What are you best at? What do you enjoy most? Look for jobs that use those skills.

Ah yes. For those of us mired in the hand-wringing “what next? No, really, WHAT NEXT??!!” phase of our lives, people will tell you to look at your natural abilities and interests to help identify a career path. In theory, this sounds great. For someone who likes numbers and people, she might look into personal financial planning or accounting. For someone who loves athletic activity and health, she might look into personal training, nutrition or coaching. For someone who loves helping people and is a great counselor, she might become a social worker. For someone who loves making things, she might open an etsy shop and market her handmade crafts and art. And so on. It sounds so simple and obvious, right?

Except it’s a little too simple. Beyond the challenges inherent in completely changing career paths, this approach ignores the challenges for those of us blessed with many talents and interests. I know, boo hoo, I should throw myself a pity party and not expect anyone to join me. But hear me out, because I think this sort of advice can just as easily steer someone in the wrong direction. Because that’s what happened to me.

I’ve always burned with a passion to Change the World and do Huge Important Things. In college, I decided that the best way to change the world was to focus on public policy and politics. It turned out that my analyst and communication skills helped me thrive and get great grades. And being great felt good. And so I threw myself into a career in public policy, since it seemed an ideal mix of my natural talents and interests. I ended up with my dream job, doing important world changing projects.

But somewhere along the way it stopped being my dream and not only because of burnout. It’s because my natural abilities and interests steered me wrong. I’ve finally begin to realize, after nearly seven years in this field, that I do not want to be working in public policy. And that’s because the compliments and positive feedback aren’t enough to compensate for how profoundly wrong I find the day-to-day reality of regulatory and policy work. I may be good at policy and grant writing and excel analysis, but I don’t want to base my life around it. Even if it’s important. Even if it uses my natural skills and comes easily to me.

We all like to feel accomplished. We all like to be good at our jobs. We all like the sense of satisfaction for a job well done. And for a long time, I thrived on those feelings. But those feelings – that positive feedback from teachers and bosses and clients – led me to think I was actually enjoying myself when I wasn’t. And somehow, along the way, I ended up with a job full of tasks I don’t really like. All the compliments in the world can’t counteract my workday dread.

I’ve learned that talents can masquerade as passion and that I can’t trust my interests to guide my job search. I may love writing, but I don’t want to be a professional writer with all the stress that freelance writing can bring. I’m great at marketing but have no interest in doing it full time. I love teaching, but I don’t think I’d love dealing with public school bureaucracy (or the current job insecurity). I’m second guessing myself at every turn. My instincts are broken. I didn’t just take a wrong turn, I threw myself into it with gusto and came out lost.

That doesn’t mean that the job search is hopeless, but that the exercises in my career change books haven’t been all that helpful. It also doesn’t mean that the last seven years on this career track were a waste. Somewhere along the way I began to identify snippets of my day that bring me genuine pleasure. I tried – and discarded – enough hobbies to learn something important about myself. I’m learning to shut out all praise to try and pay attention to the parts of my day I enjoy most, even if they don’t seem job-description worthy or don’t feel very prestigious or important. Although it’s hard to acknowledge I may want something that falls outside the mainstream, it’s been even harder to work through the self-doubt born from broken dreams.

While I still want to tell career advice resources to take their colored parachute and jump out of a plane, I’m slowly learning to listen to myself.  But it’s not actually abilities and talents that led me here. Instead, I broke myself so badly that I’ve been left piecing together truths from the shattered remnants of my expectations. But for the first time, I’m starting to see truths in the wreckage, and that makes all the difference in the world.

I’ll start on my book sometime. I’ll learn photography someday. Tomorrow. Next week. Next year. After the holiday season. When I can afford a better camera. When I have more time to write and I’m not working such long hours. When I have time to learn about my camera. When I’m not so tired. Then, I’ll have time. Then, I’ll do it right. Then, I can start to be a writer. Then, I can learn to be a photographer.

It’s so easy to make excuses. It’s so easy to think about the exhausting obstacles. It’s easy to find the reasons why not. But when I allow myself to find the reasons why – and when I allow myself the luxury of just having fun while I take imperfect pictures on my imperfect camera – I make space for the occasional hint of brilliance.

