more focus

Have you ever felt like you have so many things to do, that you aren’t sure where to start? When I start feeling this way, I do the opposite of what I should do: I get a little overwhelmed, and I end up avoiding all of the things I need to do. This is extremely counterproductive, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done it. I’ve gotten slightly better at recognizing when I’m doing this, however, and I try to focus on just one item, rather than let myself overthink about all of the things on the to-do list.

This idea of overthinking to the point of being counterproductive applies to more than just my to-do list, and maybe you’ve felt the same way at times. There are so many different things I want to do, change, or impact, but there’s no possible way for one human to do all of it. In fact, the second I try to do everything, I end up doing nothing. I’ve heard the term “spreading yourself thin” used to describe people that overcommit. In my experience though, I under-commit when I pledge myself to do too many things. What I mean by this is that if I’m “committed” to everything, I’m really committed to nothing, because I don’t have adequate time or energy to actually be involved in everything.

How do we avoid trying to be everything and do everything? While I still haven’t quite figured it out myself, I’ve started to see that we all have the power to “move the needle” in our own way. “Move the needle” is a term used by a few people that I know, and its meaning is exactly how it sounds. We have the opportunity to focus our energy and efforts on a select few topics and work at those significantly to make a difference in them. We can’t change the world overnight, but we can move the needle slightly on a topic that we focus on.

A lot of people will say that one singular person doesn’t have the ability to create real change and the people who say that can be entirely accurate if we don’t focus our time and energy. We have to think about the long-term focus of our lives just as much, if not more, than the short-term focus of getting an item on that to-do list done.

Having focus is how we are able to make a difference. What's your focus on?

There’s more to focus on.

There’s more to it all.

more trust

When I first started riding horses, I began with riding in the saddle like most beginners. The saddle provided a trustworthy place to learn how to stay on the horse, rather than falling off into the dirt. After a few months of riding, my ambitious nine-year-old self decided that it was time to try riding without the saddle. I thought that riding bareback would be a quick and easy transition from riding with the saddle, but my mom felt otherwise. She was very unsure about letting her inexperienced, small daughter on an animal with its own mind without a saddle to hold me in place.

After what felt like months of begging and pleading with my mom, she finally caved. I could try riding bareback, but she had some ground rules. I had to wear a helmet, have her in the arena with me, and I had to take it slow. I agreed to the terms and found myself getting on my horse bareback (with the help of my mom because I wasn’t strong enough to get on by myself) not too long after. I wrapped my legs around my horse tightly and kicked my horse forward to a walk. After just a few steps, I felt like riding bareback was so easy. I kicked my horse up to a trot. When I did that, I quickly went from sitting upright in the saddle to face first in the dirt. My mom ran over to me to see if I was hurt, and once I had said I was totally fine, she didn’t waste a second tell me that I had not listened to one of the terms we had agreed to: take it slow.

I ended up getting back on my horse almost immediately to try again, but it took a while to build up that confidence and trust to try trotting again. Eventually, I trusted my ability to stay on my horse enough to consistently trot and lope, but that trust did not build overnight.

I’ve heard people say a thousand times that it takes a lot of time to build up trust, but only a few seconds to break trust. No matter how many times I hear this, I’m still frustrated in myself every time I’m in a situation where I’ve lost trust in someone or something. I want to be able to have that trust again quickly, but my brain just can’t quite do it. I’ll start overthinking and overanalyzing, and it causes the rebuilding trust process to be slow.

It’s hard to let go of past hurt to be able to trust what future happiness could come about. This year has been a test of trust for many of us. We want to trust that things will improve, but it seems like every time we start to have a flicker of hope, something else comes along that breaks that trust for the future again. Not only do we have a lack of trust in what the future holds, but we have a lack of trust in each other. We don’t have any trust that the majority of people don’t have ill intent. All around us, people assume the worst in others, and it’s created a culture that lacks trust in every aspect. We don’t trust others to understand where we are coming from, or why we think the way we do. We chalk it up as we are too “different” to ever have a meaningful conversation, but I think we should start trusting that most of us want to learn. Most of us are open to hearing a different perspective if it’s presented in a kind way. What we are missing is not a lack of understanding, it’s a lack of trust in each other.

Trust that more often than not, someone is more like you than you think.

There’s more to trust.

There’s more to it all.

more confidence

Recently, I saw a TikTok (please bear with me) of a girl that had been offered to work on some important research with a prestigious professor. She explained that she was nearing the end of reaching her doctorate, and had all the experience on paper that would make sense for her to be given an opportunity to work with this professor. However, she said that she felt like she was not qualified at all, and felt as though she couldn’t possibly have enough knowledge to be working on that research. She was more than qualified and knowledgeable, but to her, she felt like a complete newbie. She even went as far as to say she had to be a fraud because she did not feel confident in her abilities.

If I’m being honest, I’ve felt the lack of confidence this girl explained on more than one occasion. One of the most prevalent times I’ve ever felt unqualified and in over my head was last fall when I got elected as a national FFA officer.

In the months leading up to the national convention, I studied, practiced, and grew a lot as a person. My knowledge of current events in agriculture was pretty good. My desire to serve was immense. My speaking abilities were adequate. My interviewing and storytelling skills were a strength I knew I could display. I  studied the mechanics of how the selection process worked intensely in order for the timing of each round to become second nature in my brain. My purpose for running to show members that there is more to it all was solid.

When the convention arrived, I felt as prepared as I could feel. The week of interviewing for the position went smoothly for the most part, but there was never a time when I walked out of the interview room feeling completely confident. There were times when I talked way too fast, and it was probably easy for the nominating committee to see how nervous I was. I generally felt the emotions of “pretty good” or “not necessarily bad” when I finished a round. By no means did I ever feel like I knocked it out of the park, but I also never felt like I did horribly. After the final interview, I knew that I had put my whole self out there, including all of the nerves. Even if I had a few more minutes with the nominating committee, I knew that they had seen who I was, and a few more words from me wouldn’t change what they thought about me. This was a good feeling to have and was the closest thing I felt to confidence all week. I had given the interview process my best, and I felt content with whatever decision would be made.

