eunice ann

tales of a girl trying to make sense of it all.

the ever-loving impostor syndrome.

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I’ve spoken to a couple of different friends recently about the impostor syndrome—you know, the one where you feel like you’re failing at meeting your own impossible standards and everyone is going to see you for the fraud that you aren’t? Yeah. I know it. I know it well. I started young and we’re practically besties because we have a chat every single day. It usually goes something like this:

“Who are you to make such a bold assertion in this meeting? You’ve only been practicing marketing for like 10 years. Your degree isn’t even in marketing. You know this. I know this. And even though you delivered that with all the confidence in the world, they know this.”

Sigh. “You’re right.  I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I’m probably going to get fired when they realize what a fraud I am.”

“What in the bloody hell?!?! You do realize that you were promoted into this position precisely because of your knowledge and expertise. You are a smart, strong and capable woman and your colleagues respect the hell out of you.”

And so it goes. Funnily enough, because I’ve shared this same conversation with so many of my similarly educated, experienced, and frankly, bad-assed peeps, I know I’m not alone. And I’ve observed a very obvious thread with all of us.

I previously worked with a woman who was so overly confident in herself but in reality, was grossly incompetent in both her job and among industry peers. She was all pomp & circumstance with no substance. What was funny is that everyone could see her incompetence but her. She truly loved by the mantra, “fake it till you make it,” but never actually made it. In fact, I don’t think she ever even made the attempt to make it. We all smiled while she clung tightly to the accolades the rest of us earned. She needed it; we didn’t. We knew, deep down, the value of our own worth. Despite the fact that we both held leadership roles within the company, how did I know that we weren’t the same? How was I able to recognize the impostor in her and still think I was one too?

I tend to think that those of us that are not true impostors, but constantly struggle with impostor syndrome carry a few of the same traits:

  1. We are willing to be vulnerable. Usually, when you get into the cycle of self-doubt, you’ll reach out to someone to have your freak out moment. You ask for feedback. You can admit that you don’t have an answer. True imposters rely on their faux confidence to carry them through. They don’t ask for help because they don’t think they need it.
  2. We are willing to fail. When you’ve accepted that no one is perfect and mistakes allow room for growth, the idea of failing is exhilarating instead of scary. We wear our scars like badges of honor and we aren’t afraid to take a hard step back and re-evaluate our journey before moving forward. True imposters cower at the idea of failure and will either sweep their mistakes under the rug or leave them on someone else’s doorstep.
  3. We struggle with accepting praise. Humility is a core trait for those of us who struggle with impostor syndrome. When commended for a job well done, we tend to minimize our contribution or highlight everything that wasn’t perfect. What we don’t realize is that no one cares. Accept the compliment. Move on to the next thing. True impostors not only thrive on praise, but they are willing to accept accolades that don’t belong to them.
  4. Mistakes are crippling to us. Somehow, even the smallest mistake or oversight is magnified to epic proportions. Not only that, but we can allow the smallest infraction to invalidate our whole being. “Oh my gosh, I forgot to put a comma there! Why did they ever give me a bachelor’s degree in college?” True impostors likely didn’t even notice the mistake. And it was probably huge.

Chances are, we’ve all had these moments of feeling less than. Whether it’s at work, or in motherhood, or when you just can’t quite nail that crane in yoga, whenever we wade into territory that is familiar with a little bit of newness, the doubt creeps in and the impostor pipes up. Lean in to that resistance and remember, “You is smart. You is kind. You is important.” ~ Aibileen, The Help

dig in.

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http://www.breaktheground.eventbrite.com I have always been the queen procrastinator — it’s like my life is one perpetual snooze button. I was the one that would spend my college nights in the library doing research for months, but when it came time to writing the actual paper, I generally started it after dinner the night before it was due. I am full of ideas. In fact, among my massive collection of journals, I have one dedicated specifically to ideas.

It’s the execution that I struggle with though. How do I know which idea to get started on? Where do I start? Is this the right direction?

And then the overwhelm and self doubt creeps in and the excuses start flowing.

