Have you been making your way through the Day of Genius workbook? If you haven’t already downloaded parts 1, 2 and 3, go do that now.

Then come on back, because I have another one for you!

It has tickled me no end that the worksheets have been downloaded hundreds of times over the past few days (special thanks to Susannah Conway for including a link to the Life Balance Compass in this post.)

(And yet nary a comment on the posts with the most-downloaded worksheets — funny, no?)

Still, if the download numbers count for anything, apparently a lot of you are finding them useful — hooray!

To recap…

I’m co-producing a day-long virtual retreat, the Day of Genius on January 8, for which I’ll be presenting a seminar called Your Map to Happiness in 2012.

Being a Creative, who likes to make colorful messes and get her hands dirty, I’ve designed the seminar as a little bubble of creative time: we’ll get out the crayons, scissors and glue stick, and make a vision map — a colorful, intuitive kindergarten map of your dreams and visions and plans for 2012, to inspire you throughout the year.

But making a truly effective vision map requires a fair amount of advance work.

Who are you? What do you really want? What is the next step to getting there? What’s in your way?

Sometimes the real answers are not what we might see on the surface…

Hence the workbook, which I created for Day of Genius ticket-holders and decided to also share with you, my blog readers, as what my mom would call a “just ’cause I love you present.” :)

Stay open to epiphanies

Creating these worksheets — and working through them myself — has been part of my 2011 Annual Review (thanks to Chris Guillebeau for a large dose of Annual Review inspiration!)

As you play with the worksheets, stay open to insights, revelations and epiphanies.

Earlier this week, for example, I had the realization that, hey, I loveloveLOVE to teach — particularly in-person classes — and yet I haven’t taught an in-person class in a year!

The Mind Map to Happiness worksheet, along with today’s worksheet — Your Love & Time Inventory — helped remind me of my passion for teaching groups face-to-face, and ask myself what’s stopping me from doing it?

The answer: Mostly physical space. I can teach calligraphy around my dining room table (and have done many times), but what I most want to be teaching right now requires a lot more space. Space to move around, space to paint broad strokes and make big, colorful messes.

The worksheet helped me pinpoint tiny first steps I can take toward bringing teaching back into my life the way I most want it: I’ve started letting my friends, family and acquaintances know that I’m in search of the ideal workshop space, and and I’ve started identifying organizations to contact to see if they either rent space themselves, or know of someplace that does.

I’ve even opened up to the possibility of renting permanent space, something that seemed so impossible as to be ridiculous just last week. But which now feels almost obviously inevitable.

Perhaps not in 2012… but who knows?

These are the ways that big dreams and goals come to fruition: one tiny step at a time.

(Meanwhile, I’ve already got an in-person retreat on the calendar for next fall, one where we’ll get to move around and make big, colorful messes, but someone else is arranging that space, and it’s faaaaaaaar away, way too far for even the most die-hard commuter… But more on that another time…)

Your turn

Download Your Love & Time Inventory, print it out and spend 10 or 15 minutes with it. Then hop on over to the LACL Facebook page and share what you figured out!

Have fun!

REMINDER: You could win a ticket to the Day of Genius! Head over to Facebook and share your insights to any of the blog posts here that reference the Day of Genius, along with your reasons for wanting to attend, AND share and/or tweet the post, and you’ll be entered to win a full-day pass.

After the New Year, I and my panel of partial judges will pick one winner from among the commenters to join us for free. (Yes, commenting on/sharing of multiple posts will weigh heavily in your favor — we’re looking to add participants who really want to be there, so quality AND quantity will be taken into consideration.)

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

The week started with a podcast interview, ramped up to a singing gig on Thursday (my first with my ukulele!), and wrapped up with art-making, a party filled with music-making, and finally girls’ night out to see Eat, Pray, Love.

Considering that the life I really, really want is one in which I’m regularly creating, making art and music, and spending time with friends (among other things), I’d say I’m doing pretty well this week!

Add to this the discovery of an excellent new auto shop just around the corner (and much less expensive than the dealer), and hot dang, life is good!

