Sep02
Posted on Sep 2 by Ruth Davis
(This is a re-post from 2010 but, like with many things I re-read after some time has gone by, it was a great reminder about WHY I want to find the fun. I hope it reminds you of something, too. <3 Ruth) You’ve heard the saying, “all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.” Well, last week I was in Florida to meet with my Mastermind group. It is two full days of intense coaching, talking, brainstorming, releasing, planning, growing work. For past meetings I’ve always arrived a day early to acclimate to the weather and the time zone, but usually spent the time in my room, just hanging out. This time I wanted to do it differently. I wanted to have some FUN! I have always wanted to canoe through the Everglades. So a few weeks before the trip I looked online and discovered that the marshy, boggy part of the Everglades was too far from Miami for an easy day trip. I was bummed. Disappointed. I couldn’t believe that I was so close to a...
Aug26
Posted on Aug 26 by Ruth Davis
If all goes as planned, I will be back to the beach a week from today. Even though the RV is at the mechanic again. I had picked it up last Friday, all systems go. I drove city streets to the state’s emissions test center, then decided to take the freeway home. When I hit 65 mph I felt a slight hesitation, then the a/c stopped blowing cold. I didn’t hear any noises but I smelled something piney. I got home without incident and asked Marika to join me for a test drive. First we checked under the hood and that’s when we saw the belt on the ground, under the engine. I left a message at the mechanic and towed it back there on Monday morning. He called Monday afternoon to tell me the a/c compressor had seized up, causing the belt to snap. He knows I am leaving town on Monday and I am at the top of the priority repair list. Meanwhile, I’m not able to do any of the things I need to...
Aug19
Posted on Aug 19 by Ruth Davis
(Note: I wrote this in September, 2010, five years ago. Seeing the life I have created since then, I know it’s because I committed to a plan.) I was never one for having a long-term plan. When people asked “what are your goals for 5 years, 10 years?” I’d look at them blankly. I had no idea. I would tell myself, I live in the moment, I can’t possibly know what I’ll be doing in 10 years. And yet, in the deep of my heart, I DID have a vision of what I wanted to be doing, where I wanted to be living. I just never shared it. Not even with myself. Because some voice inside of me said that, if I wasn’t doing it NOW, then I must be a failure. I only knew how to have short term goals. I didn’t know how to create a long term plan. And so I tucked my secret dreams deep and away and continued to believe that the only long term goal I needed was to just be happy...
Aug12
Posted on Aug 12 by Ruth Davis
Several of my clients are not happy at their jobs. They don’t feel appreciated. They don’t feel challenged. They don’t love the work. They wish they were doing something more fulfilling, more exciting, more passionate. And their first questions to me are, “Can you help me write my objective on my resume. Can you help me find a new job.” And I ask them, are you looking for the same situation? Because, unless we change the HOW and the WHY of what we are looking for, the WHAT will remain the same. It’s so easy to just want a new job. To get out of here, to find a new, better there. But, unless you take the time to figure out what you’d really love to be doing, you’re going to end up in the same unsatisfying situation. If you want a different outcome, you have to take a different approach. I am not a career counselor. My job is not to help you find a job. My role is to help you get back in touch with your...
Aug05
Posted on Aug 5 by Ruth Davis
After a gloriously relaxing week in the White Mountains of Arizona, playing Mexican train dominoes with friends, lunching out and sleeping in, Marika and I headed back to Phoenix early Friday morning. I left at 8:30 and she and Mabel stayed an hour longer to watch the birds in the trees. It’s been years since I’ve driven the route from the northeastern part of the state to Phoenix. They’ve widened it to two easy lanes in each direction, separated in many places by the changing Arizona landscape. It was like a new road, a new way home. Driving west along the 260, the sky above the Mogollon Rim was filled with going-to-be-storm clouds, fat and greying on the edges. The elevation was still above 6000 feet and I chugged up the steepest mountain passes, barely reaching 35mph as SUVs passed me going 65. Still, I was going faster than the semi-truck behind me. I drove through Payson, a small mountain town that is now a congestion of fast food and traffic lights and housing developments. But the Beeline...
Jul29
Posted on Jul 29 by Ruth Davis
Whenever I return from traveling, I give myself a day with nothing planned so that I can re-adjust to the time zone, take a nap if I need to, do laundry, and unpack my own self from the experience before jumping back into daily life. And so I’m spending this last week of the Heart Sparks Road Tour in the mountains of Pinetop-Lakeside, AZ, just relaxing, before heading down into the summer-hot Phoenix valley to begin a month of Mac training. I’ve been on the road for 110 days, passed through 3 time zones, 10 states and stayed in 26 different camping spots. After the last two weeks of hopscotching from Memphis, TN, to Alabama, then Tennessee again, through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, I am so glad to be in Arizona, knowing that I don’t have to drive anywhere for a whole week. Even though I only drove 2-3 hours each day, it seemed like a long trip because it was too hot and muggy to venture out for anything more than a quick round of...
