Naysayers are only one of the obstacles senior military have to overcome in the job search. That is why I am piloting a free career coaching program for senior military members. The program is designed to get you past all the invisible sources of NO and get you to the right place where hiring managers are ready to say yes all the time.
Read moreOne Word Kills Your Job Hunt
By Jacey Eckhart
A job hunt requires way too many words, doesn’t it? Write a bunch of words into bullet points on your resume. Have words ready to introduce yourself brilliantly to people. Networking should really be pronounced as networding. In all those words, there is only one guaranteed to kill your job hunt right away: something.
The minute I hear Next Door clients or my students start a sentence with “something,” I know they aren’t anywhere near getting a job.
Me: What kind of job are you looking for?
Them: Something that works with people or data but I don’t want to do anything like I was doing before but I don’t mind the analysis part of that so I could do that again and I could go back to school but I don’t know what I would major in and then again I could be a yoga instructor.
Me: Whaa???
Something announces to everyone that you are not ready. If you are young and at the beginning of your career, it can mean you don’t have enough data yet. You might be having trouble seeing what you do well compared to your peers. You might not know enough about what is out there.
If you are over 35, something can mean you feel stuck in the direction you have taken. While you aren’t getting fired, you aren’t getting loved on at work, either. You might be having trouble deciding whether or not you are on the wrong path.
If you are nearing 50, something often means that you have come to a crossroads. That you are done with one part of your work life, or that you have had enough. It can also mean that your soul is ready for something else, a capstone project for your work life.
As a job and transition coach, the word something is fabulous to me. It indicates that a client or a student is at the beginning of the process and that there is a lot of good, insightful work to be done. Getting the right job, the right work, is a process. A job hunt is a wide circle that narrows as you move from anything, to something, to this thing.
When I hear clients answer what kind of work are you looking for? with the name of an industry or a company or a department or (hallelujah!) a job title, I know they are ready. The Next Door is in front of them, and all they have to do is knock.
Is This Your Han Solo Year?
By Jacey Eckhart
Everybody has a Han Solo Year at least once in his or her life—a year you are more than stuck. You are stuckety-stuck. You are frozen in agony, with your hands stiffened into little claws and your legs rigid in your wrinkly pants and a scream frozen on your gasping lips. Through no real fault of your own, you can’t get out of your situation until time passes. You are totally stucked up.
I call this a Han Solo Year—like when Han Solo was frozen in carbonite for a year in The Empire Strikes Back. It is a year you just have to bear one way or another, and the only cure is a passage of time. Or paying Boba Fett the money you owe him. One of the two.
I was thinking of this when a woman I was interviewing told me she was stuck in her bed a lot because she got a concussion from a skiing accident and had to lie completely still. She was going crazy because she could not look at a computer, a book, or a TV, much less drive or go to work, until the concussion healed. Many of my girlfriends in Norway felt just as stuck because so few of us could find jobs in the local economy. Twenty-four hours makes a long, long day.
Even Teddy Roosevelt once had a Han Solo Year. When Teddy was stuck as vice president to McKinley, he had no real responsibilities. Even though Teddy knew before he started that the vice presidency was a notorious dead-end career role, he was going crazy with his own uselessness. He wrote to his friend, “I am not doing any work and do not feel as though I was justifying my existence. More and more it seems to me that about the best thing in life is to have a piece of work worth doing then do it well.”
Yes, Teddy. We know that feeling. We know the rumination. We know the boredom. We know the blinding anxiety that does not change a thing. Just because this happens to everyone at one time or another doesn’t make it any less painful
The question is, what do you do about it? Start by asking yourself these questions:
1. Are you frozen or glacial? Before you can call it a Han Solo Year, you have to take a step back and decide whether you are truly irrevocably frozen or your movement is just slower than you want. Sometimes you are making progress, carving the face of a mountain and the bed of a river, and you aren’t giving yourself enough credit because it goes so slowly.
2. Is this a Han Solo Year or a Big Between? A Big Between lasts only a few months. It is characterized by the fact that 1) you know your Next Door will open but you just have to wait; 2) you have few monetary resources to while away the time; and 3) you are paralyzed with indecision about what to do with your time. A Han Solo Year, on the other hand, usually lasts 12 – 24 months, you have some resources, and the things you are trying are not working. Seriously. NOT. WORKING. And will never work. For anyone.
3. Is this really impossible? Are you stuck because the thing you want to do is impossible, or does it merely feel impossible? There is a big difference between not being able to drive because you have a concussion and not being able to drive because you live in a foreign country and you are scared to try driving on the wrong side of the road. A little coaching could help with that.
4. Are you making it worse by comparing? Are you comparing yourself to other people who are not stuck? Or are you comparing yourself to your old self who was not stuck? This comparison can make things even more painful. Trust me.
5. Can you give in to it? Can you accept that this year of being stuck is what it is? Can you take pleasure in the little things you do to make yourself happy? (This skill takes more character than I usually have.)
6. What would it mean to overcome? As E.M. Forster said, “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” Sometimes your Han Solo Year is the thing you have to go through to get to your Next Door. Do what you can to make the time go faster and walk on.
Five Undeniable Signs You Need a Coach
By Jacey Eckhart
“Maybe he could use some personal coaching,” mused one of my colleagues the other day. “He doesn’t really know what direction he should be going in, so he isn’t really doing anything. He seems kind of stuck to me, you know?”
Yes. I know. Getting stuck is not one of the major signs of needing a coach. Staying stuck long enough for people to notice is a sign that a coach could really help you get going in the right direction. This is especially true when you are going through a significant life change, like job hunting, changing your major, buying a new home, or adding a family member, and you are smack in the middle of a Next Door Project.
To be your little helper, I put together this list of five undeniable signs you really need a coach:
1. You feel stuck. You have gone through a major life change and you fully acknowledge you can’t go back to your old self. HOWEVER, you can’t seem to break into your new role either. You are wandering around your life like a naked drunk in a hotel hallway with nothing but an ice bucket over your parts. This is not a good feeling.
2. You don’t recognize your strengths at all. So often people scoff at personality tests because they don’t “work.” Often, they don’t work because you took them wrong or read the results wrong or didn’t apply the new knowledge to your life. Multiple studies show that people who work in the area of their strengths are more successful and have higher life satisfaction. If you aren’t sure about what your strengths are, how can you get that kind of life?
