Be F-g Awesome Today

You Must Show Up to Grow Up

We New Englanders know the irony of the quote, “You can’t get there from here,” but the fact is, you need to start somewhere. If you don’t show up to the start, you certainly can’t expect to arrive at wherever it is you intend to go. That’s a guarantee.

Does that mean you need a plan? Sure it does. But the plan doesn’t need to be all that complicated or detailed. An idea or an inkling of what you want to do or hope to achieve is the spark to start.

I’m not sure how true this is, but I read these two quotes attributed to the legendary actor, writer, producer, Woody Allen:

70% of success is showing up. ~ Woody Allen

80% of success is showing up. ~ Woody Allen

And that’s not the funny part. Perhaps as we get older it takes more “showing up” to be successful at whatever it is we are aiming for. It’s true that the Universe rewards forward motion. Sitting in front of the TV or rehashing the same conversation with well-meaning pals does not support your path to success. By the way, they are probably not your best supporters.

A big part of life is spent in the trenches — work, school, obligations. It’s easy to put off starting when the only time we think about our Big Dreams, Goals and Ideas is at the end of the day. When we’re strained and exhausted. But remember the thing that stirs your soul?

That dream?

Yearning?

Desire?

The thing that keeps showing up in your mind? The thing that gets you all charged up? The thing that won’t go away?

Yeah, that one.

It wants to be made real. And it wants to be made real by you.

Ask yourself: What have I done today to get the ball rolling?

Put your bag of fears in the closet, up high, out of sight.

Before you can expect to see any progress you must not be afraid to start. Trust yourself to begin. Be open to the path you are drawn to — it will most likely lead to unexpected places. Isn’t that the way life works? Hasn’t that always been the way it’s happened to you?

And that’s both scary and exhilarating. When you expect that following your goal, dream or desire will be a crazy, wild, wonderful ride, you will wake each day wondering what new twist will happen. For better or worse, it’s progress.

Start here today and you will get there. Your tomorrow will thank you. I’m 80% sure that I’m 100% correct on this.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic and quote: Stephanie DelTorchio

Show Non-Judgmental Compassion

They upset us, tick us off, drive us crazy, exhaust us, anger us -– and because we’re grown-ups, we understand that hurting people hurt people. Still, knowing this doesn’t make the pain of personal attacks easier to handle.

Often the people closest to us cause us the most hurt. The pain of any attack throws us into self-judgment and self-blame. What did I do? What did I say?

It’s more than possible that you did absolutely nothing to invite an assault, but became a convenient target, caught in the crosshairs. They needed someone to point the finger at, to place blame, and in their frustration, chose you. If pressed, they might struggle to identify the exact reason they’re so flippin’ angry, at you.

Don Miguel Ruiz, the author of the Four Agreements, says, “nothing others do is because of you.” What other people say and do is not ever about you; it’s about them, drawing you into their own reality.

You might have been the person’s biggest supporter, confidant, caregiver, friend, cheerleader, peacemaker, teacher –- the right person with all good intentions, and doomed to fail. It’s the behavior that hurts our human ego, not the person.

When you can turn away and not take the hurtful and harmful actions of others personally, you protect yourself from needless suffering. Once you’ve shielded yourself, offer a kind, quiet prayer of non-judgment to the person in pain, and move on. Pray that their issues get resolved –that they find peace.

On this day, I choose to not judge any person for where they are standing today. It’s likely they are stuck and panicked, unable to make helpful decisions to save themselves. And also, because I have no clue about the root or continued source of their pain, my opinion or judgment does not serve any higher purpose. I hope someday they will show the same compassion for me.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

Clean Out Your Stuff

Is this a conversation you have at home?

We have no place to put stuff.

We have too much stuff.
We don’t have the right stuff.
We don’t have the latest stuff.
We don’t have enough stuff.
Our house is filled with stuff.
Some of the stuff isn’t even our stuff.
Some of this stuff came with the place.
We don’t remember when we bought this stuff.
We don’t know why we bought this stuff.
We have no idea what this stuff is for.

To have ownership of stuff and not use or enjoy it is a waste of space.

We have ten unopened boxes of stuff in the basement that moved here with us twelve years ago. I have threatened to put bows on boxes and stick them under the Christmas tree. Whatever is in them at this point would be a surprise. They are going into the trash, unopened. Obviously, we haven’t missed whatever is in there.

Besides going at it blindly, here are some ideas for clearing out your stuff:

1. Put it in view.
If you love it, call it art. Set it on a shelf or hang it on a wall because it makes you happy every time you look at it.

