“If you believe in something, believe it firmly.” – Argo
You know what’s weird – photos.
I have no issue with candid photos at parties, I have no issues with photos in the gym and I had no issues with my photo being taken on stage, but having JP take my photo for the workbook was super nerve racking.
I’ve been thinking about this photo for months. I knew what I wanted it to look like in my head. I’ve been thinking about the outfit and the poses, but I had trouble communicating it to JP.
These photos are the final thing that Jillian needs to finish the book. We used JP’s Canon Rebel T3i and she’s going to do the touch ups.
We took probably over a hundred photos – many of them are from him messing with different settings and then snapping shots when I wasn’t paying attention, but did also get some really good ones as well.
I did two different shirts because I wasn’t sure how I would feel about myself in the photos and I wanted options. I know what I want to accomplish with the workbook, but I’m also nervous that it may be hard to communicate me with a single photo. I know Jillian is also doing some other imaging as well that I think will help tie everything together – that’ll be a good surprise.
I promise the photos I sent to her were a bit better than those above, but I thought these were still fun even though they weren’t great or publication quality.
I’m excited about this workbook and I can’t believe it’s coming together. It was six months of writing – on and off – as I got through the spring semester of school.
I believe it truly reflects the style of coaching that I do; it encourages the reader to look at both the big picture and the small pieces that make it up. While work-life balance is something that many people believe in, it’s something I really don’t think exists.
We can’t separate everything in our lives. We can’t live in boxes or bubbles.
It is possible for each thing to have a different category like gym or work or parenting, but there’s no boundaries or not in the ways we wish at least. Everything we do impacts another event or triggers another action, and we need to organize our goals in that way, which is what this workbook does. We go through roles, environment, goal setting and timelines, creating meetings with yourself and scheduling.
My hope is that scheduling and making time (not finding time, we know the time is there) for goals and tasks will become easier. I also hope that the reader develops an appreciation for everything that they are accomplishing even if it’s not everything they want to.
When I skim through what I wrote and how it came out on the screen, and then compare it to how I coach and how I want to help people, I have this overwhelming sense of satisfaction.
I can’t change the whole world, but if I believe in what I’m doing, I can make a difference one person at a time and maybe they can make a difference in someone else’s life too. That chain reaction of change is how we shape our environments and make our communities better. Knowing that’s a possibility is satisfying.
<3 Cristina
