Building on Lorie Parch's article "Secrets of Thin People" in the April issue of REAL SIMPLE magazine, here is Thin Secret No. 1:
Thin people can put themselves first.
People who have a hard time losing weight often put other people first. Then they find they have no time to exercise or eat right or prevent stress--which causes them to gain weight.
And successful people have to do the same--they have to put their business first, and learn to say "no" to the demands of others.
When I start to feel like I have no time, all it takes is a quick look at my calendar to see where I'm "spending" it. A volunteer commitment here, board service there, a school project here, family commitment there. And sometimes a little "trim" is in order.
I'm not speaking about the delicate balance of having a rich family, social and professional life. I'm talking about the commitments we take on, with good intent, that end up be a distraction.
How do we know when that delicate balance is tipped? Simple. You don't have time to make art or grow your business.
Is that always a bad thing? No. As human beings, we enter and leave different phases of our lives that call for constantly changing balance. Very young children and teens need a lot of time--the former because they keep trying to explore electrical sockets, the latter because they do the same with the "electrical sockets" of adult life. Other life demands intervene, and sometimes art and business have to take a back burner for awhile.
But when you constantly find yourself responding to everyone else's crisis, and your own business suffers, it's time to find a different fulcrum. (Aha! I KNEW physics would come in handy someday!) We once invited a couple we really liked for dinner and they couldn't come--because their cousin's husband's mother's brother was having a birthday party. Either it was one hell of an excuse to get out of having dinner with us, or they needed a new fulcrum, and fast.
Oddly, I had many requests for my time when I was an at-home mom. Possibly people perceived me as having "tons of time"--because I wasn't REALLY working, right?
Then, as my business grew, the requests continued--I was perceived as having tons of time because I worked out of my home. That seemingly infinite FLEXIBILITY was interpreted as constant AVAILABILITY. By me, too, I should hasten to add.
Now that my business is more established, I STILL receive many requests on my time. Now it's because I'm perceived as "knowing how to be successful" and "having figured it all out"--and everyone wants a piece of that.
What makes it hard to say no is, many of these requests are made by worthy people for perfectly worthy causes. And it's not wrong of them to ASK.
But I have to be responsible about saying YES. Or NO.
Also, people have been very generous to me in this industry. It seems only fair to "give back".
But ultimately, I have to come first.
The art that's in ME, I'm the only one that can let 'er rip.
I'm learning to limit the one-on-one "giving back". I now try to keep it to "one-to-many" model. That's one reason I started a blog. And why I joined the Arts Business Institute faculty. And why I write a column for CraftsBusiness magazine. These are all ways of "giving back" to my community without feeling I have to constantly respond to requests for free consultation sessions. (It's no coincidence that they also serve my desire to WRITE.)
And as for larger commitments, well, sometimes before another door opens, a window has to close. Another commitment has to draw to a close before I take on another one.
But there's another, less obvious corollary to this "put yourself first" secret. And that is: Only YOU can do what it takes to make yourself successful.
Parch quotes Anne Fletcher, a registered dietition (she wrote THIN FOR LIFE) in this "secret". Fletcher says, "When people take the reins (responsibility for their own weight loss), they realize that the solution to weight control is inside them, not in some magic potion or fad diet that their mother or sister is on."
hmmmmmm......The secret diet. Doesn't this sound like what I wrote yesterday?