2. Give it away.
Clean and pass on clothes or household items in good condition to friends and strangers. A young homeless woman could care less about your color choice of puffy coat (Orange, really?) because it’s cleaner and warmer than anything she owns. It’s called charity.

3. Repurpose it.
Cracked bowls for planters, old tee shirts for pillow stuffing. Pinterest is loaded with ideas for taking stuff and turning it into other stuff. It’s called recycling or upcycling. If you or someone else has no use for it,

4. Throw it out.
Stuff that serves no good purpose to you or anyone else has no place in your space. Yeah, sure, GoGo boots will make a comeback someday but your feet won’t. Chuck ‘em, and the four other bags of groovy outfits from high school. It’s called trash.

Clear out, clean up, purge, whatever you call it, just do it. Holding onto stuff doesn’t make it last longer. Holding onto stuff for years because you think someday you’ll need it, suffocates your space. Grandma’s set of whisk brooms has a new name: Roomba.

Cleaning out gives you room to breathe. Before you bring more stuff in, admire your cleared out space. It took a weekend of purging but I am still admiring my neat closet. And now there really is absolutely nothing to wear.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio
Image: Pixabay

6 Ways To Get Unstuck

You’ve got a ton of things to accomplish today. The list is still long and the sun is about to set. Your eyes blur and it’s entirely possible you’re wearing yesterday’s underwear.

We get consumed by too much stuff to do to the point of confusion, and a confused mind either makes irrational decisions or does nothing.

Your brain freaks out. You feel stuck, like in molasses stuck.

Your work suffers or doesn’t get done at all. Relationships become strained when you ditch another meet-up time or un-volunteer the time you volunteered for. The house is a disaster. You can’t find your shoes. In short, your world is a mess.

How do you get unstuck and make progress?

First ask yourself a few questions:

• What’s the most important thing(s) I need/must accomplish today?

• Why the hell am I not doing it?

• Are there small steps I can take to get it done?

Getting unstuck isn’t easy. But there are a few ways to oil up the stiff gears and hopefully get you going again. Different things work for different people but here are a few ideas you might wish to try.

1. Make a list and pare it down
I love lists. I make lists for my lists. It’s an obsession which wastes a ton of time that I could use to do actual work.

Seriously though, make a list. A very short one. Three things, no more. Complete the most important or scariest or hardest one first. When you finish, go to the next thing on your list. And so on.

2. Get off your ass
I’ll put on workout clothes first thing in the morning as a way to psyche myself up –although I’ve been known to stay in them all day waiting for inspiration. This method is a success if I stretch while waiting for the coffee to brew. The point is, move, in any direction, even if it’s a quick walk to the end of your driveway, a stroll around the block with the dog, or a few reps up and down the stairs. It gets the blood flowing to your brain.

3. Set a timer for 30 minutes
Someone beat me to writing a book on potty-training using a kitchen timer. I’ll assume you’re potty-trained now, so use this technique to train yourself to complete a task. Set your timer for 30 minutes. Start your task and work towards completion before it goes off. Reset the timer if you must to finish before moving on to the next thing. Amaze yourself how efficiently you work under pressure. (Way too many potty references here).

4. Clean the Toilet
Or any mundane task. Divert your attention to something that doesn’t require a lot of thought until you get motivated enough to tackle the big stuff. If this idea fails, at the very least you’ll have a sparkling toilet bowl.

5. Crank up the Music
Create playlists from songs that motivate you. I love the soundtrack to the movie, The Big Chill to garden or paint. I prefer soft jazz instrumentals when I write. Find the beat that motivates you for the task.

6. Practice Meditation or Prayer
Sit quietly and let your mind go. Relax. Be aware of your breathing. Find your happy place, as they say, and “be” there. If it’s the sound of ocean waves, hear it. If it’s the warmth of spirit, feel it.

Consider something else: That this stuck moment may be a signal you need to chill or take a necessary time-out in preparation for a coming change.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio
Image: Pixabay

Real Life Moves Up and Down

What if life moved in a straight line, like a train, traveling from Point A to Point B, with its predictable stops and familiar co-riders? Along with our nicely printed schedules, each stop highlighted in a different color, we know the route in advance. Every station looks similar enough to keep us from becoming lost and confused in the rush of traffic.

We jump off whenever we wish, to see the sites, go to work, have lunch at the café with friends and head on to the next point of interest. You take your time; no hurry, no worry. The last train stop is the end your life. It’s all vacation-like. Very civilized and hassle-free.

And for someone who appreciates peace and order, this planned out idea suits me fine.

