Self-Improvement Archives - Page 2 of 9 - Stephanie DelTorchio

Can You Handle the Truth?

Be honest before you break my heart/Stephanie DelTorchio/befat.net/8.23.2016

“You can’t handle the truth” from A Few Good Men is one of my top ten movie lines of all time.

Icalled a plumber to rework the heating pipes in our small bathroom. His voice message said he’d return my call “as soon as possible.” That was three years ago.

I can handle the truth. It’s NOT getting the truth that’s difficult for me to handle.

Tell me you can’t.

Tell me you’d rather not.

Tell me you’re super busy.

Tell me anything, but don’t lie to me about your intentions to make good on a promise, and then leave me in the cold.

Everybody Has A Story

Everybody has a story/To tell the story of your life/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/8.20.2016

Life is filled with lots of little moments that eventually add up to one life. Your life. Your story.

Our ability to sort the wheat from the chaff is difficult, given that, well, it’s our story. It’s very personal. And when we sum up our life every bit matters — from what we’ve heard to what we’ve seen to what we’ve felt. These are the moving parts to our story.

It’s easy to pick out the good times from the bad times, but we store both in our minds. For safe keeping. Maybe to use later.

The positive stuff goes under the “good” column. If we haven’t figured out a way to “let go” or forgive or forget the bad stuff, we stockpile this to perhaps use later as ammunition or revenge or excuses.

All wrapped together, the good and bad experiences become our story. Years of data — wounds, failures, hurts, surprises, awards, broken promises, wins and losses, etc. — support the story we tell.

Start Here

Just Start Already/quotes/images/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/8.18.2016

Call it laziness. Procrastination. Second guessing. Hedging. Toying. Dilly-dallying.

Whatever name you give it doesn’t help you to move forward.

No matter how you justify the reasons you haven’t taken the step out, or the leap, they are all just excuses. Wrap them in pretty paper and a bow (valid reasons why you can’t) only makes your hopes, dreams, whatever your “thing” is, pushed further out of reach.

Why are you playing hide and go seek with whatever it is you MUST do. What you WANT to do?

Stop for a second. Look down at your feet. Wherever you are standing…this place is a good place to begin.

Just start already.

File Aug 18, 1 55 43 PM

(Taking my own advice after exhausting all the excuses — procrastination, laziness, doubts, roadblocks…all of it — and organizing all of my notes to finally start writing an e-book.)

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

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Over Your Head?

If you aren't over your head/inspirational/T S Eliot quote/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/8.17.2016

“If you are not in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” Inspirational quote by T.S. Eliot

The very act of taking even baby steps outside of your comfort zone is important. Get serious about going to the next level or achieving a goal or making a necessary change in your life.

What’s at stake here?

Your daily well-being, that’s all.

A string of daily challenges you give to yourself wads up to a fully explored and challenged life. (And great fodder for your obituary).

The opposite of making any move — remaining stagnant, doing nothing — guarantees mold will grow between your toes. And who wants to dance with someone sporting green fuzzy feet?

C’mon you guys…You have no idea how high the top is unless you reach over your head.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

#1440minutes
#BeFAT

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio
Quote: T.S. Eliot

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When Will You Say “Yes”?

positive quote/befat.net/Stephanie-DelTorchio/8.11.2016 While you are wondering about your direction, the rest of us are patiently waiting for you to say “YES!”

Say YES to that inner voice. That gut feeling, the hunch, the spark.

Say YES to new adventures.

Say YES when you normally knee-jerk NO.

Say YES to sharing your talents, your gifts, your time, your money, your PIE! (I love pie)

Say YES to taking a chance on a new love or rekindling an old friendship.

Say YES and show us your inner beauty, however you manifest it outwardly.

Say YES to exploring new places.

Say YES to starting this day with wide-eyed wonder by embracing a new beginning.

Say YES, again and again and again, to the things that make you happy. (You know it’s your sweet spot – no harm hanging out there a while, my friend)

Say YES to everything that sparks the smallest bit of interest and curiosity in you today. Because you never know where it will lead, what doors it may open and whose heart you may touch.

Get on with it. We’re waiting for you to say YES!

#1440minutes #BeFAT

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

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How will you use your 1,440 minutes?

1440 minutes in each day/befat.net/inspirational graphic/8.10.2016

By the time you rise and shine, you’ve already used approximately 360 minutes of your allotted 1,440 minutes per day.