3. You discount your best strengths. Even if you do know your strengths, you discount them as average, common, or unimportant. In my work with veterans, I cannot get over how often I hear talented, accomplished people discount the things they do best with the words, “Anyone can do that.” No, actually, “anyone” can’t do that. You are killin’ me.
4. You need someone to give your change a little structure or hold you accountable. We repeat things because they still seem true. Especially if we repeat them. I know I am in need of a coach when I am running around and around the same group of thoughts, usually about something in my life that is stuck. A coach who listens closely can hear the patterns of your thinking and help you find the kind of insights and activities that will help you get unstuck and moving in the right direction.
5. You are running on low levels of hope. Being stuck is discouraging. In Change or Die, (greatest title of all time) Alan Deutschman demonstrates how one of the keys to change is finding someone you relate to who can inspire you to believe your change is probable. This is usually someone who makes you think, If they can do it I can do it. A good coach can be that person, and you know they are good if you leave the session hopeful and ready to go do the thing you need to do next.
I wrote The Next Door Project Workbook to help everyone who is in the self-coaching stage and needs concrete activities to do to work through this part of their significant life change. I also offer one-on-one coaching because often that is the step people need to get unstuck and to start moving forward.
Do You Need a Coach?
By Jacey Eckhart
“You need someone on your side who doesn’t have any skin in the game,” my mom told me when I was 24.
I had been crying to her for what felt like three days. My husband and I had reached that rocky place you get to in a marriage when you line up the perfect military trifecta of new baby, no money, and wicked long deployment.
My mom was brilliant. She could see I legitimately needed someone to talk to in order to figure out what to do next—and that person could not be her. Like all of our family and friends, she did have skin in the game. She was acknowledging that all her advice would be about keeping the marriage together, and that was not the only possible solution.
She could see I needed someone to listen to me, who did not have skin in the game, who could hear the errors in my thinking and inspire me to find a solution for myself. She could see I needed a coach.
I found one. She helped me organize some structures in my life to support our marriage while Brad and I got more comfortable with sharing parenting. She helped me figure out what I wanted to do with my career, too. By the following year, I was writing for, then editing, a small magazine—and Brad could make our little daughter one mean ponytail.
That’s why I believe in the power of the coach—the person who is on your side with no skin in the game.
Coaching is a great tool to handle significant life changes like having a new baby or looking for a new job. A coach is the guide you find in the long hallway between the end of the role you used to have (carefree adult) and becoming your new self (one of those moms who can march three kids across the country armed with nothing but a sippy cup and an umbrella stroller).
So often when we are stuck, we wait for the problem to go away. When it doesn’t, we turn to family and friends. When they keep saying the same things, we might try some self-coaching (which is why I developed The Next Door Project Workbook for you). Then, when we need a bit more insight, a coach is there to ask the right questions and offer the right exercises and hold us a little accountable.
I have always done some coaching as a sidebar to my writing career, and I have earned a certificate in coaching from the American Society for Talent Development. In the past year, I have been asked to do professional coaching, so COMING SOON I’ll be offering coaching sessions to, well, you! Or anyone else who needs someone without skin in the game to come alongside and provide help navigating the long hallway and walking through a Next Door. Stay tuned for more about my coaching sessions, launching next month. And start asking yourself, Do I need a coach? Because maybe a coach is what you need to make the difference between chasing your dream “someday” and living your dream now.
Courage Builder: Most Likely Self
By Jacey Eckhart
I wanna quit. When I am standing on the brink of the Next Door Project that is COMING SOON, I don’t wanna do it. I wanna quit. I wanna climb back under the covers with some Graeter’s mint chocolate chip ice cream and use the word “wanna” a lot until the Next Door Project goes away.
Which is the problem with Next Door Projects. They are COMING SOON for you and they don’t usually care whether they are welcome or not.
If you find yourself in bed with the ice cream, let that be a sign unto you that you need to build up some courage. One of the best ways to do this is to remember your Most Likely Self. This is your best self, your rockin’ self, the self that is most likely to get the Next Door to open.
Annnnnd it is also the self you probably lost the minute you entered the long, dark hallway between where you used to be and where you are going. This is usually due to the dim lighting the Dogs of Despair installed when you were not looking.
That’s okay. To gather your courage, I put together my Most Likely worksheet for you. Give this one a try:
1. At work. Think of a time where you were doing something at work and then scribble down some words that describe it in the box marked “I am my Most Likely Self when I am this…”For example, at work I am my Most Likely Self when I am thinking on my feet, sharing new ideas, and pursuing the next thing.
2. At home. Next, think of a time where you were doing something in your home life that made you feel like you were firing on all cylinders. For example, I’m my Most Likely Self at home when I am empathetic and organized and I can see the big picture.
3. Now stop. Read the list. Enjoy it. Feel your courage build. You have been these things in the past. You are these things now. You can be that best self in the future. Feel free to add any other Mostly Likely things to your list.
4. Then turn it around. In the box next to your Mostly Likely Self list, write the opposite of each of those things under the heading “Not this.” For example, I might write this:
I am my Most Likely Self when I am thinking on my feet, not hiding in the bed.
I am my Most Likely Self when I am sharing good ideas, not agonizing over thinking up perfect or totally unique ideas and putting out nothing.
I am my Most Likely Self when I am empathetic, but not swamped by everyone else’s feelings.
Seeing your Most Likely Self contrasted with your Least Likely Self makes it so much easier to do things that move you forward AND to recognize the stuff that is holding you back. Try this easy worksheet and hang it where your Most Likely Self will see it every morning to give you the courage you need to pursue your Next Door.
Correction: Three Words Are Not Enough
By Jacey Eckhart
My intention was to be inspiring, resourceful, and soothing during my parents’ move to their new condo. My mom laid out and laughed at that last one.
“Soothing!” she gasped, holding her stomach and rolling around on the carpet.
“Yes, soothing,” I said in a huff.
Honestly, sometimes my little mother is the biggest fan of my work and sometimes she is the one who points out the gaposis.