  • I don’t have the money to fund this.
  • I’m too busy.
  • This doesn’t fit into my other plans.
  • I’m tired.
  • No one is going to support me in this.
  • I should just get a real job.
  • What if I fail? (More on that later this week.)
  • There’s just too much to do! I have no idea where to start.

Some of my most ridiculous excuses were, “I don’t like the weather today.” and “Maybe after I do the laundry.” Which, anyone that knows me knows how much I loathe laundry, so that is basically putting out into the universe that I will never do it.

I really could keep the list going. I could. And so can you. And tomorrow comes and goes, and the next thing you know, you still have that idea, sitting on a shelf collecting dust. And more ideas get added to the shelf, then the shelf gets overcrowded, and some of the little ideas slip down the crack in the back and fall behind the furniture and get lost for a while.

The problem with procrastination is that we can only learn by doing, not by thinking about doing.

What would it look like if you took just one of those ideas off the shelf and dug in?

I am super excited and honored to have been asked by my dear friend Brit to be a Change Agent for the latest edition of The Break Changer.® See, Brit has been ruminating on this very thing. She’s been wanting to know what the next social experiment looks like – what does it look like when we do the things we dream of doing? How much easier will it be to move forward if we just stop making excuses and start doing? What will that feel like?

We can stop wondering and start doing. Join us for 30 days and get started on your One Thing. Register today!* I even have a special offer for my blog readers. Take $50 off your registration fee with code YES-EUNICE at checkout. So what are you waiting for? Please join us and let’s stop dreaming and start doing!

Not sure what to choose for your One Thing? Take 60 seconds to figure it out. Please feel free to leave any questions you may have in the comments section and I’ll answer you either privately or publicly, whichever you prefer.

*Disclosure: As a Change Agent, I am not receiving monetary compensation for anyone who chooses to register for this workshop. I have received a discount on my own registration in exchange for promoting the event to my network.

five. see the Red Sox play with my dad.

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me + dad at Camden YardsWhen I originally wrote this onto my 101 list, I was thinking how much I wanted to see the Sox at Fenway with my dad. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do since I was a little girl, watching Sox games together whenever they were on.  That is still very much something I would like to do (Ideally, it would be a Sox-Yankees game, but…pipedreams, people.). But, this adventure was worthy of being able to cross this off my list.

I really didn’t expect this particular outing to be the adventure that it was. But it was certainly memorable. As part of the trip to Boston I had planned, I really wanted to take my dad to see a Sox game. They had just won the World Series for the 3rd time in our lifetimes. But the timing was off. The season didn’t start for another week and they opened on the road.

I figured I would have to settle for just taking Dad on the private tour of Fenway that I had set up for us.

But, being the girl that doesn’t do anything without panache, I decided to see what I could do. Fortunately, the Sox were opening away in Baltimore, a mere 6 hour drive from Bean Town. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “holy crap! Six hours to a ball game? That’s insane!”

Well, when you grow up driving 2 hours to the grocery store, and when you live out west, where a six hour drive might not even get you across state lines, it’s really no big deal. Especially when it’s opening day and you want to surprise your dad, who hadn’t seen his Sox play live in over three decades. So it wasn’t Fenway, but it was great.

At least, it was by the time we got there.

For the entire week in Boston, I had been holding this secret under my hat, trying not to let it slip that I had such a major surprise waiting to cap off our week. The morning of the game, I woke my dad up and told him we had to hurry and get dressed so we didn’t miss first pitch.

He said, “but the game isn’t till 3…”

“I know dad, we have to hurry.”

“And they are away.”

“Yes. And we have to rent a car and it’s a six hour drive.” And then I showed him the tickets that I had been stealthily hiding in my purse all week. I had spent a week with my dad, surprising him with all kinds of things, but the look of pure glee on his face was priceless.

But it was no easy task getting there. We had trouble at the car rental place getting a car. Then the car we were given had New York plates and my dad refused to drive it (New Englanders will understand his logic). As we were leaving town, a winter storm was rolling in and it was incredibly icy and sleeting. Heading out the Mass Turnpike, we narrowly missed being in a huge accident, which had my mind simultaneously thinking, “we’re going to die!!” and , “I didn’t pay for the extra insurance!”

