31Ways2GetItStarted™! January 3, 2013

Day 3: Allow Yourself to Succeed

Yesterday I implored you to be realistic as you set about making changes--since it is a process, not a one-time thing...well, it is if you want to be successful!--so on a related note...allow yourself to succeed. Whether you're trying to make big changes or small--and all big changes start out small--you have to allow yourself to succeed. Translation: Don't sabotage yourself! Some of you are rolling your eyes at this one...and yet, I know I'm not the only one who has, routinely, sabotaged herself. 

And by "sabotaging," I mean, consciously, or even sub-consciously, creating situations, or at least not stopping certain situations from creating, which I know are going to waste my time and stop my emotional development. I've dated men, or worked in jobs, which I knew were wasting my time and allowing me to luxuriate in bad habits simply because I didn't have the courage/determination/desperation to say, "Basta! This is not the person I want to be. This cannot be my life!" Or, for example, I've let myself sleep through morning workouts, on days when I knew there wouldn't be any other time to workout, and then groggily rolled out of bed at 9am, feeling like crap and pissed off at myself, which meant that I'd be eating crap food all day since, whatever, who cares, I didn't work out anyway, which meant I didn't do all the other things that day which would have made me feel good which means, Hello Shame Cycle!

(None of this, I stress, means I'm perfect now. Oh my no. It means I can see where bad behavior and bad habits will eventually lead me, IF I ALLOW THEM, so I refuse to allow them, since time is passing and I have a lot of people to nag, um I meant "help." Yes, help, right.)

So, my hint for today is about allowing yourself to succeed. Whatever you're trying to do, before you go wild, take a moment to be honest with yourself and make sure you're not, in fact, setting yourself up for disaster. Take it step by step. You don't have to change your life today, and in fact just thinking of it that way is exhausting and makes me want a mug of Scotch. So how about you pat yourself on the back for acknowleding that you want to make changes, and you understand how difficult making changes can be, and you do one small thing today which will make tomorrow easier? How about that...?

Want some help making those changes? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com!

31Ways2GetItStarted™! January 2, 2013

Day 2: Be Realistic!

Let's face it, many of us find that reality is not our friend. Reality frequently can be a huge Debby Downer. And reality is especially uncooperative if your New Year's resolutions included you engaging in behavior which either completely goes against your personality, or would require you to bend the laws of time and space in your favor. So if, for example, you decided you were going to lose a lot of weight super quickly by waking up at 5am every morning and running 5 miles...even though you 1) hate to wake up early and 2) you hate to run even more...um, I think we all know how that's going to end. Hint: The only thing that'll be getting a workout will be the snooze button on your alarm clock, while you end up loathing yourself. In fact, you end up furiously frustrated, again, with yourself, and probably give up and sink further into bad habits and self-destructive behavior. NO ME GUSTA!

On the other hand, if you were to, for example, decide to get off the subway one stop early, and take the stairs whenever possible, and not order both appetizers and entrees, and just be patient with yourself and understand that life is a progression...well, well! You might, in a month say, start realizing that your tight pants are actually lose, and you have more energy and dear God could it be, that your resolutions are actually sticking?

Thus, kids, my admonition, my plea, is "be realistic," fer f**k's sake, and appreciate that change is difficult. Change is, in fact, exhausting but you can do it...if you resolve to be realistic about how much any one person can humanly do each day and don't consciously set yourself up for failure.  

Want some help taming reality to your will? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, and become a fan of my business Facebook page, "Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consultation!

I meant to have this post written by 6am, so I could open with something like,"...it's a new day, another day to continue the difficult if rewarding task of differentiating yourself and your talents...." But considering it's almost 1pm, and I spent the whole morning helping clients, nagging clients, cleaning my hovel, explaining the concept of "free will" to other clients who seem pretty frustrated that I don't have the power to make it so just by commanding  the heavens...well, at least the apartment is clean.

Anyhoo. It is a new day--even here in Queens--and you should spend at least some of it, brooding on how you are going to differentiate your talents, whether you're a poet or attorney, and how you will use the wide world of social media to sell yourself. Because really this, besides falling in lust and eating ice cream and rubbing my feet, is what it's all about...over and over and over again. Figuring out your talents, differentiating those gifts from all the other talented people out there, and then "selling" (in one form or another) those gifts.

I, for example, have been working for weeks on these branding videos I'm doing. Sweet fancy Moses, I'm just doing some stupid videos, not re-making 400 Blows...WTF is my problem, right? Well, if you go on the Interwebs, you'll see oh, several bazillion horrendously done marketing videos. Marketing videos which make you want to move to a commune in the jungle somewhere, with a charismatic if reclusive leader wearing sunglasses and load up on Kool-Aid. No es bueno.

