the deadlines, I felt more unsure.

I decided I had a time management problem, a focus problem. I diagnosed myself with ADD to justify my lack of progress.

And I was doubting myself as a writer.

523 Ways to Be Awesome had been recently released and wasn’t doing as well as the first book.

We had a third book on the way that I was really passionate about, but the lukewarm reception to the second book filled me with doubt. I decided to pour my energy into a marketing plan for Bucket of Awesome, the third book in the Awesome series.

But I didn’t really know what to do. So, I enrolled in e-Courses about marketing. I even created one of my own to help people write their stories and promote the new book. But I didn’t have active connections in the blogging community for reviews and I couldn’t get a handle on how to pitch the book to strangers.

It’s a book to help you tell your story. It’s a book to help you discover your story. It’s a book to help you change the way you tell your story to yourself so you can actually change the next chapter of your life.

I love it. I just don’t know how to sell it. And I don’t really want to.

All writers who began writing because you really wanted to go into sales, please raise your hands. Anyone?! Bueller?

And as for my blog platform, the main reason my publisher signed my book deal, it was dying. It was dying because I didn’t know what it was anymore.

I used to write cute stories about my kids but they are old and the most bloggable things about them are not bloggable anymore. Once you hit middle school, it’s not okay for your mom to blog about everything that makes you adorable, or quirky, or wonderfully, exasperatingly real.

My most popular posts of all time were when I was sharing nuggets of wisdom I’d gleaned through years of experience. People liked when I gave advice.

However, I’m not a guru or a fount of wisdom, so when I sat down with the intention of writing something sage and life-changing, I ended up messing around online or starting new blogs about other things.

Thermal cooking anyone?

A local blog about a city so small I will never have a large readership or make any money whatsoever?

All along this journey I was reading about personal development and writing in notebooks and trying to make sense of why this transition was so hard for me and what I needed to do differently.

I made progress, slowly.

I volunteered at the school. I cleaned my house. I went shopping. I put energy into marketing activities that didn’t yield much fruit.

After several months of being home during the day without kids and not a lot to show for it, we released the third book. It happened pretty quietly.

And I mostly stopped blogging. And writing publicly. Because my writing has always been about my real-life experiences and I didn’t think I was allowed to write about what I was currently experiencing.

My midlife crisis seemed silly.

I was a Stay-At-Home-Mom with 5 free hours during the day, endless ideas for how to fill them, and no clue what to do first or how to do it well. I was paralyzed by my fear of failure and the never-ending question, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing with my life?”

I couldn’t write because I felt like a fraud. Because I was worried I had let my publisher and my family down and that writing about it would just let them down more or somehow sabotage book sales.

Because it wasn’t okay to feel sad about my newfound freedom. “Oh. WAH! I have so many options and a supportive husband who just wants me to be happy. My life is the worst.”

Because it seemed excessively ungrateful to feel confused and demoralized when I had such an easy and blessed life.

I did have a problem, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Reaching deep inside myself to solve my “career” and “time management” problems, I’m pulling back the layers, week by week, and month by month. And I find that the core of my struggle has nothing to do with writer’s block or lack of focus.

The core of my struggle has to do with forgetting who I am and losing site of the joy and magic that makes life worth living.

Through all the doubt and questioning and self-reflection, I’m learning or re-learning four lessons that I’m working hard to incorporate into my life, four holes that need filling.

Here’s the short version:

1. I Need L.I.G.H.T – Let It Go. Hope. Trust. I am learning to let go. Of my need to control other peoples’ actions. Of my need to control what people think of me. Of my desire to project a certain persona. Of my desire to look good, sometimes at the expense of actually being good. Of my fear of failure. Of too many things to list here.

2. I Shouldn’t Be So Careful and Troubled About Many Things – I don’t need to feel stressed to feel worthwhile. I don’t need to validate my existence with a list of checkboxes and accomplishments.

3. I Don’t Have Room in My Life for Everything – I’m learning to say no to many things so I am free to say yes to the things that matter.

4. I Would Rather Be Present than Perfect – Shauna Niequist’s beautiful book has added fresh perspective to many of the thoughts I’d been struggling to frame. Reading her words often felt like reading my own journey written out. I’ve come to the realization that a real, grounded, connected life, experienced in all its joyful messiness outranks hollow perfectionism any day.

