There was a comb pulling through our diva’s wet hair. The room smelled like lavender, bergamot, and rosemary all mixing together. It was soothing. The sound of the scissors in the air brought her attention back to the woman cutting her hair. Our diva said, “Yeah, I just want to chop it off.” She smiled. The woman smiled back at her. They talked a bit more about exactly how many inches she would take off. Then, the woman got to work and our diva’s attention started drift away again.
She was flipping through a magazine but not totally letting the words on the page seep into her consciousness. The beginning of her residency was just a couple of days away. She felt nervous but good. That mix of emotions which make you constantly carry a small notebook to list to-do items at wild times of the day and night. She had gotten as far as she could on her timeline for promoting the event. There was an almost equally long list of things that she wish she had gotten to but just didn’t have time. She started calling it her “next time” list. Suddenly, the woman’s voice broke our diva’s daydreaming, “so, what’s your big change?” She had such a warm smile when she looked at our diva. Our diva returned the smile but asked, “what?” They both softly giggled and the stylist said, “You know… ‘a woman who cuts her hair is about to make a big change.'”
The Day 19 challenge on your journey is to prepare yourself for a big change.
Our diva wrinkled up her eyes in more of a smile. She had just thought that she was getting a regular haircut before her performance. She responded, “I hadn’t thought about it that way, but yeah, there is a big change.”
“Oh? Really?”
“Well, I’m a musician and I have a big event coming up.”
“That’s so exciting! Tell me more!”
Our diva launched into the overview of the residency.Her stylist was familiar with Hail House and was visibly receptive so she kept going. She started to get into more of the nitty-gritty details. Without even realizing, our diva was outlining her short term goals for this iteration of her project. She also started to divulge her desire for a more long-term experience like the residency project. They talked about the things on her “next time” list. They further broke it down better for another future potential performance. It felt so wild to find such a kindred soul when she just thought she was going to zone out and chop off the split ends of her hair.
Making Forward Progress
Her stylist said, “this actually reminds me of when I started this salon.” She smiled that kind smile again and our diva responded, “Oh! This is your salon? Wow! What was that like?”
“At first it was really overwhelming.” she chuckled clearly visualizing the situation in her imagination. “I had all of these things that I wanted to do. I could really see the salon in my mind, but figuring out what to do, in which order, and who to ask for help was so mind-boggling.”
“I feel that,” our diva laughed. Genuinely curious, she pressed on, “How did you end up moving forward?”
“Well, I had this incredible mentor, God rest her soul. She sat me down one day and could see the fear in my eyes. She said, ‘oh sweetheart, you need to get your five S’s in a row.'”
“Five S’s?”
Five S Model for Change
“It was this excellent strategy she had learned somewhere along the way for breaking down big projects.”
“Oh my gosh, can you tell me?”
“Hahah, of course. It’s not some magic wand. It just helps you figure out where you’re getting stuck when you’re trying to put something into practice.”
“I need this..”
“Sure, well, it goes
- Segment – The whole idea is that you’re breaking down your goals into small segments. You already know this part. You’re clearly doing it with your residency project.
- Simplify – These need to be actions that you can fit into your day-to-day existence. Break each task down until it isn’t intimidating anymore. If it’s intimidating, then the task is still too large.
- Sequence – There’s always an order to things. Once you break things down into simple segments, the order should begin to emerge. If an idea pops into your mind, it doesn’t all have to happen right now. Figure out where that segment can fit into the larger timeline.
- Strategize – In any project, certain ideas are always trickier or more challenging to others. That’s a deeply personal thing. I’ll have a harder time with one segment than you’ll have with the same segment. That’s important to recognize. You have to figure out what parts are harder for you. Strategizing means that you either tackle them differently or get someone, who doesn’t find it hard, to help you.
- Support – I couldn’t have done it without my mentor. She wasn’t watching over my shoulder all the time, but she was my sounding board and really was an accountability partner. It was so funny, I was leaving her salon but she was the single most helpful person when I was getting this place going. Isn’t that amazing?
That reminded our diva about her own mentor. She felt so much gratitude to him for giving her this little push and helping her refine her ideas. When our diva was just getting started, she was committed but not fully capable. She had all of the passion but she had so many things to learn. Her courage was running on overdrive to overcompensate, but it wouldn’t stay that way forever. Her mentor had been really helpful in sparking that courage and trying to help her fill in the details along the way.
New Habits Become Rituals
She knew that this was only the beginning. She had turned some of her dreams and goals into habits and had turned those habits into rituals already. Our diva barely recognized that this was happening. She simply knew that it was what made her feel like she was moving toward the goal. She realized that her days were incredibly different than when she set out on this journey a few months ago. It was as though she had a new compass inside of her pointing to a true north and she was following it with her life. She wasn’t physically traveling on the road, but it was following these changes in her habits that made her feel like she was moving toward that point. She was ready for this performance.