When the time for the announcement of the national officer team finally arrived, I simply told myself that in a few minutes, my name would not be called, and that was completely fine. My life would be completely fine, and I’d find a way to share that there is more to it all no matter what. While I knew the position of national office was an incredible way in which that message could be shared, I also knew that I had to live out the motto at this moment. There’s more to life than a position, and if I really believed that there was more to it all, the result of the announcement just decided the path in which I could help others see that there is more to it all.

These thoughts were at the forefront of my mind when I heard my name get called for the central region. For a second, I couldn’t believe my own ears and had to double-check the screen to make sure I had heard correctly. Sure enough, my picture was up there, and it clicked that I had heard the words right. I couldn’t believe I had gotten elected.

For about the next two months, I transitioned from disbelief in getting elected to disbelief as to why I had been elected. I was playing a constant comparison game in my head. I compared myself to national officers before me, and how they were such motivational and influential people. I had this idea in my head that someone would wave a magic fairy wand when I got elected to make me an inspirational national officer. This was the farthest thing from the truth, however.

After a month of training, I began to worry. I felt like the same Mamie before I was elected with a few new workshops, speeches, and other leadership skills. I didn’t feel like a national officer in the slightest, and I had very little confidence in my ability to impact members. I questioned when I would ever feel like those awesome national officers who came before me. I wondered how in the world I was supposed to be inspirational like they were.

It took me a few months to figure it out, but I began to realize that the magic fairy wand was not coming around. In fact, I began to see that I had been elected to be the exact Mamie I was before my name had been announced. I was not meant to be those who came before me in office, but rather I was meant to just be me.

This seems like an obvious realization to have, but I think a lot of us have felt the lack of confidence I felt (and still feel sometimes) at some point in our lives. We question why we were chosen for the position, job, etc. We wonder how someone could’ve possibly seen something in us that would make us worth choosing. I think the short answer to these self-doubting thoughts is to remind ourselves how we see others. It’s easy for us to see others for who they could become, and the incredible impact they could have in the years to come.

Even if you don’t see it now, others see you becoming something incredible too. Know that you were chosen for a reason, and that reason will be shown. Let yourself be confident that who you are becoming is exactly what others saw in you.

If you are struggling to be confident, remember that almost everyone else is too. The reality is that very few of us, or none of us, feel totally confident in ourselves. The feeling of being the newbie doesn’t fade with age, experience, or knowledge, and to be honest, it shouldn’t. If you don’t feel a little challenged, nervous, or even slightly “in over your head”, you might not be pushing yourself enough to who you could become.

There’s more to confidence.

There’s more to it all.

more consistency

Even though I like to consider myself a very organized and tidy person now, I haven’t always the best at keeping my room clean. In fact, when I was younger, my room was almost always a disaster. If you walked into my room, there was about a 90% chance it wasn’t clean, and you probably couldn’t see the floor most days. However, my mom had a rule that we always had to have the floors cleared for her to vacuum at least once a week. One would think that since I had to have it clean for vacuuming that I’d just consistently clean up after myself, but that was not the case. Every night before vacuum day, I scrambled to clean up my room. Every night after vacuum day, it became a mess again and would regret my decisions a week later when it took an hour to get it back in order. The level of cleanliness in my room was always going from one extreme to another.

My parents would always pester me to just spend a few minutes a day cleaning rather than waiting and letting the mess build-up, but it took me until I was out of the house to figure out that logic. Once I did though, I realized how being consistent about certain things can relieve so much stress. One of the places in my life that I’ve realized I seek the most consistency is in my relationships with others. I’ve recognized that I find myself investing in the people that I know depend on me, and I depend on them for consistency. This might sound like an easy thing to find in a friend, but let me tell you, it’s not. We live in a fast pace and constantly changing society that could care less about being consistent. Relationships, jobs, and places are just used to fulfill momentary wants and desires, and then they’re tossed aside when something better or easier comes along. While there is a lot of value in seeking growth and change, it’s important to consider the things that are meant to be consistent in our lives.

This year has been anything but consistent for all of us, but I think it’s allowed for us to reveal what it is we should allow being consistent with. We should be consistent in our connections with others, regardless of how that happens. We should be consistent in pursuing a higher purpose. We should be consistent with what we choose to root our happiness in. We should be consistent in helping and loving others, and when we do, the consistency we all crave, in some shape or form, will likely come back to us. The

parts of our lives that are constantly shifting can be great, but we all need some level of consistency to ground everything that we are doing. For me, I seek consistency in the people I trust most, the habits I practice morning and night, and the purpose I invest my entire life in that there is more to it all. I know that there will be so much fluctuation in the coming days, months, and years for all of us, but if we choose to find consistency in certain parts of our lives, the rest of it will all fall into place.

What do you need to be more consistent about, and who do you need to be more consistent for this week?

There’s more to consistency.

There’s more to it all.

more legacy

When I was in high school, I went to a conference that focused on practicing interview skills.  In one of the practice rounds, each of us was asked the question,”What do you hope to be remembered for?” Even though it was just a practice round, when I heard this question, I panicked a bit. My mind started racing for an answer that would sound thoughtful and reflective, but the question was not one that my seventeen year old brain had taken the time to think about. Before I realized what I was doing, I started spewing off an answer about how I’m a very organized person, and I hope to be remembered for my ability to keep every little detail straight. I even started to ramble for a while about my accordion folder that had all aspects of my life neatly filed away into, and my hourly planner that allowed me to plan every moment of the day. As soon as I finished the answer, I knew I was about to get roasted with constructive criticism from the interviewer. Fortunately, they were kind enough to just ask,”Do you really want to be remembered for…your folders?” I immediately responded that I of course hope to be remembered for more than that, but I just didn’t know what yet. I didn’t know what my legacy in life was going to be.

