Spring

An Important (and Sad) Announcement

2011-01-23T23:19:19Z

Oh, sweet Spring readers....We have an announcement that saddens us. After 13 months, this will be the final post.

Back in November, the 4 of us realized that our schedules wouldn't allow us to devote as much time to Spring as we would have liked, so we took a bit of a Spring Break (get it?) with plans to start back up after the first of the year. When 2011 came, we exchanged multiple emails trying to find a time for us to discuss our game plan and come up with the specifics for the new year - but we weren't able to find a time that worked for us all! It was then that we faced up to a truth we've been trying to avoid for a while now: We could no longer keep up with Spring.

We started Spring with the intention to create a community of like-minded creative women to have discussions about the themes around our lives. Whether it was time management or religion or money, we loved talking amongst ourselves and hearing your thoughts on the topics at hand. We were thrilled to open up this blog to guest post-ers and artists and others who wanted to share their viewpoints with this same community, and we'll always be touched with the response we've received here from the very beginning.

We absolutely do not want this to be the end of the discussion, or the community, or of our connections to each other. Please please please, come on over and visit us anytime:

Tiffany: website, blog, twitter
Jess: website, The Declaration of You, blog, twitter
Carolyn: website, blog, twitter
Michelle: website, The Declaration of You, blog, twitter

Thank you for all your comments, all your support, and all your encouragement. It's meant so much to us all.

Transitioning into the New Year with Intention (guest post by Shenee Howard)

2010-12-29T12:00:16Z

Ok, so I am going to talk about the transition we will all be making within the next couple of days. The New Year, people!

Isn’t there something beautiful about a new year? I always compare it to receiving a new notebook. It’s the freedom to create on blank pages.

I am always falling victim to the New Year hype. I sit down. I write my resolutions in a crisp notebook. Blank. Full of possibilities. Soon enough, both get neglected. I go back to my old notebook. Sometimes the newness of the New Year can be overwhelming. And the promises we make to ourselves? It can be hard to face the failure.

Honestly, I don’t remember all of my resolutions from last year. Sometimes we get obsessed with self-improvement and go overboard.

So, how can we transition into the glorious new year and face the blank sheets of paper without the shame the often follows?

We think about intentions. Not resolutions.

So instead of writing out resolutions, I am going to do something a little different. I am going to have intentions for the new year. Instead of focusing on very clear, measurable goals, I am going to skip ahead.

How do I want to feel in the New Year? Cause isn’t that what resolutions are all about?

It’s not about those concrete things that we feel like we need to have to make for a better year, it is about how those resolutions will make us feel. It is about desired feelings.

And it also gives us the chance to think of the things we don’t want to do. What things did you do this year that prevent you from those desired feelings?

Here are some of my intentions for the New Year:

I want to feel like I am making enough money to sustain myself and plan for the future
I want to cultivate connections that will help enrich my life and my business.
I want to feel in control of life and my own destiny.
I want to find a happy balance between workaholic and fun.
I want to be happy with the content I produce and be confident in my ability to help others with the services I offer.
I want to give myself the time and space to grow, make mistakes and learn. No more Shenee shaming. : )

Of course, there are some very specific action steps that will get me to those intentions but I will make them itty-bitty and on a month-by-month basis. When we have resolutions, we rush at the beginning, obsessively checking off boxes and hacking at our “bad” habits. Then we get burnt out and in our moment without focus, we crack.

And so when I look back at my year, instead of trying to figure out if I lost 15 pounds or made 20,000 dollars, I will check my intentions. Did I find a happy balance between work and fun? And if so, how? Was I able to get some financial security?

And let’s not start in 2011. How about we start now? That takes even more pressure off. We aren’t waiting for the beginning. The beginning is now.

The New Year starts now.

Think about how you want to feel in 2011. What are some of your intentions? How can you start today?

I would love to hear about your plans for 2011. Follow me on twitter, can’t wait to connect with you all.

Shenee is a writer and designer out of Atlanta, Georgia. She is in the middle of a transition of her own, going from design superstar to bomb career creative strategist and professional writer. Work that makes her feel amazing and her heart full. When she isn’t wrangling words she is recording Awesomecast, trying to make Indian food ( but can never get it right,) watching the latest releases on NetFlix and attempting at more reading. You can catch her writing about creativity and inspiration at www.sheneehoward.com. She loves to chat so email her at sheneehoward [ at ] gmail.com and/or tweet her at www.twitter.com/sheneeh.

