You Are BA, by Jen Sincero

You are a Badass Deck, by Jen Sincero — It’s time to get mighty clear about what makes you happy and what makes you feel the most alive, and then create it instead of pretending you can’t have it.

The cards in this deck were created from a book You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life.

There is about one week of Jen Sincero's prompts left to respond to. I would be okay with stopping after this prompt. But why? Just because I finished my Rupi Kaur prompts. I wrote three of them at a time. It makes sense that I would finish them first.

Figuring out balance and self-love comes before what makes me happy and feel most alive and creating it! Then and only then can I be a Badass!

This year, in my 70th year I was going to decide if it was time for me to put my bike away. Get rid of it. It is put away now for the winter, however, it is not put away forever. I rode just under 2,000 miles on my motorcycle this year. I feel so free riding and I so enjoy the ride!

My husband is not ready either and he put closer to 4,000 miles on his bike this year. When I last got a trim at the salon, the woman said, “Most women cut their hair shorter when they get older.” I said, just trim the ends as I ride a motorcycle and want a braid next summer.

Now that is a Badass! I don’t have to feel bad or apologize or hear about people who just died on a bike. I am okay with that if that happens to me. I have been riding about 30 years altogether and chances are that I could die a hundred different ways and this is just one of them.

The photo above is a woman on a Yamaha. My bike now is a 2009, 1300 Vstar. I bought it new. Very little maintenance. Never any problems and I got a tune-up and new tires this year. My husband has a 1900 Stratoliner. Never any problems.

We have talked of sizing down for several years now but our bikes are in such great shape, why? Just because we are old and it may be easier to handle? Or the bikes are old? No. Not yet and maybe never. My compromise is I ride less. The kids don’t complain as much or offer up solutions.

REMEMBER THAT DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT — Just get the damn website up already or make the calls or book the gig even though you’re not totally ready yet. Nobody else cares or will probably even notice that everything isn’t 100 percent perfect-and, quite honestly, nothing ever will be 100 percent perfect. There’s no better way to get things done than to already be rolling along - momentum is a wonderful thing, not to mention highly underrated, so get off your ass and get started. NOW! Jen Sincero

When gearing up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which is just a day away, what do I do to prepare? Almost nothing. I picked a title, and a photo, thought about it, talked about it, and tried to plan little else in November. I have written the 50,000-plus words a few times now.

Last time I worked on putting my top stories into book form and added a cover, table of contents, forward, chapters, introductions to the chapter, and afterward. Because all of the top stories were written I could then just copy and paste and I counted those words also.

Easy, peasy. Then a few months later I edited and it will be a book I will sell for a fundraiser in May after reviewing, editing, and printing just enough copies for the fundraiser.

This time it is different as I will be writing all of the 50,000 plus words. You can get under that amount but my goal is 50,000 minimum words. I think it is close to 1,700 a day, versus the required 600 words per story that I get close to now.

Years ago, I went to a meeting for a couple of years for Adult Children of Alcoholics. I grew up in an alcoholic family. One of the problems according to the book we worked on was that “Adult Children don’t follow a project through from beginning to end.”

As a 20-something, that was certainly true for me at the time. I had many left projects and could tell stories all day about what I had started and never finished. I went back to college because of this understanding and finished.

At my age now, I finished graduate school, not my doctorate but hey, who knows? People continue to encourage me. I don’t know if they know how old I am, but maybe that is the book I need to write.

At 70, I like to believe I finish what I start on most projects. I told myself there are lots of ABDs (all but dissertations)out there, and there are. I stopped about 15 years ago, as my mother was dying and for two years she was my focus. With work, I had no extra time to do the research and write the dissertation.

Now, I am working toward writing a book and having it go to a publisher. I think I am ready for that. Maybe it should be that dissertation, but it doesn’t matter to me at this time in my life if I get those letters behind my name or in front of my name.

Our thoughts become our words, our words become our beliefs, our beliefs become our actions, our actions become our habits, and our habits become our realities. Jen Sincero

In recovery, I learned that addiction demands we stay negative. Therefore I must stay positive. It is tough to be with people who are so negative without ending up there. I work on that. If the negativity doesn’t change I need to step away.

Miigwech Creator God/Giizheymanido for life. All life. Thank you for my recovery, my health, and happiness. May I do your will, not mine. Thank you for being with family and friends who are struggling with addiction. Thank you for being with me to make a difference in a person’s life today.

Miigwech/Thank you for John, our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, everyone’s family and partners. Miigwech for the healing that does happen with our ancestors and future generations.

Thank you for the beautiful world we live in. Help me to do my part in keeping it this way.

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First published by Mercury Press on medium.com