Getting to Carnegie Hall

Last week I decided to start a 100 day project.

100 days is a pretty common timeframe for these things - politicians often talk about the first 100 days in office, and I've heard senior managers at companies talking about their 100 day plans.

At first the point of this hundred day thing was kind of nebulous. I wanted to do something longer than a 21 day cleanse, but nothing so big as a life list or even a New Year's resolution. Something somewhere in between. But I wasn't sure what.

Until I woke up at 3:30 a.m., on the morning I'd planned to start the countdown. Insomnia definitely wasn't part of the plan, but it worked out: While one part of my brain was admonishing me to get back to sleep already, another part was busy working it out. I woke up a few hours later to find scrawled in the notebook on my bedside table: "100 days of practice."

We practice to reinforce what we know. To identify what we need to improve. To perform exercises to target improvements. Practice involves drills, doing things repeatedly and regularly, and learning to gracefully recover from mistakes.

Robert H. Schuller, via the inspirational fridge magnet, asks, "What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?" For me, practice removes that fear of failure, because in practice, failures and imperfections are expected, and learned from.

So that's what I'm up to. 100 days of practice. 100 days of practicing awareness & authenticity, patience & compassion, gratitude, connection, solitude, getting things done, new techniques, fiscal awareness, responding, creativity & making things, fitness, organization & putting things away, moderation (in moderation), sexy times, commitment, and branding.

As part of my writing practice, I'll update here every 5 days or so. Stay tuned.

This particular 100 day notion was inspired by this video (via Ange at Sokoko Life, who is a total bastion of inspiration).