We got a question from a reader asking us how to handle being at a crossroads in your life. She’s built a business she’s not feeling stoked on any longer and wondering if she should start a new path in the direction of a new passion or whether to return to the 9-5 gig. Which path is right?
Many of us have been at a crossroads in our lives and sometimes when you’re good at a number of things it’s hard to choose which one is the right one. It’s really the dilemma of the multi-talented, which of my skills is best served in the world? What do I like to do the most? Can I make money doing that?
If you do something for awhile only to discover that it’s not for you after all, take heart in knowing, many of us have been there and found that we had to follow our dreams for our well-being, no matter our ages.
Everything you’re doing now is building a body of work and many of those skills are transferable to future work. You are building your skill set whether you’re in your career of choice right now, or not. All the work you do is not for no reason- it’s creating the foundation and room for you to grow into your future.
Our Maven Minutes episode below offers ideas on how to choose the path you’ll be happiest with when you reach a crossroads in life (transcript below):
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Often times in life we get comfortable to our own grooves.
Without even realizing it, years pass, and family, society, personal relationships influence us, often times on sub-conscious levels, and patterns within us are made. Our soul carries these experiences and we allow ourselves to become comfortable in what we know, acting out what life has revealed to us. That is why living an uncommon life, one that asks us to step out of our comfort zone, back into the realm of possibility and true purpose, is both exciting and pretty vulnerable.
It’s an interesting thing I have found about life- as young children we are often never stuck or without that pure zeal and passion for existence. We live in that flow, or moment to moment awareness of the magic that sits right in front of you. So the well of inspiration is rarely dry, and being yourself is not something to strive for, its just what you do.
Remember how that felt? Sure, there was sometimes fear but also, there was pure joy. It’s the process of becoming an adult: responsible, mature, accepted, liked, popular, cool, successful…that gets our minds a little fuzzy, or forgetful of our true nature. The outside world and what others think become incredibly important, and we may forget just what made us tick to begin with.
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It’s fitting that stuck rhymes with muck, because that’s exactly what we get stuck in- the swampy muck and mire of our own self-doubt and expectations.
We deny ourselves so many of our innate, deep desires because they seem too big. And hard. And scary. And so far away.
It seems selfish to go after what I really want, you convince yourself, as your heels start sinking into the mud below. It’s crazy to think I could even do that, anyway, you argue on, slipping ankle deep into the thick sludge.
Then the what ifs? begin, the likes of which you’re powerless against. What if I fall flat on my face and fail? What if I succeed and become rich and famous and I can never find a good man because dating famous guys totally sucks and normal guys are way threatened by powerful women? What if everyone looks at me funny? What if no one even looks at me at all? What if they see that I was never actually smart or pretty or talented enough to do any of this, and that I’m a total sham, and just who the hell do I think I am, anyway?
All the while you’re standing still, in the mud, slowly sinking further and further. You finally look down to see you’re now waist deep in relentless swamp goo and girl, you are stuck. (There’s another choice word that rhymes with stuck that’s perfect to use at this point of realization.)
I have found myself in this waist-deep stuckness too many times to count.
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What’s a maven exactly, and why do we call ourselves that? Well, the dictionary definition is “expert”, and we believe that we’re ALL experts at something. That we’re ALL here for a purpose. That we ALL have a great path ahead of us to fulfill.
We believe we are all mavens in the act of becoming who we truly want to be!
We’ll be talking about community & connection around here all March long, and we think the greatest thing you can do to impact your community in a positive way is to move toward what makes you happy, to trust yourself, and share your true self with the world.
So we’re starting a movement, Mavens! A movement of people who are committed to follow our dreams, to break through fear and obstacles, to find more presence, balance and fulfillment in everyday.
But it can’t be a movement without YOU.
So in this Maven Minutes, we share what it means, to us, to be a MAVEN and remind you that by changing yourself, you can truly help change the world!
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Why would we lead into our video with this photo? It’s so unflattering.
This video is different from the rest. We’re talking about self image and we thought a fun way to get into it would be to share photo stills from our videos. Bad photo stills. These are the freeze frame accidents that we’d usually send straight to the trash, but today, we’re sharing them just to show we’re normal people who take a bad photo just like everyone else.
We actually think our unflattering photos are pretty funny! What if we all let go of our put together, ready to present to the world facades for a moment, and instead just accepted ourselves as a pretty face that’s capable of ugly faces? And double-chin faces… And quizzical, odd, funny, not-so-put-together faces…
If we can all accept ourselves- flaws, freaky parts and all- then judgement from others will never sting us.
We believe that the relationship you have with yourself resonates with everything you do, so get right with yourself and get right with the world:
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Hi Mavens, Happy New Year! We hope you’re settling into the new year and feeling good about a clean fresh year to make your mark on!
Maybe you’ve already set some New Year’s resolutions, or maybe you’ve already broken one. And then again, maybe you’re like us and don’t even do the resolution thing anymore.
No matter whether you’ve set resolutions for the year or not, we’ve got a cool activity that we’re calling a reboot as an alternative, or in addition to, your New Year’s resolutions.
A reboot is a way to clear out the old, and make room for the new.
Just like when you reboot a computer, you’re clearing out that old cache and RAM so that it can operate on a higher level and focus its energy on what it needs to do. This exercise is like a reboot to your psyche so you can clear out the old stuff that’s held you back, to better focus on what you need to do to create the life you want.
Our reboot is fun (and involves fire!) and takes only 3 steps, which we’re calling the 3 R’s. All to be explained in this episode of the Maven Minutes (that’s what we’ve decided to call our video series- whattya think?)
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We’ve had the topic of “how to find beauty in the ordinary” scheduled for this week for some time, not knowing that it would end up being the perfect prescription, of sorts, to help cope with the shocking news from last week.
After the shootings in both Sandy Hook and right here in our backyard in Portland, we are both still reeling, feeling angry, worried about the future and such sadness for those who lost their lives, their families and everyone who has been affected.
I suppose all of us have been affected though, in even a small way, by having our perspectives shift to what really matters most to us in this world, if even for a moment.
But we think, in order to not only heal from grief and shock, but to find more fulfillment in our here and now, everyday, that our perspective shifts can’t be momentary- we need to better align ourselves what those things that really matter most to us, as often as we can.
And a simple way to do that is to start with finding beauty in the ordinary. To find real joy in tiny moments. To recognize the goodness that surrounds us everyday- in nature, in people, and in our own minds and hearts.
Doing this is a way to restore balance when we feel stuck, confused, scared or sad.
So in today’s video, we share 4 ways to help you find beauty in the ordinary during trying times, and everyday:
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