Still, I got hit this week by a couple of days of blues and blahs, and a post by Dave Navarro on Why You Need to Abandon Your Rescue Fantasy was just what the doctor ordered.

The curse of the rescue fantasy

You know that fantasy that a sudden windfall will magically disappear your debt? Or that your art/music/writing will be magically “discovered” and catapult you to fame and fortune? Or that you’ll win the lottery (even though you never buy a ticket) and all your money woes will be forever gone?

I confess, I’m as tempted as the next person by the lure of such rescue fantasies. Face it, life is hard, and sometimes you just want it to be magically made easy.

The problem is, dwelling on rescue fantasies keeps you immobile, and that stuckness provides very fertile soil for blues and blahs to settle in.

The solution: accepting responsibility

Awhile back I made a piece of art to address this victim trap, and to remind myself that I am:

However, I’m also as susceptible as the next person to drifting off track, and this week I had to face the fact that for several weeks I hadn’t been making art (except for clients, which is a different animal entirely).

Not making new art has been making me feel loser-ish and downright cranky. It was high time for a course adjustment.

Inspiration from corners both concrete and virtual

Thankfully, right at the height of my loser-ish cranky feeling this week, I stopped for tea at my friend Amy & Joe’s house, the walls of which are graced by Joe’s fabulous, fun and whimsical paintings. “Oh yeah,” I thought, “now I remember: I want to do that!”

Just a day or two later I discovered two cool websites, Scoutie Girl, an outside-the-box manual for creative living & mindful spending, and Creative Thursday, home of artist/illustrator Marisa Haedike, who (among other things) has a line of totally adorable daily paintings she’s been creating since 2006.

Wham! That was all the inspiration I needed to pull out one of the canvases I bought months ago and finally crack open some languishing tubes of paint.

And you know what? Even though I’m not utterly delighted with what emerged, I am utterly delighted with the experience I had creating it. And that’s what really matters.

I’ve been wanting to paint on canvas for ages, and can’t wait to play some more! (I’m this close to committing to making a daily painting, like Marisa of Creative Thursday… but not quite. Stay tuned…)

Juices are flowing again, and my Blisses back in sight.

For now.

So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?

Um… Yeah. Weekly Review…

Well, it’s now this week, and although I aim to do my review of the week when it’s still kinda last week, that obviously didn’t happen this week.

Or, rather, last week.

Which is actually kind of appropriate though, given that the theme of the week has to do with figuring out what works for me.

As in, I love performing, and the Universe gave me a big ‘ol reminder of that with a killer, standing-room-only concert last Saturday.

Or, rather, the Saturday before last Saturday; last Saturday will be part of next week’s review. Or, rather, this week’s review.

Did you get that?

Reminders and validation from the Universe

In any case, not only did I get a reminder of how much I love performing, and validation that I’m kinda really good at it, but I got to do a TV interview and performance, which I took as further validation from the Universe that it’s a really, really good thing for me to keep on doing.

Plus, thanks to a day and a half of being rather disabled by a mysterious and painful sudden hip muscle inflammation, I got a swift-kick-in-the-butt reminder from the Universe not to fritter my time away and do stupid things like put music on a back burner for months on end out of money panic, like I did for most of this year ’til now. Ahem.

All in all some mighty good lessons, I must say.

Playing hooky can be good for you

Meanwhile, after a couple of months of working crazyridiculousinhuman hours to enable me to take two separate weeks away from my business to go to Jazz Camp West and California Coast Music Camp, I’ve been playing hooky a lot in rebellion. Like, to get together with friends I haven’t seen in ages, and to play my ukulele, and to, well, just sorta enjoy life a little.

Working 80-hour weeks will do that to a person.

And I’ve discovered that:

1) Lightning does not strike

2) Somehow I always still manage to get my work done

3) Life is really a helluva lot better with a little “hooky-playing”

Of course, I’m such a native of the Good Girl Planet that I’m rarely able to play hooky without at least a modicum of guilt, but I’m getting better. Exercising my Bad Girl muscles is really, really good for girls like me.

Same thing with spending a little cash on tango dancing

Yep, after several months of lying low, I went Argentine tango dancing twice this week!

