The Small Steps | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

In my life I had many things to achieve and many spaces to fill. It is true that in order to be successful, we must be balanced in five areas of our life, love, family, financial, health and work. But most people forget that the Roman Empire was not made in one day.
God took even seven days to create the Universe and on the seventh day he rested.

The thing about making it big in this life and doing it fast, is that, invariably the first steps will be small and slow. Which oddly, for many, is the same reason they don’t take those small steps.

Picture you taking a trip in-car for 3,000 miles. You get in the car, but you don’t see all the 3,000 miles in front of you, you barely see 500 yards and a night you see even less, you see only as far as the car beams show you the way. So what does it mean? It means you are taking your 3,000 miles trip in small steps. Now picture your life. We all have been instructed to do resolution at the beginning of the year, but most of the time life gets in the way and after a month or two we have completely forgotten about the new year resolutions.

My vacation is my first resolution at the beginning of the year and the first thing I put on the calendar. By doing that, I know not to schedule anything around that time and I know I will tone my brain and regenerate my energy during that resting time, which will allow me to come back to my work strong as ever. Then I take my baby steps with my formula of the four 10’s: 10 days, 10 weeks, 10 months, 10 years. My goals of the first 10 days will take me to my goals of 10 weeks; my goals of 10 weeks will take me to my 10 months and to the 10 years goals. I am a person who lives in the present, I am not good in seeing ten years in front of me, but by taking the small steps I have reached all the goals, I have done everything I said I was going to do in life and I am continuing planning more this same way.

I love my profession, before I became an interior designer, I was a fashion designer and owned my fashion company: Atelier Valentina.
Two of the things I wanted to do and did them. At the beginning of this conversation I said I had many spaces to fill in my life.
In 2008 the economy suddenly changed and so did client’s thinking, all of a sudden I was surrounded by negativity. I didn’t want to be part of any negativity and I said to myself it was time to create my economy. The moment to publish that book I had in mind had arrived, the time was right and I was ready.

At the end of 2008, about November I started to organize my thoughts, photographs, drawings and I started writing the text. Once I had the title of the book in my head, I also had the full book plans. I decided the book was going to be about my grandmother simple and healthy way of cooking. I wrote every day, a couple of hours a day for 5 months. I thought that if I wrote one chapter a day I would have had 365 chapter by the end of the year. I didn’t want an encyclopedia, but a smaller manageable book was a doable goal. Once I choose the publisher, I sent text and graphics to them and went on vacations. The next six months were spent communicating with the editors, editing, formatting and printing the book. In Nov. 2009 my first book of 152 pages was published; a year later in Dec. 2010 my second book was published. I am working on the third book on the subject of colors and it might be published at the end of 2011.

As you see my formula of the four 10s and baby steps has helped me becoming a published author.
In the meantime, I am working with my clients and doing what I love: designing and remodeling their homes.

Making baby steps and taking action means you must believe in your abilities, you must be sure everything in your mind is doable and attainable in real-time and you must put an end date to all your goals. At one point in my life, I must have dreamt of becoming a princess, that’s right it was just a dream and not an attainable goal. Instead I became the Queen of my book, Sins Of A Queen , that was a real and attainable goal!

You might ask where do I take all this energy? I take it from my good food. Good food will produce good energy, junk food will produce junk energy, it cannot get any simpler than this! In my book I say “the red on the cheeks come from the mouth” for a reason. If you have the right elements in your body, you will function like a Swiss clock work. Good food is fuel to my brain, so I eat everything in moderation and everyday I can lit the whole city with the energy I get from it. Ciao,
Valentina
www.Valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer with a passion for kitchens and cooking. She operates in the USA and Europe. She loves to remodel homes and loves to turn ugly spaces into castles, but especially loves to design kitchens and wine grottos. Author of two Italian cultural regional books:
Come Mia Nonna–A Return to Simplicity
Sins Of A Queen – Italian Appetizers and Desserts