Two hours on a Saturday afternoon was time enough to stretch my creativity. It was time enough to see everyday plants from an uncommon perspective. It was time enough to remember that the act of creation is important because it reminds me see life from an uncommon perspective, even if attempts at capturing those flashes of insight are artistically flawed. Those flaws are important because, even while they identify my current artistic limitations, they also hint at my potential. And every time I cultivate creativity and practice the act of creation, I give my potential the opportunity to thrive.

All photos taken at the Fullerton Arboretum

For the first time in four years, I’m having Thanksgiving at home. Although we’ve agreed to spend Thanksgivings with my in-laws in Houston, we’re staying in Los Angeles this weekend, due to one-time circumstances. Since we’re returning  to Texas next year, I’m finding myself grateful for the unexpected opportunity to savor Thanksgiving at Home. Home isn’t my parents’ house or apartment. Instead, my Thanksgiving spiritually resides at my parents’ neighbors’ house.

I grew up in Los Angeles, without any grandparents or cousins nearby. However, we always had an urban family of choice.  We aren’t linked by blood, but our bonds were cemented over generations. Our parents’ friendship started in the 1970s, with my father and our neighbors living as roommates in a cramped apartment and playing bridge together at night. After my parents moved to the neighborhood where I grew up, Dad’s former roommates bought the house across the street, allowing our urban family to thrive. I remember running away from the neighbor boys in elementary school (cooties, gross) and hating how loud and messy they were with my brother. I remember sneaking across the street to drink when the older brother threw a party in high school. In recent years, the keggers shifted to gourmet potluck football parties, dinner parties, and ethnic restaurant explorations with our significant others. And now, this will be the first Thanksgiving to welcome a third generation into our urban family, as we introduce that older neighbor boy’s newborn son to turkey and pie.

An urban family Thanksgiving always has room at the table for friends who can’t travel to their homes of origin. Despite having 17 (or more) seated for dinner, the table will be impeccably laid with perfectly matching fine china, silverware, crystal, and autumnal decor. The air outside will be crisp and the house will smell like Thanksgiving.

Turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potato, sweet potato, green bean casserole, cranberry, and pumpkin pie make any Thanksgiving feel “right.” But capturing that feeling of home is harder because each home is so unique. At our home, we have waldorf salad and the neighbor boy bakes a multitude of delicious pies (one year, I remember he baked seven. I tasted each and every one. My stomach was screaming but I didn’t care. They were that good.) At our home, the wine and conversation flow freely, often touching on sensitive topics. Like elections. Or debates about pornography and society. Or discussions about the Occupy movement. It’s home precisely because there’s always boisterous, affectionate, passionate, challenging conversations. It’s home because in the middle of the conversation, someone will take out the same gigantic bottle of expensive Armenian liquor (no one at the table is Armenian) that the neighbors got as a gift over 20 years ago, and some brave soul will have a sip or two. It’s liquor that only gets touched at Thanksgiving, and somehow that makes the harsh drink go down just a little bit smoother, or at least to feel like the perfect toast to the occasion.

When I heard they finally finished the bottle last year, I felt a twinge of sadness that I hadn’t been around to experience the end of a ritual, even though this isn’t my Thanksgiving anymore. My Thanksgiving is in Texas now. Marriage changes things. Families readjust, with some tables losing chairs and others expanding to accommodate. Instead of Armenian liquor, I get Thanksgiving contests and prizes with my husband’s family. I get an epic personalized poem that greets us upon our arrival in Texas. I get gooey butter squares, chocolate cake, and cornbread stuffing. I get new rituals that are rich with their own history and I get a new family that has welcomed me into them.

Four years ago, I joined my then-boyfriend for my first Thanksgiving with his family. I remember my nerves. I remember the warm-but-polite conversation as his family got to know me. I remember messing up the gravy and putting out the serving dishes in the wrong order. I no longer make gravy, but I’ve figured out the table layout and their traditional decorations. The conversation has moved from polite-warm into glowing-warm as I finally realized I have a true place at their family table.

