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Designing Your
Signature Life, Part 2
Melissa Galt
The Parts and
Pieces:
In the second and final part of this series about designing your
signature life, we’ll talk about how Entertaining and Homemaking, Travel
and Adventure, and Personal Image and Style play key roles in creating a
life you truly love. We’ll also address the larger goals of attaining
balance, leaving a legacy, and actively creating a life plan.
As we discussed in Part 1, designing your signature life is not just
about your home interiors but is instead about every aspect of your
life. Designing a signature life will enable you to get what you want by
making a plan, establishing goals and creating a map to get there. By
demonstrating flexibility and patience in each step you’ll be able to
maximize your potential and the opportunities we each have. It’s about
creating a life as unique as your own signature!
Entertaining and Homemaking
Too often people want to entertain, but are afraid. They are waiting for
the house to be decorated, for that next promotion, for the kids to be
grown up and gone. Entertaining is not about waiting! It is not about
the perfect décor, your status at work, whether the kids are home or
not; instead it is about sharing time and experiences with friends and
family. If they are truly coming only to see your latest drapery or hear
about your raise, consider getting new friends!
Entertaining is a chance to invite others to share in a bit of your
life, a bit of your home, and a bit of you. It doesn’t have to be grand,
expensive or involve a caterer, although that can be fun too! Think
about having a potluck with a handful of friends. Or maybe a leftover
surprise dinner where everyone brings leftovers or cooks up something
from things they have had for awhile in the pantry. Better yet, have
everyone chip in $5 and order a pizza. It can be that easy.
Entertaining can also be about hiring the experts. Get a caterer,
develop a menu, hire a party planner, and let them take care of the
details! It isn’t about the scale of the party, but about bringing
people together and mixing it up. I throw parties for every reason or no
reason at all. Few of my friends are comfortable doing this. Yes, it can
be a lot of work if you let it. The choice is yours.
Travel and Adventure
Where do you want to go?? Many of us want to travel, but we don’t seem
to go anywhere because we don’t plan it. We are very routine oriented
and can’t seem to break loose for that spontaneous road trip or weekend
with the girls. Planned or unplanned, it won’t happen if you don’t just
do it. Taking a trip used to require loads of time, a travel agent, and
tons of money. Now it requires a few clicks of a mouse with no agent in
the middle, and you can do it for pennies. Of course, if you can do it
all out and want to, I say go for it. But don’t miss an opportunity to
experience another country, city, state, neighborhood, or culture. Don’t
wait until you physically incapable of moving around freely, with all
the resources, but with hindered ability. None of us knows how long we
will remain able bodied, so appreciate your good health while you can
and take every opportunity to explore your world.
Travel is about exploration, adventure, trying new and different things
that are sometimes exciting and sometimes scary. It is about tasting
unfamiliar foods, smelling new smells, experiencing other customs,
seeing different living environments, appreciating alternative
architecture, touching novel textures, and hearing unique sounds. It is
about taking a bite of life! It is about living bigger.
Often travel really makes us value home that much more. And sometimes we
really need that extra dose of perspective to appreciate what had become
ordinary to us but is really quite special. It can also make us realize
how big the world really is and put our lives and our own challenges in
a new light.
Personal Image and Style
Renowned costume designer to the stars, Edith Head, once said, “You can
have anything you want in life, if you dress for it.” This may well be
true. The key is in making a personal statement and showing a sense of
unique style. I always get a grin out of those that try to tell me to
wear scarves. It won’t ever happen. It is not my style. It was my
Mother’s and sister’s style and they did it with panache and grace. But
not me. It would be comparable to making a man wear a bowtie that didn’t
fit his own sense of style. Finding and defining your own sense of style
is very important. It is tantamount to creating your personal image
signature. I have a business associate who always wears a hat. It makes
a big statement about her and gives her a unique importance. She also
stands out from the crowd and wants to. Some gentlemen wear suspenders
or a pocket handkerchief with same panache and are remembered for that.
Clothing and image are inextricably tied together. What we wear, like it
or not, makes a statement loud and clear about who we are and what we
are about. Are you flashy? Sexy? Elegant? Professional? All buttoned up?
Bohemian? Tailored? Frumpy? Old Fashioned? Dated? Fresh? Do you have
savoir faire? Do you vogue? Are you saying what you want and mean to say
based on your wardrobe and personal presentation? Is it a consistent
message or are you all over the board?
Fashion and image also relate to your interiors. Typically when you have
truly defined yourself at this moment in time, you are consistent in
your appeal. Your interiors will suit you as your wardrobe suits you.
You will appear as a cohesive whole and not a series of confused
fragments. Working on one aspect leads to subconscious work on the other
aspect, and there is professional expertise available at all levels for
all aspects.
The Goals and Benefits:
Getting Balance
Often we think of balance as something that will eventually just happen
or we will magically find it. The truth is that it is up to each of us
to create it. What represents balance to one person may not to another.
It is an individual definition but typically means that our life is
flowing smoothly, our goals are on track, we feel on purpose and secure,
and we are making time for our priorities.
When out of balance we feel stressed, burned out, overloaded, and
stretched too thin. It happens a lot but few realize that it is really a
matter of evaluating priorities and delegating those that don’t mean as
much. Yes, we can do it all, but we don’t have to and it isn’t healthy
to. Achieving a healthy balance is about looking forward to each day,
knowing that we can tackle the responsibilities at hand, that we have
rewards to celebrate, and that we are truly living by our own design and
not anyone else’s.
A Life of Legacy
When we are living a life of our own design, when we are writing our
signature on the world each and every day, we are making connections to
a legacy. We are forming alliances and relationships with many that will
feel a lasting impact. Very rarely do we get a chance to know how much
we have influenced another’s path, but instead have to trust that each
encounter is never coincidence but intentional and with reason. We have
a great deal to learn and a great deal to teach while in this life. It
is by crafting our legacy and our significance with purpose and passion
that we will make the greatest difference.
A Life Plan
Creating a life plan is not an exercise we will do once and forget, but
instead it is about learning the tools and skills needed to continually
shape and redefine our goals, priorities and passions. As we grow and
change, our priorities will shift. What was important in our twenties
seems silly in our thirties, and different still in our forties and
fifties. We cannot predict, but only be open and flexible to
opportunities, directions, and experiences, always keeping in mind our
personal core values and seeking a fit with those values in all we do.
Creating a signature life is about learning the interior of you and
finding the happiest way to share and express that with the world. It is
about feeling fulfilled and secure in all you are and do, despite the
frequent hiccups in everyday living, and occasional disasters and
thunderstorms of tragedy that invade every life. Find your signature,
design your life. LIVE.
Copyright 2006 Melissa Galt
Article Source:
www.articlerich.com
Melissa Galt is a Lifestyle Designer and Speaker based in Atlanta, GA.
She hosts a series of blogs on design tips and trends, and produces a
monthly ezine dedicated to helping subscribers design their signature
life. For the latest teleclasses, seminars, and ebooks on designing your
life check out
www.melissagalt.com.
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