I say all the time that if you want to be happy, just figure out the things that make you happy, and do them.

My regular question for everyone trudging through life is “Are you doing the things that make you happy? If not, why not?”

Alas, when I’ve asked this question of myself lately, I’ve had to admit that although dancing is one of the things I love doing most in the world, I have not been doing it.

Why not?

Partly because money’s been tight, and spending $10 or $15 to go out dancing (plus gas) means not putting that money toward bills or paying down debt.

Partly because I’ve been plagued by a foot injury on and off for over ten years, and I haven’t wanted to face the possibility that my foot is still not healed, three years after the surgery that was supposed to solve all of my problems.

Partly because I decided to spend my time working on my blog and developing my business, rather than going out dancing.

Now I’m discovering that spending a little bit of money and what-might-otherwise-be-blog-writing-and/or-business-development-time on R&R might, perhaps, be worth it every so often.

Ahem.

And, the best gift of all, so far (knock on wood), my foot seems to be doing okay!

So I think a weekly-or-so tango night is not an unreasonable request.

Which brings us to the kicker:

Maybe it’s okay not to be an overachiever all the time

Um, yeah. (Though I really hate that term, with its implications that you’re actually stupid, talentless and incompetent, and are somehow miraculously achieving things anyway. Feh.)

If you know me at all you know I have rather enormous expectations of myself. And rather enormous goals, which frequently include rather short humanly impossible timelines.

As in, my daily to-do list usually includes anywhere from 15-25 items, of which it’s really only humanly possible to complete, oh, maybe three or four, maybe five or six on a good day. And yet, instead of acknowledging that things take time, I instead usually default to beating myself up for not completing all 15-25 items.

It’s really not healthy, and yes, something I’m working on. We Palo Alto kids tend to be pretty hard on ourselves, growing up in the shadow of Stanford University as we did.

So this week (or rather, last week) was an exercise in tipping my toe in the water of “maybe it’s okay if I don’t try to accomplish everything all the time; maybe I get to chill a bit.”

Which means:

1) Maybe it’s really okay if I only post twice a week on my blog (as my original goal stated! [Yet my internal goal silently morphed into posting daily! Meh!!])

2) Maybe it’s really okay if I don’t do what all the blog gurus and ce-web-rities say you have to do (ie, post excellent content daily)

3) Maybe it’s really okay that I’m letting my other blogs languish and am just concentrating on this one

In other words:

4) Maybe it’s really okay if I figure out what works for me

Obviously, I’m still doing the figuring out part, but that’s what I’ve figured out this week.

And you?

I had to hit the ground running when I got back from music camp, what with a custom ketubah waiting to be completed (photo below) in and among catching up with general business stuff.

Just completed: custom ketubah — hand-painted & hand-calligraphed — with grapevines and 24kt gilded lyre. Click for a zoom view.

Oh, and my sales tax return (still) to be done. (Yes, I know I’m a horrible procrastinator.) Running a business comes with its own built-in deadlines.

After a string of 80-hour weeks before and between music camps, however, this week has felt practically like a vacation.

Okay, that’s an extreme exaggeration, but it has been dramatically more relaxed than the rest of my summer at home. Instead of working late every night, I actually took time to have people over, meet a friend for tea, and even to have a girls’ night out in the City last night (conveniently combined with delivering the ketubah to the waiting clients, whose wedding is Monday).

All of which got me thinking about one of my favorite topics-of-obsession:

Happiness vs. Greatness

In an interview in the Unconventional Guide to Art + Money, Australian artist Hazel Dooney credits her success to her single-minded drive: “…this is my sole focus in life. This is all I dedicate my time to. I am totally undistracted by anything else, even a love life.”

In a similar way, 20+ years ago, all I really cared about was succeeding as a dancer. I can’t say that I was totally undistracted, since I definitely longed for a love life. But success — getting really, really good at this thing that I was so passionate about, and being publicly recognized for that mastery — and happiness seemed inextricably interlinked.

In fact, I remember having a certain amount of contempt for people who didn’t have such ambitions.

My parents, for example. How could they possibly be truly happy, living such… normal lives? Not making (as I saw it) some large, indelible mark on the planet?