But this year, I have an unexpected chance to be home. Texas is becoming home, but I never had a proper chance to say goodbye to my Thanksgiving home in Los Angeles. Four years ago, I don’t think I understood what I was losing. Today, I know exactly what I’ve gained, but some part of me still mourns the waldorf salad, pie buffet, and conversationally controversial discussions. Truthfully, I don’t even like waldorf salad, but I’m planning to eat a little bit this year. Because I can. Because it’s mine. Because I’m thankful for this single chance to be home again for Thanksgiving, so I finally have a chance to say goodbye.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a celebration that feels like home, wherever that may be, and however it may look.

When I think about the most successful people I know, I could describe them as intelligent, talented, passionate about their vision, and incredibly hard working. When I try and think about what sets them apart from plain old “successful” people, it’s not generally intelligence or talent. Intelligence and talent are part of a genetic lottery that facilitates success while CEO/Presidential/Sports superstar success requires something more: intense drive, commitment, and thousands of hours of hard hard HARD work.

For a long time, I thought that the drive and hard work followed from a person’s passion. I thought that highly successful people identify their passion – usually derived in some way from their natural intelligence and talent – and then work hard to make it happen. I assumed that passion would allow them to push through the hard, rough, daily work of making dreams come true that can often feel so removed from the ultimate dream itself. But new research suggests that’s not entirely the case.

Marshmallow Test

In the late ’60s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel performed an experiment called the Marshmallow Test, which measured the self-control of four year olds. Each child was put in a room with a marshmallow or other treat. The psychologists told them they could either eat the treat immediately or, if they could hold off for 15 minutes, they would get two treats.

Now, there are very few children who would reject two whole dessert-like treats. But there are lots of children who wouldn’t be able to wait for 15 whole minutes while one dessert stared up at them from the table. After a few minutes (or seconds), many of the kids gave in and ate the marshmallow. But many didn’t.

Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow — the “hot stimulus” — the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from “Sesame Street.” Their desire wasn’t defeated — it was merely forgotten. “If you’re thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then you’re going to eat it,” Mischel says. “The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.”

However, even more interesting than noting the self-control distraction strategies of four year olds is noting how self-control influenced these children’s long-term success.

When the researchers subsequently checked in on these same children in high school, it turned out that those with more self-control — that is, those who held out for 15 minutes — were better behaved, less prone to addiction, and scored higher on the SAT.

As a child who savored her Halloween candy through December by only eating a piece a day, I felt pretty darn gratified by this marshmallow research. Since I clearly mastered the art of delayed candy gratification at an early age, I have an obvious step up on achieving great things.

So why haven’t I achieved something great? Why did I stall out at “pretty darn good” in my career? Why do I find myself daydreaming on the job when I should be using that self-control to work harder? Why do my attempts at workday self-control sometimes go so clearly wrong? Although the fun lure of the internet black hole is clearly a factor, the bigger factor is mental strength. And as my burnout became more serious and prolonged, so did my distracted periods.  It became harder to find the right “get to work” music or goal-oriented distractions (if you work hard for 30 minutes, you can go to Starbucks) to psyche myself up again to focus on work. I started thinking I was a failure who had no self-control.

Self-Control and Goals

This past Saturday, I did a slightly crazy thing: I walked across the City of Los Angeles. For those of you who know Los Angeles, you know it’s a great big sprawling city. (No, I will not call it a suburb-city. L.A. has its own suburbs and its own strange internal urban logic, even if it’s not a densely populated urban logic.) Every year since 2006, a local journalist and blogger has organized the Great Los Angeles Walk, an urban hike from downtown to the beach. It’s not a race or a fundraiser – jut a chance to see the city from a new perspective and explore some of the history along the way. This was my third year participating, and by far the hardest. Whereas previous years’ routes were around 17 miles, this year was 19-ish. And those last 2-ish miles nearly did me in.

There was not a single step of the last 2 miles in which I didn’t want to cry or give up. I have never been in more pain in my adult life (and I’ve been in a lot of pain.) But actively choosing to take another step when your hips are screaming, your knees are swollen, your feet are literally bruised from 17 miles of pavement pounding, and your thighs are sending burning flames of pain throughout your body is different than suffering through an illness. I chose this insanity. I committed to this achievement. By the time I made it 17 miles, I was making it to the end, d*mnit. Even if the last 2 miles took an hour (they did.) Even though I actually had to hide tears every time a stoplight turned green and my brief intersection respites ended (we caught every stoplight, and they never stopped for long enough).