I think most of us don’t take the time to think deeply about what we will be remembered for. We get caught up in just surviving life, and don’t take the time to think about what will be said about us after we aren’t surviving anymore.

Having a legacy sounds like a big and daunting thing meant only for those who do incredible things, but it’s really something that each of us has the ability to craft. Having a legacy has less to do about what it is we do with our lives, and more with how and why we do everything.  Maya Angelou, a famous poet, said,”I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” At the end of our lives, our legacy is not shaped by the big, grand actions that we were able to do. It’s created by how we go about every day, as well as what our intention and purpose behind everything is.

I think a lot of our society doesn’t pause to think about the fact that we are shaping our legacies each and every day, but we definitely should. Having a legacy does not require us to be or do anything extraordinarily special, but it does require us to be thoughtful and consistent with how we treat others. No matter how old we are, we have the opportunity to start shaping our legacy.

Don’t get too caught up in what you are doing, and spend some time considering how and why you’re doing it. Your legacy lies in the process and purpose.

There’s more to legacy.

There’s more to it all.

more open

I went through a phase when I was little where I refused to eat a sandwich that had anything on it besides cheese and Miracle Whip. I wanted nothing to do with lunch meat, and was not about to let it intrude onto my “perfectly” made cheese sandwich (if you can even call in a sandwich). One night, however, I distinctly remember getting home late from town with my mom, and she made a sandwich for me with ham. For whatever reason, I decided to give it a try. To my surprise, the addition of ham to my cheese sandwich was quite good. In fact, I liked it so much that I never had another cheese and Miracle Whip sandwich. My definition of what tasted good drastically changed after I was more open to experience something new.

Have you ever met a “my way or the highway” type of person? No matter what you say, they will never change their mind. It feels like you’re talking to a brick wall. They won’t be open to anything that isn’t what they already think, and there’s no changing their mind. While we aren’t all like that, each of us has our topics that we can get stubborn about. For me, it was my sandwiches. My idea of a sandwich, and my severe lack of experience in the culinary world, led me to have to be very narrow-minded about lunch meat. My stubbornness about my cheese sandwiches only led to me being deprived of the wonderfulness of lunch meat. Even though it’s silly to think about this example of not being open about putting ham on a sandwich, I can’t help but correlate it to all of the different opportunities we can experience and learn from that we reject just because we think what we already have and know is enough. Thinking that your own experiences and beliefs are the only ones that are of value in the world is really just living in oblivion, because all of us have something to learn about still.

One way we can start to be more open, and therefore allow ourselves to get a better and broader understanding of the world, is to surround ourselves with people that think differently than us. By no means is this the end of the story, however. The biggest step is to have difficult conversations with those individuals who have a different worldview than us, because that’s where we will be able to grow in perspective. The toughest conversations are likely the ones we should treasure most, because they will open our eyes to things we’ve never experienced personally. Challenging conversations are so beneficial, but we have to be willing to put ourselves into a position of vulnerability to have them. We have to be open to having them in the first place, and then seek to let our perspective be changed when presented with new compelling information. I think there’s often a negative connotation with people changing their beliefs, but we have to remember that beliefs are shaped by experiences. When we have new experiences, our beliefs can change, no matter how long we’ve held them to be true.

I think it’s time we all give ourselves and those around us the grace to learn and change as we are exposed to new perspectives, and I also think it’s time for each of us to be ready to be open to those new perspectives. Undoubtedly, we will discover that we were wrong or mislead about certain things, but it’s much better to discover the awesomeness of lunch meat than to keep eating cheese sandwiches.

What do you need to be more open to discovering this week?

There’s more to being open.

There’s more to it all.

more patience

If you were to ask my parents about what I was like when I was younger, I highly doubt that the word “patient” would show up in the conversation. I was generally the kid who couldn’t wait for a single second on something or someone, because I was too excited (or concerned) for the next moment. Whether it was waiting for my mom to say dinner was ready, waiting to get where we were headed in the car, or waiting in the grocery store line, patience was not a virtue I possessed very often. To be completely honest, it’s something I still struggle with quite a bit.

The interesting thing about patience is that often when we lack it ourselves, others will also struggle having it while being around us. It’s almost contagious, and not in a good way, but rather a COVID-19 way. I remember a time in high school when the majority of my class got the “impatient bug” waiting for a teacher to give us our grades on a big history test. We were all chomping at the bit to hear how good or bad we had done, and we weren’t afraid to tell the teacher about it. We were all constantly asking if she had graded the tests, and we quickly got on our teacher’s nerves. It had only been a few days since we had taken the test, and she got pretty upset with us for pressuring her so much. In response to our impatient demands, she began to use the classic “college card” that high school teachers like to pull. If you don’t know what I’m referring to here, high school teachers always tell students how hard college will be, and how they should be grateful for how they are preparing us for what college will be like. Having experienced college now, I can say that the majority of what high school teachers tried to tell us about the difficulty of college is slightly misleading, as I think there’s more flexibility with time in college to make it easier or harder for yourself. However, this teacher was right about having more patience when it comes to getting grades back. College professors will take weeks to get things graded, and you definitely can’t pester them like we did with our high school teacher to hurry up. The only thing you can do is have patience for your own sake, because refreshing the online grade book every five minutes isn’t very productive.

Patience is something that is not only courteous to others, but it’s also a way to be kind to ourselves. If we are able to have patience, it allows us to take a deep breath, and enjoy who we are with and what we are doing. Being impatient will only bring about other feelings of stress, irritability, and anxiety. On the opposite, having patience will bring calmness into a situation that might desperately need it. Patience is less about just simply waiting, and more about being content with the circumstances to make the most of the time we have. I’m sure a lot of us are lacking patience with the current situation that we find ourselves in, but I think we should all recognize that being patient with what’s happening doesn’t equate to waiting for the pandemic to be over. It’s cherishing and being calm while still looking ahead to what could be next, regardless of the uncertainty of the future.

