Tag: dreams

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If You Want it Bad Enough, You Have to Work Hard to Get It

February 29, 2012 jcladyluv

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.”

~Emile Zola

When I was at the gym this morning I overheard a basketball coach giving two of the young boys that he coaches a lecture on practicing their skills. He was telling them that they can’t just expect to become pro-basketball players without actually putting in the work to get there. He was saying to his assistant coach that children just expect to wake up and automatically become what they want to be without putting in the time, the effort and the hard work it takes to get there. I listened on as he spoke to them and I saw the young boys in there beginning to practice as he was lecturing them so clearly some of what he was saying was starting to sink in.

As I continued to listen on I thought about the fact that it isn’t always just children who forget that things that are worth having, you have to work hard for. Sometimes we adults forget that too. We sometimes rely so heavily on the natural talent that we have to do whatever gifts we were blessed with that we forget that even with natural talent, there is skill involved and those skills have to be continuously exercised. If we don’t practice our skill set, that talent can eventually fade away.

We can’t continue to take our skills for granted and believe that no matter what they will always be there for us to use when we get around to putting in the hard work that it takes to make them work for us. Basketball players don’t just wake up able to play basketball. Sure they may have had the natural talent to shoot a ball in a hoop when they were younger but there would have been no chance of them making it to the NBA without continuously practicing that skill. Had they not put in the hard work those skills would have just faded away.

I’ve heard it said so many times by writers or singers or actors or athletes that it comes natural to them, and yet they still profess how much hard work their natural talent takes. They take workshops to keep their words fresh, they have vocal coaches to keep their voice in tact, or they take ongoing acting classes to keep their acting skills on point, or they practice on a regular basis to keep their reflexes sharp. Yes they may have this natural ability but they work hard at maintaining those abilities so that they don’t lose them.

The same goes for anyone else out there trying to become successful at whatever it is that comes natural to them. We all have something that we were born to do. Now we just have to put in the hard work at practicing those skills to develop the success that we know we want. So take some time to think whether or not you are really putting in the practice at making your skills work for you. If you know you could be doing more then start now. Practice equals progression!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

What to Do When the Investment Wasn’t Made

February 28, 2012 jcladyluv

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy.”

~Henry Ford

Yesterday I talked about parents needing to make investments in their children’s future and I spoke about the investment that wasn’t made in me by my own mother. Well today I wanted to speak to those out there who were not supported by the people around them. I wanted to make clear that just because you were not given the encouragement that you should’ve been when you were starting to realize your gift’s does not mean that your gift should be lost and never developed.

This is where we now have to remind ourselves not to dwell on what was not given to us and focus on what we have to give of ourselves. When we are not lifted up by the ones who are supposed to be there for us then it is up to us to be driven enough to enhance our own abilities. It is up to us to believe in ourselves enough to make our dreams come true anyway, in spite of those who told you that you couldn’t.

Now that you are at whatever point you are in within your career and your life, you can no longer play the blame game (yes that goes for me too). Sure there will be days when you will naturally think about what could’ve been and that’s okay for about five seconds. But then you have to (and this is going to be the hard part to do) get over it and move on.

If you don’t make the choice now, to do whatever it takes to sustain yourself in your career, the blame falls solely on you. Once you reach a certain age and point in life, it is no one else’s responsibility to lift you up and help you rise to the level of success that you want but you. There will still be people along the way that can help you but you have to put yourself in the position to be in contact with those people. You have to make all of the tough decisions. You have to stop procrastinating and get moving. You have to stop complaining about what never was and create what could still be. Make your dreams count and know that you are worth the investment.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

Making Investments in Our Future

February 27, 2012 jcladyluv

“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.”

~Graham Greene

I watched the Oscars last night and I thought about all of the awards shows that we as writers and artists’ watch throughout the years and all of the acceptance speeches that we hear. It is extremely rare not to hear an actress, actor, writer, director, singer, songwriter, or visual artists’ (graphic or otherwise) thank their parents for allowing them to be who they are and for not only encouraging their gifts but for also enhancing it by being supportive of that talent.

I started thinking about the children whose gifts and talents are not acknowledged, let alone encouraged by their parents. All of the gifts and blessings for the world that are not being realized because there is no one there to tell them that it’s okay to dream and dream big. I was one of those children.

