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Tag: rosetta thurman

31 Day Reset: Day 11 – Who I’m Accountable To

nonprofitchapin2 Comments

I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

Today’s activity was to find an accountability partner. This person needs to be available for consistent updates on my progress toward my goals and will ask the difficult questions I don’t want to ask myself. It needs to be someone who will hold me responsible to make progress toward the life I envision and will stand firm when I try to make excuses.

I decided to ask my boyfriend to be my accountability partner. I know Rosetta suggested not using anyone too close to you – and of course he is – but when I sat down and thought about the person I’m ultimately accountable to… who sees every move I make, including when I’m on Facebook instead of doing my 31 Day Reset activity… he’s that person. I read him the description and asked if he’ll officially do the job, and he accepted.

Now, what exactly he’ll be holding me accountable to is the question I hope will be answered in the next few weeks!

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 10 – Budget Reset

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I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

The moment I saw the title for today’s reset exercise – Do One Thing – I knew what was in store. Rosetta asked us to take the elements we envisioned on our life map yesterday and do one of them. Complete the task or set it in motion. I had listed that I wanted a clear budget that could be easily followed. I made a budget probably around a year ago but hadn’t revised it since we moved, so everything from both of our incomes to the rent was different. I had been meaning to revise it but simply hadn’t had the time – everything else just seemed more important. Until tonight!

It felt so good to take a close look at our finances and see where we’re spending our money and what an equitable division of the bills and rent will be. We were pretty close to being right, but this solidifies our shots in the dark and makes them truths.

Thank you Rosetta for giving me an excuse to start my life map in action!

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 9 – Life Map

nonprofitchapin4 Comments

I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

Today’s exercise was to create a diagram in which you envision your ideal life. Each of the seven elements of life that we discussed on Day 2 were what we looked at to create this diagram.

I first took each of the seven areas and listed my ideal vision for them. After, I drew a circle in the middle (with my name in it) and seven circles coming from it that listed each of these areas. I took two of my main points for each one and wrote them next to it.

Lifestyle: Regular leisure time, living in a comfortable and stimulating environment

Work: Career where I can empower others, variety of tasks

Education: Continue to give and receive from the MNA program, don’t turn to costly education at every turn

Finances: Clear budget that can be followed easily, paying off debt and saving regularly

Health: Stable condition and healthy way of dealing with symptoms, stable mental health in regards to stress and anxiety

Family: Good balance of family and other commitments, supportive relationship

Relationships: Loving and supportive relationship, secure with knowing nothing is guaranteed

My map is now on my wall directly above my computer, next to my most important values. Great exercise to verify where I’d like to be in all of these areas.

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 8 – The Reset Exercise Made for Nonprofit Chapin

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I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

If you know me, or if you’ve followed my blog before, you know that there’s one thing I’m crazy about, and that’s gratitude (see How to Give Thanks Every Day). So when I read today’s exercise I was stoked! Write five things you’re grateful for today.

Actually at first I thought – this is going to be a breeze. I could list 26 things I’m grateful for right now. But, when I sat down to write them out, and thought big picture – it was more difficult than I thought. More difficult, at least, to articulate what exactly I’m grateful for and why.

Here are my five items.

Security: I have food, water, shelter, clothes, and a job that provides the money I need to sustain these things. There are so many people who aren’t blessed to be born into the situation I have been. This has given me the foundation I needed to understand what I want in life and the motivation to go for it.

People: My family and friends. They support me in so many ways (emotionally, financially, mentally) and they even challenge me when I need it. I have a great network of people whom I know I can turn to whenever I need, and I love that! They really are my sustenance.

Boyfriend: Notice I didn’t put my boyfriend in People? That’s because he deserves his own line. I can’t begin to describe how grateful I am of him. He supports me through everything (he moved 500 miles with me because I wanted to, he was next to me when I got an important diagnosis and learned how to administer treatment with me, the list goes on and on). He encourages me while I explore my interests and work on personal development – in the eight days I’ve worked on the 31 Day Reset, he has done the dishes twice. And that’s a big deal because he does all the cooking so I’m supposed to do all the cleaning!

Job: Although it can be stressful at times, I do have a pretty great set up at work. I have very supportive supervisors who are mindful of my professional development and personal sanity. They encourage me to work hard and tell me I’m doing a great job. I have great colleagues in general, and the pay is very reasonable. It’s a supportive environment for me while I go to school, and I am so grateful for that.