A mile is between 2,000 to 2,500 steps. Given that I was barely shuffling along by the end of the walk, let’s call my mile 2,500 steps. I had to recommit to my goal for each and every step of that final 5,000 step journey. There was not a single step that didn’t send excruciating spasms of pain throughout my body. There was not a single step during which I didn’t consider quitting and taking the bus home. But I didn’t quit. I made it. I walked all 19+ miles of the journey from downtown Los Angeles to the beach.

Self-Control versus Grit

It’s clear I have some form of self-control. I didn’t eat my childhood Halloween candy. I made it though the longest Great Los Angeles Walk yet. But I’m still not a professional success. Not in the Madeline Albright, Venus Williams, or Madonna sense. I am good enough, but not great. I have intelligence, talent (though maybe not for tennis), self-control, and a whole lot of privilege. So what’s the difference between me and these extraordinary women? It turns out that incredible achievements may require even more intense focus than “self-control” can provide:

Intrigued by what qualities would most accurately predict outstanding achievement, Harvard researcher Angela Duckworth picked up where Walter Mischel left off. As she outlines in this TEDx talk, Duckworth found that self-control is an excellent predictor of your ability to follow through on certain types of difficult tasks — staying on your diet, studying for a test, not checking your email — but it’s not the most important factor when it comes to predicting success at “extremely high-challenge achievement.”

…

Duckworth isolated two qualities that she thought might be a better predictor of outstanding achievement:

1. The tendency not to abandon tasks from mere changeability. Not seeking something because of novelty. Not “looking for a change.”

2. The tendency not to abandon tasks in the face of obstacles. Perseverance, tenacity, doggedness.

Duckworth boiled these two characteristics down to a quality she called “grit,” defined as “the perseverance and passion for a long-term goal,” and set about testing it as a predictor for outstanding achievement.

Here’s a recent New York Times article summarizing Duckworth’s research:

“People who accomplished great things, [Duckworth] noticed, often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take.”

Grit seems to be bigger than temporary self-control. Self-control is imperative for success, but grit may be necessary for extraordinary success. If I try and find examples of grit in my own life, I can find intense periods of focus and commitment, followed by a mental nap. I find it very easy to remain committed for a few months. But then I need change and new motivation to recommit.

Unfortunately, grit seems to be connected to the long-term slog, without any major lags or shifts in focus. Grit means laser-like focus on a long-term goal. It’s more than learning to ignore the internet and focus on the task at hand. It’s about ignoring other goals in pursuit of something great, in addition to ignoring the internet, over the course of many years. And my current career burnout is telling me that I’m not willing to forgo all other goals in pursuit of my current job… unlike the people who are succeeding and surpassing me at the highest levels of the company.

Success on Your Own Terms

Burnout and depression can sneak in and steal your self-esteem. They convince you that you’re a failure because you can’t work hard enough to excel like the CEO and other rapid climbers.  It’s easy to think that I’m lazy when I compare myself to their laser-like gritty focus. But I’m not lazy, I’m just using self-control to succeed where many of them are using grit. And I’d like to hope that grit can be situational, and not just inherent.

This weekend was an important reminder that I can be as strong as I need to be. I can push myself well beyond everyday physical or mental limits to achieve great things. My success was entirely due to my mental perseverance and my willingness to scream back at my body “No! Of course you can do more! You’re nearly there! You’re not quitting now! You’re getting to the end and having a beer. A beeeeeeeeeeer. Beer. Yum. What kind of beer will I have? A big cold one. Mmmmm.”

It was half perseverance and half distraction (as an adult, I find beer more compelling than marshmallows.) But regardless of what IT was, I have it.  I have the drive and mental fortitude to achieve success, at least with short-term goals that will all hopefully lead to long-term achievement.

I could stay in my job and continue to achieve career success. I can set and achieve the necessary short term goals. But now, I want more. I’m starting to think about making huge changes that will require mental reserves as deep as than those I drew upon for the Great Walk of Los Angeles, but that are exercised consistently. Every day. For years and years and years. I want grit, and I’m not sure I have it.