Passion & Making Money : The Wonderful Transition (A guest post by Shenee Howard)

2010-12-15T18:29:27Z

For most of my professional life I have been a designer. I plugged away endlessly until this past October, when I decided to go into work for myself. I started my own design business.

Thus, You’ll Look Great was born. It is the home of my design and writing strategy firm. As you know from my last guest post, robbery prevented me from moving forward the way things were. I had to start over without my adobe software. I had to think of ways to make money in a different way.

It is always hard to figure out ways to make money doing things other than what you do normally. I mined my mind for solutions. I need to figure out something that I was good at and could possibly make money off of. I thought of all the practical things first. Maybe I could do some light resume editing or some copywriting things. Nothing too exciting. It’s difficult for a creative to just stop being creative. Then I thought about an interaction I had with a friend a couple of days prior. She had a big idea and was having some trouble getting started.

First off, I need to take this opportunity to get something off my chest.

I am an idea junkie. I am constantly having to wrangle myself back from attempting every idea that I have. And I love helping with my friend’s ideas. I love the research. I love crafting the action steps. And I am so good at it. Obsessive personalities + ideas = creative craziness. We talked it out over skype. I sent her emails with my ideas. I asked her questions to help her get going. Her comment, “girl, you should be charging for this.”

I looked back at what I did and I realized that I created a set of intention worksheets. I recorded our skype call so that she could keep it and I realized that was a brainstorming session. Her email read like a testimonial.

More than that, it lit me up. And it felt so natural. More so than design. My relationship with design is of the tumultuous kind. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I don’t. Amazing creative clients with fun projects help. I get my bumps and bruises from design.

But this? There was an ease about it that almost felt a little wrong to me. This was natural for me and rewarding for someone else? How? I am used to fighting.

I created a list of services in the same spirit of that interaction with my friend. I created as many packages I could think of and sent it out to the internet. And I got some back. Not as much as my design but the work I did was so fun. I love interacting with people. I love the process of figuring out how to make dreams a reality.

And for me, it was such a rewarding to work.

From there, I started a blog where I shared my thoughts about idea creation, creativity and entrepreneurship. I started my Awesomecast. And it all came from the fact that I decided to pursue a passion that I wasn’t even sure I had.

It’s easy to discount something like helping a friend as something you can make money off of, especially if it feels too natural. Like most of you, I am a Danielle LaPorte disciple. In her sample chapter from Firestarter Sessions, she talks about the Metrics of Ease. This chapter really helped me understand what was going on with me. What the heck was happening? I was a designer.

I think that a lot of the times if we are truly good at something and there is an ease to it, we think there is something wrong with that. Passion work is almost a dirty word and can’t be a way to make money. Not true. Passion is something people are willing to pay for. I know that when I see a photographer who just loves their work, it makes me want to hire them even more.

I can’t say that I am making tons of money with my new set of services. In fact, it has been a bit of a hard sell but I just started. That is the thing about ease. It still takes work. You still have to market yourself and all that jazz. Ease isn’t about “cheap easy,” as Danielle would say. It’s about putting your energy behind the work you love.

When it does breakthrough, and I do find someone willing to make the plunge, I get SO HAPPY. I don’t care about anything else.

And guys, it is so worth it. Think about something that you do all the time and really love? Is there any way it can help support your dreams of financial independence? For me, it’s not about getting rich. It’s about financing my livelihood. And that’s all I ever wanted.

What experiences to you have with passion and money? Has it clicked for you yet? I would love to talk to people about it, visit me on twitter with some of your thoughts too.

Jess on transitions

2010-12-14T12:00:31Z

Oh, what a lovely freeze frame. Thank you, Vimeo. I swear, I think it's somebody at Vimeo's job to pick the ugliest frame from each video and use that for the screen shot image. They're probably laughing their butts off all day every day!

Anyway, here's my video about transitions! I've discovered something about myself that surprised me a bit.... curious? Check it out.

Also, look at my cute new headband. It's by Blue Eyed Freckle, and I love it.

OK, that's all. Enjoy! Hope you're having a lovely week!

Painful Transitions (a guest post by Shenee Howard)

2010-12-09T12:00:12Z

Sometimes a painful transition is forced upon us.

That happened to me on a random Wednesday morning in November. My computer was stolen. I won't go into the details but I can say this:

I was heart-broken.

2 months of building my new business were gone.

My best guess? My computer is probably being exchanged for crack and cigarettes right now.

