Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

Today is my birthday (yay, birthday!), which means it’s time for my annual performance review. Which means, by extension, it’s time for yours if you choose to play.

Here’s the deal: Every year I try to make an honest assessment of how fully I’m living, and then I spend the next year trying to up my percentage.

You know what I’m talking about. You can tell, sitting there right now, what percentage you’re living at. It might be 65%, it might be 80%, it might be–gulp–30%. You can break it down by categories if you want–work, love life, health, etc. Maybe you’re at 90% with your kids, 50% with your spouse. You get the idea.

I was talking to my friend Carolyn last night, reviewing the birthday year that was, anticipating the events of the birthday year to come. Carolyn has always maintained that we all have far more power than we actually use. I know that’s true. The question is what would that look like if you or I really lived at full capacity all the time, and what is it we’d have to change to get there?

That first question–what would it look like–can be a little scary. Seriously, think about it: what would you physically look like, feel like, act like if you stopped holding yourself back all the time? What if you started acting as powerful as you really are? Would you lose all your friends? Frighten them away? Are you worried you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself, like a skier tumbling down the hill? And stop yourself from what? Being too bold, too happy, too . . . out there? It’s definitely safer to live a smaller life, but is that really the point of our time here?

I can honestly say that last year I upped my percentage by about five points. It was a VERY good year. I committed more to my writing, I cut back on some of my worries, I made an effort to spend more time playing with the people I love. I started learning to accept some of the success coming my way.

But I know I’m still far from living at full capacity. I have too many fears. I have too much guilt over things that aren’t in my control. I waste too much time. I don’t enjoy things as much as I should.

So I get to work on that for another birthday year. What fun. Today is day one again.

What do you think? Do you agree we hold back too much and don’t live as fully and as powerfully as we could? And do you think we can consciously do something to change that?

Technorati Tags: Life, Success

Posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 8:16 am under Life . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.