Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: goals

  • What Are You Willing to Do to Create the Life You Want?

    “I want to write a book.”

    “I want to start my own business.”

    “I want to be an actor.”

    “I want to move to California.”

    “I want to retire.”

    “I want to…”

    What’s on your “Someday List?”

    You know the one…the one that has all the things you’re putting off for some day in the future. 

    I’m a wonderful procrastinator. My father used to say, “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow.” (Yes, really.) He would say it jokingly, but I took his words to heart. 

    I had always wanted to write books from the time that I wrote my first story as a kid. I started writing articles and blog posts for no pay. I wrote for the pure pleasure of creating stories and honing the craft. 

    My first paid gig was for an online review site. I earned five figures from that site…over a couple of years. 

    I continued to write for several blog sites and occasionally my articles were syndicated in several newspapers. Chicago Tribune offered me a weekly column in the local section, with no pay. I said yes. It was fun to see my articles in print. Later, I became a paid writer. This lead to other paid gigs, like writing for Ricky Martin’s parenting website. 

    So this leads to the question, what do you love so much you’d do it for free?  This is one of the clues to your passions. 

    Then the second question becomes, what are you willing to do to create the life you want? 

    I wanted to write books. 

    Someday. 

    There’s a line in Billy Joel’s song, James:

    “When will you write your masterpiece?”

    I finally started writing. I got up at five a.m. and hit the keyboard each morning. I wrote after the kids went to bed. I wrote in between selling stuff for my sales job. 

    One book. Then two. Then ten. And still writing the next one. 

    There are three things you need to create the life you want:

    Clarity.

    Commitment.

    Action. 

    Get clear on the life you want, commit to what needs to be done, then take action. 

    What are you willing to do to create the life you want? 

  • Turning a Bold Vision Into Reality

    During a lunch break at the International Center for Deafness and the Arts, I was talking to one of the teen cast members and asking her about her dreams.  “I want to be like Marlee Matlin,” she said. “I love her on the show, Switched at Birth.”

    The teen went back on to the stage to rehearse for Nunsense.  As I was sitting in the lounge, my eyes caught an essay written by a very young Marlee Matlin.  It was posted on the wall next to several pictures of Marlee during her time at ICODA.  Marlee began her acting career as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  Her original costume was now enshrined on the wall.

    “If I Was A Movie Star,” Marlee titled her essay.  Here is the rest:

    If I was a movie star, I would ride in a limousine.

    When I go out of the limousine, I would give everyone my best autograph and I would let people take my picture! OOhh, when I am on the stage, I would give everyone my best smile! 🙂

    I would have a huge house which would have mirrors all over.  I would love when people would write me letters.  I would love to send them back but it’s hard to write to all the people.

    I would love to meet all movie stars!  They are so nice!!

    I want to make movies all my life.

    Here’s my autograph:

    Signed: Marlee Matlin

    I sat and marveled at the letter. Young Marlee Matlin had manifested every single thing written in that essay.  Every. Single. Thing.  And more.  Her bold vision had morphed into reality.  Nine years before her Oscar moment, Henry Winkler told her to follow her heart and not let any barriers stop her from achieving her dreams.

    She was the youngest person to ever win the Academy Award at age 21.  Many people wrote her off as a one-time-wonder.  But Marlee held fast to the dreams that she envisioned.  And today, she has four Emmys sitting on a shelf in her beautiful home (I’m sure there are mirrors on the walls) and she’s emerged from a limousine over and over.

    Perhaps anyone reading Marlee’s essay back then might have thought it was an impossible goal.  An impossible dream.  Randy Gage, in his post, Goals That Work, says:

    So if you have a bold vision, the bold goal will seem believable to you.  If you don’t, it won’t.  It’s just that simple.  So as to whether you achieve a goal you don’t really believe – I don’t think so.  Once in a while circumstances will conspire to drag you over the finish line.  But almost all the time, you need a strong belief in a goal to have a real chance of achieving it.

     

    What about you? Do you have a bold vision you want to turn into reality?

