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Welcome to Season 2!  In this podcast episode, we look at change as a sign from the Universe and plan practical, actionable steps to see where it actually takes us this year.

Links to resources/articles referenced in the episode:

• 34 Life Changing Quotes – Pinterest – New Age Spirituality
• 5 Steps to Being a Better Person Day by Day – Pinterest – Seasoned with Sassy
• How to Change Careers, According to 50 People Who Made A Pivot – Joseph Liu – April 2, 2019 – Forbes.com

FOLLOW SALLY:

• BLOG:  https://sallyinthezen.com/
• FINDING ZEN on MEDIUM:  https://medium.com/finding-zen
• MEDIUM:  https://medium.com/@sallyinthezen
• INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/sallyinthezen
• PINTEREST:  https://www.pinterest.com/sallyinthezen/

If you have any questions or comments or if you would like to hear more of something in future episodes, just send your email to sally@sallyinthezen.com or DM me on Instagram.  Check out my blog SallyintheZen.com.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello! Welcome to the Sally in the Zen podcast. I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver, taking care of my elderly folk, and always and pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. If you’re not new, and you’re returning, welcome back.

Happy 2021, everybody! Hope the New Year finds you safe and sound, in good spirits, that you all had a great holiday. We certainly did. But the peak of our holiday, I think, is when 2020 finally made its exit – stage right. Or is this stage left? I don’t remember. I’m not going to Google it at the moment. But it’s finally out of here.

I had stayed up with Zen Mum on New year’s Eve up to 12:00 just to personally confirm that, yes, 2020 was definitely gone and 2021 is here. So at midnight at 12:01, I was in bed in the New Year just really, really happy that…(sigh)… new start, new chapter. Really hoping that 2021 is a better year. So here’s hoping for the best. Sending out good vibes, positive vibes to the Universe to hopefully have a better year.

Well, welcome to Season 2. Now at the end of last year I took a little bit of time to do forward thinking for planning for the podcast. Just a rough sketch of what I wanted to talk about and how to flow with the podcast, but usually I keep it really organic. Meaning, I don’t plan it too, too strictly. I usually just flow with whatever was happening during that time organically. But there are some things I do plan ahead of time. And one of them is a series that I had actually dropped off from last year which is the Life Lesson series. Because I think those are pretty interesting. 

And I don’t know about series. I don’t know why they’re appealing to me but another idea for a series that I came across is affirmations. 

When we do affirmations, it reminds yourself of what you should be – I want to be stronger. I want to be more resilient. I want to be more abundant. And these affirmations are like life-size, chewable action steps that we can take in our everyday living to become what it is that we set our… our mind to. That’s how I see affirmations.

So once a quarter this year, I wanted to go ahead and do an episode based on affirmations that just resonates with me at that time, and pick up the Life Lessons eventually too. I have those plans out but for today’s episode we’re going to be talking about a particular affirmation that I drew inspiration from, of course, of course, if you’ve been following me all the time, from Pinterest. p*i*n*t*e*r*e*s*t.com, a smorgasbord of plenty of ideas from plenty of people out there.

So. today’s affirmation is becoming the best version of yourself. And if you’ve been following me for some time now, you know I’m pretty execution-oriented. Not just talking about lofty intangible ideas but to translate those into practical bite-size steps that we can take in our everyday living to become what you set your mind towards. And using me as a case study, I wanted to figure out a plan to take that tangible idea of becoming the best version of myself into what exactly do I need to do to make that happen. 

If you’re interested, let’s get started.

Okay, so the affirmation is – say it with me – I am becoming the best version of myself. It feels good to say that. Now, the brain teaser is how do you tangibly translate that into something you can do every single day to make that happen. And the answer to that is Google.

So how do we break this down into baby steps? So what I did was begin with Pinterest. And when I was on Pinterest, I came across a post, a pin from New Age Spirituality, and which reminds me, all the resources that I’ll be citing on today’s episode, I’ll link up in the show notes for your reference.  

The pin is called 34 Life-Changing Quotes. And when I went down the rabbit hole by clicking on their link, it took me to the website and number 10 is where I stopped. 

Number 10 says: in the end only three things matter: 

1. how much you loved 
2. how gently you lived
3. how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

And this quote is by Buddha.

So, if we chew on the last point – how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. And the answer that popped into my head about the things not meant for me was my job and wasting time on things that don’t inspire me. 

I was let go on November 11th 2020 after 7 years of working for the same company due to a restructuring in the department. And as I’ve indicated in previous episodes, we plan pretty well –  my family and I, with a lot of things. And one of the plans that we put belief behind is having an emergency fund for a rainy day. Absolutely. Absolutely critical. 

So we are blessed where we’re not too heavily impacted yet, because we have a cushion. So, people, follow our example. Hoard your nuts like a squirrel and on those off-days, you’ve got cushion.  So it’s always good to have a cushion.  

So going back to how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. It became a brain teaser for me where, is this the Universe’s way of saying that it’s time for a change? Meaning, am I going to find another uninspiring, unmotivating job that pays the bills and gives me insurance? Or am I going to finally use the rest of my time here on Earth to find work that’s meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling for me?

