Tag: dreams

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My Balance Is Still Off

January 15, 2015 jcladyluv

This week is almost over and while I have accomplished some things on my to do list for this week (okay maybe only one thing really), I have not done nearly enough towards what needs to be done. When I think about the fact that January is almost over and my novel hasn’t even been touched yet this month I shake my head at myself. True enough I had some things I needed to get out of the way promotion wise before working on my novel but then when I think about it, is that just an excuse.

I said that this was going to be the year that I probably sleep a lot less to achieve my tasks but I’m torn between my drive to succeed in my writing and my drive to get healthier and get my weight loss journey back on track which includes getting more sleep so that my body can be in the best position possible in order to lose the weight that I need to lose and gain more self-confidence and self-acceptance. It’s hard when I put it out there in writing like that because it’s either my dreams and my vision or my health and prolonging my life.

It seems like it would be an easy choice but it’s really not. I do find that when I’m healthier (and that includes getting the proper, or close to proper, amount of sleep) I do produce more in my writing and my creativity is at its best. However, then I see the people that I admire and look to for knowledge and know-how producing massive amount of product and their projects coming one, after another and you see the number one thing they practice is working into the wee hours of the night and getting a very minimal amount of sleep.

That is not me comparing myself to others (not really) because I know that I am not them but that is me acknowledging that to put out more work requires more time and that more time means less of something, typically sleep. I am still working out the balance to get the ball rolling here but I have yet to feel like I’m getting off to a good start. I almost feel like I didn’t start preparing for this year soon enough at the end of the last one. But how much preparation can you do before you should actually begin doing instead of just planning to do.

Balance and focus seem to be a continuing issue and it has to be figured out and quickly if I want this year to go the way that I want it to go. I’m still learning and while I know that there should never really a point in life that you stop learning, I feel like I’m too old to still be trying to figure it out. And yet, I still press on!

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

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New Year, New Drive, No More Fear

January 5, 2015January 5, 2015 jcladyluv

Well it’s a New Year and I can’t say that I am not glad (ecstatic) to see 2014 go away. Last year was not my year and it was a pretty bad one, especially financially, and I think I was pretty much depressed for most of it. I had even let my health goals get totally off track and let the fear of the unknown take control. I can’t sit here and say that it’s someone else’s fault or that because someone else didn’t hold true to their word to me that this was the reason why things went wrong and just continued to spiral down a bad path.

Life is a bumpy road in which every test is going to be thrown at you that you could possibly imagine and your success is determined on how well, or how poorly, you respond to those setbacks. Last year I let all the setbacks get the better of me and I let them win. That’s not normally what I would do but it’s what I did. That is my fault and mine alone. I can’t say that I am any more prepared for this year than I was for the last one but I can say that I am prepared to not just lie down and get run over by every setback that comes my way.

I can say that no matter how many curveballs that I get thrown this year that I am going to throw them right back because I am not a quitter and I am certainly too close to all of my dreams to start being one now. I have set my goals for this year, put together a list of the projects that I plan (or hope) to finish and/or start this year, and even a list of the books I plan on reading this year. I also got me two planners, one as my editorial calendar for my blog, my magazine, and my Confessions blog about my weight loss journey, and the other calendar is for the projects that I will be working on. I hope this will help me get even more organized but better yet, to get more focused which will allow me to be more productive.

I am determined to make this year a much better one, not perfect, but better. I am still a believer that everything happens for a reason, if for no other reason than to teach you something, and last year taught me that I can be put through hell and then some and I still won’t break. Even in the first week of this new, and supposedly brighter, year the devil has already tested me with (you guessed it) some financial issues, and I was down about it but I am not going to let the devil win this year. I am not just going to lie down and let him win.

I am feeling more driven and more determined and I am going to do my best to make the best of any and all situations and I am not going to let them defeat me. I hope that your year is getting off to a great and productive start and that you all have a plan to put into action this year.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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Success Is An Action Word

December 17, 2014 jcladyluv

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately, not only about what I want to get accomplished in the coming year of 2015, but also about all of the things that I ddin’t get accomplished in 2014. I know that you can not dweel too long on the past and mistakes that were made and I try not to but when I think of how many opportunities and time I let go by without achieving all that I had set out to this year I feel slightly disgusted with myself. It wasn’t even the fact that there was a lack of ideas or even motivation to get them done. It’s simply that there was much more procrastination and fear and not nearly enough action.

