My friend Sam dropped me a quick note on Facebook this morning: “How did it go?”

I read the question via email without logging into Facebook. Immediately I assumed that the “it” she was referring to was my run last night, which, quite frankly, was pretty pathetic. Four miles total, but at least a mile of that was walking. Damn plantar fasciitis! It was so pathetic that I whined last night to D.J. that perhaps I wasn’t assistant coach material for my upcoming marathon season, where I’m supposed to help 40-60 people get to the finish line in a marathon or half marathon. Perhaps I should drop out because I was completely out of shape and plagued by nagging injuries. Oh, poor me.

But the ever level-headed D.J. kinda scoffed at my self pity. “Babe,” he said, “today you had a fabulous presentation where everybody loved you, and now you’re all down about your running instead of thinking about the great career win you had today. Come on!”

Deej had a great point. I completely rocked a speaking gig yesterday. In fact, the speaker who was scheduled after me delayed her presentation because she ran over to hand me her card and ask me if I could come to speak to her group. It was a win all around. And the run last night was not as bad as I was making it out to be either. I was out there, after all, making the effort to work through a rough patch. And I have several weeks before the coaching season begins — plenty of time to get back to regular running form.

Yet this morning my first thought with Sam’s email was about yesterday’s down moment, not my high. The two events yesterday were completely independent of one another, yet my focus was on the mediocre run.

I think learning how to focus on the positive takes conscious practice. I think I have to learn to recognize that I’m giving energy to the negative and forgetting the positive. And I’m going to put some effort toward that to see how much more positive each day can be.

Your turn… what do you dwell on when you have a good/bad day? When you receive feedback about something from ten people, and nine of them love it and one person hates it, do you spend your energy celebrating the nine or obsessing over the one?

PS… To write this blog post I logged into Facebook to get Sam’s actual words. Turns out she was asking a mutual friend how her eyelash-dying appointment went. It wasn’t about me after all….

For the last two weeks, I’ve been trying to find a way to relate what’s been happening in my personal life to a lesson about running your own business, being a freelance writer, growing a career… all the topics I’ve tried to cover in this blog. After all, I’ve managed to relate hair color to self awareness, skinned knees to moving past your fears, purple socks to visualizing success, bad haircuts to customer service and pedicures to being a salesperson. So you’d think my BIG NEWS would somehow relate back to my business.

But I got nuthin’. Or at least right now I can’t think of anything because the only thing on my mind is the BIG NEWS itself.*

So here we go… The BIG NEWS: I’m getting married! After almost three years of dating (and a year and a half under one roof), D.J. popped the question. I’m wearing a beautiful, amazing diamond ring, and I’m picking out ribbon colors and trying to find the perfect shoes for our Thanksgiving week wedding. I’m gloriously happy, overwhelmingly busy and completely in love.

*The only possible business lesson is that when your boyfriend proposes, your work life may come to a screeching halt. Try to manage the situation by limiting your Google searches of “unique wedding favors” to two a day.

Drum roll, please! The OFFICIAL name of the upcoming book is:

Upgrade to Free

The Guide to the Best Free (and Low-Cost) Tools and Apps

The jacket design is next, and we have three finalists. It’s tough picking a cover. I know what I like, but I showed it to some peers last night, and they preferred the one I disliked the most. Just goes to show you that it’s no longer about me. This blog, my promotions and basically my business model thus far has been built on the things that I like, and now I need to think beyond myself.

It’s all a learning process.

More updates coming soon!

I don’t know if you heard, but I wrote a book. It’s going to be out in October, and my publisher plans a 1st run of 3,000 books.

To me, this is BIG. The publisher thinks he may be able to package the book with another in their library, which means I should sell 1,500 books right off the bat. So I’ve been worrying and thinking and overthinking about how to sell the other 1,500. Wow — finding 1,500 people who find value in what I wrote is BIG, right? Well, I guess I only need to find about 1,499 people, because my parents are obliged to buy a copy.

And then this weekend I spent 9 hours in a car on a trip back from Tahoe with the amazing Mark Rosenberger, a cancer survivor, speaker, author and all-around superstar. He’s written three books, and I was picking his brain for the best ideas to market my book and get more speaking gigs. I told him about the plans I had to find those 1,499 people. And he told me about the tens and tens and tens of thousands he had found to buy his books.

Wow. That’s BIG. That’s beyond BIG. That’s COLOSSAL! He told me how he personalized books for corporations. How he worked to get his book into the top 50 best sellers on Amazon, a move that earned him tens of thousands of sales in a week. He gave me idea after idea after idea of ways I could increase my sales and get my name out there.

And all the while, my little inner voice was chanting, “You could never do that — that’s far beyond your capabilities.”

Do you have this little voice, the one who immediately puts you in the “not worthy enough” category? Mark’s an amazing guy for sure, but why did I instantly decide he can do things that I can’t? Where does that self limitation come from, and how the hell can we squash it?

I bet each reader of Life on Avenue Z battles with self-imposed barriers — ones that don’t really have a basis in reality. We’ve established these false ceilings based on our self images, right? So can’t we change our opinions of ourselves and reach further, go farther and truly reach our dreams?

In May I crafted an Avenue Z success plan that included my steps to find those 1,499 people. But after talking to Mark and realizing how limiting my plans are, I think my July plans should be more about evaluating my views of success and blowing up the barriers that keep me from thinking BIG.

Who’s with me? Share your self-limiting thoughts below and write about how you plan to think BIG.