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Posts tagged with “new”

How Grieving a Dream’s Loss Built Hope for a New Life

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“Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.” –Dr. Edith Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible

The loss of an unrealized dream sent me spiraling down, down into the darkness. A darkness filled with a despair and hopelessness that I had not known before.

It was safer and more comfortable for me to attribute all my grief to losing a loving mother-in-law suddenly in the beginning of 2023. Her abrupt absence not only in my life but also in my husband’s and daughter’s lives …

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Trying Something New

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“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ~Lao Tzu

During the Great Recession I lost my business. And I was devastated.

My business partner and I built the company from an idea we were kicking around over wine into a thriving brand strategy agency. We had twenty employees. We had a cool studio office. We were winning creative awards competing against agencies many, many times our size. And then—slowly at first and then so, so fast—it was over.

I remember when I called time of death. We had yet another client come in and say they couldn’t pay us …

5 Reasons to Try Something New Before You Feel Ready

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“Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. And by doing it, they’re proven right.” ~Amy Poehler

Ready isn’t a state of being, it’s a state of mind. Or maybe I should say we don’t have to be anything to qualify for the label of being ready for something; rather, it’s a mindset in which we choose to embrace the unknown. My story starts like this…

A few months into my soul-searching, I realized I had to move. Away from my unfulfilling job, away from my unhealthy habits perpetuated by my …

How to Gently Coax Yourself Out of Your Comfort Zone

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“Everything you ever wanted is one step outside your comfort zone.” ~Unknown

We’ve all seen this quote or similar ones. All the magic, growth, and transformation seem to happen there. Not everything that happens outside the comfort zone is magical, though. So, when we go wandering, leaving the safe shores, we also need to be realistic and aware that mixed in with the good, there’s also potential pain and discomfort waiting for us.

Being aware of this, how can we still motivate ourselves to try something new and to step outside our comfort zone?

On the one hand, I …

How to Keep Going When You’re Not Good at Something New

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I believe the people who are the most satisfied in life are those who feel the most alive.

We generally feel most alive when we propel ourselves out of our comfort zone and seize new possibilities for meaning, excitement, and passion. But unfortunately, we’re wired to do what feels easy and safe, and it rarely feels easy or safe to be a beginner.

No one wants to feel like Bambi taking his first wobbly first steps—weak, inept, like he could fall over at any time.

And no one wants to feel as vulnerably exposed as Napoleon Dynamite during his awkward …

A Beginner’s Guide To Trying New Things

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“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” ~Pema Chodron

I have a confession: I was really scared of trying yoga for the first time.

I know, I know, it’s not exactly bungee jumping or skydiving, activities that warrant a certain amount of fear. In fact, yoga seems downright tame by comparison. But I was still scared nonetheless.

Someone recommended the age-old practice to me to stretch out my perpetually tight hamstrings and strengthen my bad knee. But instead of jumping at the chance to heal my body through gentle, …

Embracing Change When It Challenges Your Identity

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“The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

During the worst years of my life, yoga saved me.

My life was a wreck. I was working seventy to eighty hours a week at a job that took everything from me and made me a monster. My relationship was disintegrating. I was hopped up on espresso shots and sugar. I paraded myself as the self-appointed queen of happy hour.

But the hour a week I spent on my mat put it all into perspective.

That single hour turned into several, and somewhere, somehow, …

10 Ways to Enjoy More: What’s Your Guilty Pleasure?

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“Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.” ~Leo Tolstoy

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an epic list of guilty pleasures.

As a young girl, my top three guilty pleasures included dressing up and dancing in my living room to Madonna (“Annnnd…VOGUE!”), watching over-the-top nighttime dramas with my mom over bowls of Breyer’s vanilla ice cream (“Kevin…I’m pregnant! And you’re not the father!”), and penning addictive, soap-opera-worthy novellas about the kids in my fifth grade class (they’d line up and beg …

What to Do When You’re New: In School, Work, or Your City

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“If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.” ~Buddhist saying

Moving to a new country as a kid can be traumatizing because of the challenges of fitting into a new culture and new social customs.

When I arrived in Northern California at the age of ten with my parents and younger two brothers, we were excited about being in America (home of Disneyland) but apprehensive about our how our classmates would react to us and how we would fit into the social environment of a school in a new country.

My earliest memories of …

Take a Chance: Seize That Opportunity in 4 Steps

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“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.” ~Unknown

Have you ever paused at a podium, feeling your hands shake as you speak to the senators before you? Have you ever laced your skates, shuddering as you heard your name announced as the next skater to compete? Have you ever found out about an amazing opportunity (say, a chance to post on Tiny Buddha), only to realize that you’re terrified to try?

I’ve been in all these risky scenarios, so I know how intimidating they can be. By definition, risk-taking doesn’t guarantee …

Baby Steps: A Simple Guide to Doing Something New

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“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb

Two years ago, after hearing Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, talk about setting up one’s own blog, I went home and did just that. It had been something I had thought of doing, one day, when I would get over my “fear” of technology and decide I can do this.

Her talk made it sound so easy that I sat down and went for it. And I did it; I set up my own …