Jana Says

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A few reasons to embrace minimalism

by Jana 11 Comments

On the Jana Says Facebook page, I recently asked what 10 beauty/makeup items would you keep if you could only have 10 items for the next 10 years (there were some great answers and I'd love to hear yours so please hop on over there and leave a comment). My list included:

  • One of those chunky eyeliner/eye shadow combo things
  • Mascara
  • Tinted lip balm
  • Moisturizer
  • Bath and Body Works paraffin hand lotion
  • My flat iron
  • Ponytail holders
  • Nail polish colors I'm Not Really a Waitress (OPI) and Chocolate Kisses (Essie)
  • An emery board

I didn't include items like soap, shampoo, razors, etc, because I put those in a different category. And borrowing of other items is permitted for special occasions.

(Note: Another exercise I do in my own head is figuring out what I would pack if I had to move in two hours and could only take with me what would fit in the trunk of my car. We can talk about that another day if you'd like.)

The reason I asked the question is because I am becoming increasingly interested in the concept of minimalism. I am intrigued by things like the 40 hanger closet. The idea of having a small amount of items that are meaningful, purchased consciously, used regularly and are of good quality rather than spontaneously purchased junk thrills me. The thought of having one main product–like my iPad–which is multifunctional and portable is lovely.

And while I dwelled on the idea of minimalism, I started thinking about the reasons why I love the idea. And I came up with these main reasons:

Organization

I have learned that one of the best ways to manage my anxiety–which is a trigger for my depression–is to keep my house clean and organized. When I can look at a room, see everything put away, and items that belong in that room are, in fact, the only items in that room, it eases my mind. It makes me feel at peace. Which is extremely important.

Staying organized is hard. There are so many systems and ideas and methods to follow that it can be overwhelming. Overwhelming picking out which one to follow, where to start, and how to maintain. While the simplest advice is “pick what works for you”, I figure that for me, the method that works the best is to not have too much stuff. Beause the less items we have, the easier it is to stay organized as there's less to attend to and less clutter to keep in check.

Narrows choices

I have tremendous difficulty making decisions. Not big, major ones, but small ones like which nail polish color should I use this week or what socks should I wear or water or iced tea. It's annoying, actually, to get paralyzed by small mundane choices. I've realized, though, that part of the reason I get dumbfounded by the choices is I just have too much stuff to choose from. It's like walking into a supermarket and deciding what cereal to buy and you have no coupon to help push you in a direction. There are so many options you just know that you'll make a choice and then immediately doubt yourself.

Only having a few items to choose from helps eliminate that self doubt. You know that everything you have was intentionally purchased and you love it, so there is no regret. Each decision is a good one. And it doesn't take 20 minutes to make, which saves time. That's good, too.

Saves money

I don't even know how many thousands of dollars I have wasted over the last few years buying stuff that I liked in the store or at the counter, used once, and then never touched again because it either fell apart, was sheer crap, washed poorly, or dozens of other reasons. Or they were given away, donated, or thrown out because I purchased many of these items on a whim and never got around to using them.

It's actually quite sad.

Which is why it makes no sense to me anymore to purchase something just to purchase it. It's foolish. Embracing the concept of buying things intentionally forces you to think about where your dollars really are going and it forces you to think about the value of the item in your life. It eliminates shopping as a hobby, which saves money and reduces clutter. And when you are spending money on the unimportant, it doesn't leave much left for the important.

The fourth aspect of minimalism that I like is that it just saves time. Time not spent cleaning and putting things away. Time not spent shopping for crap. Time not spent deciding what to wear so people you don't care about are impressed with how you look. Not spending time on that gives more time for the hobbies, work, people, and anything else you truly love. Time is something that's hard to get back. Why waste it?

I'm not sure that I can ever become a complete minimalist. I live with two other people who don't seem to completely share my ideas. However, I can work on the areas in my control. And I figure that's a start.

How about you? How do you feel about minimalism?

Life lessons from the Emmy awards. And cupcakes!

by Jana 9 Comments

Emmy-AwardsLast night, just like we do every year, my husband and I watched the Emmys (well, this year we took a break in the middle to watch Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad > Emmys). And, just like we do every year, my husband and I bet on who would win awards. Although this year, since our printer still isn’t hooked up and the app I downloaded sucked, my husband hand wrote the ballot and we made our selections with a highlighter. The fun part about that was the fact that my husband has atrocious handwriting and is careless with his spelling so when I was making my picks, I had to ask him who Juan Baton and Jom Parsnip were (Jason Bateman and Jim Parsons, respectively).

But that’s besides the point.