USF MNA Program: Speaking of school, I’m grateful for the program I’m participating in, the Master of Nonprofit Administration program at University of San Francisco. The program is great because it’s giving me the tools to be the master of my future. Without the background of knowledge and best practices I’m getting from the program, I don’t believe I would be able to go in any direction as easily.

That’s it in a nutshell! It’s very interesting to see the trend of support… I appreciate when others are supportive of me. I feel all warm and fuzzy now… this is a wonderful exercise to be able to look back on to when times aren’t feeling so great!

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 7 – Reflecting

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I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

There wasn’t a new exercise today, just the chance to reflect on what I’ve learned so far and to read what other participants have contributed.

The most interesting thing I’ve leaned about myself is how important it is to me to genuinely connect with others, continuing to shape my conviction so that I can proudly act with my beliefs in mind. I previously thought myself to be more of an individual who likes her private time but I think I feed off of others’ energy more than I realized.

Day 6, creating the personal mission statement, was definitely the day I struggled with the most. I found it challenging to not have structure or a guideline on how to write the statement, so I found myself trying to organize my thoughts and prioritize, which was difficult. It felt very free form, which can be hard for me.

I got the opportunity to read the thoughts of some of my peers and I found it to be very interesting and inspirational. They have some great attitudes and I hope to have the same courage as I continue through my journey.

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 6 – A Balancing Act of Values

nonprofitchapin2 Comments

I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

This was a difficult one!! Today we developed our personal mission statement. Rosetta quoted the following as the definition of a personal mission statement:

Your personal mission statement should be a concise representation of what’s most important to you, what you desire to focus on, what you want to achieve, and, ultimately, who you want to become. In its purest form, it’s an approach to your life, one that allows you to identify a focus of energy, creativity, and vision in living a life in support of your inner-most beliefs and values.

Um, yeah. That sounds really easy. No!!! This was difficult. But Rosetta told us to focus on our values and values in action to create this statement. Once I took each value and wrote out a sentence for it, things flowed a little better.

Well, it’s always changing, but here’s what I’ve come up with!

I always live with my values in balance, making sure everything that’s important to me gets the attention it deserves (and nothing gets too much). It’s important to me to always be a role model to others by acting with integrity, being compassionate and generous, and showing quiet conviction. I incorporate leadership into my life by showing initiative, going for opportunities at full force, and always acting with respect for others. I make a difference and will leave a legacy by paying it forward at every opportunity, creating big lasting change, and impacting others through my actions and attitude. It’s important to me to always be generous, always contributing to the nonprofit sector (with time and money) and being available to my friends and family. I make it a priority to spend time with those I love and who love me, deeply connecting with them and encouraging them to challenge me. I value learning from others and make it a priority to expose myself to new people and perspectives and put myself in new situations so I can form new connections.

I would love to hear your thoughts, especially those of you who know me and can tell me: do any of these things surprise you? Are there elements you think are obvious in the way I act? Unbelievable? I know how I feel, but would love to know what my friends and family think!

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 5 – Walking the Talk

nonprofitchapin2 Comments

I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

Yesterday I determined my top ten values, today is the beginning of envisioning these values in action. I started out by rating each value on a scale of 1-10 of how I’m acting them out today. I actually feel I’m living all of them (except having a family of course) more than a 5, so that’s good.

But Part 2 was more enlightening for me, because that’s where I went into depth about what it means to see these values in action. I wrote three actions I currently take or could be taking for each value. Here’s a few of the a-ha moments I had.

Leaving a legacy / Making a difference: While I rated myself as lower on leaving a legacy and higher on making a difference, when I was challenged to think of actions that fit with each area, I actually wrote the same three thoughts!

  1. Impacting others through my actions and attitude
  2. Paying it forward at every opportunity
  3. Creating big, lasting change

It’s made me realize that I define leaving a legacy and making a difference in the same way. It’s important to me to make a difference to others around me, and through that difference I make, I impact the way others act, which will maintain its ripple effect. I strongly believe in the power of one.

Being a role model: The idea of being a role model sounds wonderful but where do you begin to describe it? Here’s what I came up with.

  1. Always showing compassion and generosity
  2. Living my values with balance
  3. Showing strong conviction

Being an introvert, showing strong conviction is not normally something I consciously strive for. However, in thinking of it in context of being a role model, it makes a lot of sense. A role model is someone who doesn’t just have beliefs, she acts on behalf of them. That’s something I strive to do more in my life.

Connecting with others: My first thoughts in this regard is of course strengthening the already strong relationships with those I love. But I was surprised that my mind also led me in the direction of new connections.

