Five Life Hacks from Shonda Rhimes Year of Yes

I finally read- no, I finally listened to Shonda Rhimes book Year of Yes. I am aware that I am three years late but I have a life that I am trying to keep from falling apart and apparently so did she.

As a writer, I look at Shonda with doe-eyes, drooling at her greatness and how perfect her life must be. Why wouldn’t I? She is everything. Her shows are everything. I have not missed one season of Grey’s Anatomy and I watched all of Scandal, and I happen to know How to Get Away with Murder is still keeping people talking. Oh and Private Practice was my show for a while. She is living a writers dream and I was drooling.
You can never be sure what you are looking at when you are peering at someone’s life from the outside. You see what they want you to see. Shonda’s book epitomizes that. I am sure I was not the only one that thought she was on top of the world. In reality, she was holding life together with food and work and distractions like the rest of us. She is warm and inviting in her constant self-deprecation, so much so that she is adorably relatable.  There are so many golden nuggets that I took away from this book.

  1. Self-confidence in one area does not take care of a person’s overall self-esteem. It doesn’t matter how good you are at this one thing, you must feel good about all of you. You have to feel good about the whole being that makes up your life. If you do not then the accomplishments and accolades mean nothing because you are not complete. 
  2. You should not only have people around who truly care for your success and wellbeing but also those who will push you outside of your comfort zone. We do not excel feeling 100% comfortable. We must be challenged and nudged to the next level. 
  3. We have to acknowledge our issues. Self-reflection is important, but you have to be willing to dig deeper and explore areas that you may not have even realized were blocking you in your life. You cannot change what you do not know about and you will not find out things about yourself, if you don’t spend some time with yourself, reflecting, exploring and pruning your soul. 
  4. Know that it is okay to be good at what you do and you do not have to be shy about it. 
  5. You have to do different things. Change up your routine. Do not fall into the same old routine. Change it up even in a small way.

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