The (younger-than-I-am-now) adults who took classes at my dance school were objects of somewhat sneering fascination and scorn to my snotty teenage self. Why were they even bothering? They’d never amount to anything as dancers, so what was the point?

If anything, they were to be pitied.

Now I’m amused and embarrassed by that teenager. I also have tremendous compassion and pity for her.

What is happiness, anyway?

Happiness, for the teenage me, was utterly dependent on a certain level of a certain type of success and recognition. I lived in a state of constant emptiness, desperately seeking to be filled by validation. No matter how hard I worked and how good I got, it was never good enough. Nor would it probably ever be.

As a result, I was quite willing to give up all sorts of normal teenage pleasures in order to pursue my dream.

There’s something quite admirable about this. Dedication, commitment, discipline can lead to amazing things.

On the other hand, I missed out on a lot. For example, although I’d been backpacking since age 6 and was an avid outdoorsperson, I quite literally ceased going camping and backpacking the year I started dancing. Heaven forbid I miss a weekend — or even a day — of dance classes!

It was a trade-off I was willing to make at the time, because I wanted so badly.

Now? The teenage me would sneer, roll her eyes and and shake her head at the present-time me. No doubt she would see me as a drop-out and dabbler.

In her eyes, I’ve become one of those adult dance students: rather pathetic.

A hard-driver goes soft (at least a little)

I remember when I noticed this change in attitude starting to happen. The year of my divorce I re-discovered dance, but in a gentler-to-my-body-and-soul form, and dove into the world of social dancing. For awhile I took private lessons from a ballroom dance teacher to learn how to follow.

Yes, I still wanted to get good at this thing I loved — that part hadn’t changed. But the desperation, and the willingness to give up everything? That part had.

I remember one lesson at a ballroom where several other private lessons and rehearsals were going on around us. One of the couples on the floor was drenched in sweat, repeating wild leaps and spins over and over again, stopping only to get notes from their coach.

It turns out they were national (or world?) youth champions, practicing for an upcoming competition.

What struck me most was that, although they were amazingly good at what they were doing, there was no joy on their faces. No bliss. And it occurred to me right then and there that I didn’t want to work that hard at anything ever again.

Oh, I’m still willing to, and do, work very, very hard. But I’d experienced dancing like that myself, in pursuit of mastery but without any real joy in what I was doing, and I never wanted to be there again.

It was that moment when I realized I’d lost some of the drive I had as a youth. Don’t get me wrong — if you’ve read anything on this blog you know that I still have plenty of drive. But what I don’t have is the willingness to give up all present-time-happiness in pursuit of some hoped-for future gratification.

All change is a loss

It’s sort of sad, in a way. I mourn that loss. Without such willingness I’ll never achieve the Greatness I’ve always longed for.

But on the other hand, I think I’m a happier person, day to day. I live more in the present than I used to. I’m much better at enjoying the moment, rather than putting so much of my energy into a hoped-for future. There’s a lovely sweetness to it.

It does mean, however, that sometimes things like writing blog posts (ahem) get left undone in favor of moment-enjoying. And if I’m totally honest I have to confess I still have conflicted feelings about this. I clearly haven’t quite achieved the zen-like state of being able to let go and feel totally okay about it.

Ah, well. There’s always something to work on.

Comments? I’d love to hear your thoughts on happiness and greatness. Is there a link there for you? Or are they totally unrelated in your world?

I don’t know that there was ever a time I didn’t want, desperately, to be great at something. I’ve always been a woman of many passions, and there are many things I do well, but that never felt like enough.

I wanted to be a genius.

I wanted to be off-the-charts amazing.

I wanted to be the best.

Face it, I wanted to be like Mozart. But instead I always felt like Salieri in the play and film Amadeus.

I called it my “Mozart Complex.”

Why did it feel so important to be a genius? I’m still not entirely sure, but underneath it all I guess I thought it would make me happy.

The problem, of course, is that there are some flaws in this thinking. Let’s take a look at a few:

1. Genius/greatness does not necessarily lead to happiness

For starters, Mozart died young and impoverished, buried in a pauper’s grave. Although there’s no way to know for sure, I don’t get the feeling that he was very happy at the time he died.