As she points out, there is a refinement needed for my “Three to BE” exercise (32B). It is the exercise you are supposed to do at the BEginning of a Next Door Project to set your intention not only about what you want to do, but also about how you want to BE. Why wasn’t it working this time?
Probably because we were already tired when we started.
Probably because there was a big time crunch.
Probably because there were so many complicated feelings attached to this Next Door Project!!
I really do want to be a help to my mom during the major move that is her Next Door Project. ‘Cause she is little and I love her. So I thought about it more and made two lists.
My first list was all the ways I was actually BEing: Impatient yet inclusive. Pushy yet seeking harmony. Frazzled yet valiantly swallowing all my feelings in ice cream.
Then I made a list of all the ways I could be instead: Compromising, connecting, curious, determined, finishing, kind, leading, transforming, wise.
I brought my mom the lists. “What do you need me to be, Mom? Pick three,” I told her.
“I pick leading and finishing,” she said. “And I want you to do that thing you do when you respect that fact that we are adults and can make our own decisions.” She said this with a bit of a side eye.
Got it.
So if you are doing your Next Door Project, set a note on your calendar midway through the process to check and make sure that your intention lines up with a) how you are actually behaving, and b) what the situation requires. Because even the best of intentions isn’t always enough to conquer your Next Door Project.
The Best TV or Movie Apartment for Next Door Hunters
By Jacey Eckhart
When actress Valerie Harper passed away last week, all I could think was, I want your apartment.
Any time I am going through a Next Door Project, I want that pink and orange studio apartment she lived in while she played Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I could be very creative there, I think. (I also think I ought to be able to wear Rhoda’s cool gypsy headscarf, but that is another story.)
Whether your Next Door Project is a move, so you are in the middle of a house hunt; or you are thinking of a major decorating project, and you are looking for ideas; or you just miss Valerie Harper, vote on the best TV or movie apartment:
A. Rhoda’s pink and orange studio
B. Mary Tyler Moore’s step-down living room with the odd dinner parties
C. Demi Moore’s pink apartment with the Billy Idol mural In St. Elmo’s Fire
D. Monica’s purple sublet in Friends
Did I miss any?
Photo Albums: Can You Throw Them Away?
By Jacey Eckhart
The loose pictures were easy. The letters and school notebooks were fun. But the photo albums? It seemed like a sin to throw away another woman’s completed photo albums. Even if they did belong to my mother-in-law.
When Brad and I finished our Next Door Project (three PCS moves in 30 days), my husband decided the time was right to add a fourth move. He had the contents of his parents’ storage shed delivered to our new house. It included 15 giant tubs of memorabilia from his parents and both sets of grandparents. There were more than 40 photo albums in all, mostly of people he did not know. What would you have done with it all?
Brad started to sort and gave up after an hour. It hurt too much. “We will just put it in the attic for later,” he told me. Which was his code word for never.
Never is a NO for me.
So, with his permission, I started to sort. How exactly do you sort photo albums without dying of the guilt? I have all my own albums complete and carefully lined up on my bookcase. Truthfully, I have not put together an album in years. Maybe it is because all my pictures are on my computer now. Maybe it is because photo albums seem to be the work of a certain time in a woman’s life.
A photo album is a capstone project for your motherhood. A proof of work. It says, Here are the Christmases. The birthdays. The summer vacations. The first day of school pictures. The high school dances. Here are the things that were important to us. Here are the things we were trying to do right. What you save so carefully tells a story about who you are.
Oh. A story.
I’m a storyteller.
I love a good story.
Through that lens, suddenly each of their stories became so clear. Grandma Betty had a lot of golf pictures, pictures of friends, and pictures of herself and her charming husband, Kenny, out on the town. Grandma Gladys, a kindergarten teacher for nearly 50 years, traveled during their summers and had pictures of car trips to Yellowstone and Boulder Dam and the Alamo and Alaska and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. She must have had 500 pictures of people posed in front of her house. My mother-in-law’s albums were full of holidays, projects, and her report cards and papers saved from grade school and high school and college.
Suddenly, it was so easy to sort. I got rid of duplicates and pictures of people no one recognized and anything with mildew. I set aside packets of pictures for nephews and cousins. I saved pictures of what each of their houses looked like, of the businesses they ran, of the schools where they taught, of dresses the ladies wore to dances. My husband was delighted when I found a place for ten of the best albums on our own bookshelves in the living room. He carted two tubs of memorabilia upstairs—every attic needs a little treasure.
On our front porch, there were six contractor bags filled with the rest of the pictures (and a whole lotta guilt.) But inside, we saved their stories to surround our family with as we get ready to walk through all of our Next Doors and welcome everything that is coming soon.
Things My Mother Gave Me
By Jacey Eckhart
The hardest category for my mother when she was mapping her kitchen was the cabinet of Things My Mother Gave Me. My grandma was one of those redheaded creatures God made to remind us that love is all that matters.
Some of Grandma’s things made the cut. My mom uses them all the time. Some of her things were packed away without regret. One set of dusty stemware sat on Mom’s dining room table for a long time. I would not let her pack them until she had a place on her map indicating where they would go in the new house.
Finally, Mom sat down at the table in front of the stemware. “Let me tell you about those glasses,” she said. She told me how my grandma would get out these glasses she wanted to make a fancy dessert, serving her special chocolate sauce made from scratch over vanilla ice cream in these glasses for her husband and eight children.
In my mom’s face, I could see housewifely pride of a woman who owned few nice things and saved them for best and a daughter who witnessed her efforts to create a moment. No wonder they were hard to let go.
Still, Mom did not pack up the glasses. They sat in dusty splendor on the table for the rest of the week. I wondered what she would do. Sometimes things hold a spirit forever and sometimes they hold only a memory that needs to be felt one more time.
Mom called me a few days later. “I washed all the glasses and packed them up. The Senior Center is having a sale, and I could see some young person needing these glasses.”
Me too, Mom. Me too.
Map a Kitchen. Save a Life!
By Jacey Eckhart
What is my little mother doing in this picture? If you look closely, you can see that she has taped fluorescent pink note cards on every cabinet in her new kitchen listing where each coffee mug, cookie cutter, and Tupperware is going to go.
