Month: July 2014

I Sometimes Struggle to Believe in the Potential God Sees in Me

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Seeing the Potential that God Sees 3

For the most part I am typically an optimistic person. I have plenty of setbacks that make me doubtful sometimes but I try to remain dedicated and stick to this path because I feel deep down that it is the right one that God wants me on to reach my destined purpose. However, that is not to say that I don’t have moments (a lot more of them than I care to admit) where I question whether I am letting God down.

I know that there are things that I should be doing that I don’t always manage to get done, things that would go a long way in the efforts to get to where I’m trying to go. I am guilty of wasting time that I don’t really have to waste. I am guilty of getting frustrated to the point of just wanting to give up and be just plain lazy. I am guilty of feeling so overwhelmed with all of the things that I want to do that I convince myself that it’s just too much and it can’t be done so why even bother trying. I tell myself a lot of things that eventually lead me to talking myself out of trying. I let the fear of not succeeding at what I want cause me to do the very thing that I don’t want to do which is give up.

I’m not in that mindset of giving up right now but I am starting to feel that sense of being overwhelmed with all of the things that it is that I want to do and all of the plans that I have to get accomplished and the fear that I may not achieve it. I have this list, this very long list, of life goals, of things that I want my company to achieve. I have a purpose for my Write 2 Be brand and in my mind I see it so clearly. I can even map out on paper (although not quite as concise as it forms in my brain) exactly the direction I want everything to go. I have even listed everything, all the steps, I need to go through to get it at least going in the direction I want it to go. Then the reality sets in.

The reality that my dreams may be just a little too big and that with all that needs to be done, I may be out of my depth here. The reality that I might have somehow set the bar for myself just a bit too high, and then the fear that I can’t reach my own bar that I set. The reality that with every second that I am sleep there is something that could be getting done. The reality that I cannot physically go on absolutely no sleep which is probably what it would take for me to achieve ALL that it is I am setting out to do. Then I start to feel that overwhelming sense of failure.

I start to feel like I am not only letting God down, but my daughter, and of course myself. I place a lot of stock in my potential but what happens if I don’t live up to that. What happens if I can’t live up to what God’s purpose for my life is? What if I am simply not good enough? These are the kinds of things that run through my mind, daily, and almost every minute of the day, and I am sure (at least I hope) that I am not the only one who has felt this way. I feel like I have to acknowledge those fears within myself or else they will never go away.

While I know that they will never go away completely, I have to believe that the sense or the urge to give up will fade away from the forefront of my mind. I have to believe that I will one of these days just wake up and look in the mirror and say “I get it God, I get what you see in me and I can do this because you said I could”. While I am not quite all the way there yet, I must say, I am miles away from how I used to feel about all of this. It’s a start and we all have to start somewhere. I hope that this week is as productive for you as I plan on it being for me and I hope that you will try to remember, as I will, that God’s purpose for you is nothing to be afraid of!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://write-2-be.com/

http://write2bemagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/write2bemag

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You Can’t Plan For Everything

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Cant plan for everything

Sometimes I wonder am I missing out on something. I am a planner by nature. I like to know things ahead of time so that I can carefully plan things out around that event. I like to know just how something is going to go, or at the very least how it’s supposed to go, so that I can prepare everything that I possibly can to make sure that it in fact goes that way.

When it comes to events I plan prefer to plan things out weeks in advance so that I can not only prepare for the event but also prepare for all of the obstacles that could pop up along the way. Now there are instances, particularly in business, where being a planner can work to my benefit and help out in the long run in terms of efficiency. However, I’m not sure how much being a planner helps in the benefit of me living my best life.

I wasn’t always so thought out, so analytical, so methodical with the things that I do. I mean I’ve always been the type of person that wants to be able to know what’s around the corner before I actually reach the corner but I used to know how to be spontaneous too. It makes me wonder if the traumatic and disheartening experiences that I had my childhood turned me into someone who doesn’t really know how to live for today. In fact I think it made me more obsessive about my future. It has gotten to the point where I make lists for the lists that I need to make for the plans that haven’t even happened yet.

Now I am not saying that it is a bad thing to plan for your future. But it is another to get obsessive about it. I think that, without even realizing it, I had become obsessed about my past and making my future that much brighter that I forgot that the present is right in front of me, here, today. I am missing out on what is right in front of me trying to prepare for a tomorrow that hasn’t even got here yet.