Also besides the point but something I need to share is that I won our bet. We don’t bet money, either. We bet something way more important. Crumbs cupcakes. If you’ve never had a Crumbs cupcake, send me your address and I’ll have one mailed to you because the cupcakes are amazing and the company does that kind of stuff. I assure you that once you have one, you’ll understand why our bet was so serious. And why it’s such a big deal that I won.

Jana’s note: Please do not actually send me your address. I’m pretty disorganized when it comes to that stuff and I don’t want to misplace your information that would be on my list of people to whom I  need to send Crumbs cupcakes and have the list picked up by an actual serial killer and then he comes to your house because he, too, wants a cupcake and then it’s my fault if something happens to you. I don’t want something to happen to you. Or for it to be my fault.

I think this post is getting away from me a little bit.

Let’s circle back.

Last night, my husband and I watched the Emmys. And just like 2 years ago (go easy on me with that post, please. It was written not long after I started blogging and really, I kind of sucked as a writer and blogger back then. I’m only slightly better now), I learned some things from watching the show that were completely unexpected and important lessons we can apply to our own lives:

  • Brevity. Last night, one of the winner’s made this speech: “I gotta go. Bye”. Social media erupted, praising Merritt Weaver for her amazing speech because really, there was nothing else to say. Her speech captured the moment perfectly. It was short and to the poing. Not so much sweet, but short and to the point. What we can learn: sometimes, saying just a few words has more impact  than droning on for minutes or hours. How many times have you sat in a meeting and your boss or co-worker just kept talking and talking and lost her audience? How many times have you read an email that was just so long winded your eyes glazed over halfway through and you forgot what you read in the beginning? Probably too many to count. So, the next time you’re in a position to communicate something important, remember that brevity and conciseness go a long way.
  • You won’t always impress everyone. Neil Patrick Harris hosted this year’s show and after seeing what he did with the Tonys that one year I watched because American Idiot was nominated and I wanted to see if it won, I, and probably millions of others, had very high hopes for him as a host. And honestly, I didn’t love what he did. He kind of flopped a bit at times. But that’s fine. Maybe I expected too much. What we can learn: Not everyone will love what you do all the time. You may think you’re doing a great job but there may be expectations that are so high they’re almost impossible to reach and then, inevitably, people will be disappointed. Let it go. Don’t worry about them. It’s one thing to accept their criticism and use it to improve. It’s another to let it destroy your confidence.
  • Awards aren’t the only validation for success. Every year, there are disappointments. Every year, there are some actors nominated and they never win. Yet when you watch what they do, it doesn’t stop them from doing incredible work or receiving consistent critical acclaim. It doesn’t stop them from having legions of fans. What we can learn: Even if you never win an award for your work, don’t let that stop you from consistently doing the absolute best that you can. Whether it seems like it or not, there are people who take notice and to them, your efforts mean everything. They are the people you need to keep working for, not those who give out awards.

With that said, I’ve gotta go. I have a cupcake to pick out.

 

10 strategies to improve self-esteem, part 2

by Jana 5 Comments

If you missed part 1, you can read it here. 

I am constantly working on improving my self-esteem. It’s not something that comes easily to me. At all. Most of the time, I’ll say something nice to myself and follow it up with a dig or a “but”. Which kind of doesn’t make sense. Why give myself a compliment only to follow it up with an insult?

I don’t know. It’s just how I’ve worked for so many years that it’s almost impossible NOT to do. But when I insult myself, I give others the freedom to do the same. I really don’t like that. Being insulted hurts and further damages my already damaged thought processes. Also, the insults make me feel like the negative voices are right. And they can’t be right all the time. Right?

Right.

So every day, I battle to make them wrong. I do it following these steps:

post quote6. Stop comparing yourself to others. Comparison is dangerous. Comparison to others is probably the worst possible thing you can do to yourself if you’re trying to improve your self-esteem. Because there will always–ALWAYS–be someone who, on the surface, seems perfect. Perfect looking, perfect job, family, social life and OMG, look at how much money they have! But you never know what’s going on beneath the surface. Maybe that person inherited that huge house because both of her parents are dead. Maybe that person with the seemingly perfect family had to work really, really hard at conceiving her children. Maybe that fancy vacation and all those parties they attend are sponsored by work on you’re only seeing pictures from her one night off. You never know what the true story is. So don’t compare yourself because what you’re comparing might not be real at all. If you find this hard to do, take a Facebook break. Because Facebook is the worst place to go if you’re working through this step. And it’s also the source.