What will you do?

Of that time, you can carve 30 minutes to exercise — take a walk, lift some weights, ride a bike, dance.

Ten minutes to make a decent breakfast.

Five minutes to check in on a friend or relative who needs to hear from you.

Ten minutes to jot a “Thank You” note or sympathy card.

Sixty minutes to update your resume.

Ninety minutes to watch a movie.

You get the idea…

“In every day, there are 1,400 minutes. That means we have 1,440 opportunities to make a positive impact.” ~ LES BROWN

Look at the small chores around your house. The Inbox at work. Volunteer opportunities in waiting. How many of those minutes can you spend to clean up some of the small stuff that keeps piling up in any of these areas?

Every day. 1,440 minutes. Some of those minutes fly by. Some seem to drag on.

But once they’re spent you can never get them back. Remember this the next time you carelessly toss away a few minutes here or there.

1,440 minutes. Use them well. Make them count.

How will you spend your 1,440 minutes today?

#1440minutes

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic and quote: Stephanie DelTorchio

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Please Forgive Yourself Today

Forgive yourself/befat.net/8.9.2016

I grew up a nice little girl. Played by the rules. Did my homework. Ate my peas. Came in the house when the street lights came on.

As the years went by, I screwed up. A lot. Nothing jail-worthy mind you. Just enough bad decisions and careless choices that cost me time, money and people. This is called growing up, I guess.

In the aftermath, I could have been a lot nicer to myself. Spent less time beating myself up for what I DIDN’T do more than for what I did.

While I wallowed and self-sabotaged years of my life, opportunities were missed. I suffered many false starts. Double backed on adventures and said, “No, thank you” when I should have said, “Hell, YES!”.

I licked the wounds of my failures, believing of course that I deserved every cut and bruise.

I had years of lost ambition. More of excessive ambition. Under compensating. Over compensating. I ran super hot on ideas and projects and then icy cold. Nothing was ever lukewarm or neutral for me. I was my own worst enemy.

People could kick me, but no one, NO ONE, tossed me down with as much anger and force as I did to myself.

My list of insecurities loomed larger than mere feelings of “unworthiness”. I believed other people’s truths about me, as told to me. “You suck” remains one of my personal favorites.

Why do we do this?

Because the bad stuff is easier to believe than the good.

Somewhere down deep inside I accepted all the crap as truth. My soul slowly tarnished until it hardened and its light went out. Such a freaking waste of time and energy. And you can’t ever get it back.

One day, it just happened. Without any forethought or warning.

I gave in.

Gave up on it all.

On my knees. Rung dry. Depleted. Fully wasted of energy and emotion. I was tired of carrying all the weight — the guilt, shame, miscues, failures, lies, burdens, wrong turns, right turns for the wrong reasons — all my history from age ten on to this moment in time, rolled itself into a huge twisted ball of self-hate. I was flat out exhausted from trying to keep everything and everybody afloat.

I did suck. At everything I touched.

Up the pole went my white flag.

It was in my basement. I’d sent the kids off to school and started a load of laundry before heading out to work. The meltdown came like a rush of water. The dog my unintended psychologist.

“What do I do Misty? Tell me. No, I’ll tell you! I’m done with it. Done with all of it. All of this. Okay? Got it? Hear me?”

In that musty basement, sorting whites and darks, I gave myself the greatest gift. I offered a not-so-silent prayer of forgiveness.

“Yes, you’re a fuck up. Yes, you made a mess of things. Yes, you hurt people. Yes, you hurt yourself MORE. Remember this: You did the best you could with what you had and what you knew at the time. Today, we clean house. Set it straight. Today, I forgive you. Understand me? For all of it. Fuck them if they don’t forgive you because this is not about them. This is about your survival. Your future. Your life. And your family’s life — everyone under this roof who matters. Remember he told you that? I hereby forgive you for trying. I forgive you for failing. I forgive you for every word you uttered or wrote in defense. Whatever is holding you by the heels, peel it away. Get free. Start again. Listen to me: I LOVE YOU. Go make a life. And don’t come back to this place again. I swear if you do I’ll find you and kick you into the next lifetime.”

Before the spin cycle finished my attitude and perspective had changed. I knew it would get better from here. This fully granted absolution washed away the dirt and grime and stink of it all.

But my little forgiveness lecture cost me a lot. I had been a silent sufferer. Putting on a strong happy face for so long and then taking this public position, trust me, didn’t win me any fans.