I am taking steps to try to put an end to the need to procrastinate and to put some extra motivation into my drive to get the things I want accomplished for my brand completed. I’m starting with taking some steps into getting myself a business/book coach. Someone who can help steer me in the right direction, to correct whatever it is that I am not doing right, and to give me that nudge that I definitely need and hold me accountable to what I say I am going to do. A coach will also help me with my issues in regards to focus because I tend to think of a million ideas at once and actually believe that I can multi-task and work on all of them at the same time but in reality that puts me in the position where I actually get little to nothing done.

I’m trying to map out my plans for the year 2015 and I don’t want to get overwhelmed with the actual process of mapping out my goals that I don’t actually even sit and write them down (which is the point I’m getting to now). I do this at the end of every year, sit down and list my goals and plans to attain those goals, and the task has never been so hard and so daunting, but as I think of how much time I have wasted not putting enough action into my plan for success it fills me with a sense of urgency to cram the last few years of unaccomplishments into one. I know that I don’t have to do that but I feel like time is something that none of us is sure just how much of it we have left to fulfill our dreams.

I have said it before and I am probably going to keep on saying it until it actually proves to be true but this year is going to be the year I get things on track and going in the direction it is meant to go in. Success is not just something you strive for with planning out what you want. With a plan there has to be action to follow, a lot of action, and you can not allow procrastination to settle in because it is hard to get rid of. So how are your plans for the coming year shaping up? Are you prepared for the amount of action it will take to achieve them?

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

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Perspective From the Middle Rung of the Ladder

December 10, 2014 jcladyluv

I had a conversation the other day with an older woman, who I have befriended because both of our daughters participate in the same activity. She has taken a liking to me and I to her and I gain a lot of wisdom from her and she in many ways motivates me. I have been able to share my goals and vision for what my dreams are with her and I don’t share my dreams with just everyone.

Every time I feel that fear creep up inside me and I get discouraged and start to doubt myself Ms. Yvonne (that’s her name) always seems to be right there giving me that dose of motivation that I need to get going again. It got me to thinking, there are so many people that see this potential in me, this light as some people say, surrounding me, and that they know that I am going to do so many big things to change this world but I can’t seem to see what it is that they see.

Why is it that other people can see things in us that we either can’t see or refuse to see in ourselves. When I see the journey that I am on to achieve my goals I sometimes get so defeated at how much further I have to go on this journey instead of realizing and appreciating just how far I have come and without acknowledging and thanking God that I am not where I was.

I often feel as if I am still on that bottom rung of the ladder because I keep thinking of what I don’t have yet but if I look at how far I have come and just what I have come through then I can see that I am actually in the middle of that ladder. Perspective is everything and so many times my perspective is thrown off. It’s one of the main things I have to work on in myself and particularly as I go into this new year with new goals and new determination and drive to make these things happen, fear be damned.

Ms. Yvonne told me that even when I don’t feel like I can do it I have to convince myself that I can. If you tell yourself enough that you can, eventually you believe that you actually can and I’ve been telling myself for so long what I couldn’t do because I didn’t have everytihng I needed and things weren’t perfect. It’s time I start telling myself what I can do and open my eyes to the me that other people see.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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Despite My Urge to Give Up…

November 26, 2014 jcladyluv

I tell you if it is not one thing it is another and when the devil is busy trying to get in my way he really does pull out all of the stops. So week one and two for me was plagued with technical difficulties that would just hit one by one, back to back.

Last week, while the week started off rather strong with a fair amount of productivity, I had a physical injury that kind of left me unable to sit up and type or write anything. I was in so much pain that it almost brought me to tears to even try and move to do anything. That physiccal injury has unfortunately carried over into this week and although I am trying to ignore the physical injury it is very hard to pretend I am not hindered by it.