No, this is not the retiree version of A Beautiful Mind. (At least, I think it is not.) This is the sign that the woman finally took my advice as the Queen of 20 Moves and mapped her kitchen before she moved for the first time in her life. Let the trumpets sound. Let the earth move.
While I, uh, appreciate, my mom’s adaptation with all the pink index cards specially purchased for this project, that part isn’t necessary. The necessary part is thinking through your new kitchen before you leave the old one. Otherwise, you end up with a kitchen where things are stored because, as my mother said, “That’s where there was room left over.” Wha???
Even if you are not moving anytime soon, you can still perform this miracle on your kitchen. Here is how you do it:
1. Confront your current categories.
In your current cabinets, you probably have categories of which things go together. Some categories we can all agree go together. Dishes. Glasses. Spices. Coffee travel cups. Snacks for kids. Then there are your weirdo categories. For example, I have a drawer in my kitchen that is mentally labeled Things that are sharp. Knives, of course, fit in that drawer, but also can openers, scissors, bottle openers, lemon zester, potato peelers and small cutting boards. And, oh yeah, those corkscrew thingies that open wine. My mom has a cabinet that must be labeled Things My Mother Gave Me (That I Can’t Use), which is adorable.
2. Map out the new kitchen.
Draw a little map of each cabinet and drawer and pantry shelf in your new kitchen. It doesn’t have to be done well, just do it. Paper and pencil open the brain the way nothing else can.
3. Decide on your work zones.
Kitchens have work zones. (Really, Mom, they do. I think it’s a thing they invented in the 90s.) Anyway, if you look at your map, you will see there is a zone for slicing and one for mixing near the stove. There is a zone for plating food around the fridge, and a place where you are supposed to do all the cleaning around the sink. There is even a spot meant for all your food storage. Woo hoo.
4. Now assign seats.
Before you pack a single box in your old kitchen, assign each of your categories a place in their zone in the new kitchen. When I did this with my mom last month, she had a hissy fit over the bowls. Mom has millions of little bowls. If you are missing a little bowl from your stash, you can come over to my mom’s house to get it back because she probably stole it from you.
“All my bowls won’t fit in that little space,” she said, her mouth drawn into a little line.
“You only have the space you have,” I said piously, quoting organizing guru Peter Walsh.
Mom grumbled for maybe ten seconds. Then she had to confront each bowl. A lot of bowls did not make the cut, and my nieces had to bundle them off to Goodwill in the dark of night. Mom had to go lie down with a wet washcloth on her head.
5. Cut the leftovers.
Discard things without a category. Let them go. Things in your kitchen that do not have a category don’t belong to you, and you should let them go live somewhere else among their own kind. Bid farewell to any extras that don’t fit in their assigned places. The tyranny of space makes decision making so much easier than you ever thought it could be.
Mapping your kitchen before you move is a game changer. Look at my little mother’s face. That look of smug delight can be yours when all your things go into your new cabinets on the first day. Makes you want to move again tomorrow, right?
I Know What Is Wrong with Your Linen Closet
By Jacey Eckhart
I’m the Queen of 20 Moves. Yeah. In my adult married life, my husband and I have moved everything we own into a new house 20 times. Let this be a cautionary tale: Never start kissing someone in uniform because it is very hard to stop.
I’m telling you this to explain why my girlfriend Terry called me the other day and lowered her voice so much I thought she was going to ask me for the name of my crack dealer (F-R-I-T-O-L-A-Y). “Now tell me about your linen closet,” Terry whispered.
The light dawned. Moving is Terry’s Next Door Project, and I am the friend who is known for my beautiful closets. Ta da! My car might smell like a dead body because I spilled an entire latte in there last week, but my linen closets are works of remarkable beauty. (You learn this stuff on the way to becoming the Queen of 20 Moves.)
“Just tell me about the towels,” Terry hissed. “Jim says they would be good in the shop and he already has two boxes of shop towels and he never even goes out there.”
Then I knew exactly what was wrong with her linen closet: Jim. I don’t know if LGBT couples have to deal with this situation, but all the hetero husbands of my acquaintance object to throwing out towels and bed linens. Which is strange. They usually would not notice if you had them sleep on a bare mattress in a union suit like the cast of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Husbands see “organizing the linen closet” as code for “throwing money away.” Their money. No matter how much money you have earned, they see towels, sheets, and your clothes as money they earned. Which is adorable. But sad.
I wrote these rules of a beautiful linen closet for Terry, but I’m sharing them with you because I like you and I can feel a pile of ratty towels leaning out of your linen closet right now, threatening to smother you to death.
The Queen of 20 Moves’ Rules for a Beautiful Linen Closet:
1. Don’t announce your intentions. Don’t set up any big box next to your front door that screams that you plan to bring something to Goodwill or St. Vincent DePaul. That encourages your partner to dig through the box and say, “But this is still good.”
2. You are so right. When you do make that mistake—and you will—the reply you are looking for is, “Oh, you are so right.” Then keep moving. Do you really think your significant other is about to refold that Lion King bedsheet from 1998 and put it back on a shelf?? I think not.
3. You only get two sets of sheets per bed. Unless someone likes flannel sheets and then you can have three sets. If you need me to teach you to fold a fitted sheet so it looks like it came out of the package, lemme know. My grandma taught me.
4. Throw away any pillows you refer to as “the flatties.” Your husband will protest, “We can use those as guest pillows!” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? No guest wants to sleep on pillows that smell like they have been used to absorb your latest oil change. Spend $10 and buy the guest a new pillow.
5. Donate gifts, especially throws. While you are busy Marie Kondo-ing your house (yes, that’s a verb now), don’t get so wrapped up in her “everything you touch should bring you joy” message that you forget her message about “the gift has done its work once it is given.” The electric blanket you won in a raffle and the throws your aunt gave you every Christmas for 15 years can go. Yes. Go now.
6. Know some things aren’t worth saving. Stuff that is torn or stained or carries its own odor is not a donation—it is a problem. If you would not buy it, neither would anyone else. The purpose of thrift stores is to make money for needy people, not to make workers sort through items that host traces of Eboli. My one exception is bath towels. Check with your SPCA or kennel; sometimes they can really use the towels.
