Month: March 2011

Visualizing Your Destiny

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“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

~ William Jennings Bryan 

No one ever said that having a vision would be easy.  When you’re in middle school and you’re asked what it is you want to be when you grow up, you never imagine just how much work goes into accomplishing what that goal is.  When we were kids we used to see a doctor or a lawyer on television and think, oh I can do that, not putting any thought into what kind of determination that it takes to get there.  Being older we can put into perspective what it truly takes to accomplish what it is that you feel is your destiny.  

Sitting around and waiting for your dreams to suddenly become a reality is a habit that a lot of people, especially us creative types, tend to fall into without even realizing that we are doing it.  But what we want out of life is not going to get accomplished by sitting around and waiting, or procrastinating.  They say that life is what you make it and that applies just as much to our goals and dreams that we want for our life.  If you want to be a doctor, you have to put in the work, and that means everything that comes with it.  If you want to be a published author, then you have to work at that too.  

If you are someone who always expects things to come to you, then more often than not, you will be sitting on the sidelines of life.  You might find yourself in your thirties wondering what happened to your life and why you have nothing to show for it.  You are what you have made of yourself.  You have to work for what it is that you want and make of yourself what it is that you are destined to be. 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://freemynd.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/ 

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter

Are your struggles getting the better of you?

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Tips for Dealing with Adversity

 

  • Thankfulness-  Be thankful for the adversity.  Adversity is God’s way of saying you are worthy of his teachings.

 

  • Patience- The key to getting through adversity is having patience and knowing that in the end everything will work out the way that it is intended to.

 

  • Acceptance-  Accept the hand that you were dealt with.  There is no sense in dwelling on what didn’t happen.  You can’t change that, you can only accept it and move forward.

 

  • Maintain a Creative Mind- Eliminate boredom otherwise it will lead you toward frustration and depression.

 

  • Understanding Why This? Vs Why Me? –  Asking why me doesn’t provide any answers, it just makes you feel guilty for having asked it in the first place.  Why not you?  No one is immune to pain.  Simply re-word the question and ask Why This?  Asking why this typically leads you to an understanding of your past thoughts and actions that may have contributed to the situation and will lead you to a resolution.

 

  • Work Toward the Future- Even if you do not feel things are moving forward, work on creating the future you desire.  Commit by writing out your goals and desires and network with like-minded people.  Each step you take, no matter how small, moves you toward your future.

 

  • Trust- Let Go and Let God.  All we really have control over is our actions and a gut feeling (or hearts desire) of what we hope the outcome of our lives to be.  Trust the Universe will provide you with exactly what you need when you need it.

Staying the Course

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“When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place.”

~ Unknown

 Often times in life while trying to strive toward our dreams and make them come true we tend to get off track and stray from the course.  We start to lose momentum and seem to forget what matters the most.  We lose focus and let other things and people become more important and change the direction in which we are going.    So when do we reprioritize our lists of goals and finally get focused enough to turn them into the reality that we want them to be?  

Apart of staying focused on moving forward with your future involves letting go of certain things from your past.  Sometimes we don’t realize that we tend to hold onto what hinders us the most because we like what feels familiar and comfortable.  In order to stay focused you have to be willing to put other things that are not conducive to you achieving your ultimate goal aside.  You have to come to the realization that whether we want them to or not people and circumstances do change and the people that we re-route our lives for may not be going in the same direction. 

How our life ends up depends on how driven we are to get what we want out of it.  However that involves knowing exactly what it is that you want and what it’s going to take to get there.  Being focused takes practice and action and the process begins in the mind.  Once you’ve set your goal than all that’s left is putting it in motion and if you act like you already have what you want you’ll feel as if you’ve already succeeded.  You have to have the confidence that you will attain your dreams because without that confidence you’ll start to let in the doubt.  

Being focused is a journey in which you have to keep learning and practicing along the way.  You’re directions and paths may change and you may even get sidetracked from time to time but you can’t get distracted when what you’ve always wanted could be right within your reach.  Its hard to just throw caution to the wind and toss out all of the things that are familiar to you but if you want to get the best out of your life than you have to take action every day because there’s no time to waste. Actions speak louder than words, and nothing in life ever just happens. 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://freemynd.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/ 

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter

Are You Just Another Busy Body?