  • Find a Mentor to Get You Where You Want to Go

     

    Yeah, that’s me on the top left, hanging on for dear life as we formed a pyramid on Christie Lake for the first time when I was a teen.  My mentor is on the bottom in the middle– Brent Greenwood.  Brent is a guy who popped into my life out of the blue,  and he taught me a lot about barefooting and pyramids in a very short amount of time.  We had only spent two days together, but he taught me something that will stay with me for the rest of my life: visualize yourself doing what you want to do from the start to the finish,  practice it, and you can make it happen.

    Brent asked me if I wanted to learn how to do a deep-water start for barefooting.  I was definitely game!  He got out a rope and we practiced on dry land.  He told me to go home and practice it in my mind and we would try it the next morning.  Brent went first and demonstrated how to hang on to the rope and then get up barefooting.  As I watched him on the water, I pictured myself doing every step.  It took the third try to make it happen, but there I was, feet first wrapped on the rope and then suddenly, standing on the water zipping along.

    As I look back on my life, I realize it has been filled with mentors every step of the way.  When we seek out those who know more than us, we can learn from them and in turn, we grow.  Every time I have a new goal or a new dream, I seek out folks who have walked the journey before me and I learn from them.  I ask questions:

    “How did you get to be where you are today?”

    “What are some of the challenges you faced on your journey and how can I learn from them?”

    “What knowledge do I need to acquire to get where I want to go?”

    “What tools do I need to use to achieve my goal?”

    As a person who is deaf, the internet has been a wonderful place to find mentors.  Blogs, Facebook and Twitter have been the tools that I use the most to get to know people.  I find that people generally do love to share their knowledge– you have to build a relationship first.  Some of the most amazing people I know who have shared their wisdom with me, I have yet to meet them face-to-face!

    So if you’ve got a dream that’s brewing and you’re not sure where you’re going, find a mentor to help guide you.  Friends will tell you what to do, mentors will help you figure out what you need to do to accomplish your dream.

  • The Power of Visualization and the Power of a Number

    People are always asking me why the number “22” is so special to me.  Before I explain why, let me ask you this: have you ever had a goal that was so burning bright that you just HAD to accomplish it?

    I started waterskiing when I was nine years old.  My father came home with an old, yellow boat.  Just like that.  Out of the blue.  He didn’t even discuss boat ownership with my mom.  Included with the boat were a pair of wooden water skis and a ski belt.  A belt, mind you.  None of those fancy molded water ski jackets.  Just a floatation belt.

    My father took my mom, sis and me out to a local lake in Indiana one evening.  None of us knew anything about waterskiing.  I don’t think my father even knew much about running a boat, much less pulling a skier.  I strapped on the skis and I was hooked.  I liked waterskiing.

    I was eleven when my parents bought the place on Christie Lake.   Dad got rid of the yellow boat and bought a cute little red boat.  After a few years of waterskiing and learning to slalom, I had a burning desire to learn to barefoot.  I kept watching the guys (including my  brother) zip around the lake on their bare feet.  There weren’t any other girls barefooting on the lake.  I picked up an issue of Waterskiingand discovered that there was a book by John Gillette called Barefooting.  I used my allowance and sent away for the book.

    I read the book from cover to cover.  I also set a goal: that I was going to barefoot by the end of that summer.  I had just turned sixteen that August.

    The first time I tried it, I planted my foot in the water and kicked off the ski.  Wham!  I tried again and again over several days.  I kept slamming into the water.  I decided to try a different method with a kneeboard.  I dragged my Mom to the local boat shop and begged her to buy a kneeboard.  It was $109– a lot of money back then.  I came home and tried out the kneeboard. The first several tries didn’t work.  I was really frustrated.  I went home and felt really discouraged.

    That night, I lay awake trying to figure out why I couldn’t do it.  I closed my eyes and suddenly visualized myself completing each step in the book.  I imagined how great it would feel to have the board drop away and the water beneath my feet.

    The next day was August 22.  The day that I finally learned to barefoot.

    So the number 22 has stayed with me since then.  Not so much because of the accomplishment, but because of the lesson behind it–the power of visualization.  If you can see yourself accomplishing something, you can do it.  I use the number 22 to remind me to stay on track, to visualize what I want to accomplish.

    How about you?  Have you ever used visualization and had it lead to success?  Do you have a special number that reminds you to accomplish something?