I got me a case of analysis paralysis!

Hi all,

Today I’m suffering from a good old case of analysis paralysis.

I’m busy making plans for my little biz at Little Grasshopper; researching the pathways to get moving on said plans and coming up with nothing concrete. You see, I’m making myself even more confused the deeper I look into them. I’m coming up against barriers I didn’t expect and it is somewhat off-putting. I can feel myself becoming slightly frustrated and right now, it would be easier to put those plans on the back burner until new information comes to light (this could be months – maybe never!).

But putting scary or difficult tasks into the ‘too hard basket’ is not helping me turn my dreams into reality and it’s certainly not going to make me action anything. Eventually, I would probably just forget about those plans because they looked ‘too hard’ and move onto the next, less challenging, task – always feeling like maybe I’ve missed opportunities.

Admittedly, this tactic has worked very well for me in the past – in all aspects of my life. It has given me the perfect excuse not to succeed and take responsibility for my own happiness. If I always chose the safe options, I’d never fail. Simple.

So now, I do a couple of very simple things when I’m faced with a challenging decision or action. I look inside and identify my gut feelings. I’ve learnt only over the last few years to trust my intuition, and admittedly I still have times when I doubt myself. Most of my dilemmas stem from the same old ‘do I stick with the safe, known option; or do I take a leap of faith and see where it takes me?’. Usually, my gut instinct on this has been spot on. I just have to listen and move on it.

I also force myself to take some action on my plans. It might only be a ‘baby step’ or an adapted version of my original plan, but it is movement nonetheless. People who move quickly on their ideas, regardless of success or failure, are more likely to get what they want than the person who sits writing a perfectly edited 60 page business plan that’s taken them one year to complete. By the time that business plan is ready to implement (and it still might not work) the action person has tried and tested various situations without investing too much time into the minute by minute, detailed planning. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good plan as much as the next person. Planning is integral to running a business. I just try not to spend too much time on the analysis of the plan and just go ahead and put it into action, put it out there to see if it works, then go back to the next phase of planning and refining.

So today, I’m taking my analysis paralysis and throwing it out the window. I’m going to take a break from looking at my plans for a few hours, enjoy some time with my boy, and come back to it with fresh eyes tonight. Then I’m going to take some action. My gut is already telling me to look in another direction for my answers, so that’s where I’ll go. What’s the worst that could happen?

Do you ever suffer from over analysing situations and then becoming stuck? I’d love to hear how you overcome this in the comments section below.

Enjoy your Easter and stay safe!
Lisa

Do you pay enough attention to the good things?

Happy day before the long weekend, everyone!

I’ve been using a gratitude journal app on my iphone for around a year now and I have to say, I love it. I love that I can add photos and rate my day out of five stars. I love that it gives me warm fuzzies every time I browse through my gratitude history. I especially love that it reminds me to stop and take a good look around once in a while and be grateful for my life and the smallest of things in it.

As I was busily tapping into my gratitude journal last night, I got to thinking. It’s all very well  to record what I’m grateful for in my life – it’s a meaningful way of recognising the beautiful moments – but have I actually shared my sense of gratitude with the people I’m writing about in my cute little app? Do they know I’m so very grateful for their smiles and their encouragement? Have I been selfish to keep these expressions of gratitude all to myself? I am a profuse ‘thanker’, but do I actually tell the people I’m lucky enough to have in my life and that I am grateful for them, their actions, their support, their love and for simply knowing them?

I came to a conclusion that maybe I don’t tell them enough.

So, I am now determined to recognise the special moments and people in my day and be present enough in the moment to not just say thank you, but tell them in those sincere moments that I am grateful for them and all that they represent.

In the words of the talented Australian artist, Josh Pyke, in his song ‘Middle of the Hill’ 

 “I don’t pay enough attention to the good things when I’ve got ’em”.

In the busyness of our lives, it’s so very easy to fall into the habit of not coming up for air and appreciating the good things we all have. Go for it!

If you would like to get yourself a smartphone app and join me in expressing and journaling your gratitude take a look at Gratitude Journal – the original by Happy Tapper or any other of the great apps available for smartphones. It’s an activity that’s well worth it!

Do you regularly express gratitude for your life and the people in it? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!

Enjoy your afternoon!

Lisa

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What did you do today to make the world a better place?

