Doodle Art Therapy Blog- Doodle Therapy University

What is failure? | Sinking ships don’t float

by Cindy Bayles | May 3, 2020 | Doodle Art Therapy Blog, Goals

What is failure?

My 17-year-old son, Will built a boat. Really. He built a boat out of scrap wood in our backyard. One day during this COVID-19 quarantine, he mentioned that he might want to build a boat. I shrugged and suggested that he ask Youtube for help to build his boat. (Because Youtube has all of the answers.) But he said that it would be cheating to get instructions… I didn’t expect it to go much past the initial thought of “I want to build a boat” stage. But it did. Way past the initial idea!

A few days later, a couple of his friends came over and began building their boat. They worked on it for the entire day and into the night. We went to bed expecting them to call it quits soon. But the next morning when I left for my walk I realized that all of the boys were at my house at 6 am! This was very strange. Why would 3 teenage boys be at my house working on a boat at 6 am?

So I went to investigate. It turns out, not one of them had gone home the night before! Really. It is some kind of miracle. They had worked all night long on that stupid boat. They planned to launch it that day. But there was more work to do than they anticipated. So the launch was postponed for a few days.

After much work and an unknown amount of dollars, launch day arrived a few days later.

The Launch

The epic boat launch of May 2020!

The boat was painted black, had benches for sitting installed as well as custom cup holders for the occupants. It was rather tall and I worried that the height may be a design flaw. But then I have never built a boat. They christened her “Black Hawk” and set out for their maiden voyage.

We all gathered at the reservoir to witness the launch of the “Black Hawk”. We were all curious as to how long it would take this 500-pound boat to sink to the bottom of the lake. The boys had assured me that they would bring life vests but they conveniently “forgot” them.

After some maneuvering, the boat was launched. However, there seemed to be some design flaws. The kids in the boat couldn’t move right or left without the boat almost toppling over. After many near turnovers, they got their bearings and they were pushed further out into the lake. But then something strange started to happen. The longer that the boat was in the water, the less wobbly it got as it sunk deeper and deeper into the water. But as it got lower in the water, it became less unsteady and easier to maneuver.

Sinking ships don’t float

The boy at the back had thought to bring a bucket and started frantically bailing water. I wasn’t sure if they would make it back to shore. It was touch and go there for a while. With two boys trying to paddle, one boy bailing, and a girl standing in the middle of it all. And some curious kayakers floating around the boat wondering what this contraption was. Finally, Will got out of the boat and pushed it to shore.

What is success?

Can you hear them in the video? They are seeing where things didn’t work and then discussing what they should do next time. They are not embarrassed that they tried! They are just looking at what they can change next time.

So my question is what is failure? Was this a failure? And if so was it a waste of time, wood, and unfinished homework? I think this was a rousing success. Sometimes, we set goals, and then when we don’t quite get there we call the whole project a failure. But what if the victory is in the trying? What if your goal is to sail across the ocean and you only make it halfway? What if your goal is to make a million $ but you only make $1000? What if your goal is to lose 50 pounds and you only lose 5? Are all of these things failures? Many will say yes.

But I disagree. I believe that to fail is to give up. To have had a great idea and then not making that idea come alive is failing. Maybe it isn’t perfect the 1st or the 10,000th time but we keep trying until it becomes something.

One of the kids there said, “It’s better than the Titanic!” Way to be optimistic!

What I learned from a sinking ship

So what is failure? Failure is quitting after something didn’t go right. Failure is not learning from the experience. There were so many lessons learned. Here are just a few.

Just start and see what happens.
Set goals that are out of your reach.
Gather your friends and have some fun creating something amazing.
If it doesn’t work, collect data, and try again.

What are you not doing because you are afraid to fail? Would you quit making plans and just start?

Are you setting goals that are easy for you and you don’t have to stretch and grow to get close to?

What are you not trying because of what others might think of you? What would happen if you asked them to join you?

Are you looking at what is working and what’s not working and making adjustments for next time?

I challenge you today to try something new today whether it be writing a blog post or building a boat or whatever you feel inspired to create! You will be better for it!