It was slow-going out of New England, but once we got to New York, it was smooth sailing. I got to see a part of the country I had never seen, and that six hours in the car with my dad was a wonderful bonding experience. We ended up missing first pitch, and not arriving until the middle of the third inning, and the Sox got their butts spanked, but it was still a great day. Any day at the ballpark is a great day, but when I’m with my dad, those are truly special.

I remember this trip with great fondness, even though it came with a lot of familial drama. This was the last great adventure I got to have with my dad before he had a massive psychotic break just a few months later and our lives were forever changed. I still hope that someday, I’ll get to see the joy in my dad’s eyes that was ubiquitous on this trip, but for now, we have the memories, which we both cherish dearly.

 

 

beauty isn’t skin deep.

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Growing up, I can’t say that I ever felt beautiful. I was tall and scrawny with big, frizzy hair and a gap in my front teeth wider than the Grand Canyon. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from the girls at church, so they were often out of style and far too short for my gangling limbs (when capris came back in, I cringed, recalling all of the jokes about waiting for a flood that were banal in my childhood), or too big for my tiny waist—I actually went from ages 10-14 without a back belt loop.

My parents weren’t wealthy. We always had what we needed; anything more was a treat. I was never what one would consider “stylish,” since my clothes had generally been worn by three other girls before me. I recall longing for a Hypercolor t-shirt in seventh grade—I yearned for one of those shirts more than I did for my crush to notice me. My mom even humored me one day and took me to the mall, only to loudly proclaim how ridiculous it was that a t-shirt would cost $50. It was a repeat of the year prior, when I begged for a pair of LA Gear high tops, to no avail. No matter how I longed for just one token of socially acceptable fashion, it just wasn’t happening on my parent’s budget.

As the eldest child of a mixed-race couple at a time when such a thing was seemingly foreign to a vast part of society, it took a while for me to realize that it wasn’t my clothes that made me different, it was the fabric of my ancestry. Growing up not white enough to be white, but not black enough to be black, I wasn’t ever sure where I fit in. Add to that enough Portuguese blood that a regular wax is necessary to keep me from looking like a Mexican boy. By sixteen, it seemed that I was in the midst of a never-ending awkward phase.

In elementary school, I used to get questions from classmates that were so unbelievably ridiculous to me.

“Is that your real dad?” (Yes.)

“What are you, anyway?” (Um, American?)

As I got older, the questions were more random and bizarre.

“Do you know how to make chitlins?” (I didn’t even know at the time what that was.)

“Is it true that you can’t wash your hair?” (Um, why not?)

“Is that your boyfriend?” (No, that’s my dad. Gross)

“What nationality are you?” (American.) “No, I mean, where did you come from?” (Arizona.)

Struggling to identify with a race or culture left me with just as obscure a perspective on beauty. I poured over the pages of my teen magazines that showed my teen idols (Tiffani Amber Theissen, Candace Cameron, and Paula Abdul, to name a few) and their beauty routines and style choices and truly believed that those were the things that I needed to feel beautiful.

I used to lament to my mom as a teenager that none of the boys at school liked me because I was nerdy and wore unfashionable clothes and didn’t hang with the popular kids. She would tell me that they were just intimidated by my unbelievable beauty. I believed she was full of shit.

What I didn’t realize then is that the saying “beauty is skin deep,” isn’t actually true. Sure, my mom saw my olive complexion (“that so many women pay tons of money to have”), and my crooked smile, and even saw beauty in my straggly hair. But she also saw an incredibly gifted young lady with a big heart, who was willing to help someone out whenever the opportunity arose. She saw that no matter how many bigoted questions I got, I answered them honestly, but still made friends with anyone and everyone. I used to believe that she saw all that because she was my mom, but as I have gotten older, I have learned that beauty radiates from the inside out. I still have frizzy hair (when I don’t flat iron it). I still have a crooked smile. I almost never wear makeup. And I’m cool with that.

