Jump Start With JOY

[ Diane's Story Of Finding Joy.... & Her Dave ]

January has come to be known as my "Jump Start with Joy" month.  For the past two Januaries (2013 & 2014), I have attended Joy's ME Mapping Workshop which truly helped me transform my life!

I've known Joy since 1987 and have always known her to be talented, smart, witty, creative, caring, and helpful. So, when she told me about her ME Mapping endeavor, I went just to be supportive. The next thing I knew, I was mapping out my life and zeroing in on areas that I wanted to improve (faith, friends, family, career, and health).  

I started a gratitude journal, working out regularly, found more time to spend with friends, and healed from a year of devastating losses. I lost the weight I gained from recent cancer that I could never seem to shed, and even began to date again. All of those things I mapped out became a reality.  

So when 2014 rolled in, I once again attend the ME Workshop and mapped out my life for the year ahead. I focused on a theme and called it my "Fabulous 14" Lifestyle which focused on Faith, Friends, Family, Fitness, Food, and my Focus.  I even picked a symbolic color, fuchsia, and bought a snazzy hot pink coat to remind me of my 2014 purpose.  

I improved in all areas, but my focus area (to engage in a positive relationship based on the Fruits of the Spirit) proved to be the biggest transformation of all!! I wanted to find and maintain a life-long relationship and mapped out (in a giant heart) all of the traits and important qualities I wanted to find. A month later, I met Dave. Dave possessed all of my mapped out qualities and was looking for a similar commitment filled with cooperation, communication, and Christian values. After our first date (which lasted 7 hours), I immediately called Joy and told her I was going to marry him! Three months later, we were engaged and married six months later!

I was able to find joy through Joy!  Ironic, right?  I was able to take the principles of the Circle of Joy (declutter, engage, appreciate) and really see my life.  

Thank you Joy, for helping me find the joy in my life!  

Trish Meredith

My LOVE Is Conditional

I know you're not suppose to say that, it sounds bad. Unloving. But, it's true.

There are three conditions that need to be met no matter if my love is to be given to a friend, lover, or even family member. And if these aren't there then my love won't bloom, grow, or will die very quickly.

Safety: Maslow and I agree, safety is one of our key needs and in a relationship of any kind I need to feel the other person is not a physical or emotional threat so I can relax and be myself. Domestic abuse is a huge issue even today but I don't mean solely being afraid someone might hit us. I also mean they might leave us in an unsafe environment either physically or mentally. None of my close friends are smokers because I can't breathe around smoke. Even though I was raised with guns in my house as a kid, I wouldn't date someone who openly carried one just for their amusement. I wouldn't be friends with someone who refused help and chose to stay in an abusive marriage, drove unsafely while I was in their car, abused substances, had an explosive temper, or endangered themselves on purpose. Because if someone is not concerned with their own mental or physical well being, they surely won't be concerned about mine.

Trust: I don't need to know everyone's business or even my significant other's every thought, I simply need to know if I ask them a question that affects me directly they will answer honestly. Even if the answer is not to my liking or that it's something they're not willing to answer. I need both to to trust that someone has my back, and they say to my face whatever they say behind my back. Which leads to...

Communication: I'm done with any relationships where communication is a guessing game. As I got older I thought that adulthood meant that when a problem popped up the folks involved would sit down and resolve it like "grown ups". Turns out if someone avoided issues in their 20 and 30's they're not going to find themselves magically in their 40's cleaning up their messes and working things out. More likely they'll just leaves bigger messes in their wake. And to that I say: no thanks!

Love is not enough to get us through when we are not safe, trusting, and communicating with the people we proclaim to care so deeply about. It's just not. Because to truly love someone else we need to value ourselves enough to ensure our relationships are healthy.
And trust me, I love myself unconditionally enough to love conditionally ;)   

JOY TH!NK: Managing My Schedule TIMEFUL-Y

Out of Your Head                                                       Onto Your Schedule                

Essentialism (my new favorite conversation)

I finished reading Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less a few weeks back and I've been practicing some of the principles it encourages. The book has a lot of great stuff in it but there are two concepts that struck me the most.

Less but Better sums up the core concept of Essentialism but because I'm a visual gal I love that there are some simple doodles that go with the ideas.

Let's take how we spend our energy... when we're too scattered and all over the place we end up only going a millimeter in a million directions. But when we focus and eliminate other drains we can go far.