7. Master the nip and tuck. Ever notice those big metal bins in parking lots that look like giant mail boxes? You can nip over and tuck things in there on your way to somewhere else. I keep a bag from an expensive store for my current nips and tucks in the back of my car. When my husband wonders what the bag is, I say, “Just a return.” Which is kind of true because I am returning that item to the retail universe. It also makes him feel better because he is saving money, and I love that about the little guy.
8. Manage your guilt. Taking on a Next Door Project like getting ready for a move gives you plenty of opportunity to disagree with your partner. Major life changes will do that for a couple. Just keep in mind that you are doing your beloved a favor. You are saving money and rescuing planet Earth by heating less. Cooling less. Washing less. Most of all, you are saving the life of the person you love most in the world by preventing your other half from being smothered to death by duvet covers gone wild.
We do all this because we love. We do all this because getting ready to charge through the Next Door often clears a space where we can make decisions big and small to move ourselves and our loved ones to the next great stage of life.
Ten Things I Hate about Your Curtains
By Jacey Eckhart
I hate your curtains. To be fair, I hate my curtains a lot of the time, too. But I have moved 18 times in my adult life, and I have an excuse: laziness.
You probably have an excuse for your self-loathing curtains that is just as good as mine. You might even have the same excuse. In which case, you have my pity.
But here we are missing the opportunity to be surrounded by the one thing that really makes a room look finished—curtains! If your Next Door Project is a big household move or decorating project, here are the things I’ve learned to hate about your curtains (and mine) from hanging them in 18 houses:
1. You have imaginary curtains. I love $5 paper accordion shades as much as anyone, but if you are waiting until you can afford custom window treatments and a professional installer at your Forever House, you are trading wowser todays for a lot of shabby yesterdays. If you can’t afford much, limit yourself to curtains in your favorite room.
2. You do not own a drill. Every American home should possess at least one person who can operate a drill and a sewing machine. If this person is not you, you might need to start dating again. Or send one of your kids to a better school. You know, the kind that teaches people how to use drills and sewing machines.
3. You need a stud finder. Stud finders do not, in fact, help you find someone with a drill to date and later marry. Stud finders locate the wooden thingy behind the drywall that will actually hold up a curtain rod. Otherwise, your rods sag drunkenly from the wall looking like they are on a three-day bender. Which I discovered when my husband went on deployment before he hung the curtain rods. He won’t do that again.
4. You hung your curtains too low. I used to think curtain rods should be hung just above the window trim like the eyebrows on Cro-Magnon man. Then I noticed that those cute Property Brothers amaze their clients simply by hanging their curtain panels an inch or so from the ceiling. This makes the eye shoot up the side of the wall and make ceilings look super tall. Like those cute Property Brothers.
5. You bought the wrong length. Sometimes I’ve got a bee in my bonnet and I wanna go buy some panels and hang them up today. Immediately. Right now. The problem is that panels stocked at Target and Walmart and Marshalls are usually cut for the standard 8 ft American ceiling. If you have 9 ft or 10 ft ceilings, this will make your windows look like they are wearing capris that make their hips look even wider and then they will resent you. Find longer lengths at your favorite retailers online, or go to IKEA where they are smart enough to stock them.
6. You tried puddling. “Puddling” is what happens when a curtain does not skim the floor, but falls to the ground in a melodramatic heap as if its name were Scarlett or Blanche and it has the vapors. Clearly, histrionics like these cannot be carried off without an antebellum mansion in New Orleans or Charleston and a thousand yards of silk. Everywhere else in the country, puddling looks like pure slackitude combined with the inability to find iron-on hem tape at Michael’s or JO-ANN’s.
7. You did not know you could change lengths. When you move 18 times, you take window treatments with you and make do. This means curtain panels are often too short or too long. Curtains that are too long can be hemmed. Or, if you are moving soon, you can ignore #6 and try to get away with puddling even though the dog will love the puddle and shed all over it. Curtains that are too short can be shortened again until they hang breezily at the bottom of the window trim. You can also add more fabric to the bottom of the curtain, which will give you a seam, but this becomes invisible after one beer.
8. You bought only two panels and stretched them. I know money is tight, but too narrow curtains look cheezmo on a wide window and I hate that. The rule is that panels should be two to two-and-a-half times the width of the window. If you absolutely intend never, ever to close these curtains even when you are naked, you can get away with a curtain that is one-and-a-half times the width of the window. Maybe.
9. You tried to save money by skipping curtain rings. Curtain panels come either with a rod pocket sewn into the top for you to thread the rod through, or they have those big silver grommets that look like ear spacers stolen from an elephant going through an identity crisis. These two things save money, but only encourage the curtain to creep down the rod in an unattractive way. Such slovenly habits in window treatments should be discouraged at all costs.
10. You didn’t know the secret of ring clips. Ring clips were invented by God so that you would not have to deal with header tape. Do not make the mistake of clipping them to the flat panel and stringing them on the rod. Instead, create pleats at the top of the panel with the clips, and your curtains will hang in grace and beauty all of their days.
So maybe you’re not worried about your actual curtains right now like I am. (Although, the puddlers among you may be cringing.) But think about your Next Door Project, your Significant Life Change. Yes, right now mine is moving, but yours may be finding a new job or transitioning to a different season of life. Figuring out which curtains best fit your new space is like opening a Next Door. Perfection at this stage may be impossible to find—your budget doesn’t have any room for new drapes right now so you’re going to tack on some extra fabric at the bottom of your old ones. Go forth and tack. Learn from past experiences, and each time you’re faced with the need for a new window treatment, make it better than the last one.
I feel a lot better now that I expressed by true feelings about my drapes. Seriously. Now I am off to take down my 8 ft bedroom curtains and figure out how to make these panels work in my new living room with the 10 ft ceilings. Because that is going to work. No problem.
How to Deal with Too Many Things All at Once
By Jacey Eckhart
Have you ever had a time when too many major life changes were happening all at once? This happens to me every couple of years. I’ll have a period of relative calm followed by a year piled with moves and graduations and weddings and funerals and broken bones and new jobs and baby dragons dropped down the chimney and general acts of God all over the place. The sh*t does not stop flying.