7. Acknowledge your talent and skills. It is my belief that every single person has some sort of talent, even if it’s small or weird (like eating spaghetti with your feet). If you’re anything like me, you don’t recognize or admit what you’re good at because for some reason, it makes you feel like you’re showing off or bragging. Guess what? You’re not. If you’re good at something it’s because you were blessed with a talent and then you worked hard to get better at it. You put in time, practice, effort, and you deserve to be proud of what you can do. There is no absolute no reason to hide your talents or to let them wither away. Acknowledge them. Use them. Embrace them. Share then with the world. Or at least your family and friends. It’ll be hard at first but as you get more comfortable with sharing, you’ll gain more confidence and realize that yes, you can do this! You ARE good at (fill in the blank). And there’s no shame in being talented. post quote 2

8. Rebut the argument in your head. Anyone who knows me well knows that maybe, every now and then, I like a good argument. Actually, I’ll only get into an argument or debate if I know I’m right or if I passionately believe in something. Which is why this is the hardest part of the 10 steps for me. When I’m feeling particularly down, I do my best to go all Lincoln-Douglas on myself and usually, I just wind up in a draw. It’s hard sometimes to convince myself that I’m better than I think. I’m assuming it’s hard for some of you, too. But that’s when we need to do it most. When you tell yourself something negative, you need to combat it with a positive. Or reframe the statement in a positive light. Or just stop saying negative things to yourself (it’s hard for me, too). Negative self-talk is probably the most damaging, hurtful you can say, and if you say it to yourself to make sure that no one else says it first than we’re more alike than you know. But we need to stop saying those words. [Read more…]

10 strategies to improve self-esteem, part 1

by Jana 49 Comments

It’s probably no secret around here that I have fairly low self-esteem. Self-confidence, feeling good about myself, believing in my talents and abilities are all rare forms of currency in these parts.

But I’m working on it.

When I was in therapy, my counselor and I talked about ways to undo the “maps” in my brain that automatically took me to the places where I feel worthless. We went over the whole “would you say that stuff to a friend or family member so why do you say it to yourself?” business. We discussed methods for acknowledging achievements, accepting praise and compliments, and all the other things that people with healthy doses of self-confidence do regularly and without having to think to hard about it.

She didn’t do a very good job of helping me because our sessions usually made me feel worse. It’s only now, about a year after I fired her and stopped attending therapy completely, that I’m able to truly work on building myself up after tearing myself down for so many years. I don’t know if it’s because now I’m actually at a point where I can fully commit to working on it or if the changes I’ve put in place since I’ve let her go are finally bearing fruit or something else that I can’t explain or maybe some combination of all of the above.

I do know that I took the first step to changing a few months ago when I decided I would just stop hating myself. It’s hard–and maybe too painful–to discuss why exactly I have such hard feelings towards myself but it might have something to do with impossible standards that I expect myself to achieve. In fact, I typically set standards too high, knowing that I’ll never achieve them in the limited and ridiculously short time frame I give myself so that when I inevitably fail because I’ve created a situation where it’s almost impossible to succeed, I can admonish myself failing.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don’t recommend doing that. It doesn’t work. Actually, it makes things worse.

Because I recognize that what I’d been doing wasn’t working, I realized a few months ago that I really need to change my strategy and my thinking, if for no other reason than I needed to think about the example I was setting for my daughter. How could I encourage her to have high self-esteem and think she can conquer anything when I couldn’t do that for myself? I need to live the example I was setting as words are meaningless without action.

So I started implementing 10 strategies. I’m still working on them, and I encourage you, if you’re in a similar situation, to start doing the same. We can be a team, even.

  1. Forgiveness. Forgive the people who’ve hurt you, forgive yourself for making mistakes, forgive yourself for not living up to the standards you or someone else has set for you, forgive past behaviors and mistakes. Something I’ve had to learn is that forgiving does not equal forgetting but when you forgive, it makes it so those behaviors and choices aren’t eating away at your heart and soul, and it makes it easier to move on. forgiveness quote
  2. Eliminate negative influences. We all have people in our lives who drag us down. They constantly make mean spirited comments, put us and our choices down, and go out of their way to make us feel worthless and unimportant. They’re unsupportive, condescending, and rude. And they need to go. Admittedly, this is harder to do with family than with friends but if you have friends like this in your life, they’re not really friends. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk but friends also don’t make friends feel like shit. It’s hard to feel better about yourself when someone else is making you feel bad.
  3. Have a mantra. Remember the old Stuart Smalley skit on SNL? The one where he would look into a mirror and say “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me”? It’s that concept. While it’s funny to think about, having a mantra is essential. Having those inspirational words to repeat to yourself in moments of self-doubt does wonders to combat the creeping negative feelings. A mantra doesn’t have to be a self-affirming statement, either. It can be a quote, a movie line, a song (these work best for me). Anything that you can say to yourself that makes you feel better. (If you’re stuck, you can follow my quotes and sayings board on Pinterest as a starting point)
  4. Accept flaws, quirks, and imperfections. It’s okay to be weird and have quirks. I have plenty of them. Instead of feeling bad or embarrassed by them, embrace them. Instead of apologizing for them, wear them proudly like a badge or medal. The flaws, quirks, and imperfections are what make you uniquely you. They help give you perspective and also maybe make you fun at parties. Trying to be whatever “normal” is doesn’t work for everyone and feeling bad about the fact that you’re different is pointless. Don’t be like everyone else. You are great the way you are. Even Billy Joel thinks so.