My most beautiful friends today don’t fit the picture-perfect standard of beauty. Some are carrying extra weight in all the wrong places. Some are tall and gangly. Some fight physical disabilities. It’s easy to see past all that because they have gorgeous hearts and souls and are out making this world a better place. That is a beautiful thing.

This post is part of the Beauty of a Woman BlogFest VI! To read more entries, and potentially win a fun prize, visit the fest page on August’s McLaughlin’s site between today and 11pm PST March 11th.

inclinations.

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Somewhere in the middle, false summit in sight.

The Manitou Incline has been on my Colorado bucket list for several years, after a few of my friends tackled it as part of a cross fit workout they were doing. I remember the first time I heard about it—a trail, less than a mile long, but with a 2,000 foot elevation gain—my response was, “That sounds absolutely insane. I wanna do it.”

And so, for whatever reason, seeing a friend post Instagram photos on Saturday evening triggered a reaction in me that told Alissa, “we are doing this tomorrow.”

And we did.

But even getting to accomplish that goal wasn’t so easy. What my spontaneous self didn’t realize was that the Pikes Peak Summit Marathon was that day and access to the incline was temporarily cut off (on a side note, while I do have a goal to summit a 14’er, I do not have any desire to literally run to the top and back down. Why anyone else would is beyond me). I also didn’t realize that was the same day that the incline would be closed for repairs for 4 months.

Not to be deterred, Alissa and I hung out in Manitou Springs for a few hours before heading back to the trailhead. I may or may not have completely lied to the “gatekeeper,” who still wasn’t letting anyone through to hike the incline, even after the designated period of time that we were told we had to wait.

Once we got on the trail, I took a look up the steep climb ahead. Naturally, it seemed easy enough, but I figured that with all the stories I’ve heard, the one about appearances being deceptive was likely true. I don’t think we made it but 40 or 50 steps before Alissa decided that we should give up and go back down. I baited her with the promise of ice cream and we kept going. We were passed at regular intervals by more ambitious climbers, we relayed back and forth with another couple who was taking their time like we were, and we stopped regularly to look back and enjoy the views. At one point, we started setting short 5-10 step goals to focus on the ascent, and I think that was what got us to the end. It was a grueling climb, and I was impressed that we both managed to summit without injury.

As we hiked back down (the much easier Barr Trail) and were passed by latent marathoners, I tried to talk to Alissa about the metaphor for life that the incline represented:

At the summit of the incline, looking down on Manitou Springs

We’ve all had challenges laid before us, without the end necessarily in sight. We knew it was out there, but even when we thought we were close, we realized we’d hit a false summit and still had an even more grueling path ahead of us. But sometimes, you just have to focus on what’s right in front of you and keep moving forward. Eventually, you’ll look back to see how far you’ve come and be motivated to keep going. And when you reach the top, the feeling of accomplishment is overwhelming.

Or you could always get what Alissa did out of it — “I don’t feel any different at all.”

lessons from the running trail.

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Tonight, after filming my intro video for The Break Changer Summer Reset, I was inspired to hit the trail for an evening run. Okay, the idea was more along the lines of a quick jog, but I’ve been trying to be more active and stop making excuses, so I put on my (super old and probably horrible for me) running shoes and headed out to the trail behind my house. 

Instead of a refreshing jog through the tree-lined hidden oasis in the city, I had a few little epiphanies that hit me. 

  1. 5 miles is a long freaking way on foot. Even when you cut it in half and you realize you’re two and a half miles from home, it can either be depressing or inspiring when you realize that you’re two and a half miles from home. 
  2. You can’t take 367 days off from running and expect to pick up where you left off. I think this lesson speaks for itself, but let’s just say that if they gave out merits for personal worst—#nailedit
  3. Don’t judge yourself by the guy keeping pace with someone on a bike. At least you’re going faster than the pregnant lady who looks like she’s going to pop any second. 
  4. Letting Spotify play music to your pace is the coolest thing ever. Until you realize that most of the music you’re hearing are slow jams and you can’t seem to pick up the pace enough to inspire some JT to save your life. 