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Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin. 

~Victor Kiam 

How serious are you about your art and exactly how much are you willing to sacrifice to invest something in it? 

More and more everyday I am reminded of just how short life really is and as a writer I get to thinking about how much time I waste on a daily basis doing things that are not going to help me get to where I need to be in life.  With the hours that I have spent watching television that was not necessary to watch I could’ve literally written quite a few novels by now.  The same goes for the hours that I have spent on the telephone with non-productive idle chit chat.  

It seems as though I am always busy yet somehow I still feel like I don’t get anything done, or at least not as much as I should.  While I am productive to an extent I certainly have begun to realize that my output could be so much more then what it is.  But I have come to a reality that just because someone is busy being busy doesn’t mean that they are being productive. 

One of the two key elements in trying to remain productive is time management and using the time that you have available in the most efficient way is a crucial component and affects just how productive you are or can be.  It’s really easy to let life’s little distractions turn into excuses as to why you’re not actually working towards what you want but those excuses don’t get you any closer to what it is that you are trying to accomplish.  You have to know your limits and be more realistic about your time.  While you do need to establish a routine to effectively balance the workload that you have you can not create a schedule that works if you don’t manage your time well thus knowing how much time to designate to any given task. 

You also have to know your distractions and how to avoid them.  For example my distraction is television.  I have come to understand that for me to produce the amount of work I feel I should be putting out I need to go somewhere where there is not a television so I have adjusted to going to the library or a coffee shop in order to get my writing done.  Everyone’s distractions are different but you need to recognize them and adjust them according to the time that you have available.  Productivity begins with you having an awareness of what works and what doesn’t. 

Another key element in productivity is prioritizing.  You have to know what you want most in order to know what to do first.  You also have to know your goals before you can productively meet them.  If it takes you making a list so that you can better visualize what it is that you need to do in order to meet those goals then it’s time to pick up your pen and get writing.  Most of us don’t have a problem coming up with things that we want to get done but when we try to keep everything in our head that’s when it can get overwhelming.  A little organization and prioritizing of your time can go a long way.  Once you have that list written out you can become more organized about how to achieve those goals and assessing their levels of priority which will make your output that much greater.  

Time is very precious and valuable and if you don’t use it well and do what needs to be done in the amount of time that you have then you are wasting time that you will not get back again.  Saying you are too busy is not going to get things accomplished because the truth of the matter is that if you were busy doing what needed to be done then you wouldn’t be scrounging around for the time to do it.  

Look at what it is that you are so busy doing and evaluate it.  What is it in your “busy” day that can be cut out?  How much of what you do can be eliminated from your schedule to allow for the necessary things.  Learn how to manage your time because if you don’t you’re just going to wake up one day wondering to yourself where did all the time go and how come I’m still not where I wanted to be.  It’s because you can’t be productive if you’re not prioritizing your time.  Time can not be re-created so I suggest that we procrastinators stop being busy just to be busy, and get busy producing greatness.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://jayceedurant.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

http://freemynd.wordpress.com/

http://spokenlikeaqueen.blogspot.com/ 

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

www.authorsden.com/jimmettacarpenter

Are you feeling unproductive in your writing?

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5 Tips on how to stay productive

  1. Become realistic about your time–You can schedule all you want but unless your honest about the time that you have to give to any one particular task then you still won’t accomplish the things listed on your schedule to do. 
  2.  Do the most important thing first– When writing your to do lists make sure that you prioritize your list according to what is the most important task that you need to get done first. 
  3. Focus on what your task is instead of always trying to focus on too many things at once– Most of the time multi-tasking doesn’t help you.  It may work out better if you try to focus on one task to not only complete it better but also faster. 
  4. Create a Schedule– Some writer’s don’t believe in scheduling their writing time –as if it would mean that it is not truly the creative nature to schedule- but for those who are serious about your art you have to be consistent with it and make time for it.  Schedule it just as if it were an important business meeting that you can not miss. 
  5. Jealously guard your time– When it is your time to write then it is your time.  As selfish as it may sound sometimes in order to really get anything done you have to put yourself first and tell everyone else in your life that this is your time and that you need for them to respect that.