I do not take this as a bad omen. I take it as a sign to buckle into my raincoat, put on my goggles, and step up to be the Boss of Me. Well, not right away. First I snuffle and complain a lot, and then I step up to be the Boss of Me.
I’m going through one of those times right now. My husband got promoted (which is so nice!) and, of course, he got orders to go back to DC. So we are moving all our stuff up there (lifetime move #19). Then our teenager and I will move into an apartment down here during the week so he can finish his senior year of high school (lifetime move #20). Then my parents, bless them, finally found a condo they liked, so we are moving them out of the house they have lived in for 41 years and I gotta be their little helper on that, too.
Three household moves in 30 days means that there are not enough raincoats in the world to withstand all the feelings everyone is going to be having all at the same time. I am stressed out already and nothing has happened yet.
Not a surprise. Stress is what happens when you perceive the ridiculous demands placed upon you exceed your actual ability to cope with them.
Fortunately, I just reminded myself I can be the Boss of Me and make lists. ‘Cause lists are good. For times where everything is happening at the same time I only need two lists:
1) I need to list what needs to be done.
2) I need to list what does NOT need to be done.
What needs to be done is not a problem for me. I’ve already moved 18 times. I know how to move well. I have my strategies. I keep my notebooks. I control the movers the way the gravity of the moon controls the tides. I’m magical that way.
The list of what does NOT need to be done kicks me in the pants every time. Despite a complete lack of evidence, I truly believe I should be able to do every single thing I always do despite the lack of hours in the day. This is why I snuffle and complain a lot.
Some things simply do not need to be done in a time of too much stuff happening at the same time. Some of the things on my NOT to-do list are easy—I am not going to cook as much. I am not fertilizing this grass. Some of the NOT to dos are harder, like putting off a really pressing and important work project. Some of the NOT to dos are nearly impossible, like not counting up the mistakes I make and not combing through every comment for negativity and not eating all my feelings disguised as Fritos.
I need help with the second list. During a year where everything happens at once, I usually lose some of my stamina and falter. Brad says hugs are good for releasing Oxytocin. Tony Bennet helps me keep from sinning against the talent. The Lebron James method helps me do the things I absolutely must do.
Most of all, my daughter and my mom and my girlfriends are all good about catching me in my negativity and turning me back around to face the storm. They know me well enough to remind me that during a time of everything happening at once, my to do starts with one thing:
Be the kind of person who can face the storm. I can do that. Every time.
Boss of Me: The LeBron James Method
By Jacey Eckhart
My inner critic is not that smart. Venomous, yes. Biting, often. Brilliant, not so much. When I am trying to be the Boss of Me, I often trick my inner critic into thinking that she is basketball legend LeBron James.
Which is a stupendous feat, really. Especially when I cannot walk down a hallway without tripping on a pattern in the carpet while LeBron is one of the greatest athletes of all time.
I started using this method years ago after reading the work of University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross. He was drawn to studying how our inner monologues affect success when he heard LeBron James explain in an interview how he decided to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“One thing I didn’t want to do was make an emotional decision,” said LeBron James. “I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James and do what makes LeBron James happy.”
Hearing the basketball star suddenly flip into third person was eye-opening for Kross. In a series of seven groundbreaking experiments, Kross and his team found that switching pronouns or calling ourselves by our own first names, like LeBron did in the interview, gives us the right amount of distance to improve self-regulation, perform better, criticize ourselves less after a performance, and perceive future stressors as less threatening.
That’s pretty good stuff. I found it is even better when you also channel LeBron James. Because you wouldn’t let LeBron James down, would you? You wouldn’t expect LeBron James to give up just because the work is hard. So here is how it goes:
STEP ONE: Do what is best for LeBron James.
Well, not the real LeBron. He has his own staff to figure out what to do for LeBron. Instead, describe what you need to do that you cannot make yourself do.
For example, I know I really should finish the synopsis for my novel so I can send my marketing materials to a real agent and get this novel published, but I don’t wanna. Writing that kind of stuff is hard and makes me want to spit gum on every page of my story right before I chuck it into the river.
Chucking things is not something LeBron would do. He would get the synopsis done.
STEP TWO: Write down what you need to do using first person. As in,
I am finishing my synopsis today because I need to do what is best for my work and I want to get this novel published.
While this is true, it is not that motivating. It wakes up my inner critic and reminds her to buy enough gum for me to start sticking the pages of my manuscript together. Thankfully, this is where LeBron James comes in.
STEP THREE: Replace “I” with “LeBron James.” As in,
LeBron James is finishing the synopsis for his novel today because LeBron James has to do what is best for LeBron James and get LeBron James’ novel published.
See, for some reason, it sounds smarter and more necessary when it is happening to LeBron James. Of course LeBron James should take time for his synopsis so he can publish his novel. Go, LeBron, go!!
STEP FOUR: Stealthily replace LeBron’s name with your own. As in,
Jacey Eckhart is finishing the synopsis for her novel today because Jacey Eckhart has to do what is best for Jacey Eckhart and get Jacey Eckhart’s novel published.
Which also sounds pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? Jacey Eckhart is a person I like. Jacey Eckhart spent two years writing and editing that novel. Jacey Eckhart should definitely finish that synopsis so she can sell her work, go to LA, and see LeBron James play basketball!!
If you, too, have to silence an inner critic before you can get to work, try the LeBron James method and let me know how it goes. Check out “The LeBron James Method” worksheet to get started!
I’m betting LeBron could take on my Spooky Little Twins, too. (They like to hang out with my inner critic.) What do you think?
Mother of the Bride: Don’t Stand Out
By Jacey Eckhart
DON’T STAND OUT. If you are going to be the mother of the bride or the mother of the groom this year, be prepared to hear the same message I did: Don’t stand out, sweetie.
Rest assured, I don’t think you are hoping to wear a long white dress to match your daughter so you can be a living Dorian Gray and drive everyone at the reception to drink themselves under the table. I trust you not to wear a two-piece, spangled, banana-colored jumpsuit to upstage your daughter-in-law in all your stretch-marked glory. I don’t think you want to be the center of attention (even though you are still such a hottie).
I’m betting you are like me and you want to look, well, happy. And maybe 10 pounds thinner.