Have patience for others, and have patience for yourself this week. Look forward to what’s next, but don’t spend all of your energy worrying about it.

There’s more to patience.

There’s more to it all.

more advocacy

One of my favorite songs is “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson. If you’re looking for a song that makes you want to be better for those around you, this song is the ultimate motivator. The lyrics speak to the importance of being the change that we want to see in the world, and how we need to correct our own hearts before we can begin to expect those around us to be better.

I believe this idea of starting with ourselves, “the man in the mirror”, is the key component of how we can enact real change with advocacy. If we don’t invest ourselves in what we want to speak up about, and have that topic rooted it in our own hearts, we won’t be able to convince anyone with our advocacy efforts.

This past week, I spent a few days participating in a virtual conference focused on how to become a better advocate. One of the key points that we learned was that in order to be effective in our advocacy efforts, we have to lead with our stories, values, and emotions, rather than just the facts. However, we have to also see those same things in those who we advocate to. If we are able to see into others’ worlds, and let them see into ours, we can build a trusting relationship that can change perspectives on both sides. Advocacy is not simply just seeing our side of things, but rather recognizing why and how someone believes what they do, and working to meet them where they are in their understanding of what we are trying to get across.

If we start our advocacy by genuinely seeking to understand others, we are able to figure out what and how we need to do to make a lasting impact with our advocacy. With the “what” and the “how” covered, the most important piece of “why” is left. If we don’t have the “why” answered, it’s pretty tough to make the rest work. One of the questions we asked ourselves this week in order to uncover that purpose was,”What do we risk losing if we fail to advocate?” While there were a lot of great answers to this question, one stuck out to me in particular. Dean Hill from California answered with,”We risk losing the world we wish to see.”  This makes me think about that song once again, and how we see the change we want to happen in ourselves first, and then go out to make that change happen elsewhere. Our advocacy starts with recognizing our own purpose, and then working to extend that to the world we hope to see.

We should all be asking ourselves what change we want to see in the world with our advocacy efforts, and recognize that if we don’t speak up, the cost is more than just losing the world we want to see, but also the world we want others to see.

There’s more to advocacy.

There’s more to it all.

more present

A few months ago, I found myself in a situation where I was not entirely present while I was driving back from the airport at midnight for over two hours. As I drove up my driveway, I realized that I did not remember very much of that two hour drive. In fact, I don’t think I was really present while driving at all. Not only is this extremely dangerous in the fact that I could have gotten into a car accident (sorry mom), but it’s concerning to me that for two hours, my brain was just somewhere else. All of those people that have told me to “live in the moment” would probably be very disappointed.

Perhaps you are a better driver than me, and you are great about being present while you drive, but you’ve had a lack of presence in other ways. Have you ever been mid-conversation and realized that you have not been listening to the other person very closely? If not, maybe you’ve been on the other end of the conversation, and gotten annoyed by the person that is obviously not tuning into the conversation. Either way, it’s frustrating when anyone is not fully present in any situation. I’m sure all of us have had times when we could be more present with our situation, and the people around us.

It’s tough to remind myself that I need to be present, but what helps me to remember to “be in the moment” is actually to remember the past. We owe it to our past selves to enjoy the present moment because we worked hard for it, and even dreamed of it. For example, in high school, I wanted so badly for time to pass so that I could go to college. However, when I was in elementary school, I remember wanting nothing more than to be in high school. Our past selves strived for the moment we have now, so we owe it to ourselves to make the most of what we are experiencing today. The moments we are having, the people we are meeting, and the life we are living is likely everything that our past selves hoped to have. Even when the moment you are living feels unimportant, remember how important it was to yourself in the past. Instead of wishing away the present for the future, we should enjoy the present for the sake of the past.

Being present is the best gift we can give to ourselves, and every person we are around. By doing this, we are almost guaranteed to make others feel known, valued, and respected. We don’t have to do everything perfectly, but we should try to be more present in all that we do.

Every day and every person is worth our full presence, so how will you be more present today?

There’s more to being present.

There’s more to it all.

more selfless

One of my favorite shows on Netflix is The Good Place. Some of my friends don’t love the humor in it, but for some reason it makes me laugh. Without spoiling it for you if you’re interested in watching it, it’s basically a sitcom about what the afterlife could look like. There’s a good place for those who earn enough “points” during their life, and a bad place for those who don’t. According to the show, in order to earn points, you have to do selfless acts of kindness. If there is any selfish intent behind the act, it doesn’t count. This includes doing something to “earn points”, because the fact that you’re only doing something to get to the good place counts as selfish.

While the show is humorous, their definition of selfless got me thinking about how many truly selfless things I’ve done for others in my life. To do something selfless means to give without expecting anything in return, or gain anything from the act of giving. I catch myself thinking about how even when I try to do something selfless, there’s often something I get selfishly in return, whether it be intentional or unintentional.

When I think of my own or others community service projects, acts of kindness, and other seemingly selfless actions, I think about how often it’s not entirely selfless. A lot of groups will do community service projects so that the community will support them in their upcoming fundraiser. People will volunteer so that it can be another line on their resume. Even when all that we gain in our “selfless” act is just a feeling of being a good person, we are acting under selfish intent. We all desire to be seen as good people, and sometimes I think we can catch ourselves only doing things so that others will confirm and feed into that desire. We care a lot more that others see us as good than we should.

It’s hard to say if any of us have ever done anything selfless, because we all, at the very least, feel fulfilled when we serve others. I don’t think we can avoid this gain, no matter how hard we try. This isn’t the selfish gain we should focus on, though. We should be worried about our dependence on being seen as good. We should be concerned if our only motivation is to fill a line on the “community service” portion of a job application. We should distance ourselves from trying to gain more than we give.

