Not who you think you’re supposed to be or who someone else decided you are, but the actual you. I was reminded the other day about an old all-day meeting, conference-type event, where I coaxed a co-worker of mine into introducing ourselves to a senior exec at our client site. Now this co-worker knew her stuff, I mean down to the ground, but she was always hesitant about making initial moves. Others noted it as being her whole personality but I knew they were wrong. So here goes me and my ‘I don’t give a damn’ self and I nudge her along to face the exec. I didn’t do it…
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Why You Don’t Need To Make Your Goal Too Damn Big
So let’s not immediately think about quitting. How about we resize? As in, resize down for a bit. Now, shooting for the moon is one thing, excellent even, but trying to actually consume it is utter delulu. I used to be 100% guilty of this. Now I’m down to 35%… still a work in progress, but progress still. I’m a person with lofty-arse goals. Random ideas, notes written, typed and voiced in a million different places. My mind is like a thousand open, overstuffed filing cabinets and gigabytes of storage drives with no limits. My name is IreneB and I approve this message. It’s just how my mind works. She…
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Your Life Is Not Public Property: Keep Things Private
How did we stumble into thinking being open was the same as being accessible? You are allowed to keep things private. Especially as women. We’re constantly encouraged to “share our story,” “be authentic,” “show up as your true self,” and apparently that also means to yell into the internet about what we ate for breakfast, retell the story about keying an ex’s car that we told our therapist, and exactly what we’re doing with the rest of our lives. Umm… no. And that’s allegedly keyed an ex’s car. A lot of what’s happening or has happened in our lives should be kept private. Or, at the most, kept within our…
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Over Explaining: When Being Clear Turns Into Begging
I have always considered myself a pretty clear person. No tap-dancing around an issue or request, but not brutally clear either, I’m not the kind of person who walks into a room, drops a verbal grenade, and then calls it “well, I’m just being honest.” I literally can’t stand the way some deliver that response. There’s a difference between being direct and being downright disrespectful. But I also don’t think you should need to channel a psychic, decode ancient hieroglyphics, or hire a professional translator to figure out what I mean. I’m pretty sure if I say something, I have actually said something. With words and in English. Wild concept, I know.…
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You Need A Bigger World: How To Stop Letting Small Stuff Consume You
That statement, or idea, might seem too simple on paper, but give me a few minutes to explain what I mean. Then you can go ahead and poo-poo it if it still doesn’t fit. Think of that feeling when you’re stuck. Like you’re not making progress, not even a little bit. Or worse, you feel completely out of control. Your mind starts drifting into places it has no business being, and before you know it, you’ve become consumed by someone else’s foolishness. OK, I’ll give you an example of my own. I planned to edit a key chapter. Or maybe it was a blog post, or a note, even. I’d…
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How to Keep Going When You Don’t Feel Like It
Stick to Your Plan, Not Your Mood Well, confession time, for most of last week, I hadn’t worked out in literally five days. Including barely jumping on my rebounder. It was a busy week, it was a short week, and it was my birthday on Monday. Happy Birthday to Meeeeeee! Side note: My birthday year had already been off to a cracking start with ‘My Boys’, Arsenal, lifting the Premier League trophy just the month before. Yeah… I’ll absolutely take that lovely gift! ❤️🤍❤️ But back to this week, when the compressor thingamabob, whatchamacallit thing in our air conditioner unit broke, so it literally felt like I was sleeping in…
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What If You Actually Read Life’s Terms and Conditions?
Would You Still Sign Today? You know those terms and conditions that come with a new phone, laptop, tech, or shiny piece of equipment you want so bad? The ones that are about 50,000 pages long, damn near blurry, so that nobody actually or fully reads them? The first few scrolls of information start off pretty straightforward, clear, and engaging and so most of the time, we just continue the scroll to the bottom and willingly click “Accept.” Not because we agree wholeheartedly with everything or that we’re so comfortable with every condition. But because if we want the thing, then that’s the only option. And in thinking about it,…
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Big Age, Bigger Growth | Episode 02: Center Yourself Like a Man
Quick Post, Real Reminder And no, this isn’t about bashing the boys, but bolstering us babes, because having confidence is one thing, but centering yourself is a world unto its own. Shuffling through many a saved and poignant note, this one fell through the cracks and deserves all the oxygen. The example: When women (us babes) look at a job posting, we tend to over study the requirements like we’re preparing for the final exam of our life. Somehow some way, we think we need to be able to do 80%, 90%, maybe even 100% of the job before we feel qualified… ready enough to apply. Meanwhile, on the XY…
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One Year of Writing: The Truth About My Good Struggle
Happy Birthday to SincerelyIreneB… yeah… me! So here we are. I made it! Twelve months of writing, blogging, posting. And I’m beyond excited about it! One whole year since I showed up to my own party, nervous but absolutely refusing to wait for the ‘Productivity Fairy’ to convince me that now was the right time to begin. One year since I typed out that first post, hit publish before I could talk myself out of it, and officially committed to Starting Sideways. So… how’d that go? Well, grab something and lemme tell ya. The Checklist, Revisited If you read my very first post, you know I showed up with a…
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Big Age, Bigger Growth | Episode 01: Keep Figuring It Out
Quick Post, Real Reminder -Sincerely, Irene B
