Focus on the What, Let Go of the How

This weekend I went on one of those evening walks. "Those" = it's dusk, I'm feeling lethargic but I know it would be good to go outside and shake my bootie in the fresh air and evening light. Sometimes I'm in such a state of resistance, I change clothes a couple times before getting out the door.

But these days -- the ones I most resist -- are always the times when I bump into a beautiful suprise. A friend I haven't seen in a while, a strange cat, a cool tree -- usually it's a person I run into.

This evening it was a neighborhood woman who just became a new mom in her early 40's and has a great dispostion combo: authentically cheery, relaxed and thoughtful.

She told me how she wanted to live on the water, not by it but on it. "I don't know how it will happen," she chirped, shrugging her shoulders. Her baby was in a cloth carrier on her mom's body, facing out.

"But you know what I think," she added, "I think what's important is focusing on what you want and not knowing, or worrying about how it will happen."

I really needed to hear this. And it felt liberating.

Do you ever get so caught up in the HOW that it stuffs up your creativity, energy -- and to the point where you start to doubt the whole damn idea in the first place?

I then told her about the story of finding my first waterfront apartment. There had been incidents: looking for condos to buy, feeling indecisive about it all and visiting a friend in San Francisco. There was also a mom who sternly said "You have to make up your mind about what you want or it won't happen." I didn't like that at all. I wanted to be one of those lucky ducks who just has the happy decision drop in their laps without thinking it through. But I've never been that person. (I know one person who is and she once admitted to me it may not be the best way to live.)

So after the San Fran trip and seeing a few living spaces that made me realize how much I did not like the cold dark mahogany wood of my current space, I made a pronouncement to myself: I want to live in a 1960's building on the water with wall-to-wall pearl carpeting.

The next day, I found it.

And after that I ended up buying a condo in a building on the water. I knew what I wanted, I didn't worry about the HOWs.

Now is a pretty good time to practice that again. Know what I want and in the meantime just go about living daily life and plowing through my To Do's (which can be fun in themselves, right?).

So that's this week's mission: Know the  WHAT, keep doing what you're doing and don't ride the HOW so damn hard.

Happy Monday, happy week!

xo