Spring into SPRING!

Spring is a great time of year. We all start to defrost and remember what it was like to be outside again. It's a time of famous racing carnivals and longer 12 hour days. A time for plants to blossom and show us their leaves again. A time to toy with the beach and flirt with swimming again. Picnics and play dates. Road trips and holiday planning. It's like Spring is to Summer what Christmas Eve is to Christmas. It's the anxious bit where things are noticeably changing and growing and becoming what will be the set up for yet another New Year!



I love Spring. I love the temperature of it. Not too hot, not too cold. I love that feeling that you can plan to be outdoors on weekends again. I love that we finally made it through winter, again. It reminds me of rooftop bars in Melbourne starting to return. Outside cinemas and festivals have already started advertising. This makes me happy.

Today is a good day! WELCOME BACK SPRING! I missed you xx

The Pale Blue Dot.

Looking for some perspective? Well here it is. This is a great video to bring our self important lives back to some form of reality.



These sort of films are very humbling and I love it. We could all be a little bit more humble at times, even me :-)

"To me, it underscores the need to deal more kindly with one and other and preserve and cherish the pale blue dot; the only home we've ever known."

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.

This is a quote from Frank Tibolt that I read on a blog recently and it reminded me of what I was pondering over the weekend.

My brother bought a block of land last weekend. He's building a house. He has always been the type to leap into action and never waits to do proper due diligence or analyses of any decisions, big or small. As a result he has a small family, a home (which he will now sell to build a new one), a car, and happy little life of achievements. He wins some and he loses some, but he always learns a great deal.

I am quite the opposite. I see him buying a house and get inspired for about 15 minutes. I look on realestate.com for a place of my own and work out how much I can borrow. I analyse how this would impact my budget and work out what I would need to sacrifice. I try and find a mortgage broker and about then it gets too hard. I then put it all away and go get some food to eat and watch TV. It never turns into action for me. Ever. As a result it has taken me about 6 years of inspiration waves in order to make a plan to go overseas to travel. And I STILL haven't booked it yet. My brother did that at 21. Just did it. Borrowed the money and went. Paid it off when he got back and moved on to the next thing.

Sometimes it takes me so long to take action that I often wonder if I'll ever do anything!! I'm being dramatic of course but you get the point.

I figure we're all on the spectrum of consideration to action. Some of us consider things for much longer, others will just do it. My attempts are often made to stop getting into a situation where I feel I made an error. I am avoiding failing at all costs. Problem is I think failing is really important. It's when we learn the most and have the best stories to tell.

How action orientated are you? do you just leap right in? I'm thinking about leaping a bit more in the future, but I'm going to ponder it a bit more first.

Wouldn't it be nice...

One day I hope to be as helplessly happy as these Otters. It teaches me almost everything I need to know about us as animals...

If this doesn't make you smile, nothing will.

Picking your battles

I've found in my experience, knowing when to fight a battle and when to leave it is a really difficult but important skill to learn. I also think we can only learn this through trial and error. I've been part of discussions where someones career within a company has literally been written off in a single conversation. This may be a scary prospect for some people, but I find it incredibly humbling. I believe it is important to never consider your role as an entitlement.

I have always thought that I will be in employment with a company for as long as two conditions are met:
1. I'm still interested in my role and actually want to be there.
2. The company I work for still feel I am creating value and worth the money I'm paid.

I read a quote today which really inspired my thinking on this.
The squeaking wheel doesn't always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.
- Vic Gold

I couldn't agree more. When working out whether or not a battle is worth fighting, I run it through a quick filter. Specifically:
1. Is the battle based on a values or moral issue which is important to me?
2. Will the battle significantly change the perception of me professionally and then how?
3. Am I willing to live with the consequences of this if it weren't to go well or the way that I expect?
4. When I look back at this in 5 years time, will I be happy with the way that I acted or spoke in this instance?

This is my filter and I think it has worked well for me in the past. Have you got a filter and has the track record been good?

I guess I also use a similar filter for battles in a social context. Just change the above as appropriate. I do find I take more risks when it relates to a social context. I wonder if that means I value my professional reputation more than how my friends perceive me, or whether I'm just more comfortable with confrontation and being honest with how I feel with my friends. Something for me to ponder more on I guess.

Stuff that matters.

I was reading through my blog list today and saw the below YouTube clip.



Basically (if you don't have the 10 minutes), it's a film of soliders coming home early and surprising their families. The expression of the first girl says it all. I was watching this film right before one of the most difficult conversations I would have to face this month and indeed probably this year. It really put into perspective what really matters and what we should really value in life. I managed to go into the meeting very calm with a clear perspective on how important this meeting REALLY was.

People who we deeply care about and obviously where this is mutual are so important for us. For some reason, as a human, we can't just latch on to anyone, we actually need to have 'our people' to be happy. Just goes to show the importance of long lasting deep relationships and the effect it can have on us when we are seperated for a while. There is something about seeing someone who is so important to us after a long period that comforts us and brings overwhelming joy.

If you don't have anyone that makes you feel this way I suggest you focus more on building those relationships. It's the best feeling in the world.