All in all, it was a moderately nice break from my evening habit, but I have a feeling I’m going to be hurting tomorrow. 

in a fog.

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downloadIt’s been a rough week.

For those of you that don’t know, my dad struggles with Severe Mental Illness (SMI). The exact diagnosis still seems to be debatable at this point, but his SMI has been debilitating for the past 20 years and it destroyed our family on levels I never thought possible.

But something amazing also happened this week—for the first time ever, my dad asked for help. Actually, he begged for it. I just happened to be fortunate enough to have had a vacation scheduled for this week and the recent purchase of a car so I could head to Tucson to be here with him. What I didn’t expect was that it would result in him checking himself into an inpatient program for the next several days. As much as I know this is the best thing for him right now, it was probably one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

And so I’m struggling.

Struggling with what this means for my dad, who has struggled through an 8 month incarceration and a handful of violent felonies that are going to follow him around for the remainder of his life.

Struggling with the realization that, at almost 60 years old, my dad has never lived on his own. And he doesn’t know how to do that. And I don’t quite know how to help him.

Struggling with the fact that I’m the only family member of his left that is really willing to support him through this. Everyone else has abandoned him because it’s too hard.

Struggling with the fear that this could be me in 20 years if I don’t continue to be treated for my own depression.

I know that struggle breeds strength, but right now, I feel broken and hopeless and unsure of what the future holds. I’m grateful for my tribe, who is providing me the strength I cannot muster on my own right now.

easily distracted.

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not all who wander are lostIt’s a good thing that they don’t have protective services for blogs. It’s almost unbelievable that I’ve gone almost three months without a new post. Although not surprising. I’ve been busy. Like, majorly super busy with life’s constant surprises.

Back when I kicked this blog back into gear, I had a very specific idea of what I wanted my life to look like both 1 year and 5 years into the future. Let’s just say that it looked something like Eat, Pray, Love with a junior sidekick. Don’t get me wrong. I still very much want to travel the world with Alissa. In fact, part of my distraction has been my travels of the past couple of months, some for fun and some for work. And I still intend on traveling as much as possible, although I very sadly had to cancel the dream vacation that I would be leaving on next week for lack of funds thanks to adult responsibilities (damn you, Uncle Sam!).

But something I learned while participating in The Break Changer this spring is that sometimes despite our well-laid plans, we get opportunities that we just can’t say no to. The founder of The Break Changer, Brit Stueven, has perhaps had as many AHAmazing moments as the rest of us as we struggle to find time for the things that matter, and then get sidelined with amazeballs surprises that we just make work because we want to. To that end, I’ve been chasing some dreams the past little bit and that’s kept me too tired to write. Although I want to make more time for writing and fewer excuses. Anyway. Onward.

I submitted an application to speak at TEDx Mile High this summer. I got declined. I knew I would, because I half-assed my application and very poorly represented my idea (which I still think is great, it just needs a little love). But that rejection was so freeing to me. It said to me, “not right now.” It’s still a goal of mine to accomplish, but not before I give my ideas some more time to percolate and really give them the attention they deserve.

I was also asked by the IBM Marketing Cloud product team to submit an abstract to speak at their annual conference again this year. To be honest, I really didn’t want to speak this year, simply because I didn’t want the pressure of having to come up with an idea and put the presentation together. But my darling co-presenter from last year more or less twisted my arm, and I submitted. I was chosen to speak on one of my favorite topics, Marketing Automation, and was paired with a woman who not only helped craft one of the most fun and entertaining presentations on Marketing Automation (yes, I have bias), she has become a friend of mine. Just as last year, the experience of speaking became less about the content and more about forging authentic relationships with my fellow human beings. I’ll write more about this another day, but I was so glad I made the time for this opportunity.

And when I returned from sunny Tampa, I was greeted with my dream opportunity: a chance to join my company’s strategic marketing team.