And that’s where I hope passion comes in. I may not have grit, but I definitely have intelligence, talent, a willingness to work really hard in multiple short bursts, and a new sense of passion about my career. It’s been a long time since I thought of my job as something more than a good paycheck, great coworkers, and some interesting projects. I’ve been missing vision. While I have a sense of purpose, I’ve been missing passion. But as I’ve worked through my burnout and tried to identify what comes next, I finally have passion and excitement again. I have a real belief that my new work will be important, meaningful and Big Picture fulfilling, which makes me think I have the gritty commitment to make it happen. I can identify a lot of the Little Picture day-to-day irritations, challenges and drudgery, but I hope that self-control combined with passion can approximate the qualities of true grit.

I will always be happy and thankful for career success. However, I haven’t given up on being extraordinary. Which, of course, I will be defining on my own terms.

Thank you to Buster Benson, whose Camp Mighty presentation about the science behind habit formation helped inspire this post.

Yesterday, a girlfriend sent me the article “Why Millennial Women Are Burning Out at Work by 30.” Shortly thereafter, another friend emailed the same article. When I jokingly mentioned needing a support group, both of them non-jokingly agreed.

There are problems with the article. But certain paragraphs walloped me with a truth-punch that left me reeling.

“It seems relaxation is something Millennial women have never experienced. One reason that women are burning out early in their careers is that they have simply reached their breaking point after spending their childhoods developing well-rounded resumes. “These women worked like crazy in school, and in college, and then they get into the workforce and they are exhausted,” says Melanie Shreffler of the youth marketing blog Ypulse.”

I remember my seventh grade history teacher telling me my grades would matter for college. When I raised my hand and questioned him (um… they only look at high school transcripts) he replied with “Well, if they’re comparing two similar applicants, they may look back at your middle school transcripts to make the deciding call.”

I was thoroughly Type A before Mr. Seventh Grade History teacher lied to us. And even though I knew he was wrong, just in case he wasn’t, I started grooming myself for college. I started preparing for the scholarships I’d need to attend a private university. I made sure I had straight As. I learned to play the oboe. I went to a performing arts high school and made it into an award-winning vocal group. I ran the high school volunteer organization. I had a job starting at age 14. I kicked bum on my SATs and APs.

I didn’t slow down when I hit college.

I didn’t slow down when I hit life.

I didn’t slow down when my job expected me to regularly work in fire-drill mode, 10 hours a day, for over 6 years.

I didn’t slow down until life forcibly slowed me down because I got hit with a slew of stress-related illness. I’d fight off an illness, get back to work, and get hit even harder the next time. Eventually the downward cycle simply bottomed out and left me physically wrecked. It made me finally take stock. So I started looking around for new jobs. I started searching for something better, but all I found was the same stress repackaged in an even less attractive office setting. (Currently, I have amazing co-workers and get to do important work. The idea of simply transferring the stress to a place with less interesting people and less meaningful work left me even more bereft than before.) As the Forbes article notes, “out of the frying pan and into the kettle” isn’t exactly a sustainable solution. (Also, I think Forbes meant “into the fire,” since I’m not sure what sort of food would leap from a frying pan way up into a closed kettle. But moving on. I mentioned the article wasn’t perfect).

“Many are turning to therapists and prescription medicines, as well as explore alternative remedies, including acupuncture, yoga, and even psychics.”

I’ve never visited a psychic (except for that one time in college and I told him he was only allowed to say nice things) but I’ve made the rounds at my local yoga studios, acupuncturist, therapist and various woo-woo hippie alternative treatment options. I have fully embraced natural healthy eating. There was a month this summer when I got three massages, simply to manage the knotty back pain.

In other words, this article hit home, for me and a lot of other smart, “successful” women.  Like many, I’m not willing to drop out of the work world. I’ve never wanted to be a stay at home Mom. I am terrible at chores, cleaning and errand running, so the mere thought of being responsible for a baby and housework makes me panicky. However, when the stress got bad, I actually considered using future motherhood as an excuse to drop out of the work world because I figured I’d hate it less than working (Yes, I know that’s terrible. That’s why I’m not planning on doing it.) But the reality of our post-crash economy makes dropping out for children* an even worse idea than before. Watching my husband navigate two layoffs since 2008 convinced me that I always need to maintain marketable, economically valued skills. Two incomes are better insurance against life’s vagaries than unemployment benefits.