Burning Desire

by Cindy Bayles | Jan 30, 2020 | Doodle Art Therapy Blog

Desire

I often wonder why I am not getting anywhere with my goals. I mean I write them down and set a completion date but then I just peter out. What’s up with that? While I read 1 Nephi:11 this morning the light came on. It is about desire. Now, I have read books and watched movies on this but not until reading 1 Nephi did I get it. In Chapter 10 and 11 Nephi desires to see the vision that his father Lehi saw. It was not just a passing, “I wish I could see the vision”. He took action. He knelt and prayed with real intent, believing he could see the vision too. I think I have been just wishing for things. So the questions I asked myself is “Do I have a desire to reach my goal? Am I willing to put in the work? What am I willing to give up?’

Are Some Big Goals Too Big?

I had a meeting with some social media interns. The expert, in charge, asked me what our goals were. I replied we wanted to double sales this year. His reply was “Isn’t that too big of a goal? To double revenue in a year is nearly impossible.” So what if it is a big.

So if I set a gigantic, unrealistic, goal and I don’t hit it, I have still made progress. What if I only take in 50% more revenue? Am I a failure? No. We increased our revenue by 50%. That’s amazing. But what if I set a high goal and then blow it out of the water? I have big dreams this year. I am working hard to reach my goals. I can build a fire under us to put our focus on the next step. I love the quote:

Aim for the moon, if you miss it, you will land among the stars.

Burning Desire

So how does one acquire a burning desire. How do you get out of bed on those cold, dark, mornings and head outside for your run or sit down at the computer to write when it is so much easier and more comfortable to stay in bed?

Desire, burning desire, is basic to achieving anything beyond the ordinary.

Joseph B. Wirthlin

How does a person acquire a burning desire?

Believe that it is possible.
Vision See it and believe it.
No going back. (Burn the ships)
Tell others and enlist their help. Are you afraid to tell them for fear you will fail?
Goal Posters
Act As if you have already achieved the goal. Quit waiting for the end.
Brainstorm your actions steps. (This is not carved in stone. These steps can and will change as you go.)
Take action today and commit to take action every day
What is your why? How will you feel when you achieve that? Feel that feeling now.

There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.

Napoleon Hill

A true burning desire will propel us from where we are to where I want to be. I would not be distracted by my messy house or the other mundane things that life throws at me. Uchtdorf gave a talk called the great adventure. He talked about getting distracted by a messy house or the comfortable things that we would rather do. But what would happen if we left all of that and chose adventure right now?

My personal Goals

My personal goals for this month are:

1. Love and Care for my Body

Action Steps:

Eat 1400 calories a day.
Exercise 45 minutes a day.
Drink 8 cups of water a day.

2. Write a blog post once a week

Action Steps:

Brainstorm ideas
Choose an idea
Research the idea
Create an outline
Write a rough draft
Find pictures
Edit and rewrite the rough draft
Format and publish the article

Am I in tune?

by Cindy Bayles | Jun 5, 2019 | Doodle Art Therapy Blog

Inspiration

“When something vibrates, sound is produced and these vibrations, called longitudinal waves, have high and low pressure areas and when diagrammed look like symmetrical wavy lines. The frequency is the measurement of the number of cycles a sound wave makes in a second makes in a second and determines the pitch of the sound.

“A pure tone is a sound wave with a single frequency. When two pure tones with the same frequency or sounded together, their sound waves are the same. They are matched and the tone you here is the same pitch and sounds in unison.

“When two tones with different frequencies are sounded together their sound waves are not in sync and if we were to graph the waves we could see how the variance between the two waves grows. If the two frequencies are different but fairly close instead of a unison sound we hear a beating sound often described as a wobbly sound.”

“If we were to represent our Heavenly Father, his qualities, his attributes, his starts, and his actions as a sound wave with a single frequency, we would hear a pure tone. If we added Jesus Christ as a second sound wave to the two tones, they would have the same frequencies and would be in tune. Jesus tells us ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me and the Father and I are one.’ We could say they are on the same wave length. What would happen if we were to add our own sound wave length to that of our Heavenly Father’s? Would there be minimal beat interference or would the variance be a greater dissonance? Depending on the difference in frequency the sounds are either in unison are they are out of tune.”…many of our life choices can get us out of tune with our Heavenly Father.”