But I digress.

I was forced to look at myself and my business and make the huge steps to start over. My business would never be exactly what it was so I was forced to rebuild. How the heck would I start?

In order to raise money for my new computer, I decided to offer non-design services for future clients. In addition to being a designer, I always wanted to help people in other ways. I was a writer and I decided to use my other skills to help myself out.

HUGE TRANSITION. Suddenly, I wasn’t a designer anymore.

There were some growing pains in the beginning. I made some mistakes, for sure. Not nearly as many as I made when I first started my business.

Along the way, I also designed my own blog to house my own writing. I started a podcast. I gained more clients then I had before. I am doing work that makes me even more joyful.

More than that, I changed the way I felt about my business and myself. Here are some of my tips for dealing with painful transitions.

Give yourself time
Let yourself cry. Allow yourself to get angry. It's never beneficial to keep everything bottled up for the sake of moving on. Once you let yourself feel EVERYTHING, you can truly open your mind for change.

Let Go
Once you have really gotten it all out, let it go. Make the decision to stop letting whatever happened bother you. Decide that from that moment on, you will try your best not to worry about it. I know from personal experience that this is better said than done. My trick: Find a good book to read. Whenever my mind floated to “woe is me”, I read a book. I did spend a lot of late nights reading but I also felt so much better.

Take inventory of what you have learned
We learn so much from every stage of our life. Think about what you have learned and note the triumphs and the mistakes you might have made along the way. How can that knowledge help you go forward and move on?

Positive change
Even if we didn’t want to let go to what we lost, we can still understand that improvements could have been made. After we have taken our thought inventory, we can put our knowledge to good use. For me, it wasn’t just about changing my services, it also meant changing the way I ran my business.

Make a BIG change
I have a friend who gets a haircut every time she has a breakup. I think this is a brilliant way to transition out of a failed relationship. She said it makes her feel new. My big change was my podcast and new blog. I had spent a lot of time doing guest posts but I didn’t have a home for my own writing. This was a big change that had a big pay out.

Open yourself up to something new
I know that this is old hat but things happen for a reason. Maybe the universe is making space for something bigger and better, even if you don’t feel that way right now.

What are some of your painful transitions? What did you do to recover?

Michelle's Toughest Transition

2010-12-07T12:00:49Z

It's not what you think!

Michelle on Transitions from Spring Inspiration on Vimeo.

And to make life easy, click here to subscribe to my newsletter & get that free workbook I've been talking about, and here to find my entrepreneurial transition stories. Most of those links have something to do with being an entrepreneur, so pick your poison!

And of course, please feel free to share your story & post any questions you have for me here. I'd love to hear 'em!

It's Week 1 of Transitions

2010-12-06T12:00:24Z

Hi everyone!

It's already December 6th, but it's only Week 1 of Transitions here on Spring! Thankfully December is a loooong one (5 weeks long!) so that we're not too far behind. Because of the holidays, we weren't able to record a group video, so expect individual videos each and every week (mine'll be up tomorrow). We're also taking a bit of a break (Spring break - get it? get it?) from Spring Into Action and Pimp My Inspired Life, but you can still expect some juicy guest posts -this month they're from Shenee Howard!

See ya tomorrow with my video on my biggest, scariest transition yet (and no, it's not from Corproate America to Entrepreneur!)!

being generous to yourself.

2010-12-03T12:00:18Z

Hi friends and happy friday!

I thought we should talk a little bit today about the importance of being generous to yourself. We talked a lot about this when during self-care month, but I really do think that as women, we tend to be so hard on ourselves.

Here's what I wonder:

What if we all treated ourselves the way we'd treat our best friends? Our mothers, our sisters, our loved ones? What if we forgave our mistakes the way we'd forgive the mistakes of those closest to us? What if we were willing to let ourselves off the hook every once in a while for making a mistake or doing something not so perfect?

What if we let ourselves just be?

I can only imagine the kind of love that we'd feel, that would fill our hearts and spill out into the world.

Sorry, I'm not normally such a hippie, but I really do believe in this. So, let's ponder this for a while and just cut ourselves some slack. We all work really hard at this thing called life and we all deserve it.

Even you.

To forgive: a guest post by Dierdre Flynn

2010-12-02T18:27:17Z

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

I am not sure how it is for other people but, for me, forgiveness is a constant state of being I try to work towards and be. And, if I am honest, I often don't find it easy. Giving someone else the benefit of the doubt can be the most challenging choice. And choosing to forgive someone who does not return the consideration is sometimes the most difficult.