I’ll elaborate more on each of these in the coming weeks.

Soul-searching journeys are painful. It’s hard to dig into your life and heart and realize that your priorities and goals aren’t what you want them to be. Sometimes you find that you’ve been thrashing and spinning in the service of something false and shallow.

But if you don’t take the journey, you just keep thrashing. And it’s hard on your body. And your spirit. And your family. And your life.

Life is a journey worth taking with your eyes and heart wide open. I’d rather peer deep into the very core of who I am, regardless of what I find there, than never truly know myself.

At age 38, I’m coming to know this girl in a new way and I’m frequently surprised by what I find. Mostly good. Always enlightening.

Hello, Kathryn. I will take your hand. Let’s do the next 40 years up right, shall we?

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link I post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting my website!

Digging out of a Hole

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I don’t often need to listen to Weezer but when I do it really pumps me up. Because if they can rhyme “front” with “violent…lunt,” then I’m pretty sure I can do anything I put my mind to.

What’s with these homies dissin’ my girl?
Why do they gotta front?
What did we ever do to these guys
That made them so violent?

Wednesday was a crappy day. And I’d like to make the disclaimer that I know I have an easy, charmed life, but some days are just hard. I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to accomplish and I did do a bunch of stuff that I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do. And that makes me feel bad about myself. When I feel bad about myself, I consider that a crappy day. And I had been sliding toward it for about a week.

It was one of those days where you don’t want to do anything you should do for the very reason that you know you should do it. You don’t know what I’m talking about? Feel free to move along.

One of the big problems stemmed from the fact that I decided to try Weight Watchers a few weeks ago. Mother Oprah says she’s finally found peace with food by using Weight Watchers so I thought, Why not? Bring it, O-Money! The problem is that a few weeks into just about any diet, I get angry.

What the chicken? I’m sick of chicken. No one can make me eat this delicious chicken breast. Even me. Even though I’m the one setting the limits, I get mad that the limits exist. “Accountability is the worst,” I say! So, I ate the whole house on Wednesday. And it didn’t even taste good.

I do much better emotionally when I simply make small changes to my eating habits, rather than going all-in on a new “lifestyle.” But I don’t always do so well with my weight when I simply make small changes and I’ve definitely packed on some hibernation pounds this last winter…er…two years.

I’m also having a harder time than I thought I would managing my time with my kids all in school. I have an overwhelming list of things to do and several hours each day to do them. I have great organizing systems in place. But I have such little motivation to do the hard things on my list.

I wouldn’t call it a midlife crisis but it’s definitely a housewife crisis. I’ve always been a stay-at-home mom and now, for 6 hours a day, I’m a housewife… and a writer. No little kids to raise. Just a bunch of their crap strewn all over the house I feel the need to pick up, volunteer commitments, a ton of personal writing and blogging goals with no deadlines or accountability, and this feeling that I need to be contributing more financially but that I have no idea where to start. I wish I could just write and make money but it’s not that simple. There’s a little thing called marketing and I haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

And my next Drops of Awesome book is coming out and I love it, but when I have days like this I think… who am I to help people feel happy? I do not have everything figured out. I need Drops of Awesome thinking just as much as anyone who reads my stuff.

I ruminated on this for a couple of days. I’m writing books about this stuff and yet I still need Drops of Awesome thinking as much as anyone who reads my stuff. And I kept plugging away. Periodically weeping in the shower over my own inadequacy. Reaching out to friends. Driving to that stupid Weight Watchers meeting to weigh in, even though I knew my weight would be up… re: Snow Day Cinnamon Roll Gate 2017.

And then last night it hit me with full force. I NEED DROPS OF AWESOME THINKING JUST AS MUCH AS ANYONE WHO READS MY STUFF! Like I actually need it. Literally. I have to focus on it. I have to reboot my thinking patterns. That’s the way out of this hole.

It’s actually quite silly how often I come to this earth-shattering realization and recommit to being nice to myself and focusing on my wins. I am much more consistently good at reminding other people to turn off their negative voices than I am at turning off my own.

But last night I took a few minutes to think about what I’d done well that day and the day before, the awful waste of life day. And I found that I’d done quite a lot that I hadn’t given myself credit for. And I woke up this morning motivated and ready to face the day. A bit.