I’d like to add one more thing to my neat and regimented world. One hundred guaranteed healthy years on Earth, and a written plan to move through life quietly and gracefully. Where do I sign up? This boring world exists in my delusional mind where everything has a place and there’s a reason for everything. I’m a bit of an organizer, a tad O.C.D. (according to some people) and unless you represent the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes, please don’t surprise me.

But life is a crapshoot.

Sometimes the train derails, or temporarily loses power. We sit in the dark waiting calmly to be rescued, or panic, crawling over people in a fight to find our way towards the nearest exit.

We intellectualize the need to prepare for the unknown. With one year as a Girl Scout, I’m hardly McGyver material. The only reason you’d want to be stranded with me on a dessert island is because I always bring extra toilet paper.

We have no idea and no guarantee how many years we get to stay here on this silly planet and we can never predict in which direction our life will go. Here’s something I know for certain: It ain’t going in a straight line. More like ziggy-zaggy, back and forth, one step forward and two back — here’s a patch of quicksand and oops, a steep waterfall you never saw coming.

Life has a way of throwing shit at you like you’re in the center of some demented dodge ball game. The minute you duck from being bonked in the head, you get creamed in the rear. While someone runs to fetch a ball you get a breather, but it’s not long before someone else chucks one at your gut and knocks the wind out of you.

There are years in life that seem to go smoothly. Other years you can’t buy a prayer or catch a break. You spend too much time on your knees pleading for answers and begging for forgiveness.

For the majority of our life we do nothing more than survive Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to get a Saturday and Sunday time-out only to start the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday all over again. You blink and twenty years goes by. And you start to wonder when was it exactly that you nodded off and slept on the train as all those stops passed by.

With the roller coaster that is this life some seriously cool and amazing things can happen. The best you can do is hold on to your hat, strap yourself in, buy a ticket and enjoy the ride. Because if you want a slow and predictable life, well my friends, you’ve come to the wrong carnival.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic and quote: Stephanie DelTorchio
Image: Courtesy Mark Asthoff

Choose To Have A Good Day

I remember tacking up a handwritten note on my fridge that simply said:

You can have a good day or a bad, it’s your choice.

Kinda scary being in charge of your day, huh?

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

Eat the Bananas

We were happy to see my mother pull into the driveway and eager to help her bring bags of groceries into the house.

In the kitchen, she unloaded two bunches of bananas and placed them in a bowl on the counter. I immediately reached for one and she snagged it out of my hand.

“Don’t eat that,” she said. “I just bought them.”

This made no sense. Were we supposed to look at them?

What is the waiting period between when food is purchased to when eating it is acceptable? Logical answer: None. Eat the banana today.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

Be Sexy in the Mirror

We joke about bad hair days, fat days and sagging skin. No matter our age, despite how informed we are about touch-up, Photoshop and air-brushing, we still compare ourselves to what we see in magazines. Can we stop this, please?

We’re intelligent and smart enough to at least judge ourselves with people who graduated in the same decade as us. “She’s a few years younger, but looks great for someone voted Most Likely To Grow Saddlebags,” we say, and then check the mirror to compare hairlines and underarm flaps. Yeah, let’s stop doing that, too.

Face it, by the time our 40s come around, it’s best to make peace with Mother Nature. Graying hair, wrinkles and boob slump? Signs you’ve weathered the storm and arrived to the other side. And the soft belly that refuses to budge no matter how many Zumba classes we take or miracle green shakes we choke down? Not much defense against binge watching Making A Murderer or downing a sleeve of Oreos (with the green shake).

To combat the aging process, we’ll try another lotion or potion; sure this one is the Holy Grail. After all it’s endorsed by a celebrity and she looks ageless! We try it for a week, look in the magic mirror and over-analyze the results. Disappointment usually follows.

I’m all for slowing things down and keeping things in place.

I once tried a Miracle Undergarment that promised to contain, lift and shape what time had undone naturally. The thing cut off blood flow from under my rib cage to my thighs. All this torture to fit into a really beautiful dress two sizes too small. Okay, it was on sale. There wasn’t another in my size and I truly believed I’d lose the ten pounds before the event. Can I get an Amen Sistah?

When I ordered a Champagne cocktail, the bartender asked if I needed a paramedic. “You’re very pale,” he said, “and you’re winded. Can you breathe okay?”

No asshole I can’t. I’m too busy trying to impress everybody with my old lady figure jammed into a straight jacket. If he offered a pair of scissors I’d have cut the thing off right in front of him.

What happened to the days when everything stayed tight and perky in place without help? Time happened. I understand a loose wrapping comes with the territory, and I’m burning daylight by obsessing over it. Enough.

Swap out the negative words to describe your beautiful aging body. Giggle and sway. Grunt when you pick something off the floor and groan when you manage to stand back up.