5. Do something every day that makes you happy. I had to work on this–and still have to work on this–every day to help combat my depression. Taking a few minutes out of every single day, even if it’s only 5 minutes, to do something that’s just for me, that put the emphasis on me, reminds me that I, too, am important. We live in a culture that praises selfless acts and condemns perceived selfishness, and thinking about others is really important. It’s crucial, in fact. But taking a few minutes every day to do something just for you makes it so that you are more able to care for others. When you’re happy, it’s easier for you to project that onto the world. And using 5 or 10 minutes a day to do that is okay.

That’s the beginning of my 10 point strategy to feel better about myself. It’s working so far and while I’m far from the most confident person in the world, I’m no longer the LEAST confident person in the world.

Which is a huge, monumental step.

 

Sometimes it’s okay to quit

by Jana 13 Comments

Here’s something that will probably get me kicked out of every successful person’s club ever created:

This. This is perfect.
This. This is perfect.

It’s okay to quit. It’s okay to quit jobs, friends, relationships, hobbies, being an adult (temporarily), and anything else that’s infuriating, exhausting, unpleasant or plain not fun. If it makes you unhappy, it’s fine to let it go, even if sometimes you have no backup plan (except for maybe the job thing. You might want to quit paying bills because, let’s face it, that totally sucks but maybe being homeless or living in the dark sucks more so if you’re going to quit a job, have some form of income). If it’s toxic to your mental health, well being, self-esteem, marriage/romantic relationship, parenting ability, or anything else important, quit it. Drop it. Let it go.

It’s like Shinedown sings–“Sometimes good-bye is a second chance”.

You see, sometimes when we quit, it gives us a chance to look at things from a new perspective. We realize just how much we’ve lost–occasionally gained (because there’s something to be learned from every situation)–from the time spent on something that we knew was poisoning our souls and infecting our lives. Letting go of what hurts us, quitting what makes us sad, opens our eyes more to what makes us happy and gives us a chance to focus on what’s good in our lives. And it affords us an opportunity to start over.

Not making sense? Let me give an example.

A few years ago, I worked at a job I loved for a boss I hated. Like genuinely loathed this woman for reasons I’ve explained before. So every Friday (or Monday or Thursday. Fine, every day), I quit my job. In my head, of course, but I actually said the words “I quit” (followed by a tirade of expletives). It was empowering for a few reasons:

  1. It gave me some control over the situation.
  2. It was cathartic.
  3. It gave me a chance to regroup.

By quitting, I was able to put the stress of the day behind me and take stock of what was really important, like my family, my writing, my hobbies. I was able to be present and have fun and remember that I do, overall, love my life. Because when I didn’t do that, my life was swallowed whole by the bullying and general meanness of this woman and it affected every facet of my life. Every. One. And everyone around me suffered. So to take back some control of my life and my emotions, I gave her a virtual “fuck you”. I up and quit on her, leaving her floundering with no one to pick up the slack and do her work.

And it felt good. And when I went into work the next day, I had at least a few minutes of perspective before all the crap started again and I had to go through the whole process over again.

So maybe that was a bad example. But you’re all smart and I think you get the point. And my main point is this–it is really okay to quit. People do it with bad habits all the time (says the reformed nail biter). It’s not worth keeping anything around–people included–that suck your time and energy and detracts from you doing what it is you’re meant to do or want to do.

Quitting what’s toxic also opens you up to people and experiences that support you and your goals. It gives you the freedom to pursue what your heart is telling you (as long as you can get your head to shut up). It gives you an inner peace that cannot be bought. And it makes our lives so much better.

If you have something or someone toxic in your life, quit it (or them). Just let it go. I know it’s easier said than done and I’m in the middle of this struggle myself. But I promise that in the end, in the long term, it’ll be completely worth it.

P.S. This doesn’t apply to goals or dreams. I don’t think you should ever quit on that. But if there’s something standing in your way of achieving those goals or dreams, then yes, by all means. Quit away.

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