I was tired, but I decided to make a nice breakfast and then maybe lie down. But while I was making breakfast, I thought I might as well pack the kids’ lunches for them. And while I was at it, I loaded the breakfast dishes and washed the griddle. I have a tradition of leaving it out dirty for a day or two but I decided, what the heck?! And since I was awake and alert and, you know, cleaning griddles, I might as well sit down in my pajamas and type up this blog post. It was like that children’s book, If You Give A Dog a Drop of Awesome. It might come full circle to the point where I cook again tonight around dinner time. Crazy.

I’d like to say a word about friends. I need them. I talked and cried with a few different friends over the past few days and they listened to me. And helped me clean my kitchen. And offered to drive my kids to things so I could stay home and feel crappy about myself. And gave me hugs. And shared their stories of sadness and personal struggle. And they’re probably the reason I was able to figure this out and pull myself out of this self-created hole.

They didn’t tell me my sadness was irrational, although it probably was. They didn’t tell me to suck it up because I have a cushy life and have no right to feel sad. They were simply kind to me. And that sparked in me the desire to be kind to myself. And that’s what I needed.

Often when I’m feeling down or shameful or self-critical, I want to hide and be alone. But that’s never the answer. We need each other. And we need to see each other at our worst because it gives each of us a chance to be at our best and show love.

Which brings me back to Weezer. Why do any of us homies gotta front? Be real. Be Awesome. Be kind to yourself. It’s simple but it’s really hard sometimes. We can do this.

What’s Your Longshot? 

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It’s not cool to admit this, but there are things in my life I don’t attempt or I attempt half-heartedly because I’m pretty sure I won’t succeed.

Weight loss is one. Growing my business online is another. Consistently making healthy breakfast for my kids is a big one. We are a cereal family most of the time. Cereal with a side of fruit for a sense of moral/nutritional superiority.

Sometimes I make lists about breakfast, but when 6:15 rolls around each morning, the chances of me following through grow slim.

There are so many things I avoid. Because success in these areas is difficult for me. Because nailing them would be a longshot.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about this for the past several days. Because I’ve found myself ALL-IN promoting a political candidate for public office for the first time. And this is very unlike me.

In the past, I’ve been quick to hide people from my Facebook and Twitter feed for posting too many political posts. I always vote. But privately and with dignity and respect for all the other parties and candidates.

But, if you looked at my social media feeds before October 5th and then after, you’d probably think I’d been hacked by an unemployed 30-year-old man podcasting from his mother’s basement. It is all Evan McMullin all the time around here. I’ve taken my previously-underused Twitter account to new places, hashtagging the crap out of Evan McMullin and retweeting and liking anything that promotes his candidacy. I talk about algorithms and “retweet limits” and twitter strategy with my new online friends. Political nerdery and fanaticism is in full swing over here.

And Evan’s candidacy is a massive Hail-Mary play.

But I. Do. Not. Care. This process is reminding me that it feels good to do hard things, even if success doesn’t seem likely. Because, if we only fight the battles where victory is certain we’ll miss out on the victories that really matter.

And I want to apply this thinking to other areas of my life. I want to dig in and think about what I’m avoiding doing because I think it will be too hard or because I don’t think I can succeed.

Thomas Edison is quoted as saying, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”    

So, we won’t be successful unless we’re willing to push through the times where we’ve lost all hope of succeeding. We won’t be successful if we give up. And we have to be willing to do the right thing, even when, especially when, the odds are against us.

I believe that some of the most important undertakings begin not because they are bound to succeed but because someone feels bound to do the right thing.

What “right thing” in your life are you avoiding doing because you don’t think you can succeed? Can you try one more time? Can you stand up and make a change?

Breakfast. Tomorrow morning. Overnight oatmeal in the thermal cooker. Never surrender.

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My Responsibility – Teachers over Moms

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Wanda was doing her homework on Monday which was, and I kid you not, telling her stuffed animals about her classroom job. The school is experimenting with moving toward a “no homework” model by giving them little tasks. These are tasks that in the past would have been undertaken without assignment by any normal human child back in the days before they all became tablet-slurping cyborgs.

So now we get lists of things she can do to act like a kid and communicate with “her stuffed animals” (Translation: parents) about what’s happening in the classroom.

With the tasks, comes a worksheet and on that worksheet is a line to write the student’s name.