My dad always said harboring resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to suffer. Before I left Corporate America I referred to myself as “Angry Storm Cloud Deirdre”. I was the ugliest version of myself. I hated what I was doing, hated how I was spoken to, hated that I had to do that work to afford to live in a city I loved. So I stopped caring. I took things personally. I was judgmental of those did who did take it seriously. I resented those around me. I was not patient. I was not always kind. I focused on how unsatisfied I was. But that anger and unhappiness only corroded my own heart. No one else. Instead of forgiving myself for having to make that choice, forgiving others for valuing something I found pointless and keeping an eye on the bigger picture, I kept anger as my main focus. And I've learned- anger puts forth in the world nothing but more anger and barren rocky ground, difficult to negotiate. Forgiveness puts forth a fertile soil for kindness, relationships, maturity and generosity to grow in.

My choice to give up the frustrations and to move to Thailand working with The SOLD Project created space to look into what grudges and grievances I held on to. In light of the distilled beauty and purity of life there, I saw what a fruitless weight I'd been carrying around. Those resentments took up valuable real estate in my mind and in my heart and took up a considerable amount of energy. Energy better spent in another way. Keeping the focus of my heart positive makes me a happier and kinder person to those around me.

New York did not teach me how to forgive but it taught me how to be wise with my heart, what I am made of and to take care of myself. Thailand has taught me how to have faith in love, the rest of what I am made of and, with forgiveness, you can keep your eyes and your heart on the bigger picture and achieve it. This leap of faith will grow, thrive and continue to live in me by forgiving those who have hurt me, disappointed me or misjudged me. Because holding onto to how they hurt me, only hurts me.

If you are unhappy with your life, you have the right, the wisdom and the power to change it. There is nothing to be gained for yourself, or for those around you, by remaining entrenched anger or frustration and past grievances. Unhappiness wraps its' tentacles around your heart, shutting it off, and keeps your focus inward. A clear mind and calm heart allows things to happen and for you to look outward to see beauty and possibility waiting. And that change of view creates opportunities for everyone. Focusing on the negative does not leave room to give to your life or give with your life.

Forgiveness is the truest form of generosity.

Finding myself in my 10th year in my beloved city of New York, gainfully employed in a sea of the unemployed, and living in an atypical (aka spacious) apartment I realized with surprise… ”hmmmm, something is not quite right”. Thus began a big ol’ think and a chat with God, family and friends. I began eyeballing the rest of my life; what I could give to my life and what I want to do with it. The result- working with The SOLD Project as their English as a second language teacher and Long Term Volunteer Program Coordinator for the next 6 months to a year. Prior to working with SOLD I was an actor... and a waitress and a box office assistant and temp extraordinaire and an executive assistant and a freelance drama teacher running after school programs at various schools in NYC. I have always been burdened by sexual exploitation and feel blessed to be in a place, and working with an organization, where I can marry my skills and my heart for the same cause. You can read about my leap of faith and 'only in Thailand' experiences at www.takenbythewinddf.wordpress.com

It's Week 4 of Generosity!

2010-11-29T12:00:13Z

Happy almost-December friends!

We took last week off in honor of Thanksgiving and I'm here now to wrap up our generosity week! Did y'all have happy Thanksgivings? Do some shopping? Eat a lot of turkey? I hope that however you celebrated, you were surrounded with lots of love and good cheer. That's what the holidays are all about isn't it?

As we leave Thanksgiving (one of my favorite holidays since it's all about gratitude!), I thought it would be fitting to ask this question for Spring into action: when have you been on the receiving end of generosity and how has it affected you? I'm really excited to hear what you all have to say on the topic!

Here's how it works:

:: The Spring Into Action details ::

-> Respond to the weekly prompt on your blog (each prompt will be posted on Monday morning). Respond using any method you like! Paint something, or take some photographs, or write a mini essay, or maybe even a stream of consciousness blog post. Whatever strikes you in the moment, go with that!

-> If you plan to post about the prompt share your blog with others! Use Mr. Linky to Spring Into Action! You can post a general link to your blog and/or a link to your blog post on the specific prompt. This fun little tool will allow others to join your conversation. Mr. Linky is at the bottom of this post.

-> Use the badge above (Spring Into Action) on your blog to let others know about your participation in this challenge. If you use the badge, we ask that you link it back to either this post or Spring's main website.