She gives us 4 points where we can grow more in tune with our Heavenly Father :

Receive the prophets and stone them not. “Sustain our prophets by sustaining them, by honoring them, standing behind them, defending their good names, and striving to carry out their instructions” – Elder Nelson
Do not allow contention. 4 Nephi 1:15-17- that speaks for itself.
Be humble, not prideful. “The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means ‘hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.’ It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us. Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of ‘my will and not thine be done.’ As Paul said, they ‘seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.'” – Let’s not be this way. Let’s be faithful.
Search, ponder, and pray. “One of the primary purposes of the Scriptures is to help us know understand it become like the Savior. Continually studying the scriptures helps us keep our eyes minds and hearts focused on Him.” – Daniel L Johnson

Let’s do all that we can to reduce the dissonance between us and Heavenly Father. Life is SO MUCH BETTER when our life is in tune with that of Heavenly Father’s will.

Learning to do hard things

by Cindy Bayles | Jan 26, 2019 | Doodle Art Therapy Blog, LDS, Relationships

Inspiration

While reading notes from my instructor at BYU-Idaho today I came across this little gem of inspiration.

“One of the reasons for being here, in this life, is to learn to do difficult things, and to learn to do them properly.
This quote is attributed to President Spencer W. Kimball, an Elder in my mission shared this during a weekly District Meeting, it resonated with me then and still does. Often times, I find I focus on what is hard for me in the moment and not what I am being asked to learn. I know when I have allowed myself to be teachable the spirit has stepped in to help me see what is needed and what I can and am able to do. More often than not He has helped me grow both spiritually and temporally in a manner I never knew was possible. Never hesitate to ask when spiritual or temporal help is needed.”

The Faith Experiment

I started my Sunday morning this morning differently than most. I began reading the book “The Faith Experiment” by Laurel Christensen. Both the book and the above quote seem to go hand in hand in speaking to my heart. Laurel talks about being afraid to ask God for things because He would probably say no. I guess I understood that to mean that she felt like she had been told no so many times in her life that she no longer trusted God to say yes.

I have felt those same feelings throughout my life. It began as a small child praying to God to make my mother well again. I prayed from when I was 8 years old until I was 12. Then after a blessing from Spencer W. Kimball she was miraculously healed. (Or so everyone around me said.) But I guess that I felt like it was too little too late. Yes she was healed but not without damage. My parents had divorced, (a horrible messy awful kind of divorce) My mother was still impaired. The tumor came back 4 years later. My mother remarried with all of the drama that comes with a step family. And I had lost my childhood.

Although most everyone around me’s faith was strengthened, mine was diminished. And I decided that the only option was to take care of myself. And that is what I have tried to do for the rest of the 40 years that I have been on this earth. Just take care of myself and those around me all by myself.

It has not worked out so good. I am tired and sometimes bitter. I have rarely turned my problems over to the Lord.

My personal Faith Experiment

doing hard things

So today after reading the Faith Experiment and Sister Funk’s thoughts. I have determined that things are going to change in my spiritual life. It is time for me to pray to know if the thing that I am asking for is right. In Nephi 18:20 it reads “And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you.” So step one is pray to know if the thing I am trying to do is right before the Lord. The next step is to understand that I am “here is to learn to do hard things is to learn to do them properly.” That means to me as Sister Funk said “have a teachable spirit.” I need this so much right now in my life. I have lost my teachable spirit as I have struggled to protect myself. Many times I am afraid to pray for things because I am afraid of the consequences of those prayers. There is the old adage “Be careful what you pray for.” In my mind I go through all the bad things that could happen if I really got what I prayed for. The next step is to pray for what the Lord has told me is a good thing and pray for it unceasingly. And the last for right now is to have Faith that God will grant me the thing that I am praying for. So my journey begins today. My journey in once again to learn to trust in God.