I was surprised to find out that “happy” is not a word that goes with mother of the bride or groom. Instead, the world thinks we ought to be elegant. Stately. Grand.
Which is why we should not let the world be the Boss of Us anymore.
The world thinks shopping for a MOB or MOG dress is the perfect opportunity to tell women of a certain age to step aside. To hold back. To be prepared to find their AARP card in the mail and get downsized at work. Have a kid old enough to get married and you are old, mom. You are 50 and now you are officially old. You might be able to do a headstand in your yoga class. You might even be able to do the splits, given enough time (and wine). Now is the time to turn down the volume, shut off the energy, and turn into a woman encrusted in lace, enshrouded by pewter or black or navy peau de soie. This is how society does its work.
My mom knows what I mean. “The old rule for mothers of the groom was, ‘Shut up and wear beige,’” she said with a twitch in her eye. My mom is going to be 80 this year. She can rock peau de soie. She can wear beige.
I don’t want to wear peau de soie anything yet. I cannot wear beige or taupe or sand. I put on a neutral-colored dress and I end up looking like a very large, very lumpy, very moist oatmeal cookie with two big brown raisins for eyes. I cannot wear black because even though it achieves the ten pounds thinner goal, it drains my face until I look like I lost the ten pounds by gaining a tapeworm.
Both of my grandmothers lived into their 90s. If I promise to wear beige when I am the grandmother of the groom, can I please wear something cheery now?
My daughter thought I was being silly. “You aren’t wearing black to my wedding. We will go shopping. We will find something happy.”
But she had not been out there in the world where they look at me and see an end to the story. An ending that is supposed to go on for the next 40 years.
Luckily, the world did not count on my daughter. She dragged me into a changing room with dresses in every color. Red and orange and peacock blue. Dragon green. A purple jumpsuit so bad that we laughed until we cried and the saleslady wondered if we needed a drink of water.
Finally, we picked out a navy-blue gown with a fluffy skirt littered with huge pink flowers. It did not make me look ten pounds thinner. It made me look happy. It made me look like I wanted to dance. It made me look like my child’s wedding marked the moment where all the work of family made sense and the happiest part of my life was just beginning. Because it is.
The Boss of Me
By Jacey Eckhart
Do you have more starts than finishes in your work life? I do. Because I am an idea squirrel. I wake up delighted to find myself surrounded by millions of idea nuts. Picture me merrily running around all day long, scooping up ideas and sniffing them all over and then tucking them away. Cheery!
Problem is, if left to my own devices that’s all I do—squirrel things away. I won’t naturally produce jack anything on my own because I don’t like to finish things. Starting is funfunfun and finishing is so stressful my squirrel fur threatens to fall out in little clumps.
This is why I need a Boss of Me.
If you have more starts than finishes for your Next Door Project, finding a Boss of Me might be a strategy that will boost your productivity, too.
Because the Boss of Me is not me. Surprise! I know you are expecting me to remind you how you are in charge of your own destiny. I know you are hoping I will know how you can force yourself into a squirrel harness and whip up the kind of iron self-discipline that will lash you down and make you spit out that novel/resume/workout you have been meaning to do.
Umm, no. If that strategy worked, Netflix would go out of business and we would all have cowboy abs by now. Or a waistline. Or at least a few abdominal muscles here and there.
Consequently, your inner squirrel needs a Boss of Me who will partner with you and help you finish the things you want to get done.
The Boss of Me is not a nag.
Your Boss of Me does not wield a hammer to crush you. Your Boss of Me is not a nag. Threatening and nagging make work squirrels run away and hide. Usually under the tire of a great big truck.
The Boss of Me is a person who does not see you as inferior or flawed. Instead, this person gets you and your work style and likes you anyway. The Boss of Me is a person who helps you get past your fear and into a finish—because no one is truly productive who does not finish things.
When I was putting together big live events for military spouses, our events manager, Rachael, was a perfect Boss of Me. Knowing I was an idea squirrel, she would say to me, “Jacey you have until Monday to come up with your last big idea. Then we have to go with what we have.”
I was often my most productive right before that deadline. If I came up with an idea after the deadline, she would make me put it away until next time.
I can be the Boss of Me for other people, too. When I am coaching veterans on how to get jobs, I’m the Boss of Me for them. I totally understand how hard it is to face their careers and then attempt to put all that on paper. So it is my job to teach and lead and cajole and demo and play until their resumes appear magically on paper instead of looming over their heads for months.
Finding a Boss of Me may be easier than you think. You might have a partner at work already. You might have a kid who is a major motivator (I do.) You might find an accountability group or a coach who will help you identify strategies that suit you exactly.
Because you were meant to accomplish things on this earth. Let a Boss of Me help your inner squirrel to produce everything the Big Squirrel in the Sky put you here to do.
Peace, Love, and Marshmallows: Three Kinds of Support to Get from Your Beloved
By Jacey Eckhart
I think we can agree the only reason marshmallows exist is to bond Rice Krispies together in a miraculous transformation of the ordinary into the mystical. Seriously, if I were moments from death and my choice was morphine or Rice Krispies treats, I would take the morphine, but I would seriously be tempted by the Rice Krispies treats.
That’s why during a Next Door Project, I am always hoping my husband is about to give me peace, love, and/or marshmallows. Because I’m needy. And adorably squirrel-like. And, I ask.
No matter how obvious it is that you are having a tough time during your significant life change, you still have to ask for support, so you might as well ask for what really helps a bad day get better: peace, love, and marshmallows.
PEACE
Peace is what you need when everyone in the family wants something different for dinner. Peace is not arguing for once over whose turn it is to take the kids to school or put another load in the washing machine or whether almond butter is really more nutritious than peanut butter. Peace is what your partner offers when even the little hassles are too much for you to handle that bad day. Peace often comes with the cool side of a pillow. Or, you know, a beverage.
LOVE
Love is a verb during a Next Door Project. Love is what your partner does for you without expecting anything in return. It is the tenderness your partner feels for you when they see you putting up a valiant fight in order to make a mighty change. So, love is someone else vacuuming your car after you have been eating popcorn on the way home from work. Love asks if you want a cold drink, or sends a kissy face emoji when you are being particularly touchy, or pats your shoulder when your anxieties are talking in your sleep. Sometimes, love even listens to you hash out your fears and anxieties and premonitions one more ridiculous time. And gives hugs. Hugs are good.