I wonder if the Universe is asking me to acknowledge the fact that it’s time for me to find that missing spark in loving the work that I do? So going back to that question – how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you?  At this point in time since I have no job and nothing in the horizon, I let it go. Pure and simple. I release you. So let’s see what’s next then.

While I was still on Pinterest, I found the next pin that grabbed me, and it’s called Five Steps to Being a Better Person Day by Day. And this is from Seasoned with Sassy. And the Five Steps really resonated with me.

• Step one – observe. be more aware and notice things the world is full of so much more than you can ever find on social media.
• Step two – make notes any way you can. Photograph it. Note it or even doodle it. Keep it for when it’s useful. 
• Step three – read. All that gadgetry isn’t good for you 24/7. Get back to basics and lose yourself in books.

I am guilty of this. I have no motivation to grab a book from the library because of going outside, because of COVID, right. I’m a traditionalist. I like the feel of a book in my hands. I like the smell of a book versus in a kindle audiobook. So baby steps. I might be striving towards audiobooks but I need to beef up that step on reading more books.

• Step four – be thankful. The more thankful you are, the more you attract and the more you will have. Just try it for a while before you cross it off your list. This pertains to the Law of Attraction. So you attract what you put out there. So if you put out good energy, then you get good stuff back. If you project negative energy, then you reap what you sow.   Essentially it.
• Last step – step five – Write every day. Get all of those muddled thoughts out of your head and start to make order of them. Which is exactly right.

Ever since I popped on to Medium.com in 2019 – and if you don’t know what Medium.com is – it’s a platform where creative writers of any kind of subject, any kind of niche, any kind of whatever, would go and write on this platform. And when people read your article or your stories, you get paid. And obviously the more prolific you are with your work, then the more money you can conceivably make on Medium.com.

So I have been writing but I have not been publishing them on Medium. I’ve always thought that I was never a creative person. I’m pretty analytical and pretty logical so… kind of like Spock in a way.  But I’ve been leaning towards putting fiction on paper. Writing out stories and scenarios that just, you know, come through me.  This is not to say that I want to become a professional writer. It’s just a creative outlet that I’ve been pursuing on the side of my 9-5 job but it’s making me wonder now if I can actually make a living from it.

Hm, hm, hm.

Which led me to find the next article, the next resource. And that’s Forbes.com, an article written by Joseph Liu – How to Change Careers According to 50 People Who Made a Pivot.

So hitting his highlights of the 10 lessons that he’s learned.

1. Accept that no shortcuts exist.  Sure.
2. Commit to a steady march. Which tells me that once you commit to doing something just, chip away and be consistent with it.
3. Take small actions, even imperfect ones.
4. Explore without expectation. 

Now this particular point resonated pretty well with me. Because if the test is to see if my writing is good enough over time to sustain me and my family financially, then let the chips fall where they may, basically. But no matter what –  put all of your effort – 110% of it – into it to give it a really good go at it. That’s actually my personal motto,l when I think about it. Go big or go home. You either go all the way or just don’t do it at all. That’s how I see it, anyways.  So, 

5. Embrace your unique journey. Makes sense.
6. Selectively craft your new narrative. And I like this play on words. Hm hm hm hm.
7. Avoid relying solely on your existing network. Which is true because my network is actually from my former job, and no, I haven’t reached out to any of them about my new endeavor and trying to see if I can make it as a writer. And,
8. Define your clear walk away point. I think I did earlier when I said it once I get evidence that my creative fiction writing is able to provide for us, then that is my clear walk away point. Because being manager-free and being able to do my own thing, and still be able to provide for my family, that’s ideal. That’s my ideal job.
9. Pursue energy instead of passion.  None of my career changes involves me pursuing my passion, he says. In fact I found that word passion to be someone daunting almost an unreachable standard to which I should take my career. Instead I tried to spend more time using my strengths, and doing things that interested me even if they didn’t reach the level of a true passion. I get that. 

So he says, at the end of the section, identify ways to do more work that energizes you can guide where to take your career. Even if you haven’t identified a strong passion. I get that. And then, the last point, 

10. Trust your instincts. Trust your inner intuition because it often points your career in a direction that truly honors who you are even when it flies in the face of logic. So that being said, I do. I trust my instincts quite a bit.

So after all that said, let’s use me as a test case. Let’s see if this is the Universe’s calling for me to do a pivot and pursue my passion of fiction writing. 

So the game plan I already laid out in December was to continue to find a job, a traditional job, as well as to focus more on Medium.com. And in the spirit of continuing our transparency here with my podcast family, I am going to write under a pen name, which I am not going to disclose at this point in time. Because it’s my experiment that I want to see if this is truly the Universe calling me to make a change, make a pivot for the better. Then I’m going to go ahead and do that wholeheartedly without any pressure from anybody else. I’m doing this for myself to prove to myself there is a higher power. There is indeed a purpose for my being here and I want to pursue that.  And the end game, whatever the end game is, I will definitely keep you guys in the loop, but here we go.

Well, that takes us to the end of today’s episode. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or comments, you can drop by my blog Sally in the Zen.com or send me an email at Sally@sallyinthezen.com. Feel free and depending on what it is, I may feature it on a future episode. We’ll see.

But I thank you, thank you, thank you for spending a few minutes of your time with me and trying to find Zen moments in everyday living. Happy New Year. Stay safe, stay sound and have a great week. See you next time.