We can avoid those selfish desires when we think about shaping our actions into striving to help others in the biggest ways, while only letting ourselves feel that sense of fulfillment in a small way. Don’t let that fulfillment satisfy or make you complacent in serving others, however. Let that feeling of fulfillment inspire more acts of kindness, more giving, and more selfless actions.

What can you do this week that is more selfless?

There’s more to being selfless.

There’s more to it all.

more heart

I’m a very competitive person, and it shows through in pretty much every aspect of my life. Whether it be on the basketball court, playing MarioKart, or a math class, I’m always trying my hardest to be the best. As a kid, I absolutely hated losing in any way shape or form, no matter how high or low the stakes were. If the “competition” was to carry the groceries in, you can bet I had almost every single grocery bag on my arms with the weight partially cutting off circulation. It’s been a bit ridiculous at times, and my mom has had to tell me on multiple occasions that I don’t have to “die on every hill”.

As I’ve gotten older, that competitive spirit has stayed prevalent, but I’ve learned that there’s a big difference in being the best, and giving it your best. While we certainly will never be amazing at everything, that shouldn’t stop us from putting more heart in all that we do. However, I think a lot of us, including myself, can be afraid to give more heart at times. It’s hard to admit that we gave it our all. I’ve seen people give their whole heart to something, and when it doesn’t work out, they’ll use excuses like,”I didn’t actually care that much” or,”I didn’t really work or prepare that much for it”. In reality, we all know that these statements are usually just a cover for the hurt that comes with having more heart. We shouldn’t be afraid to admit how much heart we invested, because having heart is far more important than having a win.

If you’ve watched the show Friday Night Lights, I’m sure you’ve heard the famous saying,”Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.” If you haven’t seen the series before, these are the words of a football coach to his players before a big game. When I first heard this phrase, I figured it meant that if I have my full heart in something, I surely can’t lose at anything I’m doing. If I have a full heart, I basically have the power and strength of a middle linebacker while attacking my life ambitions.

After experiencing giving my full heart to something and still losing, I’ve come to a different interpretation of what Coach Taylor’s words. Giving our full heart doesn’t guarantee a “win” in the traditional sense, but it does guarantee that we can look back on our hard work with pride and no regrets. I’ve come to realize that having a full heart doesn’t equate to a full win, but it usually leads to a partial win. I have no shame in giving it my all and things not working out. In fact, I count it as a win that anyone is passionate and driven to do something, regardless of the outcome. On the other hand, I almost always have remorse when I know that I could’ve done better, but just didn’t have my heart in it.

Giving more heart isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth it. If you find it difficult or impossible to give your heart to what you’re doing, you’re probably doing the wrong thing. Give more heart in what you do today, and every day.

There’s more heart to give.

There’s more to it all.

more change

When I think about the word change, I generally associate it with a big physical change like moving somewhere new, changing the radio station to a different song, or even changing clothes. These types of changes are easy to see and recognize in ourselves and others, but they’re not always the most important changes we experience in our lives.

When I moved to college, it was a big change, and I’m not just talking about a change in weight as a result of the unlimited access to a dining hall. Living in a dorm with new people, not having classes strictly from 8:00-3:30, and having a Target down the street (as opposed to a few hours away in my home town) were a few of the big physical changes. In short, the atmosphere around me was drastically different from what I had experienced in life up to that point, and I think most of us experience similar big changes in our lives after we graduate high school.

While we can easily identify the changes around us, it’s sometimes harder to see the changes inside of us. I’ve often noticed how drastically my thoughts and opinions have changed when I sit down with an old friend. Undoubtedly, time contributes some to growing apart when we have these conversations with people we haven’t talked to in awhile. However, it’s important to recognize that we grow apart because we all change. Our view on the world changes, as well as our hearts, desires, and passions.

I think sometimes we can get a negative idea about these internal changes. While being steadfast in your beliefs and values will always be important, I think it’s equally as important to be open to changing how and what we think as we learn and grow. The change I experienced when I left for college was more than that of a new place. It was a new world of ideas, opinions, and knowledge. I’ve learned that it’s perfectly fine to change and develop new opinions, and it’s also just fine to realize that what I believed in the past isn’t always aligned with what I believe now having had new life experiences.

A change in surroundings doesn’t always equate to a change in mindset, but a new atmosphere can certainly push us outside our comfort zone. However, what happens when we can’t change our zip code? I think this is where the most important intentional changes can happen inside of us. In the past few months, a lot has changed about all of our lives, but the thing that hasn’t changed is where we are. Most of us have been stuck at home, which can seem like a standstill for any major change in our lives. However, we aren’t distracted by or influenced by the “new” around us, so we have no choice but to seek out growth and change in ways that don’t include traveling or moving to a different city. We should all welcome this change, because these changes in ourselves are probably encouraging us to be better than we were yesterday, and before this year.

If you’re scared to change yourself, remember the change you want to see in the world. It all has to start somewhere, and we can’t expect change in others until we intentionally seek out change in ourselves.

There’s more to change.

There’s more to it all.

more forgiveness

While Montana is known for having lots of snow, we have equal amounts of wind at times. Therefore, a lot of people have these things called “shelter belts”. Basically, a shelter belt is just a bunch of trees that are supposed to protect houses from harsh winds. The shelter belt next to my house growing up became much more than that for my brother and I, however. The trees were like our own forest to explore in, and we even tried to build a fort with random twigs and pieces of wood. I thought building the fort was somewhat cool, but my brother was way more invested in building the fort.

At one point, my brother was wanting to go out and build the fort every day. I wasn’t much help with the actual building part, but he liked to have some company while he was out there, so I’d agree to go out for a little bit. After about 10 minutes, I’d always say I was going back to the house for a “quick” snack or bathroom break. Without fail, I’d always just stay inside, and not go back out. An hour or two later, my brother would angrily come back in asking why I just left him out there by himself. Time and time again, he would ask me to hang out with him while he built the fort, and I’d always leave him out there by himself. Each time he’d forgive me, and give me another chance to redeem myself at being a good sister that didn’t leave her brother alone in the woods. To put it lightly, let’s just say that I will never win the sister of the year award because I never did stay out there with him.

