Staying Present

In the past 6 months, I have finally have allowed myself to relax and enjoy the journey of my stationery brand. I decided to focus on my goals and clarify my vision. It sounds easy, but life gives us so many little distractions that misdirect us. There are times when I have to reassure myself not to over think everything hovering around in the back of my mind, and just be in the moment of whatever I'm doing. When I design, I design. I put in the hours because it's my passion. But, I also learned to break away so that I can focus on other things that matter just as much. Staying present breeds focus.

At one time, I would check my e-mails on date nights and answer them when I should have been giving my husband full-attention. I would get puzzled over something business related on a Saturday, when I SHOULD have been focusing on enjoying my weekend. I completely believe that, the more distracted we are, the longer the distance is of reaching our joy.

Spend the afternoon at the beach with your kids — savor every blissful moment with your family. Don't allow work, phone, e-mails or any other distractions to invade your quality time. It's a difficult concept to achieve because of daily distrations we have. Being an entrepreneur myself, we wear a lot of hats: marketing, shipping, accounting, design and everything else that comes up. Because we don't always work a typical 9-5 schedule, we have to relearn to take those hats off after hours.

Putting the No Hat Policy in effect after hours has allowed amazing things to happen professionally and personally to me.

Stay present. Pour your heart into every thing you do and become obsessed with being in the moment.

-BL