It just would seem that there are mini obstacles stacking up in my path like mountains trying to keep me from moving forward. I am pushing through and while my goal will more than likely not be met by the end of November, I will take comfort in the fact that I didn’t (like last year) just completely throw in the towel and say the hell with it and just stop even trying. Last year was a bad year for me creatively and this year has not exactly proved to be much better but I am going to make the best of the rest of the days left in this year and kick 2015 off with these two projects that I’ve been taking on during NaNoWriMo and use them as my positive start for next year. Well back to my writing cave I go, hope all of you who are participating in NaNoWriMo are doing well.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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The Future That Lies Ahead of Me

October 30, 2014 jcladyluv

I was listening to a motivational video by motivational speaker, Les Brown that urged the listener to live in the future. If only for a moment it wanted its listeners to imagine their lives being the way that they want it to be, as the person that they want to be. Les Brown tells us “we have to see ourselves there long before it happens” and urged people that if you are going to fail then fail forward and don’t take two steps back like so many of us tend to do when something doesn’t work out.

When I heard this it immediately had me envisioning my life ten years from now and trying to focus on how I can live like I am already there. Ten years from now my Write 2 Be Media Company will be going stronger than ever with, at minimal, ten published books from me and successfully publishing other authors. My company will not only have Write 2 Be Magazine in print and digital form but also two other successful magazines as well. I will have a television show already into production and a couple of movies being optioned.

I will have my book store up and running by then as well as my line of Write 2 Be t-shirts and other novelty items well into production. The main thing, one that is truly a project that is vitally important to me, my Write 2 Be Creativity Camp will be successfully operating in the state of Maryland and hopefully beginning to branch out to other states for the encouragement of the arts in our children’s lives as a way to not only enrich their artistic abilities but to foster self-acceptance, self-love, and confidence within themselves in this fight against bullying.

There are a few other things that I have in play as well but those are my main focuses and that is a vision that I cannot let go of. I’m not sure that I can so easily live as if I am already there in that moment but I can see where Les Brown has a point of the fact that if we don’t act as if it can ever happen then there certainly is a great possibility that it never will. I think that a lot of times when we fail we want to just give up and stop trying (or maybe that’s just me) but what we need to do is fail forward, meaning learn from that failure and use that failure to progress the next time.

The future holds whatever we allow it to hold so if we don’t envision a prosperous future then how can we truly facilitate the future that we say that we want? We are all meant to live a prosperous life but we have to start acting like we want that life. The future is whatever we make it out to be. What does your future look like?

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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Even If It Takes a Dozen Coffee Cans I Will Get There

October 15, 2014 jcladyluv

Another nugget of inspiration that I took away from the Elizabeth Gilbert sit down she had with Oprah on Super Soul Sunday was when she talked about everyone needing to make a plan to go on their own quest similar to the one she went on in her Eat, Pray, Love. She expressed that everyone’s quest is naturally going to be different but that if you have a desire to go on your own quest you should not let any manner of obstacle stop you from doing so.

She told a story of a woman whose mother saved $1.00 a day in a coffee can every day for twenty years until all of her children were grown and on their way and she finally could take the trip around the world that she had been looking forward to taking. Elizabeth Gilbert spoke of getting our coffee cans together and even if life prevents us from going on our quest now, we should still start preparing for the moment when we can go on our quest.

I immediately went to my closet and got my coffee can and put a few dollars in there. I have a quest that I definitely want to go on. It was once my plan to have gone on a trip around Europe around my 30^th birthday but circumstances and life and motherhood prevented that from happening and four years later I still have not made it to Europe. What Elizabeth Gilbert reminded me of was that just because my trip didn’t happen the way I wanted it, or in the time that I wanted it to, doesn’t mean that it can’t still happen.

I still want my writing vacation trip around Europe so I am putting my plan into place and I have already started my coffee can savings. I think that this gives me even more to look forward to in my life and it fuels me with even more motivation to accomplish all of the dreams that I have in mind to reach in order to be able to allow things like this writing European trip to happen. The journey is always worth taking, even if you have to save a dozen coffee cans to get to your destination.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

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At Times the Horizon Seems So Distant

October 9, 2014 jcladyluv

“What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the world tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up, it’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon’.”

~From “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho

I saw the above quote on a friend’s timeline in my seemingly constant Facebook surfing (which is really great for inspiration by the way) and it struck a chord with me. It’s kind of like those quotes that say don’t give up because success is right around the corner except in this quote it is much more profound and hard hitting. I won’t say that I am a person who gives up a lot because I am still not where I thought I would be, and long after the period in which I thought I would be there, and I still get people who tell me to just go back to working a regular job so I could live a much more comfortable lifestyle. Yet here I am, still going for it and pursuing it, one crushing blow after another.