  1. Spending time with friends who challenge me to talk deeply and consider what I’m saying
  2. Open myself to new people and perspectives
  3. Put myself in new situations where I learn from others

Truly opening myself up to others is something I hope to improve on. Because I want to experience as many different types of people and personalities I can; it will only strengthen my knowledge and confidence!

This was a great exercise. It made me realize which of those top ten really are the ones I’m passionate about and which ones I’d like to delve further into. Who knew that I subconsciously was hoping I would show strong conviction?

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 4 – My Top Ten Values

nonprofitchapin4 Comments

I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

I had a leg up on Day 4’s exercise, because I’ve actually done something similar before. We were asked to take some time to write down everything we value, anything that we care about – at least more than 12. Then, we needed to designate from that list the ten we felt were at the top.

In the previous exercise I did, I had narrowed it down to five. I did the original exercise with Deirdre Maloney; you can read about her company Momentum San Diego here. And not surprisingly, those five were on my list again (I didn’t do the exercise that long ago). But I found my additional five to be very interesting. I had to very, very selective to do the first five – but now I had the opportunity to list other parts of my life that were important.

My original five: Being generous, leadership, leaving a legacy, love, making a difference

The five I added tonight: Being a role model, connecting with others, having a family, integrity, succeeding in my career

I think being a role model and connecting with others are the two that jump out to me most. Being a role model perhaps is my elaboration of leadership, leaving a legacy, and making a difference all at the same time. It’s important to me to always conduct myself in a way that others respect and love. I also value making connections – this is why my friendships and relationships with my family are so important to me – because connecting with others is an important part of my life.

I encourage you to do this exercise, too! Doing the original five was so eye opening to me, and allowed me to understand the underlying motivation for everything I do.

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 3 – Love Letter

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I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

I was out of town this weekend so I’m a day late on this exercise, but better late than never!

Day 3’s exercise is to write a love letter to your future self. I actually wrote the letter and put it into a program that will email it to you later… mine will be coming in a month. For the letter, I took the seven parts of my life that I evaluated yesterday and instead of what I liked or disliked about each, I wrote what I love… or hope that I will love in the future, as a result of this program. I’m not quite sure that I did the assignment correctly, but I basically wrote my goal for each area, or what I’d like to ideally see for myself. For example:

Lifestyle: I love that you have prioritized leisure time in your life.

Work: I love that you appreciate the work you’re doing but don’t stress over it.

Finances: I love that you have a budget and plan to pay off debt and save.

I guess the hope is that with these goals you will slowly begin to believe that they can come true. I certainly hope so!

-N.C.

31 Day Reset: Day 2 – A Lifestyle Surprise

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I’m participating in the 31 Days to Reset Your Life program at Happy Black Woman. The program is designed to help you evaluate your goals and priorities and think of them in the context of your life today and how you might be able to refocus on what’s important. Read on to learn about my experience with the challenge!

Today’s assignment was meant to take an honest assessment of my life. For each of seven areas (lifestyle, work, education, finances, health, family, and relationships) I wrote down what I like and what I dislike about each piece. The only way to identify where you’re going is to start with where you are.

More than what I actually wrote for each area – i.e., I dislike the workload that comes along with my Masters program – I learned more from the amount of things I wrote for each area. Here are a few things that jumped out at me.

Lifestyle: I had by far the least amount of things to write here. Either like or dislike. I could think of one thing I like and two I dislike. Rosetta described lifestyle as “satisfaction with where you live/living environment, how you spend your leisure time these days.” Um – leisure time? What’s that? And while I like our apartment, I’m not in love with the neighborhood we live in… it’s in a convenient location in relation to all my commitments… but why are my commitments driving all other aspects of my life? I wasn’t happy to see that I don’t have much to put in lifestyle… when I really value being able to take time for myself…

Work: Just this past weekend, I was complaining that work was stressful and that my next job should have less stress. But my like to dislike ratio for work? It’s 6:2. So when I’m feeling overwhelmed or stressed, it will be good for me to remember there are several things I love about my job – I have great colleagues, wonderful professional development opportunities, and I’m making a difference.

Health: Woh boy. I thought this was going to be a huge focus on the dislike and hardly any like, as I have a pretty serious health condition, something I’ve been struggling with lately. I was surprised to see that while I had a long dislike list, my like list was almost as long. Similarly to work, I have so much to be thankful for with my health – I have recently lost weight to get into my healthy range, I have an answer to my questions around my health, and I can be more proactive in treating it and learning about it.

I guess overall I identified that there are some areas that are great (work, health) and some that need work (lifestyle – my surprise category). I hope that in this next month I can use this information to help shape my future.

-N.C.