Good evening all,

Like most children, when I was younger my mum used to ask when I got home from school how my day had been and what I had done that day. And like most children, I regularly answered with “good” and “nothing much”. I conveniently ignored her raised eyebrow and thought my monotone responses were quite satisfactory, thank you very much.

So, now karma bites back.

My son, at the ripe old age of 5, is now responding with the very same things I came out with as a child – albeit an older child. When I excitedly pick him up from his carer’s or preschool and ask him what he did that day, I get a whole lot of “nothing” or “I don’t know”. I gently prompt him with “You must have done something, sweetie. Think back. What did you do outside? You must have done something outside.”

I know his sweet 5 year old brain has in fact most likely forgotten part of his day and that’s ok. But please little man, just give me something!

I recently read an article in ‘The Hoopla’ that got me thinking about my approach to this situation. Instead of asking her children what they had done that day, a friend of the author asked them how they had made the world a better place that day. I immediately identified with this excellent question (as a teacher whose passion lies in social education and responsibility) and decided then and there to ask my son the same question the next day. Of course, it required some explaining on my behalf, but we got there and since then I have had some beautiful, heartfelt answers such as “I said good morning to Amanda today” or “I smiled at Jayden”.

So, in honour of making the world a better place, this afternoon I explained the rules of a week long project to my gorgeous Year 2 class. Although they are already kind and considerate to each other I want them to widen friendship circles, feel how intrinsically good it feels to help others with a simple act or gesture and understand that making the world a better place starts with them. Each child pulled a classmate’s name out of a hat and was sworn to secrecy about the identity of their ‘secret buddy’. Their job for the next week is to do small things for their buddy – give them a smile, tell them they did a good job or even write them a card – all without directly revealing their own identity. At the end of the week we will have another circle time and each child will guess who their buddy was. The excitement in the classroom this afternoon was palpable and I am very much looking forward to seeing how our little project goes. It’s a small step in the bigger scheme of things, but to me that’s where it all starts.

What did you do today to make the world a better place? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!

Have a beautiful night.

Lisa

Ice cream makes the world a better place, doesn’t it??

My Imaginarium

Happy Sunday afternoon everyone!

When I was a child my father often used to take my little brother and I out camping on the weekends he had us. I recall with great fondness the times when my brother and I made up silly songs to the popular music of the time – how could anyone forget Salt-n-Pepa’s ‘Push it’??- and laughed ourselves silly skimming stones by the river and dancing to more made up songs about our cat, Chocky – sung to the tune of ‘In the middle of the night’ by Billy Joel.

The imagination of a child is a wondrous and in-exhaustive thing. There have been times in my adult life when I have felt abandoned by it completely – believing that it may have run for the hills. Similarly, there have certainly been times when I have wished that it – and its friend ‘Intuition’- would just stop being persistent little buggers and leave me in peace and ignorance.

Fortunately though for all of us, our imagination NEVER just ups and leaves us. EVER. It may morph as we grow and as our sense of the ‘norm’ is built upon society’s expectations. I don’t day dream about waking up one morning to a bedroom full of Barbie Dolls anymore, but I do believe that my imagination has been a force to be reckoned with throughout my life. It has guided me in to and out of a lot of situations over the years.

Just think. Do you have children? Did they start as a spark in your imagination at some stage? Did you day dream about what they might look like, smell like and feel like against  you? Did you take steps to action that dream?

What about your current employment situation? Did you just ‘fall’ into your job or did you dream yourself there – with a plan and definite action to support your dream?

Of course, not all things we conjure in our imaginations are realistic. Christian Slater was NEVER going to waltz into my high school science class and whisk me outta there. But that’s okay. Because although I wanted it, I knew it wasn’t a possibility so I didn’t spend a lot of my teenage brain power hoping for it – but gee it was a nice thought. 

For the day dreams that mattered though and gave me purpose, I made my mind up to create them into my reality with plans of manageable steps and purposeful action. I just had to get myself back into my body and do it. That’s how both of my awesome careers (I’m in education as well as owning Little Grasshopper) came to be. 

So next time you are imagining yourself in a better job, different relationship or being carried away by a giant unicorn from your work station, write yourself a list of how you are going to turn that dream into a reality (hmmm… although it might be a tall order to get the unicorn to stop by) and remember these wise words by Albert Einstein: “Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

What are your dreams and how are you going about achieving them? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Have a fab Sunday afternoon!