Wanda looked at the sheet.

“Oh,” she said, “We’re supposed to put our name at the top.”

I smiled and nodded and kept working on digging through my email.

She held her hand out to me, palm-forward.

“No,” she said in a lofty tone, “I need to do it. It’s my responsibility.”

Ummm…okay. No one’s stopping you. I looked after her as she lifted her shoulders into her best possible posture, tossed her hair, and marched off to get a pencil.

I kept on with my email.

“You see, mom? I have a new trait. It’s called responsibility. We’re studying it at school.”

“That is awesome. Good for you.”

All day, she was focused on her responsibility.

I helped her find her missing shoes.

“Thanks for helping mom. But next time I should probably do it myself because it’s my responsibility.”

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Laylee reached for one of Wanda’s dishes after dinner.

“NO!! That’s my responsibility.”

You’d think I had never once or ten THOUSAND times told Wanda to clear her own place at the table. No. This was new news. Her teacher had given her a new trait. For October. And that trait, my fellow Americans, is a little thing we like to call RE-SPON-SI-BILITY!

Maybe if I had a teaching degree I would be qualified to give her traits. Maybe.

The older kids, of course, found this hilarious and sweet. When Laylee taught our Family Night lesson about keeping journals, she made sure to look at Wanda with a grave expression and say, “We need to write in our journals. It’s our… responsibility.”

Wanda perked right up and nodded solemnly. She is now on the journal train.

So I started praising every good thing Wanda did as evidence of how responsible she was. I even noticed Laylee do something good and I called her out.

“Look how responsible Laylee is being! Nice job!”

Wanda looked perplexed.

“Wait,” she said, “Laylee has traits too?!”

Yes. Yes she does. But she’s not in Mrs. Boogaloo’s first grade class! I wonder where she got them!?

212 The Extra Degree: Extraordinary Results Begin with One Small Change

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Today, we start with a science lesson.

Water boils at 212 degrees. So, at 211 it’s just hot water. But at 212 it boils. And boiling water generates steam. Steam can power a locomotive.

That’s a huge difference with just one additional degree.

This is the premise of Sam Parker and Mac Anderson’s motivational book, 212 The Extra Degree: Extraordinary Results Begin with One Small Change. I read an advance copy this summer and it was a great, short read. The whole book is just 88 pages long but it left me feeling inspired and motivated to make a few tiny changes in my life.

Sound at all like Drops of Awesome to you? Me too! I really enjoyed this new analogy, one more way to think about how sometimes it’s just one tiny effort that can make all the difference.

In fact, the book has a similar resonance to 523 Ways to Be Awesome.

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“How many opportunities have you missed because you were not aware of the possibilities that would occur if you applied a small amount of effort beyond what you normally do?”

I would add, how many times were you too defeated to apply more effort because you didn’t recognize how well you were already doing? Drops of Awesome.

The book contained short success stories and familiar quotes about courage and perseverance. One of my favorite was the famous quote by Thomas Edison, “Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

This quote resonates with me because I don’t always exhibit great stick-to-it-iveness and I often find myself wondering, what if I REALLY tried? What would happen then?

I comfort myself in my failures by saying, “If I’d REALLY tried, I could have been awesome at hip-hop dance, or filmmaking, or basket weaving. I just didn’t choose to give it my full effort.”

Sometimes committing fully is scary. What if I try my hardest and fail? Then there would be nothing left to give and I would know my best effort is not enough. That’s not something I want to know all the time.

Right now I’m standing on the edge of a situation like this.

I have written professionally for the past 10 years and I always told myself, “If I didn’t have kids at home… if I had more time… I would make writing a full-time career and I would be super successful.”

And now the kids are in school and I can still find all kinds of excuses to not go all-out with writing as a business. What they all boil down to is, I’m scared. I’m scared of spending the next few years working around the clock, only to fall on my face.

But reading this little book helped me crystalize something in my mind. I don’t have to worry about failure. I just need to turn up my effort by one tiny drop at a time, by one degree. And never give up. Or, at least if I give up tomorrow, then I need to un-give up the next day.

What are you afraid to commit to? A better relationship with your spouse? A community service goal? A career? Weight loss?

What could you accomplish if you stopped focusing on what-ifs and fears and started just focusing on increasing your effort? One degree.

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