So where does that leave me and all these 20- and 30-something women? We want careers. Many of us need careers, thanks to educational debt. But we want something different than what we have. We don’t want a job where:

“The reality for women who want to work in PR is that they are going to be working with 24 catty [women] who will backstab and compete with them. No one will say thank you. You will eat lunch at 5 p.m. It sucks and it’s hard work.”

I do not want to look back on my life and describe it as “it sucked and it was hard work.” Because I don’t mind the hard work, but I really mind the part where it sucks. I refuse to believe that we can’t create supportive work environments where cattiness and backstabbing aren’t the norm. (To all the ladies living with backstabbing and bitchiness – please find another job now. Jump out of that frying pan and into a pot of boiling water, for all I care. At the very least, you deserve respectful co-workers while you figure out the rest.) The problems of suckitude are far deeper than cattiness. I have great co-workers, but that doesn’t mean I have adequate support or that all of us aren’t overworked.

Ultimately, the article didn’t offer many answers. It mentioned the oft-touted (yet nearly always-elusive) flexible hours. And for those of us without flexible hours, it talked about managing expectations because it’s unrealistic to assume a job will fix all your problems or a job won’t be a ton of hard work. But I don’t think that’s the problem. I think we’ve been “doing it all” for far too long in jobs that demand we live breathe and sleep with our work. We are expected to be well-dressed, well-groomed, well-rested, and high performing at work, at home, when we entertain, and with our families. I barely have energy to slather on makeup during the morning commute and I sometimes catch myself glaring at the men in the office who didn’t need to blow dry their hair or find time to fit in exercise in order to be seen as Senior Management material. We’ve been selling our health and our lives for a paycheck – a nice paycheck – but there are no paychecks that are worth yet another ER visit or another pill to deal with chronic insomnia.

“Ultimately these women are going through the difficult realization that they may have to redefine their goals and come up with different measures of success in order to thrive in the corporate world”

It left me thinking that maybe the corporate world has failed us in more ways than just completely ruining the economy and buying off our politicians. It has ruined us and bought our acquiescence with promises of prestige and economic security. Prestige and economic security are great things, but I’m no longer convinced they’re enough. And I don’t want to believe in a world where burnout, stress, and backstabbing are the norm. And so maybe, just maybe, we need a different business paradigm. One in which women aren’t pitted against each other for scarce positions among men but in which we support each other and foster collaborative ventures. One in which we don’t have to work three times as hard as anyone else from age 13 to 31 in order to succeed. One in which we respect people who say No when they’re overloaded, who pace themselves for the career marathon instead of a year of 10pm nights, and for whom vacations aren’t a dirty word.

I’m still sorting through it all myself. The article didn’t offer any great answers and neither can I. Burnout is real for both men and women, but the last 18 years of trying to prove myself better than the men so I could make it nearly as far have all caught up with me. I’m exhausted and apparently in good company. I’ll be attending a support group (aka happy hour) with the women who emailed me this article and we’ll commiserate a bit. But I hope, even more than commiserating, we can start to envision something better from our working lives. I want us to take all that energy and passion and long hours and start building a more sustainable paradigm for work. I want to see women thrive in women-owned small businesses and I want to see us bring our own particular insights into the corporate structure and processes. I want to see us fight for compassion and success in our work lives. I’m not sure yet what that looks like, but I am sure that we are all capable, competent, and committed enough to figure it out and fight to make it real.

*To be clear, I think being a stay at home mother is an incredibly important job and role. It’s just not for me. For me, it would be “dropping out.” For you, maybe it’s something akin to dropping in and finally finding your place in the world.

I’ve been thinking about how to live a smaller life. How to cull and edit and get to my most essential self. How to toss out the clutter that has taken over my office space and make sure I never again allow expensive, unused Stuff to pile up in my life. How to live out of a small closet that’s filled with clothes I love instead of a large closet stuffed with things I hate. How to resist the urge to want a big home, when I’m happy with our small apartment and small utility bills. How to aim for cozy, warm, and lived-in over pristine and expansive. How to treasure the small unexpected moments and not just the grand adventures.