And of course history shows us a whole bevy of other “greats” who led pretty miserable lives, drank themselves to death, committed suicide, etc.

Then there are the amazing savants who can do things like calculate multiple sums to five decimal places in their heads (ie, genius), but can’t carry on a conversation with another human being. That never seemed like a desirable way to be.

That’s not to say that greatness causes misery — there are plenty of examples of people who achieved greatness at one thing or another, and also lived happy lives. (See, for example, the life story of the sculptor Alexander Calder, who achieved phenomenal success with his art and lived a long, happy life.)

But it isn’t greatness in and of itself that leads to happiness.

2. Who’s “the best” is frequently hard to determine

How do you even tell if someone is “the best” at something? Unless you’re an Olympic runner, or your thing is something truly quantifiable, how do you know if you’re the best at it?

Even if you win an Olympic gold medal, say, or a chess match, there’s always the possibility that someone else who didn’t compete that day might have beat you had they been there. And there’s no guarantee you’re going to win next time!

3. Who’s “the best” is often highly subjective anyway

If your thing is something creative, determining a “best” is pretty much impossible.

Take opera singers, for example: just because Pavarotti (or whoever) rocks your world, doesn’t mean he’ll make even the slightest impact on mine.

Take painters: Picasso is lauded the world over, but there are plenty of other artists that I personally like better!

Take writers: I think Jasper Fforde is the absolute bees knees of humorous novelists and I worship at his altar, but I have friends who couldn’t get through one of his books if you paid them.

4. If your happiness depends on being “the best,” what happens when you fall?

Let’s pretend you’re that imaginary Olympic gold medalist. What happens when, the next time there’s a race, you don’t win the gold? If your happiness is dependent on being “the best,” that’s really going to suck for you. You’re pretty much going to be doomed to eventual unhappiness, because the reality is you’re not going to keep winning gold forever.

5. Genius/greatness is externally determined

The thing is, people whom the world declares as “great” don’t always see themselves that way. This hit home for me personally when I was eating lunch with a calligraphy hero of mine, John Stevens. The man is amazing. It’s like he emerged from the womb with a pen in his hand. Genius, truly. I wish I had a fraction of his skill!

And yet, he reminded me that there may be people who see me that way.

Huh.

John Stevens probably doesn’t consider himself a genius, or great. He just does his thing, and works very hard at it. He may have no idea that others have bestowed these titles on him, so they really have no bearing on his feelings about his work.

And think about this: if your happiness is dependent on being labeled as great, and if you wait for some external authority to bestow that label upon you, you’re giving power over your happiness to someone outside of yourself.

Never a good idea.

6. Genius/greatness is a moving target at best

If greatness is your aim, it’s likely that the better you get at your thing, the better you’ll want to get. As soon as you reach one level, your eyes are already set on the level beyond that.

I’ve experienced this with every creative pursuit I’ve taken on. The better I got at calligraphy, dance, singing, etc, the better able I was at seeing where my work fell short of the Platonic ideal I was aiming for.

Greatness is, then, forever out of reach, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

So if greatness isn’t the key to happiness, what then?

I’d be lying if I told you I had no desire for greatness anymore. I still want to get really good at the things I love doing. But the key to (mostly) losing my Mozart Complex has been to figure out what really brings me happiness, and chase after that.

First off, I’ve figured out that the only thing I’ll ever truly be “the best” at is being me. So I might as well be the most fully-expressed me that I can. For me that means following several Blisses, not just one.

I realized that focusing singlemindedly on one thing has never made me happy, so I’ve learned to embrace my multi-passionate personality. I’ve learned that I need to follow what’s calling to me the loudest right now. I’ve learned, also, that the pursuit of mastery makes me happier than the actual achievement of it.

Yes, this means I’ll probably never achieve “the best” status in any of my passions, but I’ve (pretty much) come to terms with that.

Ultimately, I’ve decided that I’d rather be happy than great.

So what do YOU think? Do you think you have to choose between happiness and greatness, and if so, which would you choose?

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!