Many people walked the other way.

When I stopped being everybody’s go-to and yes-girl the invitations stopped arriving and the doors slammed in my face. Opportunities shut down. I found out who my real friends were. And they were few.

It hurt. I was sad.

But in front of me was a new beginning.

It looked dark and bleak for a while. A long while, in fact.

But in time new invites arrived. Doors slowly creaked open. And the people and opportunities behind them were much brighter than I could have imagined.

All because I forgave myself and did some house cleaning. Win-win.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic and quote: Stephanie DelTorchio

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Change Your Story Change Your Life

we are the stories we tell ourselves/Joan Didion quote/befat.net/8.8.2016

We are the authors of our story. And the story we tell other people about our life is what we want them to believe is our truth.

But sometimes it’s a lie. Sometimes a fantasy. A mystery. Traveling adventure. Melodrama. Farce. In my case, most days, a flippin’ black comedy show.

The truth is that when we change our story, we change our life. Because it’s a new story to tell. A new life to live.

Think about it.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

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Don’t Do A Good Job

Don't Do A Good Job/Do today what others won't do so tomorrow you can do what others can't/befat.net/Stephanie DelTorchio/empowering quote

People who do a “good job” are generally nice people who tried really hard. In the meantime a mother driving her kids to soccer just lost a tire on the highway. “No problem, Ralph, no one got hurt; you’ll get it right next time.”

Today at just about every turn we tell our kids “good job”, then hand them a participation trophy and head for the drive-through. We miss the opportunity to encourage them to try harder to do better.

Don’t lecture me on tender egos or breaking spirits. That’s bullshit. Our job is to let our children know that with practice and time and maturity and experience and trial and error and incremental successes they will surpass where they are right now. They are too young to amaze themselves. Too new to understand their ability to soar beyond their wildest dreams.

“Good job” is the bar we’ve set. It represents adequate, average or mediocre. Not excellence or mastery. Are we okay with this?

I’m not sure about you but I don’t want to hire an average plumber to fix my exploding toilet. Or trust my body to a mediocre brain surgeon. Even if he’s accumulated a closet full of trophies for his adult soccer league.

Listen, I’m fine with generic brown rice, no-name cotton balls and house brand potato chips. Plain, no frills toilet paper does the trick for me, although my husband prefers triple-ply baby soft Charmin. A story for another day, but probably the reason we have so many plumbing incidents.

We don’t want to buy goods or hire services that are just good enough. The inference being that there is something better out there so why settle for less than. Think about the commercial for GAS STATION SUSHI. Bad. Really bad.

For those who work harder to rise above the average, we are willing to pay more to get more. Fresh fish expertly prepared by a Sushi Master. Good. Very good.

In this scene clip from the award-winning movie, WHIPLASH, a dejected music professor extols his belief on the use of the words “good job”.

Don’t just do a good job.

Be better than average. Be extraordinary. Be excellent.

You’ll keep us from running to the toilet to use inadequate toilet paper because we accepted the “good job” from the gas station attendant who prepared our sushi.

Become the best plumber in the village. You’ll command top dollar. And we’ll gladly pay you to fix our exploding toilets.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic and quote: Stephanie DelTorchio

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Aug 04 2016

Being Who You Choose To Become

be f-g awesome today/befat.net/positive quotes/Carl Jung quote 8.3.2016

We all carry bags of shit.

And the reason we do this is because somewhere, a very long time ago, somebody said something to us. Or did something to us. And it wasn’t very nice.

We got older. We brushed it aside. Put it over there, under that. We justified it. We accepted it as part of our past. We felt safe when we hid it. Or buried it out of sight.

With all our acquired grown-up skills we knew what “they” said or did, in the big scope of the world, didn’t amount to crap. But we continued to carry it anyway. In silence. Alone.

In a twisted way we hold on to the hurt, pain, guilt, burden, secret. Because it’s safe. And it’s our excuse to not do the things we want to do. We don’t say it out loud. We are the protectors and keepers of our past. We hold it very close.

But any of it, all of it, keeps us from becoming the curiosity seeker, the doer, the artist, the inventor, the writer, the teacher, the actress, the engineer, the parent — the real us. The person we desperately know is concealed and preserved under layers and layers of shit.

Here’s the thing: How long do you keep that up? How long to you let some person, event, comment — old negativity — burden your potential?

Make it stop. Now.