How to stop aiming for everything, so I can focus on the right things. Which aren’t the I’m-Going-To-Be-President-And-Change-The-World goals anymore, but the I’m-Going-To-Change-This-Corner-Of-The-World… so I can still find time to have lunch with my mom. At the neighborhood cafe on the corner. Where the barista knows my name and I leave her a large tip. Because it’s MY corner and my world, and not just a place I’m passing through.

I’m learning that my Big life is slowly killing me, but that I’m still scared about small. Small feels like going backwards. Small feels like failure. Small feels like getting trapped. Choosing small feels like I failed at Big, and not that Big failed me. Big job, big vacation, big stress, big medical bills… and yet it feels like I should be able to do it all, all the time. Big expectations. Oversized and overwraught. It feels like my burnout and depression are my fault. “I was so lucky,” I think to myself. “I’ve been given privilege with my birth and education and opportunity, and those deserve to be honored with something huge. A huge life. A life of meaning and purpose and accomplishment.”

I’m trying to learn how to redefine success. How to choose making less money and embrace less prestige, because all that prestige and pressure got too Big. It became too much. Somewhere along the way, my Big life crowded out the small things that really matter. I want time to help a girlfriend grow her business. I want time for a spontaneous visit with my Mom. I want time to sit in our sparkle-lit back patio with my husband. I want time to exercise and cook and laugh and occasionally do nothing much at all.

I was lucky enough to attend Camp Mighty this past weekend in Palm Springs, where I gathered with 125 bloggers, artists, writers, social media specialists, and others to all learn how to live our best lives and be our best selves. (Yes, it was like living in the middle of an Oprah show for three days. I even got to experience genuine Oprah inspiration from Brian Piotrowicz, who was an actual Oprah Producer, and may-as-well-be-Oprah-2.0 inspiration from all the other speakers. I’ll probably talk a bit more about them in upcoming posts, particularly since I’m generally wary of Inspiration but this conference just blew me away.) I spent weeks beforehand trying to write a life list, which really meant I spent weeks slamming into my depression and being unable to imagine a new future for myself. It was a dark hole of panic. A huge gaping chasm where Big had barreled through and ripped out all sense of possibility. But when I finally spoke my dreams aloud at Camp – when I finally put words to my secret wisps of hope in front of 25 other people – I actually made them real. I gave them substance and voice. I claimed them. And in claiming them, I started to reclaim myself.

My dreams are huge. So huge that sometimes I can’t see past the fear and the failure. So huge, that I can only start small. Small steps. One foot in front of the other towards a small life which is defined by daily progressions of small genuine moments and meaningful action.

I need to make things small, in order to make space for something huge.

Many of you probably followed me here from my last blog, in which I wrote about planning a meaningful, affordable, independent-minded wedding. I started this blog because I needed a wedding-free space to explore new writing topics. But I had one wedding-related post left to write. I’ve finally written it, and feel like I can close that chapter of my life.

Today, I’m honored to be sharing my final wedding post on A Practical Wedding.

Chapter closed. New chapters and new stories to follow.

Our friend Mike made an amazing short film called My Friend Peter, starring Mike and a monkey puppet (he had the idea well before that puppet movie with Mel Gibson. Grr.) Anyhow, it’s pretty darn amazing and won all sorts of festival awards.  And now he’s trying to fund his feature film with the best kickstarter campaign I’ve ever seen. Because for just $10, Peter the Monkey puppet will make you a personalized thank you video. Seriously. Here’s the monkey singing a thank you-esque song for a donation from me and my husband.

Best kickstarter campaign ever, or best kickstarter campaign EVER? I think we could all use a little bit more monkey puppet singing in our lives, especially on Wednesdays, so I had to share.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

- Albert Einstein

I finally quit Weight Watchers. Well, if I’m honest, I unofficially quit six months ago when I stopped paying a darn bit of attention to what I was eating. But I kept paying for Weight Watchers, as if that $17.95 monthly expense (for the online program) would magically take off the pounds all on its own. But for some reason, despite by best expenditures, the dollars were not counteracting the calories. Apparently that’s not how it works and you actually have to follow the healthy eating and exercise plan. Boo.