So if you are a planner like me, please try not to get so caught up in preparing for the future that you don’t take in and enjoy the here and now. It’s one thing to plan for the future but I have to think is it planning the future out too much if you forget to be present in the moment that you’re in? Enjoy today. That doesn’t mean don’t plan, it just means don’t get stuck in the act of planning.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://write-2-be.com/

http://write2bemagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/write2bemag

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Will Write For…

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Will write for 1

I am continually shocked at the questions that I get asked when it comes to my writing career, even more so at the assumptions that people make about it. When I say I am a writer people tend to respond “okay but what do you do for a living, as your day job” and my response is the same, I am a writer. I swear that it seems that unless you are on the New York Times Bestseller list (of which I plan to be on someday) or unless you are writing for a television show or a script for a movie that is already in production, then people don’t seem to take a person being a writer seriously. As if the people who got all of those accolades arrived there magically without putting in the hard work for little to nothing.

I am what some may call a starving artists’ except that I make sure that neither I nor my child, are never starving. Yes I might live from paycheck to paycheck, or in this instance, from assignment to assignment, but if I am going to survive (sometimes barely) that way then at least I am proud to be struggling to survive by doing something that I love and am so passionate about. Of course there are hundreds and thousands of people who do the regular job by day and then work on their dream by night and I did that for a while but I couldn’t keep that up because what ended up suffering was my dream and I just couldn’t allow that to happen.

When asked (repeatedly might I add) why would I struggle at solely being a writer, give up so many of the luxury things that I would love to do, both by myself and with my daughter, have to decline so many activities that I would love to be able to do, just to make barely enough to cover my bills and most of my necessary needs. My answer is always simple. Because it was what I was meant to do with my life, it is my calling, and I can’t devote fully to my calling and purpose if I’m devoting half of my time to someone else’s calling and purpose.

I write for many reasons. I write to say all of things that I can’t say out loud. I write to express feelings that I think no one else will care about. I write to deal with the hurt that I have felt for most of my life. I write to invent a life that I have always wanted and have not managed to attain yet. I write to cope with the harshness of this world. I write to get away from the criticism of others. I write to survive. But mostly I write for those who feel what I feel, go through what I have gone through, and can’t express what they really want to say, because I want to be a change in their lives. I want to inspire and help others heal. I want to give pieces of myself so that others can realize that it’s not just them that feel that way. I became a writer because I want to be the change in this world that I want to see and I use my words to do that.

Every time that I was working on someone else’s dream by day and had to minimize the work on my dream to the few hours a night that I got it was like dying a slow death, a little every day. Now that I don’t do that, now that my dream is my sole focus, yes I may not have things as easy as I would like to, the struggle some days might even feel too overwhelming, but I come alive more and more with the nurturing of my dream. I may not be wealthy (and not saying that wealth is not in my future) in terms of money but I am wealthy in my peace of mind, and in my heart, and in the joy that I feel from knowing that each day I am that much closer to my dream.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://write-2-be.com/

http://write2bemagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/write2bemag

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What All Can Go Right

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What if everything goes right

I live in the land of worst case scenarios where I prepare for whatever there is that can possibly go wrong and for what I would need to do to fix things if they should go wrong. I don’t think that I am alone in doing this. I think that the world has grown so cynical that in planning for our futures in which we want to soar and fly, we brace ourselves for that harsh landing that quite frankly, often times never actually comes.

I mean sure we fall and we have bad breaks where things don’t quite go the way that we wanted them to. But in reality those are not actually the harsh landings that we are bracing ourselves for. I forget sometimes to prepare for the successes, to purposely plan for things to go right. I spend so much time being completely over prepared for the other shoe that’s definitely (in my mind anyway) going to drop, and for the rock bottom that I’m going to hit (and thankfully never truly have) someday soon if things don’t improve, and for everything that I have ever dreamed of achieving to float right by me as I watch someone else reach out and grab ahold of what was supposed to be my success. None of these things have ever happened. That’s not saying of course that they couldn’t still, but they haven’t.

