Ten Things I Learned in My First Year Following The Dao of Doing

(We are very excited to share this, our very first guest post, from one of our readers. Carol has been a loyal reader since our first week of doing last year. If you are interested in sharing your own path of doing with us, please submit posts to kelwilson@thedaoofdoing.com or tracy@thedaoofdoing.com.)

Ten Things I Learned in My First Year Following The Dao of Doing

1. Reading self-help books alone is not enough. Reading them together with friends who are open about sharing their experiences makes a very
positive difference.

2. Just reading self-help books is a minimal (although very familiar) experience. Doing the exercises, even half hearted, makes a much
bigger impact. Sometimes the impact is that you learn something new about what you don’t like.

3. It’s okay to take things out of order in the book. If one section doesn’t speak to you, go to another, just don’t stop.

4. FlyLady isn’t for me.

5. Checking in every day works better than reading a week’s worth of posts at a time. It helps me remember my intentions in a positive, encouraging way. But sometimes life happens and that’s okay, too.

6. What you first think is the thing you want to do may not be the right thing for you at this time in your life. Changing your direction is okay. (Kel here, I think this is one of the MOST profound ideas in this list. It’s OK to change your mind.)

7. You may find yourself bombarded with too many activities that you want to pursue. Instead of feeling overwhelmed with this, delight in the wide range of your interests. Which leads to…

8. Just pick something from the list and start doing it. You’ll segue to the next thing when the time is right for you.

9. You are not a failure when #8 happens.

10. Tiny steps really do count. Any movement counts and makes the next step easier.

It took until I read about October’s Doodle for me to realize a lot of these things. When I read the plan for October, I immediately decided I would
get back to doing what I started last fall, collecting family stories. I’d been thinking about that a lot lately, and so it seemed the right place to start.

It seemed right that is until I had a quiet hour Saturday morning and I sat with the idea. It was the first morning since late March that the weather had cooled off enough to turn off the air conditioning and open up the doors. As I sat meditating, I kept hearing a bird’s persistent song. My mind kept returning to that song until the light dawned. Suddenly I knew what was wrong with the “family story” idea and I also knew what I really needed to do as my doodle.

Recording family stories is important to me. My dad started to do that, but, at least as far as we could find, he only did a few pages. I want my parents, grandparents and ultimately my siblings and me to be more than just a dim memory to our grandchildren. I want to make them into real people and living memories. And I will continue to work on this project.

A story for the grandchildren.

But the Doodle needs to be something for *me,* not future generations. And that bird told me where I want to start – with singing and playing my
guitar. This has been a secret longing for too many years now. Its time has come to pulled out of the dusty old case and played.

Carol

You can follow Carol’s sites at www.carolburris.com or at www.mommyknits.com.