That’s not to say Weight Watchers doesn’t work – in fact, I think it’s the best healthy living plan I’ve ever used. It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change (yes, I wholeheartedly drink the Weight Watchers kool aid… made with Splenda, of course. Though I hate Splenda, so maybe I’m drinking the Weight Watchers Diet Coke. Or lemon-infused water.) Seriously though, they just give you a set number of “points” each day instead of calorie counting. The points incentivize good choices (like fruit) over less healthy choices (like cake) and give you extra food points if you exercise (for more cake). Because the point allocations actually push you towards relying on whole foods instead of “diet” foods, make you focus on portion control, and because you get “splurge” points each week for treats (aka wine and chocolate) it’s a plan I believe in and can philosophically get behind.  I’ve used Weight Watchers in some form or another for the last five years now, and it’s changed my life. I understand portion sizes now. I understand that certain foods are fine as treats and not as daily lunch (…and dinner).

However, I hate counting points. Hate hate HATE  counting and writing what I eat, day in and day out. Which means, I stick with the plan for six months or so, get to feel smugly superior in my commitment to healthy living, and watch it all slip away during a stressful week in which my inner three-year old throws a tantrum and demands cake and chocolate and screams that she’s only three and doesn’t know how to count beyond three so screw your darn point counting system.

I have a lot of stressful weeks. I have a lot of three-year-old episodes. Thankfully, since I’m 31, I know how to behave like an adult on the outside. But on the inside I’m stomping on the floor and wailing like a banshee that I will not eat my broccoli and I will not take my hand out of the cookie jar. This does not bode well for point counting.

And yet, I keep returning to the program. I know it works. I’ve used it to drop multiple dress sizes. I’ve used it when I hit my danger weight (which I can always identify by the tightness on my largest pair of pants) to get back into a place of balance from a place of gorging. But I still hate it. I know it’s supposed to be a lifestyle and not a diet… but I just can’t get enthusiastic about a lifestyle that makes me count points from now until I die. The thought of 60 more years (fingers crossed) of point counting makes my inner three-year-old whiny.

So as of yesterday, I realized I can’t do it anymore and canceled my account. It clearly isn’t working for me, on an everyday basis. It works for a lot of people, and I envy them, because it provides a clear structure for healthy balance. But after five years, I think I’m finally done. I think I have to listen to my own body instead of having an external structure. I need to have a conversation with my inner three year old and ask her if she’s really hungry or just stressed out and reactive. I need to feed her good food – real food that doesn’t come from packages – in normal portion sizes.

This is all a little terrifying. It’s like jumping off the healthy living plane without a parachute and asking the birds how they fly as you plummet to earth (birds being those slim ladies with yoga mats and raw food diets and strangely serene faces.)  But if counting doesn’t work foe me – and it doesn’t – something else might. And it’s my job to find it.

Yesterday, I started a six-week life detox plan recommended by KC in the comments. The book Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again is pretty amazing, and focuses on gradually phasing out sugar, caffeine, gluten, and dairy, and adding in stretching, exercise, and sleep strategies. Ever since my breakdown this summer, I’ve been struggling with pain and lethargy that have no discernible causes. I’m exhausted. I’m done. I need help. And it seems this sort of detox (and life plan) will actually help me get energy again and get rid of these chronic issues.

I’m terrified. And the three-year-old is panicking and screaming up a storm since I took away her sugar. I’ve been off sugar for one day and she is clearly not happy about losing her cookie fix (and apparently her fix from anything that comes in a jar, package, or box. Sugar is sly like that. It gets in your boring bran breakfast cereal and your tabasco sauce.) She’s making me dizzy and nauseous and tired and unfocused. But her tantrum makes 31-year-old me even more committed to figuring this out and pressing on with a solution for life. I’m having genuine sugar withdrawal, which creeps me out. I want the mature rational self in the driver’s seat for my health, not the three-year old candy addict. And when I finally know I’m back in control, I’ll be able to appreciate the occasional glass of wine or piece of dark chocolate without having a tantrum-relapse (and by occasional, I obviously mean Saturdays.)

But still. There’s no parachute to save me from the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Halloween invasion. Except for myself and my own conviction that I can live a better life than the stressed out, pain-filled, sleepless mess that I’m currently struggling with.