I’ve been waiting all of this time for everything to go wrong instead of preparing and actually believing that everything could go right. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I haven’t had my share of the bad breaks and the things that come crashing down around me but what I neglect to realize oftentimes is that about eight times out of ten everything that seemingly went wrong turned out to work out in a better way than I had imagined and planned for them to. I spent so much time thinking of all the negatives and forgot that even in a negative outcome, something positive can come from that. I need to stop always thinking about the walls that may crumble and start thinking that even if they do, what beautiful new direction can come from the wreckage.

There are beautiful things that can come out of even the most painful and disheartening situations. We just have to be open to them and prepare for what is good instead of bracing ourselves for what is bad. When we brace ourselves we are closing ourselves off and tightening up. We don’t have our arms and hands open and free to receive all the good that is coming our way. So start realizing what it is to truly let go. Open up and surrender to ALL that life has in store for you, the good, the bad, and yes, especially the unplanned. Sometimes the best moments in life cannot be planned out beforehand. Let go and let God!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://write-2-be.com/

http://write2bemagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/write2bemag

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

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With a Sense of Urgency

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create a sense of urgency

There is nothing like doing work for someone else’s dream, or someone else’s project that will motivate you to get back to tackling yours. In the most recent couple of weeks I have been working on another project that did not allow for me to consistently work on my own projects for that time period. Now what’s funny was that while my projects are very important to me and the need to get them accomplished is great, the sense of urgency did not present itself until I was unable to work on them.

It is funny what becomes urgent and even more important when the ability to do them is not there. I looked at the stacks of work pertaining to my project and longed to jump to work on them but was mindful that in order to finish the task that I had before me, I could not. I looked at my desk and thought of the hundred or so different ways to reorganize it and clear the present clutter from the top of it in order to be more efficient about getting my work done when the opportunity was restored to me. I had so many ideas of what to do with this character and that character once I was able to return to working on my novel(s).

It’s ironic how when we have the time (some of us anyway) for our own work to get accomplished we waste that time on things that in the end don’t really matter to us, television shows that could be recorded and watched another time, outings that are not in line with our goals, or even people who do not get our dream and just how important it is. When that time, that choice is taken out of our hands suddenly everything that we should’ve been focused on becomes so much more important and then we reflect on that wasted time and beat ourselves up for wasting it.

I have wasted quite a bit of time this year, I’ll admit, on things that were just procrastination tactics and ways to keep myself from enduring the worst case scenarios (which I will talk about in my post tomorrow) when in reality, in avoiding the worst case scenario, an even more negative thing happened. So now that the project has concluded, I am going to stop wasting that time and get back to this blog (which I’ve missed so much) and back to finishing my novel(s) and my ebook. Oh and I guess cleaning off my desk wouldn’t be a terrible thing to do either. Well it’s good to be back and remember to plan your time wisely and don’t waste it on things that don’t matter as much to you as your dream does. No one is going to make your dreams come true for you.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://write-2-be.com/

http://write2bemagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/write2bemag

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

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Not All At Once: Multitasking Does Not Always Equal Productivity

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multitasking

I am one of those people that feels like they should be doing about twenty different things at one time. We all know that multitasking is something that writers have to have a handle on if they want to get an extraordinary amount of things accomplished. However, there does come a point in working on various different projects in your writing career, or any career really, where you are going to have to make one thing the focal point and everything else is going to have to fade to the background, just a little bit.

My problem is that I still want to believe that I am as excellent at multitasking as I once used to be (in my teens and twenties) when I could balance four or five different projects at the same time and devote equal time to them. Now it feels as if the more I try to balance different projects the more I end up slacking on something. I think that I am being productive to work on several things at once and try to give equal time to all but it just isn’t possible (not for me anyway).

Now I am in no way saying that multitasking is not in some ways productive. What I’m saying is thinking that you can devote an equal amount of time to all of the projects that you are working on isn’t. I think that if you are working on about three projects at a time (and I think that it should be kept to three) you have to know which project to place the priority on and let the other two be the secondary concern. That way the most important project gets accomplished.

This is a lesson that I am learning now and am going to start trying implement myself because trying to place priority on every project equally has caused me to fall behind on a project that should’ve been done already. So for all you multitasking writers out there remember that you can’t accomplish everything at once. Some things are going to have to wait so don’t end up accomplishing nothing by trying to accomplish everything.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://write-2-be.com/

http://write2bemagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/write2bemag

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

https://twitter.com/jcladyluv