When I think about how quickly my brother was able to forgive me when we were younger, I question if I would’ve been as forgiving as he was to me. If he would’ve left me out there in the shelterbelt all alone, I would not have been willing to give him a second chance. He did exactly that though, not just once, but dozens of times.

Forgiveness is something we all could have a little bit more of for ourselves, and for others. Whenever I find myself stuck on not being able to forgive someone, I try to remember how important it is to see the amount of forgiveness we give in comparison with the forgiveness we get. We are often quick to forgive ourselves for things that we won’t forgive others for. Similarly, we expect others to forgive us while still harboring a grudge from days, months, or even years ago.

More often than not, we have made the same, or similar, mistake that we are unwilling to forgive in others. If we are willing to extend grace and kindness towards ourselves and our own mess-ups, why can’t we be willing to do the same for others? It’s not always easy to recognize that we hold the people around us to a higher standard than ourselves, but once we do,  it makes it a whole lot easier to extend the forgiveness we have for ourselves to others.

One of my favorite quotes by Bryan Stevenson, an incredible author, and speaker, says,” Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. We all need mercy, we all need justice, and—perhaps—we all need some measure of unmerited grace.” I’m not sure about you, but I’ve needed some unmerited grace and forgiveness in my life more than a few times. Be quick to give that same forgiveness to someone today.

There’s more to forgiveness.

There’s more to it all.

more vulnerability

One of my biggest pet peeves has always been when someone takes credit away from someone else. I’ve seen this most often in the form of a person answering a question in class correctly, and then another person in the room says something along the lines of,”I knew that answer too, but I just didn’t raise my hand.” For some reason, this really gets to me. I think it’s the thought that if they feel compelled to share this sentence after someone else has already answered, why didn’t they just raise their hand? I would be willing to guess that most people that use this line didn’t actually know the answer like they are claiming, but if we put that aside, what stopped them from speaking up in the first place? Furthermore, what stops anyone from speaking up when we can/should?

Until last summer, I generally associated the word vulnerability with weakness. I had this image in my mind that being vulnerable would make people think less of me, and I wanted to be seen as confident and strong. I then read Daring Greatly, a book by Brené Brown, which changed this perception on vulnerability drastically. If you haven’t read this book, I encourage you to go find a copy of it to read today, and you can find a link to her TED talk on “The Power of Vulnerability” at the bottom of this blog.

She begins the book by quoting Theodore Roosevelt, who said:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Brené Brown’s book and research is all about vulnerability, which is likely at the root of why we don’t speak up in class when we know the answer. Making ourselves vulnerable to being wrong stops us from raising our hand in class, but this fear of vulnerability stretches much farther. In fact, a lack of vulnerability is likely in every “safe” choice and decision we make. However, Roosevelt’s quote is the perfect wording to remind us that it’s much better to fail while trying than to have never tried at all.

If I were to never make another mistake, I’d be very concerned about what I actually did, or rather didn’t do, with the rest of my life. Mistakes and vulnerability often go hand in hand, but in the best way possible. If we never take a risk in speaking up to say what we believe or know, we’ll never learn from those who can help us learn more. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I’d rather try something new, fail epically at it, and meet a new friend or find a new passion in the process of it. Similarly, I’d much rather speak up, be wrong, and learn from it, than to keep thinking and believing something that isn’t entirely true. While sometimes it hurts to hear that we are wrong, I’d rather have more vulnerability to learn than to be oblivious to the flaws in my own beliefs.

We don’t learn and grow by being sheltered and unwilling. If we look back at our greatest successes and moments, there was likely a lot of uncomfortable vulnerability that went along with it all. We probably had to put our hearts and hopes in the line, but we do it because it’s almost always worth the end result.

It’s my hope that we all choose to have a vulnerable heart over a hard and timid one.

There’s more to vulnerability.

There’s more to it all.

Here’s a link to Brené Brown’s TED talk, “The Power of Vulnerability”:

more unity

Growing up, my brother and I weren’t the worst kids, but we also weren’t the best. We fought with each other, locked each other out of the bathroom, and broke a few things around the house. One time while we were declaring war in the basement by throwing foam building blocks at each other, we ended up breaking a vase. Rather than admitting to our mom that we broke the vase, we chose to attempt fixing the vase with superglue. The vase was only broken on one side, so we figured we could maybe get away with it. We glued it together the best we could and then turned the broken side away from being easily viewed.

I’d like to say that this logic worked out for us, but it didn’t. Our mom eventually found out, and she wasn’t very pleased. My brother and I aren’t the only kids that probably did something similar to this, and we probably also aren’t the only ones who tried to avoid having the tough conversation of admitting we made a mistake. In fact, I think this fear of conversation stretches through all of our lives, no matter how young or old we are, in a lot of situations.

We can also find ourselves thinking it’s fine to hide the broken half as long as the side we see is still put together, just like the vase. Doing this only prolongs the inevitable, though. My brother and I thought that whatever we did with the vase didn’t matter that much, so why spend too much time thinking about it? After all, we weren’t really affected by the broken vase, because it wasn’t ours. However, I’m almost positive if my brother and I had broken one of our favorite toys, we would’ve worked to fix it, instead of just gluing and hiding.

This past week, I’ve learned how important it is the not let myself, or others, think that what is happening in our world does not involve every single one of us. I will never know the struggle, pain, and hurt of people of color in our country, but that will never be an excuse to not step up to learn, listen, and be better.

