Creative Director: Hope

I Create: Creative Director of my Life.

‘Oh, you’re in a happy mood!’ My husband teased me last Friday. ‘Yes, I am!’ And then I was reflecting on this and thought, ok hold on. What actually happened today? There wasn’t a ‘stand-out’ amazing thing in particular. What was the secret sauce? And then, you know what came to mind right away? Hope.

I had thought about a few days recently that were just good / nice and enjoyable days. They were feel-good days. I was aware that these good days had a certain ‘je ne sais quoi.’

I was at home from work for a couple days last week. I had a cold, which came as no surprise after my younger son started school again in September, and had gotten a cold before me, with the normal school and hockey routine resuming. So, fortunately, I was able to stay at home, which I am genuinely so thankful about my job. I could recover. I felt much better Friday. I was back at work – at my favourite job – it helps to point out. I had a massage already booked for the following day. I had a class scheduled online also for the following day that I was set to attend about online and marketing (business knowledge does fascinate me too), and very much excited about, to hopefully gain some tricks of the trade or quash some myths. I had made the decision about reaching out to a local business to ask about selling my art cards. I also heard from the print shop with proofs of my Christmas and Winter cards after being uncertain if they had received my images.

Being rejuvenated after being sick, and all of this felt like forward momentum. It felt like hope. And that’s not to say that things are bad. It is to say that what’s coming up can be great.

I have followed Christie Marie Sheldon for some time. She teaches on intuition. Listening to an audio of one of her talks, she says that taking someone’s hope is one of the worst things you can do. So she encourages knowing how to listen to your own intuition and guidance. People always have choice to improve themselves or their lives. And improving ourselves does improve our own lives.

A few quotes I had noted about hope: ‘Be relentless about hope – through disappointments and when things don’t quite go your way.’

‘Hope is not pretending that troubles don’t exist, but knowing they won’t last forever.’

So Hope is definitely, then, a magic ingredient for a good day. This brings up some questions: how do I ensure I have some form of hope each day? Some kind of forward momentum brings hope, but will that be exhausting to always be pursuing this? In short, is that sustainable? Is it good to always be in a state of ‘hope,’ does that imply never quite reaching any desination or always having multiple things on the go so there is forward momentum in something? Back to again, is that sustainable?

Perhaps hope for a better future can be balanced with appreciation for present moment? The fact that I am excited about achieving something- whether that be the ‘X’ on the map, True North, the vision board wish – means that I can appreciatie where I am on my map right now, which made me acknowledge the desire to get to the True North and set a plan to get there.

Which brings back the point about the journey to the location is where we can create. The journey to the location can be filled with hope, and also with appreciation. I also think that being filled with hope doesn’t have to mean some kind of forward action every day. To have the feeling of hope is to simply not forget where you want to go and why. On days when you haven’t gotten an action step completed, just don’t forget to think about why you want to reach the destination on your map. What is it about the destination that made you decide that no matter what, it was going to happen?

Until next week,

Devon

I’ll just leave this here, in case you haven’t checked out my updated site yet! 🙌