I'd like my videos to actually help my growing business. I'm kind of finicky that way. Weird. So I keep shooting, watching, re-shooting, writing, whining, re-writing, kvetching, even more whining. What's that? Good point, Audience: I could just do the videos naked. Excellent point. However, let's hold off on the truly misguided (i.e. "fun") choices till my soon-to-be reality show enters it's second season and I start "dating" some 19 year old good ole boy from southern Indiana or Kentucky with a history of firearms and a brand new ankle-monitoring device. #goodtimes That should be in about 4 years right? Bueno!

My point being...hmm, what is my point? I'm kind of distracted now thinking about all the bad behavior I'll be able to publicly engage in. No wait, here's my point: think about what your talents are, so you know whom your audience is and how to market to them. I have, as you may have noticed, a very specific brand. So I am involved in creating very specific videos to market that brand. Whatever it is you at home are trying to market--whether you're a poet, an attorney, an up-and-coming actor etc....what is your brand? What makes you unique? When you understand that, you'll be much clearer on understanding whom your brand appeals to, who will (emotionally) recognize your brand..and that will bring you even closer to figuring out, how you can position your brand to appeal to those people who will "get" what makes you special.

Got more questions? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com...and stay tuned for my first videos...!

Channukah Hints, Jewrican Factoids #2: Just Get Started

I'm going to title this second hint, "Just get started," since taking action, as opposed to just talking about taking action, is huge. It can and will change your life...if you allow it to do so by taking action. People truly are creatures of habit. And habits can be good or bad, but usually a little bit of both, so if you're trying to make big changes, well you're lying to yourself if you think, "Even though I haven't looked at a gym in 6 months, tomorrow, I'll start 'P90X' and become ripped, so today I can go eat some chicken fries." (ZOMG! How good do some chicken fries sound right about now? What? Am I hungover? Well, thanks for asking but no, not more than usual...HA! I'm kidding. Shut up.)
Anyway, that scenario isn't going to happen, because you're going to build up the thought of going to the gym in your mind till it's exhausting and scary. You're going to feel overwhelmed and defeated and depressed and soon you'll be drunk, in your undies, eating 'Cherry Garcia' ice cream out of the container and shopping on Zappos. (Once again: I am full of awesome ideas. Invite me to your party.)
For example, you know those people who hate, say, their job, or their weight, or their relationship, and blabber on: "Yep, this year, I'm going to [fill in the blank]." And then a year passes, and everything--including their excuses-- is still status quo? Oh, you mean all those excuses didn't help you achieve a better career or become a size 6? How weird!
Or, people who say, "Well, I hate my job, but I figure things will work out one way or another." Really? If by "things will work out," you mean, "things will stay exactly the same, or maybe just worse..." then yes, you are correct! When I, years ago, was in a horrible, stagnant long-term, long-distance relationship, wherein we had zero interest in each other, but neither one of us could bear to end it...things didn't "work themselves out." No, things got much, much, much worse till we both were forced to take action and end it. And that was every bit as fun as it sounds, but we did it.
Therefore, Coaching Hint #2 is: just get started. Take some, even a little bit, of action every day till it becomes a routine. You need to lose weight? Go to the gym for even 15 minutes. Download your favorite TV show onto your iPod and watch 15 minutes of it as you walk on the treadmill. I know, no one knows your suffering, the torment of your existence, Bono should do a concert in your honor... but you can do this. 15 minutes. And you can keep doing this, till one day you'll look at the clock and think, "Hmm, have I been here for 35 minutes? Did I actually break a sweat? That was fun!"
You want to change your job? Invest 15 minutes a day EVERY DAY in networking, working on your resume, researching opportunities, and even more networking. Does that sound like a lot? Interesting...cause I suspect you spend hours a day on Facebook. So, you have time to post photos of your kids, or of the new shoes you purchased, or to scrutinize your boyfriend's female friends' pages, or IM your friends...but not even 15 damn minutes to take the steps necessary to begin improve your life? Really? Interesting.
Just get started. Just do something today. Because there will never ever be a perfect time. Perfect excuses, sure...but a perfect time...no, not so much.
Jewrican Factoid #2: Despite my thing for those country boys from the Midwest, I have indeed been on JDate, but invariably the men would say, "Wow, so hot...but you're not Jewish, too bad." Really? You get to decide what I am? Seems like a lot of responsibility for someone so short. (Zing!)