Oil Change, Life Change.

I took the car in to get an oil change the other day. And it changed my life.

I am being a little overdramatic, I promise. But I did learn a few things while waiting for The M&M (if you ask D-Hubby, the car's name is NOT  The M&M, it's The Blue Bullet. I think The M&M is cuter) to be finished.

I went to a small, polite garage...cheaper than the quickie 10-minute places by at least $20. It meant that I definitely had longer than 10 minutes to wait. But hey, fair trade. Can't save both money and time when it comes to oil changes, apparently.
So I sat in the bare little waiting room contemplating which magazine to read. I had a choice between a hunting magazine, a fishing magazine, a car magazine, and various other manly reads. No Good Housekeeping to be found. I picked up the October 2009 issue of a business-looking magazine called Success that had Serena Williams on the cover, talking about how she has succeeded in various areas of her life...and began to read.

And what a great little read it was.

I was inspired. The magazine turned out to be more than just how-to-succeed-in-business, it was more about how to succeed at....well,....anything: life goals, business goals, big dreams, small dreams.

Some of the things I learned, and was reminded of:

-You can do a lot in a minute: fold a load of laundry, send a quick email to a friend to brighten their day, give someone a minute-long hug, etc. Basically: make your minutes count for something.


-Serena Williams doesn't read any of the articles written about her. She keeps a few and says she'll maybe read them someday...but for now, doesn't want them influencing her opinion of herself.


-Take three minutes and write down 100 life goals that you have, as fast as you can, without editing yourself.


-The greatest way to be successful is to give back to others and lift those around you.


-Think about your life goals...and then de-clutter your life. Eliminate the things that don't help you reach those goals.


-Don't fill your down-time with mindless activities. Use it to learn more about something, or helping someone else.


-Craig's List founder (Craig!) has been so successful because he's never really been in it for the money...he has always stayed focused on his original goal: to provide a service that helps people out, a business based on the Golden Rule.


-There was an article by Richard Eyre, where he talked about how success is three-dimensional (job, health, family), and family is the most important of all. He quoted C.S. Lewis as saying that homemaking (the general concept, the kind that everyone does, not only the mom-specific stuff) is the most important career of all, and that all other careers are simply to help with success in the greatest career. Eyre expounded on it, saying that we often get it backwards, thinking that the home is there to support the career... and that we need to remember the relationships that are the most important. The blurb about him at the end of the article listed all of his successes and accomplishments...and then stated that none of this compares to his relationships with wife and daughter, (insert names here). I loved that. The whole article was a profound reminder.


-And I need to read more Henry David Thoreau.

The oil was changed in about 40 minutes,
and so was I.
Just a little.
Just enough to make it count.