But I’m not going to say that I haven’t had constant moments of doubt and wonder about whether I should give up. That quote hits home with me because I feel like I am constantly being tested, and not to sound too melodramatic, but I feel like the tests come at least every other day and they don’t ever stop. It is said that the bigger the battle the bigger the victory that God has in store for you and I just keep thinking that God must have one (excuse my language) hell of a victory waiting for me at the end of this part of my journey.

I suppose one would think that the constant testing is to make sure that you are absolutely certain about what it is that you say you want, what you say your dream is. We as a society tend to expect immediate results a lot. We want what we want, when we want it, and exactly the way we want it to happen. I suppose it is natural to have a plan and to actually expect that plan to go accordingly but in such an unpredictable world with surprises at every turn, we can’t allow ourselves to be so thrown off course that we simply stop moving.

I sometimes feel like this journey for me is like a trek through the desert. I keep seeing mirages of what I think is about to be my breakthrough. I see glimpses in the distance of what my future will look like but those glimpses seem like they will take forever to reach. Oftentimes it seems like I am standing in some figurative form of quicksand where I am sinking faster than I can find some far away branch to grab ahold of. And even when some spiritually appearing hand pulls me out of that quicksand the well of water sitting underneath the shady palm trees (my dream) still seems so far off in the distance that I feel like just giving up and succumbing to dehydration and heat exhaustion.

But I am still here. Through every test that the Soul of the world seems to be giving me, I am still making my way through that desert. I may still be seeing mirages far off in the distance but I know that the well of water and the shady palm trees are there and I will get there, eventually. I don’t want to be one of those that collapses along the way and finds the well and palm trees right at the edge of their fingertips at the point that they gave up. I plan on being the one who survives every tests and who makes it to the well. And if that well is dry, I plan on being the one who treks on until I find the well that is full, of all my dreams and all that God has in store for me. I am told that I am stronger than I give myself credit for and looking back on just how far I have come in this journey of mine, without giving up even once, I am starting to realize that maybe they are right.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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That Nurturing Presence

September 26, 2014 jcladyluv

I was talking to someone the other day about my brand and my company, Write 2 Be, and I was explaining the message to her and she responded so positively to it. She conveyed some issues that her daughter has in school with bullying and with feeling that she doesn’t fit it because she’s not quite like the other kids, she’s unique and has an artistic mind, which most people who are not artistic cannot identify with. I could relate to her daughter’s issues because my daughter had been having the same and I too had those issues when I was younger in grade school.

Her mother shared excitement in the mentoring program that I am working on putting together, which centers around the premise of using the arts (which are sadly slowly being removed from our schools) as a way to foster courage and self-love, self-acceptance, and confidence in an individual’s uniqueness. She asked me what was taking so long because the kids growing up need a program like that (specifically in my area). I really could only respond with the fact that I would need a grant for that sort of program and the excuse that I still haven’t gathered up everything to put a grant proposal together for that yet.

It was nice and motivating to hear someone else so excited about what I am doing and what I want my brand to stand for. It got me to thinking about the fact that if more kids had this sort of mentoring program, one telling kids all the things that they can do versus telling them all of the things that they can’t do, or even worse, telling them all of the road blocks that will stand in their way, then maybe we would have more kids confident that they can be somebody and that they can be much more than their current circumstances or possibly more than their current environment (if they are not in a nurturing environment).

I think that if I had someone like that when I was growing up I wouldn’t have done so many stupid things to try and conform and fit in to what everyone else wanted me to be. I think that if someone had told me that I was special and that I was talented and that I could be anything that I wanted to be that it may not have taken so long for me to grasp that fact. I think that I definitely would have had a lot more confidence in myself and in the purpose that God gave me. I might have realized that it was my purpose a lot sooner.

There is nothing better for a child than for them to know that there is someone that believes in them. Even if it is only that one person, their parent(s), their sibling, their friend, that one teacher, or that one person who doesn’t have to, but that takes the time to nurture their gift, it matters. While I know that I am supposed to only be focused on living in the moment, I can’t help but wonder sometimes what would be different if my gifts were nurtured growing up. I know I can’t go back and change what I didn’t have growing up but I can make a difference for other children growing up today by creating that nurturing environment for their talents and gifts, for them to discover their purpose and tell them that they should do nothing less than go for it.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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