Fake and Bake! Improvise your Way to HAPPINESS in the Kitchen, Business, Love and Life!

Are you an overachieving perfectionist?  Does your desire to control the outcome of things overpower your overall health and happiness?  This kind of behavior limits your fun and limits your life expectancy.

Improvisation is the ability to create extemporaneously.  This term is often applied to define unrehearsed comedy, but also translates into on the spot creative solution finding.

Last night I heard about a great recipe for an energy boosting ground flaxseed muffin, as featured on Dr. Oz.  Considering the prep time was about one minute and the cooking time was 50 seconds, it had me intrigued and ready to experiment for breakfast.  The problem was that the recipe called for a packet of Stevia and a teaspoon of coconut oil.  I had neither in house.

As I was mixing together the ingredients that I did have, I embraced the opportunity to improvise.  A smile came across my face and my heart actually skipped a beat in joy.  In that second, I understood the path to Happiness is through letting go and improvisation.

Having just returned from Nicaragua, I could hear the voice of my friend and holistic nutritionist, Grace van Berkum, teaching her raw food workshops.  If you can't get zucchini, use chayote.  If you can't get lemons, use limes.  If you can't get almonds, use cashews.  She is totally passionate about traveling the globe and teaching people, not just to eat healthy, but to do it creatively, with whatever local ingredients are available.

At an earlier time in my life, I would have driven around the night before to find a Walmart open all night with the slim to none chance of finding Stevia and coconut oil.  After wasting fruitless hours, I would have scheduled my entire next morning around when the natural food store opened so I could get the missing items and come home to try the recipe.  Sound crazy?  It is.  I was a prisoner of perfectionism.

This morning, I decided to Fake and Bake!  I experimented and improvised by using organic, natural maple syrup and extra virgin olive oil instead of the missing Stevia and coconut oil.   Veering from the recipe, I realized that all directions or recipes are only someone else's idea of perfection.  They are guidelines or basic, suggested infrastructure.  When it wasn't sweet enough, I improvised further and added a small dollop of honey.  Through improvisation, I am convinced, I actually improved the overall taste.

Being Happy Healthy and Fit is embracing opportunities to be creative and improvise whenever circumstances allow.  Recipes are a nice way to spark creativity, but they can also be a trap.  Learning to improvise in the kitchen is a great way to practice non-attachment to outcomes.  The way to truly be free is to be non-attached.  The way to be Happy is to be Free.  When you don't have all the right ingredients, don't stress.  Get Creative while you Fake and Bake in business, love and life!

Being Happy Healthy and Fit means Improvising your way to Happiness!