When I watch those awards shows I can’t help but to think of whether I could’ve been one of those artists accepting an award for their brilliant talents if only I had a mother that encouraged or enhanced my gifts, or at the very least, acknowledged that I had any. I know that I’ve mentioned here before that my mother was (to put it in nice terms) not very nurturing. She never really believed in me and to this day it still hurts.

I do feel that when she heard me singing around the house and heard other people who didn’t have to placate me tell her that I was actually good at it, that she perhaps could have invested in some voice lessons, or piano lessons for me. Maybe when I wrote the class poem for my eighth grade graduation and my teachers all told my her that she had a very gifted writer on her hands, she could have put me in writing workshops that they had for children (and they had them, I checked). Or maybe when I sent a poem to a songwriting contest and received a letter saying that they wanted to turn my poem into a song, however, they needed to deal with my mother contractually (because I was still a minor), she could’ve done what she needed to do as my mother to make it into a reality. She could have actually invested in my gifts when I was younger but she didn’t.

While I know that I can not jet off back into time and change what never was, I am left to constantly wonder what could have been. Most days I don’t dwell on it. But on nights like last night when I see people accepting their awards and whose parents clearly believed in them enough for them to get where they are now, I get a little resentful (as much as I hate to admit that) towards my mother.

But that is when I just turn that resentfulness into a persistent desire to make sure that I am different with my daughter. I want to make sure that I encourage her creative talents, enhance her gifts by supporting and investing in them, and empower her to believe that she can do and be whatever it is that she dreams she can be. I want her to know that I believe in her and that I know her future is worth the investment.

If we as parents do not invest in our children’s future where are they supposed to get the idea that their future is worth investing in to begin with. It starts with us and if we see brilliance in our children it is our job and our duty to help them develop and cultivate their gifts. They are our future and we have to make investments, not just in the stock markets and the next big business venture (not that our own careers are not important as well), but we have to invest in them too because their future is worth it. They are our future Grammy, Golden Globe, or even Oscar winners and we have to help them get there. Don’t wait until tomorrow to make an investment in your child’s future, do it today!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

The Questions We Ask Ourselves, and God (Part 4): How Do I Know I’m On the Right Path?

February 16, 2012 jcladyluv

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

–Jeremiah 29:11

It’s hard to know if the direction you are headed in is the right one. It is even harder to know if the path you are on is the one you are destined for when it seems you continue to make so many mistakes (some mistakes repeatedly). You want there to be some way to know if that dream that you are chasing, and have been for years now, is the right one for you. You want to make sure that when you get to the destination that you are seeking, that you won’t regret the choice you made in picking that particular location. The thing is that you already know, deep down inside of you, if you are on the right path or not.

For a long time I questioned whether being a writer was really my destiny. I still question it sometimes when things seem to be hopeless. But what lets me know that this is my purpose and that I am on the right path is the fact the no matter how many mistakes I have made, they have somehow still all led me right to where I was always meant to be. I am making a living (admittedly lower then what I would like it to be at the time) doing what I love to do more then anything in this world. I am doing what calms me and what heals me. I am doing what God put me on this earth to do, and I am doing it with all of the mistakes I have made included.

Along your journey sometimes you get diverted, redirected, and turned completely around. You go in different directions then you originally saw yourself going in. But are those diversions really unplanned or were they just not a part of your plan. We make plans but our plans always get rerouted when they are not the same as God’s plans. This doesn’t mean that your destiny isn’t what you thought it was. It just means that the mistakes you think you made along the way were God’s way of getting you back on the right track.

The path you take isn’t going to be all on the straight and narrow, nor will it be without experiencing some bumps (and bruises) along the way. That doesn’t mean it’s not the right path for you, just that the right path is not going to be an easy one. You have to remember that you are on the path that God has chosen for you, for whatever reason. Don’t try to reroute God’s path with your own.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

The Questions We Ask Ourselves, and God (Part 3): When Are Things Going To Change?

February 15, 2012 jcladyluv

“If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.”

