by Katherine Yasi, Public Relations Specialist/Intern 365 Degrees Consulting

Gunner the Weimaraner

These last couple months of summer I have been interning with Angela at 365 Degrees Consulting as Public Relations Specialist.   So far we’ve worked on a few projects and I’ve been able to attend a few of her seminars – which have been awesome for helping me come up with a personal brand and a vision for my future! The last project I worked on was editing and putting together a promotional video clip for the Women Business Owner’s Alliance for their annual Women’s Night of Comedy.

As editor of the video, I was able to choose, rearrange, add, and delete and I had full creative power to adjust the video however I saw fit.  I chose the music, added titles, and chose pictures that represented the event and would be appealing to the viewers.  As I sat there (with two adorable Weimaraners at my feet!) dragging pictures and video clips from folder to folder on the computer and then selecting the best pictures and cutting out the extraneous footage that would not be effective in the video an idea popped into my head. What if people could begin to see themselves as the Creative Directors or Editors in their own lives?  I know a lot of people who choose to see themselves as passengers in the journey of life and go on with their lives as such. They go to school for 12 years, go to college because they are told they should, get a boring but well-paying job, basically they choose to do things “by the book” so to speak.

My question to these people is: are you happy doing this?

After editing that video, I began to take a look at my own life and realized that there were a few things I was doing that either A) didn’t make me happy or B) wasn’t good for me.  I knew these things were not beneficial however with these issues I was choosing to accept them into my life.  After I edited the video I went home and decided to commit to taking my own advice.  I made a list of things in my life that don’t bring me happiness or are not beneficial for me.  I made a pact with myself to begin to gradually weed these things out of my life, because as editor, I had the power to make these negative things go away!  One thing on my list that has been a recent annoyance is waking up late and not having enough time to make a sandwich for lunch.  This results in either being starving at work and caving to go buy food at the campus eateries or having to wait until after 5 to eat something healthy!  My simple yet effective solution to this problem was to start taking a couple minutes before bed to make my sandwich and pack my lunch before going to bed.  I was able to stay in my warm, cozy bed for an extra ten minutes each morning and having my lunch ready to go was one less thing to stress about before having to walk to the bus stop.

Having this attitude of being the creator of your life is really cool because it really opens your eyes to seeing just how much choice you really do have in your life, if you accept the challenge!  You don’t have to be subjected to anything you don’t want to be and it is your job as editor to pick and choose exactly who and what is in your life.  You have the power to create your own happiness and create a wonderful life that is perfect for you – because, given a little time, you can know yourself better than anyone on the planet.  I’m not saying that this is an easy task, and it certainly takes a conscious effort to change your mindset if this is not the way you’ve viewed your life before, but I can tell you that it’s amazing what you can do if you set your mind to it and take a more proactive role in creating (and editing) the life you want!

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