#Fail

Like most new bloggers, my first attempt at blogging was pretty much a total failure.  But, I will not restart anew to make myself feel better, to rid myself of the guilt I feel for my followers (oh. wait.).  Instead, I will reset expectations for me, myself and the blog.  I will not attempt to post every week.  I will not attempt to post every week with a serious issue or thoughtfully drafted article.  I am not a writer.  I am not a journalist.  Since my last blog post, I’ve learned that I can’t even make a weekly Wednesday training session with a personal trainer I pay.  Since I am not paying anyone (nor am I being paid) for this activity of blogging, I will do what I want.

The lesson learned today is, obviously, if at first you don’t succeed, change your expectations.  Seriously.  After all, if your expectations and goals aren’t set to align with reality and are not a means to an end to your own personal satisfaction, what motivation would you ever have to meet or exceed them?

Side note: I just downloaded a Tumblr app for my new Droid X.  Things can only go up from here!

Success and Satisfaction: A Tall Order

At some point early last year, or maybe even before then, a little bubble of discontent began forming inside my mind.  I didn’t quite know what to do with it and I certainly didn’t know where it came from.  Life was good. Family was good.  Friends were good.  Job (and possibly career) was good.  Everything was really good.  So, what was the source of this discontent?

My old company had an exercise that involved measuring your own level of “Personal Engagement”.   My personal engagement, it seems, looked good on paper – I was heavily involved in the organization; in general, I was happy in my day-to-day work; I was surrounded by great people.  But when my career counselor started asking me questions about the future, I started getting itchy.

How could my success (measured by the praises of my clients, the respect of my colleagues, my promotions, and stellar reviews) not result in a more concrete feeling of joy and satisfaction on my part?  How did I deal with the conflicted understanding that my success was leaving me unsatisfied?

At that point I realized that, for me, success alone is not enough.  I needed satisfaction.  My success had to be a means to the end of satisfaction.  I had to learn how to achieve both. 

And so, Tall Orders is born. 

I’ve spent the majority of my life reaching for someone else’s expectations in order to achieve both success and personal satisfaction.  I got straight A’s more often than not.  I did student council along with a plethora of other activities.  I prided myself on putting myself into my extracurricular activities 100%.  For a long time, that was enough.

Now, I’m on a mission to learn how to set my own expectations in order to achieve that same success and personal satisfaction. That’s a Tall Order.