I’ve wondered how my words could ever be useful to bring unity in our world that is divided in so many ways right now. I’ve questioned my ability to ever say the right things. I realized though, that it will never be my words or actions that unify because unity is not about me. Unity is not just about “you”, “me”, or “them”. Unity is about us. My words alone don’t change everything, but it takes all of us to create unity in places where being divided hurts more than it heals.

Unity is about coming together even when our thoughts and opinions don’t always align perfectly. Isolating ourselves into groups that think and believe similarly will never create change. It will only create a greater gap that will continue to divide us. We don’t expect ourselves to know everything, so why should we expect others to quickly understand when they have lived different lives than us, and experienced different things?

Now, more than ever, I feel like there truly is more to it all. There is so much more to what is happening than what we see directly in our lives because it is way bigger than me and you. There is more to this situation than any one person could ever fully understand, but that is why there is always more to be understood. There is more listening for each of us to do. There is more for us to experience. There is so much more to talk about, and a lot more action to be taken.

At the end of the day, unity is loving others and wanting to fight for others even if you are not directly affected. I know that I’ll never be able to fully understand, but I will love, learn, and listen.

There’s more to unity.

There’s more to it all.

more humility

A few days ago, my friends and I decided to go Geocaching. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s basically an app that allows you to go on miniature treasure hunts. The treasure, however, is usually just a log book to sign your username, and some random trinkets. Regardless, it’s pretty fun to search for the Geocaches, and even more fun when you find them.

Between the three of us, my friends and I were able to find fourteen Geocaches in the matter of a few hours. We thought we were really good at the whole thing with numbers like that. After we got the hang of how it all worked, we found ourselves back at one of the first Geocaches we searched for, but weren’t able to find on our first try. There was another woman there searching for the same Geocache, and we decided to strike up a conversation to see where all she had looked. Turns out, this particular Geocache was no longer active, so we were basically searching around for nothing. After figuring this out, we began asking the woman where else she had gone Geocaching. She explained that she had found several of the same ones as us, and we boasted about the fact that we had found a whole fourteen of them that day. This woman raised our fourteen by a bit, and told us she had found twenty-five.

After hearing that our fourteen finds were minuscule compared to this lady’s findings, we were quickly humbled. Turns out, we weren’t as amazing as we thought we were. While our findings were alright, and something to be proud about, I maybe shouldn’t have boasted to the woman who had found far more by herself.

We all have a habit of wanting to be recognized for our hard work, and for a feeling of appreciation from those around us. Simply put, we want to feel like we matter to those around us, and to the world. Just like my friends and I with Geocaching, we want to broadcast our good works. Humility says that we don’t have to do that though, because it is more meaningful to be quiet in volume, and loud in value. I’ve found that searching for approval almost always makes us realize that what we want is for someone else to tell us they are proud of us. However, we can only find that security and self-appreciation in ourselves.

This isn’t always easy to apply in our lives. Trust me, I struggle with humility every day. In fact, I think there was a time in my life when I had no clue what humility was. I was constantly striving for someone to tell me that what I did mattered. Turns out, the world and those around us usually can’t say enough good things about us to fulfill that hunger for acknowledgement, because humility is the only thing that will fill us. Being humble doesn’t mean we can’t be proud of what we do, but rather that we aren’t harboring the feeling that we need to let everyone know what we did in order for our work to be meaningful.

I usually find that every time I’m striving for recognition, I need to know that a few seconds of admiration is far less valuable than being content with myself and humble. We shouldn’t focus our lives on having gleaming resumes, but rather how we can continue to add value while having humility in our hearts.

I hope that every day, I strive to be quieter in the words I speak, and more impactful in the value I add.

There’s more to humility.

There’s more to it all.

more joy

One of my favorite songs used to be Joy by Bastille. I’ve sung it in the car plenty of times, but I don’t know if I actually knew all the lyrics, or really comprehended what they were trying to convey. Naturally, I decided to google the lyrics to the song. The song talks about feeling “joy” when someone decides to pick up the phone and call. After reading these lyrics, I couldn’t help but question this example of joy. While I still love the way the song sounds, I’ve realized that these words don’t necessarily line up with what joy really means to me.

When I think about the things that bring me joy in life, I think of things that have been in my life for a long time. Family, friends, pets, routines, and places that feel like home are just a few of the things that come to mind when I think of joy. The common thread I’ve seen between all of these is that they are long lasting, and sustainable.

While getting a phone call from someone is great, I’d probably match it up with happiness, rather than joy. While both joy and happiness are great, I think we get caught up chasing after fleeting moments of happiness when we should be looking for constant sources of joy.

Being at home has reminded me that being happy and being joyful are not synonymous, even if the thesaurus says they are. While I’ve had great moments of happiness, I’ve also felt myself feeling down from all of the uncertainty in our lives. However, I think having joy is being able to know that our lives are more than the highs of greatness, and the lows of disappointment. Joy is most often found in the unfailing, consistent aspects of our lives.

The best part about joy is that we have the ability to establish it in our lives by surrounding ourselves with people who are reliable, and creating habits of gratitude that remind us that joy is in every seemingly ordinary day. Joy isn’t receiving the big prize, but it is enjoying every day of work leading up to that accomplishment. Joy isn’t usually a “what” we do, but rather how and who we do it with.

Moments of happiness are amazing, don’t get me wrong, but joy isn’t found in moments. It’s found in months of positive thoughts, and daily gratitude for all that can be easily taken for granted. Now, more than ever, is a time to find what brings steady joy, instead of temporary happiness.

How do you choose to create joy today?

There’s more to joy.

There’s more to it all.

more purpose

Almost every single major business has a mission statement. Don’t believe me? Google Honest Tea’s mission statement, and you’ll find that even a company that is only focused on making tea has an overarching mission to everything that they do. They, and countless other companies, let their purpose guide all aspects of the business. However, these missions and purposes are hardly ever actually attainable. Instead, they are lofty and overarching statements. 

