GIRL IN SEARCH OF A TAGLINE

As I alluded in the previous post, I’ve come a long way since the morning of February 27th. Fun and interesting things have happened since then, and also uninteresting things, which I may get around to telling you about sooner or later, but probably the best thing that happened to me, to get me away from that hyped-up feeling of BRAINVERGANCE, was getting sick.

Not terribly, horribly sick, but enough to keep me quiet for most of the week, mostly staying home, avoiding the damp-raininess and inevitable germy phlegm bombs landing on the sidewalks from the throats of passersby. It was a stomach-y thing that became a head-throat thing. In between rest-times, I got some sense knocked into me by my pal Sarina.

She looks like a friendly person, doesn’t she?

Well, truthfully, she IS a friendly person, but she also uses that friendly smile to say, hey, why not journal about this simple, unassuming question? Why not make a full-page flow chart on that? And you, know, cut some pictures out of a magazine? And now, you know, write down some thoughts about that, too. . . Three days later, your journal is almost full, your hand is all writer’s crampy, and your walls are covered with words and arrows. I got sick and then I got coached!

I know I’m going to start to sound like an infomercial for dear Sarina, but this week has been so fruitful, I’m going to go on about it anyhow. When Sarina and I went to Ely in December, she was working on a free guide that would be available on her new website. She didn’t want it to be cheesy, she wanted it to be useful. I helped proofread it briefly, but didn’t actually do any of the exercises. “Looks pretty good,” I intoned. Before I left for China, her website was up and running, and now it is March.

By the end of last week I realized that one of the things proving difficult for me here in the big SH was that I didn’t have a suitable tagline. I am constantly meeting new people (thanks in part to super generous friends-of-friends, helping us get to know people). That part is awesome, but inevitably they say, “So what do you do here in the big SH?” And of course I have no solid answer for that: “Not really sure yet,” “Who knows?” “Mostly I get lost,” “Get overwhelmed by helpful tips on the internet,” were all possible answers.

Late last week, after conferring with another helpful friend, who is in a similar situation on a different land mass, I developed my own personal mantra, AA-style, and said it to myself and focused on getting excited about it:

MY NAME IS JULIE.
I DON’T HAVE A JOB.

(Hmm.. that actually sounds awesome!)

That’s the vibe I cultivated. Not that I’ll do literally “nothing” here (that is probably beyond my capabilities), or won’t do any sort of work, but for the time being I don’t…..job. I’ve given up the verb “job” for the time-being, and that might actually be super-exciting!! (It’s silly that it took such effort to get to this realization, but I think I was going through job withdrawal.)

So fast-forward to Monday, and I was gonna start Sarina’s guide. After blabbing on, attempting to convey my confusion in that last blog post, I thought, why not give in, make a damn vision board and try to get some clarity. It works for her other clients, why not for me? I can’t be a completely lost cause. And I have no job, all I’ve got is time!

Then I got sick, so it dragged the whole process out–but it also made me hibernate and complete the whole process. Which I did today! I cannot recommend it enough! (You can find it on sarinalamarche.com, you’ll see, “get your free guide!”) If you can devote some time to it, to really work through it, you may be surprised at what you discover. Maybe you, too, can pick up a virus or some bacteria to make you stay home for a few days for a forced retreat. And I do mean retreat–I needed to retreat from that feeling of overwhelm so badly!

I will spare you an analysis of my vision board and my 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month plans here, but I will request your suggestions–just for fun. I still may need a tagline now and then, to tell all the nice people I meet. This should be something I could write under my name on a business card, for example. If you have some tagline ideas (besides “creator and bum”–already thought of that)!

Especially if it will make me laugh.

Keep on keepin’ on,

J

P.S.  Do you have a tagline?  Have you fallen prey to a friendly looking coach?  Tell me about it!