~Mary Engelbreit

When you get stuck in a period of your life where nothing seems to be going the way that you think it should be you will start to question when things are going to change for you? The answer to that is simple but we tend to make it much more complicated then it has to be. Things will change when you make the decision to change them.

I know how it feels to be in that place where everything is going wrong. You think that things are going so bad that they can never get better. You start to wonder what you did to bring this kind of ‘bad luck’ your way. You even go over in your head things you could have done in a different way so that maybe things wouldn’t feel so impossible. You start to contemplate whether you will come out of that bad place long enough to make your dreams a reality. It’s a place that nobody likes to be in. But you don’t have to stay there.

Your attitude towards whatever your circumstances are determines the outcome of those circumstances. If you stay insistent that nothing is going to get better, that nothing is going to change, then why would you be surprised when they don’t. You attract what it is that you want so if you want to gain control of that situation and you want things to turn around then you have to change your mindset. Nothing is going to change if you don’t believe that it can.

Whatever your dreams are, it is never too late for them to come true. You may be down but you most certainly are not out. If you know that there are some things in your life that you need to change, all you need to do is take that step to change it. When you take that step that is when things are going to start to change for you. You just have to believe that they can, in fact, change.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

The Company You Keep Could Be Helping You Sabotage Yourself

February 10, 2012 jcladyluv

Number 5 on my list yesterday was ‘Keeping people around you that are not going to give you a swift kick in the ass’ and a part of that is not surrounding yourself with people who constantly try to do everything they can to bring negativity to you. It is always good when you can separate yourself from those that do not support your goals and that do not believe in you. But how do you separate yourself when the people or person who is against you is your family, not just family members, but your own mother.

My mother has never been supportive of my dream of being a writer and she has been very verbal about the fact that she thinks that my pursuing that dream is a huge waste of time. She made her point again today that I am wasting my time with this writing ‘stuff’ as she referred to it.

Years ago that would have bothered me. That would have eaten away at me and seeped inside of my soul with her words eventually starting to be projected in my own voice. That would have sent me into months and months of questioning my dreams and whether I could really make them happen. I would spend months thinking to myself that if my own mother doesn’t believe in me, then who else will.

Like I said, that would have been me years ago. That would have been a form of me self-sabotaging myself by way of my mother’s negativity. Now I know that I can not completely cut my mother off (well I could but she did give birth to me so that would be wrong) but I have learned to distance myself from her. More importantly, when she starts to talk about how my goals and dreams don’t matter and that their not worth the time and effort I am putting into them, I have to learn how to cut her off (respectfully of course) and tell her that I can’t be around the negativity.

I know that you can’t really tune out or walk away from every negative vibe that tries to come within your orbit, but you can’t make your dream a reality if you don’t at least try. Negative energy just breeds more negative energy so if you allow it into your inner circle then you also allow it to influence your spirit. So if you are keeping people around you that are only bringing negative energy to you then it is time to distance yourself from them. Stop sabotaging yourself with the company you are keeping. Until tomorrow…Remember that your kin is not always your kind!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

Conquering Fear Doesn’t Happen Overnight

February 8, 2012 jcladyluv

It is typical for someone to give good advice to others without ever really taking that same advice themselves. I’ve written a lot about not letting fear, whether it is fear of failure or fear of success, stop you from going after your dreams. I stand by that advice but sometimes I just can’t seem to take it myself. It isn’t that I don’t want to let the fear go, it just seems that I can’t. I get moments where I feel fearless and ready to conquer the world. Then something happens to set me back and I get afraid. I find myself afraid that I won’t succeed, then afraid that I will.

I spent a lot of time last night assessing exactly what it is that I seem to be doing wrong, or rather what is wrong with me. Why it is that I keep missing opportunities simply by not going after them in the first place. I look at my best friend Ms. L and watch her hustle her ass off to climb further and further up that ladder. She’s doing what she loves to do and she is going into it all fearlessly. Now Ms. L and I are both in pursuit of the same thing, success doing what it is we love to do. We have different avenues of the media industry that we want to conquer but we are both passionate about creativity and writing and making a living at it. I just can’t seem to mirror that same fierceness she has to hustle.