We are distinguished, silver foxes with mature figures. Check that out in the mirror. It’s the sexy look all the secure, sophisticated and accomplished women (and men) are wearing these days.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic and quote: Stephanie DelTorchio
Image: Courtesy: Marta Powlik

Quit

Let’s assume you were all Gung Ho to start a house project, a new business, to write a book, an extreme exercise program, etc. You got up early every day, couldn’t wait to get to it. This went on for a few days, weeks, or months.

One day, your interest wasn’t there anymore. So you went on to something else. And something else, and something else. I’m guilty. There are multiple DIY projects scattered around my house in various stages of completion. I don’t consider myself a quitter. I prefer multipreneur without boundaries!

During my years publishing a small community newspaper, a dear friend hand wrote this note for me: “It takes no talent to quit”. For probably twenty years it hung on the wall behind my desk as a reminder that starting something required a commitment. And if I planned to quit because things got hard or didn’t work out how I’d planned, perhaps I shouldn’t start at all. The note seemed to wag its finger every time I wanted to quit the very thing I couldn’t wait to start.

But here’s the thing. Of course if were easy everyone would do it. You may be so close to success you can practically taste victory. People may be on your back or talking behind it, analyzing and criticizing, not understanding why you started this thing in the first place.

Sometimes to bridge the gap between beginning to end you need to fight through the hard times.

This is true whether it’s related to your work or it’s, as they say, personal. Whatever you started may (or not) have a natural course and suffer a natural death, outside your control. Beyond those, you are the driving force of your success.

To keep from becoming a serial starter of projects and finisher of none, give yourself a private pep talk. Remember what made you so jazzed in the beginning, and why you will beat yourself silly if you quit before reaching a successful outcome.

Today, give some thought to whatever it is you want to quit.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio

BeFAT in 2016

Happy New Year 2016!

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year!

Today is our youngest day on Earth.

Digest that for a second.

Because it’s true.

The idea behind BE F.A.T. started as a casual conversation that grew into a simple mantra that freaking changed my perspective on life.

Instead of signing off my emails with ‘Have a nice day’, I started writing: B.A.T. (Be Awesome Today). A friend was having a less than stellar day so I added an extra punch: the ‘F’, which got a laugh. In a skinny obsessed society I hope you get the tongue-in-cheek of BeFAT without being offended.

Which almost happened at a convention when a rather large woman got all in my face and pointed to my name tag. “Explain that.” I’d written my name, drew a smiley face and in big letters, #BeFAT. She Bobbleheaded me as I explained the evolution of BeFAT. Satisfied, she smiled. “Well, that’s f-g awesome.”

When I get pissed off (rare these days) or become impatient (uhm, sometimes) or feel lazy (too often!), this little voice in my head says: “Shut Up!” followed by “BE F.A.T.”

Today I sign off emails and end phone calls with #BeFAT and #FYA (Find Your Awesome).

It’s a short, laser pointed kick-in-the-pants reminder to Be Fucking Awesome Today, before the sand in the hourglass runs out. To appreciate the finite time on this planet and LIVE your life.

Let’s face it: Life is a crap shoot. Any day the knock might come on your door, and just like that, the party is over. You’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it happen. None of us is special enough to escape the inevitable. But we’re all great, wonderful creatures, special enough to grab this short-term existence by the balls and run with it.

No matter your path in this life you will affect somebody’s life. It might not be big or newsworthy, published or screened. You may not get your name etched in stone on a building (except a headstone!) or have a bridge named after you, but your life matters big time to someone. Enough that you should want to squeeze in as much as you can and love as many people as your humanity is capable of. Even if it’s yourself.

Not sure about you my friends, but there’s lots I want to do before I go TITS UP.

BE F.A.T. forced me to list my blessings, for real this time. To try to make TODAY matter, which is especially hard on days when unpleasant things happen. And if we live long enough, shitty things and sucky people and ugly situations always happen.

The silver-lining, and there’s always one, is the ability to choose to shift our thinking. Make the experience, good or bad, count for something.

Agree to practice less pissing and more praising.

I don’t know much, but trust me on this one: If you let it, BE F.A.T. will become an acronym that haunts you every time you want to hurl something, punch somebody, give in or give up. So basically, it’s your daily reminder to go for it!

Screw the little voice in your head, the naysayers, Debbie Downers, self-loathing talks, man/woman-created obstacles, all the junk, and let this be the time you take a chance on YOU.

Let the little voice call to you, my friend. Be Fucking Awesome Today. And every day.

BE F-G AWESOME TODAY!

#FYA (Find Your Awesome)
Original graphic: Stephanie DelTorchio