MARSHMALLOWS
When two ordinary people have been together a long, good time, marshmallows are those miraculous spontaneous moments of teeth-rattling sweetness that transform the two of you into a couple. I don’t know what your marshmallow moments look like, but one Army couple told me at an event in Seattle last month that they always offer each other the last bite of whatever good thing they are eating. “Because the last bite is the best bite.” Sweet!
No matter how hard you try, your significant life change is going to rattle you sometimes. A partner offering support in the form of peace, love, and marshmallows goes a long way to making things better. If that doesn’t work, I recommend Rice Krispies treats every time.
How to Get Your Kids to Support Your Next Door Project
By Jacey Eckhart
Kids never rise to the occasion in times of stress. Instead, they pretty much sink to the level of their training. That’s why I think it is never too soon to train your kids to be groomsmen.
Even if your oldest child is closer to walking around the block in a stroller than walking down the aisle, the concept of being a groomsmen will serve your family during every major event of your lives. Birthday parties. Graduations. Baptisms. Housewarmings. Funerals. Weddings. At these events in particular, we not only expect our family members to pull together for a special day, but we also genuinely need them to be their best selves.
Which is the challenge. I think what screws up major events is that while one person is having the biggest, best-est day, the other family members are reminded they aren’t quite getting their share—which leads to some really subpar behavior.
We started training our kids (and ourselves) to be groomsmen years ago when my husband was the captain of the commissioning crew for a brand new Navy ship. It was a huge undertaking. Picture a baptism for a 400-metric-ton baby.
We needed the kids to team up. To need less. To give more. When we tried this in the past, the kids groaned and dragged their feet. They looked at major events as an opportunity for someone to make them clean the bathroom.
I needed to motivate them without leaving any marks, so I told them that this time we were going to be Dad’s groomsmen. (Because I am clever at thinking things up like that.)
Unlike bridesmaids, who have an unfortunate reputation for complaining and spending too much time pulling on their strapless bras, groomsmen show up for you. Groomsmen do what you need them to do—move tables, pick up your granny from the airport, buy ice, wear silly socks.
“Do we hafta?” my son Sam whined when I told the kids my brilliant idea.
I gave him the evil eye. Surely he should be stepping up out of the goodness of his heart, right? But the guy was 12, and what did he know?
“Yes, we hafta,” I said. “Dad needs us to be lined up on his side for one of the biggest days of his life. He is not the only one in this family to have big days. All of us are going to have big days in our lives and we are going to need our family to show up and do us proud. So we are going to be his groomsmen.”
“Will I get to wear a tux?” Sam wanted to know.
The buy-in was on. All three of the kids pitched in during the weeks before the launching of the ship. As my husband took command of the ship in his white uniform with his sword on his hip, the four of us fist-bumped, “Groomsmen!”
Later that year, I was giving a speech in Germany and brought the family with me. “Groomsmen!” Brad reminded them when everyone was tired.
A couple of years later when my husband and the boys helped our daughter move to her dorm room, we were all, “Groomsmen, baby!”
It worked for us because we made the connection that everyone would have a turn to call on the strength and practical skills of the family.
When Sam got married a couple of years ago, he knew we would all be behind him. He knew then and he knows now he can count on all of us to put aside our own stuff and be his groomsmen. While we don’t always rise to the occasion, we do have the advantage of sinking to our training. And we’ve trained to stick together until the Next Door opens.
You’ll Be Amazed How Many People Support You
By Jacey Eckhart
I’ll bet you have at least five circles of support around you during your Next Door Project. Really.
Mostly we ignore this fact because we are Americans, prideful and convinced we need to do everything all by ourselves. In our arrogance, we act as if we are setting out on the wide prairie with nothing but a covered wagon and a mule named Sal, instead of driving past a Starbucks right this very minute.
When you are going through a major life change to get to your Next Door Project, one of the best things you can do is identify your circles of support—either in your mind or on my handy-dandy worksheet.
1. YOUR INNERMOST CIRCLE
Fill in the innermost circle with the names of the adults whose fates are most entwined with yours. This circle is usually you, plus one or two other proactive people. These folks can’t really be happy unless you are happy, which is probably why dogs often nose their way into this category, but I can’t stop them because they will insist on love-giving even when they have bad breath.
2. YOUR TRUST CIRCLE
These are the people who are worthy of your deepest trust. You talk to them nearly every day. You can ask and do ask each other for help from time to time. This circle often includes your kids, your best girlfriends, and the extra good bits of your family. (Especially you, Mom). Please note: Loneliness is a thing in our culture. According to a 2009 study by Pew Research, although rare, 6% of the adult population reports they have no one with whom they can discuss important matters or who they consider to be “especially significant.” Draw someone in today or at least include him or her in your kindness circle.
3. YOUR KINDNESS CIRCLE
Jot down a few names of the people who have recently offered you (or you offered them) a spontaneous act of kindness (like an extra shot in your latte, barista friends). You could also ask them for an occasional favor. This circle could include work friends, the other parents you usually sit with at the gymnastics meet, dog parents at the park, the reasonable members of your family, and everyone else who would call the cops if you left your car running on the street and mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
4. YOUR GALAXY
There are plenty of people in your world, but they are not in your daily/weekly/monthly orbit. These are the people who let you into traffic, who park only in their own parking places, who pay their taxes so you have good roads to drive on. For a moment, let yourself think of all your nice in-groups, like other people who know all the words to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” people who go to minor league baseball games, newspaper subscribers, dessert eaters who drive the need for really gigantic coconut macaroons, and people who love Grover. Because I don’t think Grover gets nearly enough play time, do you?
5. OUTER SPACE
The world is a pretty good place full of mostly good people who wish you well. Like me! Sure, there are all kinds of bad actors in the world, but we outnumber them. Look at a map and think of all the people in all of the other countries who are trying to fall in love and stay in love, get jobs that pay the bills, raise their children to be good people, feed cats, and glare at their mothers-in-law. We are a world full of people tackling our significant life changes the best we can, facing our monsters and knocking on doors. We could all use a little more support in this world. Even you.