While this seems odd to have unachievable mission statements, if these statements were achievable, they’d simply be goals. In almost every cliche high school leadership event, someone talked about having “SMART” goals. Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based were the five things that were supposed to structure our lives and lead us into being wildly successful. While “SMART” goals are great for promoting and motivating success, they focus a lot on the “what” and “how”, while rarely answering “why”. 

The other day, a friend told me that if we don’t know the “why”, we’ll have a pretty hard time figuring out the “what” and the “how”. When we think about what it is we want to do instead of asking ourselves why we want to do it, we often end up wandering through to-do lists, desperately wondering when we will feel fulfilled. Purpose can’t necessarily be attained, but it can be sustained. Just like the concept of joy sustaining and happiness being fleeting, purpose gives us meaning while goals just keep us seeking. 

Most of us weren’t meant to invent the next big thing, but we were meant to add value in our own little thing. Every one of us has a purpose, but I’ve noticed a lot of us aren’t sure about what that is yet. I see people every day investing their lives into a lot of “what”, and not a lot of “why”. The issue with this isn’t that we won’t accomplish things by following through with what we are doing, but rather it’s that we will never be able to live a life that has a consistent message.

When we have a consistent and specific purpose to live, we can make a difference in small ways. Our actions are driven by our purpose, and we are able to dedicate ourselves to being impactful in one meaningful way instead of many half-empty ways. 

Letting purpose take hold of your actions doesn’t mean you’ll impact perfectly each day, but it’ll certainly allow you to impact persistently. 

There’s more to purpose.

There’s more to it all.

more knowledge

In second grade, I learned how to multiply numbers. When we started the process of learning how multiplication worked, the goal was to know how to multiply every combination of one through twelve. At the time, I thought my trick to remember eight times eight with a rhyme was truly groundbreaking. Figuring out how to multiple all those numbers seemed like the hardest math I would ever encounter, and once I got it all those multiplications for one through twelve down, I’d basically know how to do rocket science.

Unfortunately, third grade rolled around, and the concept division came to rock my world that there was, in fact, harder math to learn. Year after year I encountered new and more challenging math concepts, and each year, I learned more. Now, after finishing several college calculus courses, I’ve learned I’ll never know all the knowledge there is to know when it comes to math (or even enough to involve myself in rocket science). In fact, there isn’t anyone that will ever have all the knowledge about math, or any topic for that matter.

It sounds daunting that we can never have all of the knowledge, but that doesn’t stop us from gaining more knowledge. In second grade, I thought the peak would be multiplication, but soon after realized there was no peak. If we view knowledge as having a peak in any aspect of our lives, we are forgetting that a large part of what drives growth is uncertainty. We find new knowledge in the unknown.

The topic I think we all wish we had more knowledge about right now is the future. It’s the most uncertain it’s ever been for most of us. If you’re a type one on the enneagram like me, this bothers you a whole lot. Planning just isn’t practical right now in a lot of ways, and that can cause us to want to strive for more knowledge about what is to come. The truth is though, we were never meant to have all of the answers. We were never meant to be able to plan our lives out perfectly to our desires in our heads. We were meant to trust that there will certainly be positive, negative, and neutral moments ahead.

While we can’t strive for more knowledge about our uncertain futures, we can take the initiative to gain more knowledge in the present. This doesn’t always happen by reading a book or listening to a teacher. In fact, I think the best knowledge I’ve ever learned has always happened in the most oddest times, and from the most unexpected “teachers”.

We often think that we have to learn from those older, wiser, or more accomplished people, but we have something to learn from every single person we encounter. We have all lived different lives. We all have heard words, and journeyed through experiences that have shaped us, and what we know. We all have something to learn from each other.

It’s amazing how much we gain by recognizing that while we aren’t experts at everything, we can be experts at seeking out more knowledge.

There’s more to knowledge.

There’s more to it all.

more hope

In middle school English class, I learned about the concept of concrete and abstract. (I promise this isn’t a grammar lesson in a blog post.) Concrete objects are the things we can feel and touch, while abstract things are not physical objects. It’s a pretty straightforward concept, but it makes me think about how some of the greatest things can’t be put in a physical form. Hope is one of those things.

Today, I said the word hope at least a dozen times. I hoped that the clouds would clear for an afternoon full of sunshine. I hoped that I had remembered to do all of the things I had due this week. I hoped I had the words to write this blog about more hope, because I think that hope is something we are all clinging to right now.

I also heard the word hope a few times. I heard my friend say that she hopes she gets to do her internship this summer. I heard Panic at the Disco sing about high hopes in the car while I was driving. A person told me they hoped I would get to travel with FFA again soon.

Hope seems like a whimsical word that doesn’t have a whole lot of power behind. I think when we hear and speak the word hope, it doesn’t always have the greatest impact. Hope is one of those things that often can’t be given to us by someone simply through words. We can receive tons of “get well soon” cards that say “hope you feel better”, but hope itself can’t be transferred through a few words, even if those words make us feel momentarily motivated. Hope is something we have to want and feel for ourselves, because no one else can have hope for us. We are all on our own when it comes to having hope for our lives, and our ambitions.

Recently, I’ve felt like my hope has only led to disappointment. I’d hope for something to happen, and when it didn’t, I felt disappointed. After a few of these disappointments from my expectations and hope for concrete things, I shifted my hope for some of the abstract things in my life. I began to hope for positivity in the minds of others. I chose to hope that my actions and words would leave an impact on those I interacted with.

I can’t tell you that what gives me hope will give you hope, but I can tell you that there is more hope to be found in your life than you could ever realize. A lot of us don’t have many concrete things to rest our hope in right now, and we don’t have much choice in that situation. We do have a choice to let our minds focus on hope, though, rather than fear. I choose to simply hope for better, instead of fearing for the worst. Hope will give us the light to know that there is more to our lives than our current situations, and it will be the driving force that gets us through each and every day.

Have more hope for the better today.

There’s more to hope for.

There’s more to it all.