I sat in my bed last night trying to figure out why. Was it that I didn’t want it as bad anymore? Is it that I just feel that I am not cut out to be my own businesswoman after all? Can it just be that I am not hungry enough for it? No, none of those things apply to me. Then I realized that I’m still afraid. I thought it had gone away. I thought I had talked myself through the phase of being too afraid but somewhere along the way it crept back in. I’m afraid of succeeding but mostly I’m afraid of failing at everything I’ve ever dreamed of.

What I also realized in my moment of self analysis last night was that if I don’t try and give it my all then my fear will come true anyway. I fail without even trying to succeed. Not trying will be failing. I wish I could say that the fear is gone now. I wish that I could say that once it passes this time that it will never creep back in. But I can say that I know that fear is not going to help me get what I want and what I’m destined to have; success. For anyone out there experiencing a serious case of fear, you are not alone. We will overcome it and climb our way up that ladder. It just might take us a little bit longer than others. Until tomorrow…Remember that Fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

Critics Are Everywhere

February 1, 2012 jcladyluv

“It doesn’t matter if a million people tell you what you can’t do, or if ten million tell you no. If you get one yes from God that’s all you need.”
~Tyler Perry

There is negative energy everywhere. People will try and tear others down simply because they are succeeding at something and they are envious. There may be someone out there who doesn’t like the fact that someone else is hogging what they see as their spotlight. There all critics in their own right and just like we can’t always rely on the negative word of a book or movie reviewer for the next book we will read or movie we will see, we can not rely on the critics who say that we will never become what we know we are destined to become.

I got another Inspirational Corner message in my email from Tyler Perry today. He shared with his fans a clip that was sent to him which, at first glance, looks like a barrage of negative comments hurled at him to discourage him. But as you go on watching the clip, it phases out the negative comments and goes on to display and show all of the comments of encouragement for Tyler, both by his fans and the many actors and actresses he has worked with throughout the years.

Just like that clip, Tyler Perry has managed to tune out all of the negative comments of people who just might not have gotten his vision, and focus in on the words of encouragement and empowerment for him. There were so many people who told him no. There were so many people who told him that there was just no place for him in the industry. People told him that the world just wouldn’t buy what he was trying to sell. He had been shut down so many times by so many negative critics but he never let that stop him. Look at him now.

My message today is to say that even the most successful people that you see today have been told no and have been told that they would never get to where they were trying to go. They did it by letting the negative comments roll right off their back and putting their focus into the words of encouragement that helped fuel their desire. They never gave up until they were right where they said they were going to be, at the top. So to all of the future success stories out there that are climbing your way to the top, don’t let the critics slow down your rise. Until tomorrow…Just press on and tune out anything that’s going to get in your way!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

The Power of Believing

January 27, 2012 jcladyluv

“The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.”

~Frank Lloyd Wright

I was watching The Talk earlier today and they were going around their table asking if anyone believed in psychics. There was one woman that said she didn’t, two women who were proud to say that they do, and the other two women who said that they believed in psychics but that they would never give into that belief by actually going to see one. I sat there watching as a person who does believe in them. I will even admit that I actually got a reading from one a long time ago and it was pretty accurate (for the most part). I got to thinking why it is that some people don’t believe, some people believe whole heartedly, and some believe but don’t want to give into their belief.

The power of what you believe in can carry you through many things in life. Just as well, the power of you not believing can carry a lot of weight too. When it comes to your life, your goals, and your dreams, you have to believe. No one else can believe in your dreams for you. The question is how strong is your belief in you? I think that people (like me) who believe in psychics, believe because they want to have a road map of how things are going to turn out. They want to know if what they want out of life is going to become a reality. They want someone, in this case a psychic, to give them something to believe in, some kind of assurance. They want that psychic to give them a reason to believe. But a psychic can’t really do the believing for you. That’s all up to you.

You know they say that all you need to do to make your dreams come true is to believe that they can. No one has a magic crystal ball where they can look and tell you whether or not what you believe in will come to fruition. There’s no way of knowing whether or not all of your hard work will pay off. But there is power in believing. We have to remember that no matter how hard the obstacles may seem to get or how impossible they might seem to overcome, nothing is more powerful then the belief that we have in ourselves and in our dreams. Until tomorrow…How powerful is your belief in your dreams?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”