Doing hard things

How to get unstuck

by Cindy Bayles | Jan 25, 2019 | Doodle Art Therapy Blog, Goals, LDS

Getting Unstuck

During this last week, my husband, Lyle and I lead a tow truck up the mountain to our very stuck truck. It was so stuck that after hours of work and broken equipment the only answer was to call a professional that had better equipment. (Let me assure you, my husband is almost as close to a professional as you can get when it comes to getting stuck and unstuck.)

After arriving the tow truck operator and Lyle got to work getting our truck out. The truck was up to the doors in mud. After a few minutes, the tow truck was stuck too. The tow truck operator thought that he could just ease himself up to the front bumper of the truck and pull us out. But instead he immediately sunk. An hour later, after much digging and pushing and pulling, the tow truck was ready to take on the task.

So, they set to work on pulling our truck out. They dug and pulled and dug and pulled. It almost looked hopeless until we started to see the tiniest bit of movement and then another tiny bit of movement. Finally the truck was sitting on the solid road.

This week Sister Funk, one of my teachers at BYU-Idaho sent us her thoughts on the following article Try this for a change: 4 Simple Steps to Self Improvement. I so appreciate her thoughts each week. They have been exactly what I have needed. And this week was no exception.

But Why Can’t I Have It Right Now?

I am guilty of wanting to get to the end or to the final goal right now. I am impatient with the process that I have to go through to get to the final outcome. For example, I am in school right now, and all I can see is the final goal of graduating. That is good to some extent but when I am distracted from what is going on right here and now it becomes a problem. In my mind if I take more classes, I will get done faster. But the problem with that kind of thinking is that then my family, my marriage, my health, my job, and my schooling are all affected. I don’t have enough time to devote to all of them and so something gets neglected. And then I find myself stuck. So stuck that I am getting others stuck with me.

Getting Unstuck

How do I get unstuck?

In the article Try this for a change: 4 Simple Steps to Self Improvement, Sean Johnson suggests we need to ask for direction. This is the same thing that Laurel Christensen refered to in her book titled “The Faith Experiment”. It is a constant theme running through my thoughts and life lately. In Elder Larry R. Lawrence’s talk title “What Lack I Yet?” in October 2015 General Conference, he encourages us to go to humbly go to the Lord and ask him what is keeping us from progressing and then to wait for an answer. The trick here is to act upon the inspiration we get immediately and see what happens. Too many times in my life, I ask but then think I know better. What you say? You think you know more than God? I know I have a lot of work to do. But I keep on trying.

Never Give Up. Keep on Keeping On.

Sean Johnson’s article also referenced another Conference talk from April 2015 by David G. Renlund titled Latter Day Saints Keep on Trying. I loved this talk in every way possible. Please take some time to read it. He quotes President Monson as having taught, “One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final.” What a beautiful promise that is. Too often we give up after getting stuck once, twice, or too many times to be counted. We tell ourselves we are not good enough, that we can’t do it, and we are failures. And we stay stuck because it feels easier and we give up the freedom we could have if we took one little baby step at a time. One little movement towards freedom. One little hand reaching out to God for help.

Getting unstuck

Elder Renlund’s Invitation to Us

I love how Elder Renlund ends his talk:

“My invitation to all of us is to evaluate our lives, repent, and keep on trying. If we don’t try, we’re just latter-day sinners; if we don’t persevere, we’re latter-day quitters; and if we don’t allow others to try, we’re just latter-day hypocrites. As we try, persevere, and help others to do the same, we are true Latter-day Saints. As we change, we will find that God indeed cares a lot more about who we are and about who we are becoming than about who we once were.“

So today, I commit to enjoy the process of getting unstuck. To not be frustrated with my current circumstances, but to ask God “What Lack I Yet?”. So that I can see clearly what I need to get myself out of this current predicament. And then ask again “What Lack I Yet?” And then again. Until I am finally firmly on solid ground again. Where I can then look back and see how far I have come. And rejoice in the process of becoming someone that I never knew was possible and someone that I will never be again.

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