So simple and can apply to any area of our lives. What can we eliminate so our focus takes us where we want to go and we have the energy to get us there?!

Since one of the keys I talk about with ME Mapping is decluttering I also love the Chapter 13 regarding editing. Because maybe just as important as being the authors of our lives we need to embrace that we are also the editors of our lives too. He uses a different Michelangelo quote then I usually use but with the same idea. When asked about how he created something as magnificent as the David he explained that he took a big piece of marble and simply chipped away anything that was not David.

That's how we can create a masterpiece of a life for ourselves. Chip away anything that is not essentially ME/YOU.

Greg McKeown did not say anything in this book that was so revolutionary, but giving the conversation a frame like Essentialism and using clear images and stories it really sticks.    

I was telling a close friend how much I was enjoying this book when she mentioned it sounded similar to The ONE Thing by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan (TH!NK review below).

And she was right, they have different points of emphasis and verbiage to relay their concepts but they are both brilliant and are two of my favorite books I've read in years. Together they will change your life. They did mine. I look at everything and ask is this essential? And even if it is... is it the one thing I need to be focused on at this moment?

Both of these books are so on message with ME Mapping that I will be recommending them for years to come. So I urge you to get them immediately, read them in the same order, and then get down to your essentials and begin to focus on your ONE thing.


[And... if you know JOY is essential to succeeding at your ONE thing come join ME for the next Workshop :) ]

JOY TH!NK: What's Your ONE Thing?

Recently I was telling close friend Vickie Austin about my newest favorite book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less when she mentioned how it reminded her of one of her favorite books The ONE Thing: The Surprising Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results (Gary Keller & Jay Papasan). Now I must say it's a tie... I love both of these books and together they are game changers.

ME Mapping: The Updates

I've updated the ME Mapping slidedecks and thought you might enjoy :)

To work on Current Life:

ME Mapping from Joy Meredith

And... to Create Your Year:

ME Mapping: Creating Your Year from Joy Meredith

HAPPY MAPPING!

...and if you'd like more or would like to Map with ME come join us for next
ME Workshop :)

Even In Your MILDEST DREAMS...

I hold WILDEST DREAMS CLUB events after my monthly workshops which always turn out to be an inspiring time to hear what people are dreaming about. There are huge dreams of changing the lives of inner-city youths, to embarking on earning a doctorate degree and traveling the world.

Will all these dreams come to fruition? Well some are taking form, some have already happened on a smaller scale, and some will take years to even get rolling. But the conversations always get those involved thinking- pondering what might be possible...

Before I started involving workshopers I had presented the question to my closest friends on their birthdays: what's your wildest dream for yourself this year? Since achieving one of mine- writing a book- I have been inspired to ask those I care about about theirs and when possible help support them in making it come true.

Shockingly some didn't enjoy this question. They don't like the idea of making up ridiculous unachievable goals just to have them hanging over their heads rotting on the vine. That Joy and her dreaming... it's not for me.

It's sad to me that people don't want to contemplate living into a big wild dream for themselves even if it only gets them an inch out of their comfort zone. But maybe it isn't the thought of dreaming that is the issue- maybe it's the wildest part that puts them off. Maybe if I rephrased it and they only needed to contemplate a little tiny dream...

A Mildest Dream! 

We all have something we wish to transform in our lives. One Mapper* during the workshop laughed in exasperation and said if she could only get her closet in order that would be a dream come true for her. Well who says that's not worthy of dreaming and declaring- not me!

Another had an old broken down refrigerator in her basement that she dreamed would magically disappear. It didn't. I need to make it clear dreaming is just the first step- doing is the next. She actually needed to make a call to ComEd to come pick it up, but it was a huge weight off her shoulders and freed her up to dream a bigger one of helping returning veterans.

When we get little things done that we didn't know how we were going to get to or take on we get the energy and inspiration to take on bigger things. We even grant others the silent permission to allow themselves to dream along the way.

One friend (story to follow in an upcoming post) got married last weekend after sketching out a relationship map of everything she wanted. She found her guy and is now living a huge dream come true. And here is the thing: she inspired another fellow Mapper she barely knows to dip her toe into the dating pool. See, we never know who we will inspire going for our dreams and even if they are small they lead to bigger dreams. Even if they are mild they can lead to the wild.

So dream. Share your dreams. Dreamers taking even a baby step of action are finding and creating the best kind of JOY! :)



* I refer to folks that take the ME (Mapping) Workshop as Mappers.