Most of you don’t know that when I arbitrarily decided (with my now ex-husband) to move to Seattle in the summer of 2000, I had this idea that one day, I would be this bad ass marketing maven, in an expensive suit, killer heels and carrying my black leather briefcase with my initials branded into the side, walking around downtown shouting things into my cell phone like, “I need that copy by 3 p.m.!” and “this campaign hinges on those art proofs coming back this afternoon!” A few years later, I proudly watched “The Apprentice,” and put together my own plans to execute their various marketing tasks, all of which I thought were better than the interns (humility has never been a strong suit of mine).

Now, mind you, while all this dreaming was happening, I was doing literally nothing to move myself into the marketing world. Apparently, my 21 year old self also thought that people plucked you off the street and said, “now you look like our next CMO! Come on in. We have a job for you.” It took me over 10 years to migrate in the general direction of this dream, so when I was presented this opportunity, all my “I will nevers…” quickly slipped out the window. (Except the, “I will never move to Iowa.” Despite the fact that both of our core offices are located there, that was my only deal breaker. I really need mountains in my life on a regular basis.). My 21 year old self is really proud of 37 year old me.

I’m excited for this next adventure and curious to see how it continues to enable me to “use my marketing powers for good and not evil,” as I like to say.

How about you? Have you ever abandoned one dream to chase another?

basil-arugula pesto.

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IMG_3043.JPG Last year, I started participating in the Whole Life Challenge, mostly to support a friend build a team, but also thinking it would help up my fitness game. I ended up getting so much more out of it—I learned a lot about food (and sugar addiction, which I’ll write about another day), exercise and simple life habits that make a huge impact.

The biggest thing that I learned was how to get creative in the kitchen. When you participate at the Lifestyle level, as I did, two of the major food restrictions are sugar (the only form that’s accepted is stevia and I have a major aversion to sugar replacements) and dairy. This means no cheese, people. At first, I thought that I would die without cheese, but I quickly learned to work around it. And the more I read labels, the more I realized that food manufacturers put sugar in everything. And when I say everything, I mean every.thing. Why is there sugar in my chicken broth? Seriously?

During that 8 weeks, I learned how to adapt a lot of my favorites by substituting or omitting non-compliant ingredients. I’ve always loved to cook, but let me tell you how challenging it was to come up with some of the substitutes.

One of my coworkers is in the process of doing a dietary cleanse to identify a food allergy and she brought in a homemade pesto that was to die for. When I asked her how she was able to make it compliant with her current diet, she said all she did was leave out the cheese. And I was inspired.

I love pesto. Love. Love. Love. It’s one of the main reasons that I grow basil in my garden every summer. I also love arugula, on abnormal levels. I think it’s one of my favorite greens because of its peppery flavor. I put it on sandwiches, mix it into quiche, and substitute it in lieu of spinach on the reg.

So with the nifty tip from my colleague and some WLC innovation, I adapted this recipe and made a tasty basil-arugula pesto to accompany my salmon and roasted veggies last night.

First, instead of pine nuts, I substituted walnuts. Walnuts have a similar consistency, and not only are they much cheaper than pine nuts (this one lb bag from Trader Joe’s was $1 less than the 8 oz bag of pine nuts), they are so much better for you.

IMG_3045.JPG

Second, while I have a food processor that I love and use regularly, I was feeling incredibly lazy, so I packed all the ingredients into my Nutribullet to get the job done in one shot. While the consistency was a little smoother than I personally care for, it still tasted delish.

Save Print
Basil-Arugula Pesto
A flavorful variation on an Italian classic.
Author:
Recipe type: sauce
Serves: 1 cup
Prep time: 
Total time: 
Ingredients
  • 1 cup packed arugula leaves
  • 1 cup packed basil leaves
  • ⅓ cup walnut pieces
  • 3-4 garlic cloves
  • ½ cup olive oil
  • salt & pepper, to taste
Instructions
  1. Combine the basil, arugula, garlic, and walnuts in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add ½ cup of the oil and process until fully incorporated and smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

One of the awesome ladies in my Break Changer – Femmepreneur group mentioned that she loves to make a one-packet meal with salmon, pesto and roasted veggies. I figured since this mention happened the same week as I learned about the cheese-less pesto recipe, the universe was trying to tell me something. So I dropped some of my freshly-made pesto on top of a salmon fillet, tossed in some green beans and mushrooms, wrapped it up in a foil packet and baked at 400­º for 20 minutes. (Actually, if I’m going to be totally honest, I didn’t thaw the salmon fillets completely and ended up cooking my dish for almost 45 minutes, but again with the lazy thing.)
IMG_3050.JPGOn one final note, I’m going to be putting together a team for the May edition of WLC. If you’re interested in joining my team, please leave a comment below and I’ll let you know when I have the team set up. Registration is open now.