Lisa

 

YouTubing, Tweeting, Pinterest and all that’s in between

Evening folks,

I met a lovely elderly man tonight at the grocery store who inadvertently gave me an important reminder. At the time, my son was making his way behind me like a hurricane on legs jumping his lego man from watermelon to rockmelon and ‘Yippeeing’ and ‘Yahooing’ all the way. The elderly man was trying to make his way past us and I looked at him apologetically, trying to shuffle my boy out of his way. He stopped and turned to me (I braced myself) and he smiled kindly. He unexpectedly reached out and gently ruffled my son’s hair and said “What a delight he is. Let him be a boy while he is a boy. It doesn’t last long.” Then, he had a very animated conversation with my little guy about lego and his favourite toys.

This got me thinking about the concept of time… and social media.

You see, in my bid to keep up with technology and ‘move with the times’ (I dislike that saying by the way… but it seems apt right about now. You won’t hear me say it again. Promise.) I think I have been swallowed up in some kind of all consuming warp on my life’s reality.

Not only does Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and now blogging eat at my mind all day with exciting ideas, endless possibilities and opportunities for myself and Little Grasshopper; I have to say it also feeds that voyeuristic monster in me (does she lurk in you too?) that gets simultaneously frustrated and fulfilled when I read on my newsfeed that Aunty Maude’s neighbour is playing his music too loud for her liking. Do I really need to know that stuff? No. But what I’ve worked out is that what I’m really craving is not to miss out on a thing. Not one. single. thing. Like life is too short to miss out on reading that your brother’s work-mates cousin is dressing as a tomato for his sister’s costume party. Really? Ain’t nobody got time for that!

While I’m so intent on not missing out on that one single thing I feel that maybe I am missing out on some of the most important single things that are going on around me. In my real, physical world. Right under my nose in fact.

So, I’ve decided Facebook checking, Pinterest and Twitter are now strictly for when my 5 year old son is in bed, at school (since I have the luxury of working on Little Grasshopper from home nearly 2 days a week) or otherwise occupied. Of course, this may be harder than it seems. I think I’m a little bit addicted. But I’m going to try. Because I don’t want to miss one. single. thing.

Wish me luck!
Lisa

From this…

to this… overnight!

Little Grasshopper has arrived in the blogosphere… again.

Hello… again!

Lisa here. Yes, I’m back. After a very short foray into the blogging world last year I have decided to return with renewed vigour!

For those of you who kindly followed ‘Journey of a Mumpreneur’ you will find that this blog is quite different to the concept I began establishing last year. You won’t find me touting Little Grasshopper products here (you can already check these out on my website), but I can guarantee you will find musings from me on hot parenting/baby topics, my daily life as a mum of one beautiful and exhausting little boy; wanna-be hot shot business woman and somewhat overly chatty family member and friend (one of my friends has even suggested we use a ‘talking stick’ for our catch-ups!) and of course, I will keep you up to date on my business progress and what the Little Grasshopper plans are for the future.

Right now, I’ve got my mind on the Mother’s Day Classic.
At the beginning of the year I was sitting down with one of my most cherished friends (as I don’t actually have any biological sisters from now on I shall refer to her as a ‘Sista’ – you know who you are!) and raving about some innate need in me to give back in some way this year and forever more. I was talking big. I was talking celebrities, media coverage and national fundraising ideas to rival that of ‘Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea’. I was talking… completely overwhelming!
I was exhausted just talking about it, and my Sista (being the intuitive, wise person that she is) was listening to my scattered ideas and suggested I start with something smaller. What about something already organised, but just as significant and in need of fundraising? That’s when she suggested the Mother’s Day Classic.

It is an extremely worthwhile cause. Breast cancer has touched the lives of many people I know in so many ways and it’s time for me to give back in any way I can to these brave people. So, I have managed to gather together approximately 26 very generous people (the number is still growing) to join ‘Team Little Grasshopper’ for the 2013 Canberra event in May. I’m pretty excited because at this moment we are ranking 11th in the ACT in terms of fundraising and… our team t-shirts just arrived! Here’s a little squizzy…

Adult Version of Mother’s Day Classic T-shirts

Can’t wait to give them out! What do you think?

Have a happy day!

Signing off for now,
Lisa