 

go the eff to sleep.

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sleeping girlI have a major problem with insomnia. When it comes time to catch some ZZZ’s, no matter how heavy my eyelids are, once my head hits the pillow, I seem to feel wide awake. And then I start playing the battle with the clock: “if I fall asleep now, I’ll get 5 hours of sleep. And if I fall asleep now, it’ll be 4 and a half…” and so on, until daybreak.

I’m not sure if my insomnia is caused by my depression and anxiety, or if it’s because I’m a night owl and it’s hard for me to break those rhythms when I try to go to bed earlier. While I do have some prescribed sleep aids that (usually) do the trick, I prefer to avoid those on weeknights as I tend to wake feeling groggy and discombobulated. I also realized that the lack of quality sleep I was getting during the week was contributing to my all day naps on the weekends. Talk about unproductive. And let’s be honest, if I start counting sheep, I’ll start calculating how much yarn I can get out of all of them to knit something pretty.

Truth be told, I suck at managing my mid-night wakefulness. I will toss & turn for a little while, and then I’ll get up and do something. Sometimes, I’ll watch a show, or catch a few more pages in my latest read. On really desperate nights, I’ll take a hot shower, hoping that my wakefulness will wash down the drain.  I’ve even been known to work on logic puzzles (believe me, they are oddly relaxing). The grand irony was the night that, in my insomnia-induced web searching, I came across this fabulous TED Talks playlist, all dedicated to the power of sleep.

Realizing that I needed help, I started to do some research on how to get better sleep. I found all kinds of interesting tidbits about our sleep habits. I shouldn’t be surprised that there are so many articles dedicated to getting quality/more/regular sleep—as Americans, we report getting less than the recommended 8 hours’ a night. I can’t even recall the last time I got that much sleep in one shot that didn’t come on the heels of a late night on the town. Nor did I realize that our lack of sleep contributes to an increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

Wow. I knew I had a problem, but now I see I need to take this insomnia thing a little more seriously.

Here are some of my favorite solutions to finding better sleep:

Go Dark. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a rural area, so light pollution was never a thing for me, but as an adult, living in the city I need to sleep in a dark room. I kicked the nightstand clock, partly because the display was distracting when I awoke in the middle of the night, but mostly because the illumination made it hard to sleep. I hung heavy drapes in my bedroom and also use a sleep mask. I never thought that these small changes would make such a huge difference.

Write On. Whether it’s journaling the day or writing your to-do list for tomorrow, writing your thoughts down makes you less likely to fret over things while you’re winding down. Even if you’re a digital list-maker, for this activity, pen and paper are still best. Spend 15 minutes expelling the most pressing

Power Down. This one is probably the hardest for me to do, especially when I acknowledge how hard it is for me to disconnect. But it’s probably the most important one of all. Our devices not only contribute to our insomnia, they make it harder for us to fall asleep. The illumination from TV and device displays interrupt our receptors, and actively working on something, whether a game or work, increases our stress hormones, keeping us awake longer.

Sleep in bed. It sounds pretty obvious, but a lot of people use their bedroom as a dining room, office or entertainment room. I am also notorious for sleeping on the couch in my living room. Being surrounded by all of these distractions detract from your ability to fall asleep. If you create a space that is dedicated to the comfort of sleeping, you create a mindset that sleep is the only activity that is expected of that space. And when you’re in it, you do just that.

Before you cut off your screen time, have Samuel L. Jackson read you a bedtime story. Sweet dreams.