Tag: Faith

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The Fruit is the Last to Grow

May 15, 2023 jcladyluv

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about my frustration about all the unseen work that goes into what I do and how I just wish that what I’m doing would finally start to bear fruit. It is hard to put constant effort into something day in and day out and just never see anything grow from it. Certainly not the picture of growth that you had in your mind anyway. Then I was reminded the other day when someone sent me a message to not give up and to keep pushing through along with a quote about the fact that the very last thing anyone ever sees growing on a fruit tree is the actual fruit.

It made me think long and hard about all the seed planting that people do, the watering for their dreams and ideas to grow, and even then, you only get sprouts at first, then maybe some twigs or small branches, some leaves of varying nature and finally, after all of that you see the beginnings of the fruit. Not even the whole fruit by the way. Just the beginnings as they peak through and start to finally get some sunlight. It can take up to five years to see a fully formed piece of fruit grow on a tree. Think about how long of a time that must feel like for the person who did the planting of said tree.

As I think that I have mentioned many times here before, patience is not my strong suit. That said when it’s something that you’ve dreamed about having or doing for the vast majority of your life, patient is the only thing you can be. I have been writing since I was a young girl and am only just now starting to publish my work so I can’t expect for my online store with my writing products to just take off right? I mean, obviously I thought it would be doing a little better than it’s doing right now but I took my time to open my online store because I wanted it to be products I believe in and not just something thrown together for the sake of earning an income. I’m willing to wait it out to see it become what I envisioned in my mind it could be.

Seeing this quote also reminded me of something else though. I saw another saying, along those lines, and it said that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second-best time is now! If the trees we plant (or in this case the seeds of our dreams that we sow) take at the very least five years for us to see the fruit, then what am I waiting for as it pertains to some other things that I have in mind to do. Writing and having an online store with writing products isn’t the extent of my dreams. I keep waiting, thinking that there will be a perfect time, or at least a better time, to start the other things on my list of dreams to accomplish but time is the only thing that none of us can guarantee. None of us is promised tomorrow or next week, or next month, or even next year.

I’m not trying to sound bleak just trying to put out there what I am just starting to realize. That if you have something that you are dreaming about, constantly, and you see everything it can be in your mind, then start now. Don’t wait for some magical perfect time because there is no such thing. One could argue that maybe there’s a better time, a more financially feasible time, but who knows when that could be or how long it can take. If the seeds we sow today are going to take, bear minimum, five years to materialize then why not start planting them now. They may grow slowly and while you are watering and fertilizing those seeds it may seem like the wait is taking forever but inevitably, they will grow. While you’re waiting just remember that the trees that are slow to grow often bear the best fruit!

Until next time… #BeDiligent #BeConsistent #BePatient

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

This Season I Am In…

April 17, 2023 jcladyluv

I’ve been trying to learn to love the season of life I am in but I’m not going to lie, it’s not easy when you feel like you should be in a much different place than you actually are. In my head I know that everything that happens to us or around us, happens for a reason but a lot of those reasons don’t seem apparent right away. It takes patience to be able to appreciate the tough times in life just as much, if not more, than you do the good times and as anyone who knows me knows, patience is not my strong suit.

I get frustrated with the things that I can’t make sense of. I mean there are things that I make mistakes in and genuinely know and understand that this error falls on me because I messed up. However, when I know that I’m doing everything that I can, that I am busting my (pardon my French) ass to make things happen the best way that I know how with the tools that I have (because I don’t always have the tools that I need but I do the best I can) and then I still don’t see the results that I should see it’s frustrating and it’s stressful.

There is supposed to be a time for everything and a purpose for every struggle, but I keep wondering what is the purpose of me being held down and pushed back. Every time I get right to the place where I think I might be about to break through, I just keep getting knocked back down. I don’t stay down mind you, because I don’t quit, but with every hit I find that it’s taking me a little longer to pull myself back up.

I know that nothing worth having in life ever comes easy or without hard work and I don’t have a problem with that. It just starts to feel pointless when you never see anything, or much anyway, come from that hard work. Some days I can appreciate that when I finally do break through (because I will), no one will ever be able to say I didn’t work hard for it, or that I didn’t earn that breakthrough. However, I would also greatly appreciate at least one clear path to the next level.

In any event, I guess this too shall pass. Like so many of you, I’ll just have to keep on pushing that boulder up a hill until I get through this set of obstacles. I definitely will be taking some hard-earned lessons with me into the next season of my life and with any semblance of luck and an infinite amount of Faith the next season will be my greatest yet to come. Here’s to a better season if this one has been a rough one for you too.

Until next time… #BePatient #BeTenacious #BeDiligent

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Will the Doubts Ever Go Away?

April 3, 2023 jcladyluv

I have a huge issue with doubt. As in I have a lot of it. I second guess myself all of the time and it is really starting to annoy me. I wish I wasn’t like this. That I could be one of those people who just takes big leaps of faith and trust that everything is going to work out okay. In theory, because I am a person who deeply believes in God and have a faith in Him that is just ingrained in my spirit, one would think that I would never doubt a thing. But just because the logical part of my brain knows that in the end God will always be there for me no matter whether things work out the way that I want them to or not, the other part of my brain, the not so logical side, just doubts whether everything is going to really work out okay. To put this in terms of my writing career and all the business things I’m attempting, I am busting my butt trying to make things work and it just seems the harder I try the more they don’t work.

For instance, I took a really long time to start my online store with the writing related products, with messages and sayings that I am passionate about and stand behind. I believe they are good products and people have told me that they like my online store and the set-up and everything and yet, nothing. Now I’m not saying that nothing has sold, but certainly not enough to generate a decent income and not nearly as much as I think it should be. I know that most of this is because of marketing but I don’t have money to hire a person to do the marketing and clearly, I’m not doing a good enough job on my own. It’s frustrating. I have books that are out and while those are moving, it certainly would be nice if more of them were moving (but all writers wish to be selling out tons of their books, so I don’t think I’m alone in that lol) so again, frustrating.

There are other things I have in the works, but it just makes me doubt moving forward with those things if the things I already have up and running aren’t working. Some days it just leaves me feeling like such a failure and I don’t know what to do with that feeling. It’s like I’m certainly not where I thought I would be in my life by this point but I’m definitely not as bad off as I could be. I could have stayed stuck in a pit of doubt and just never put out a book or never opened my online store and just lived in the land of what if, but I didn’t. I did the things. I put my work and dreams out there. I just would like to see the fruits of my labor.

But am I laboring enough is the question I find myself asking? Am I doing enough with what I have (which isn’t very much)? There are people who literally don’t sleep working to make their dreams a success and while I don’t require a lot of sleep, as someone who is disabled, physically I simply can’t sacrifice all of my sleep. Does that mean that I don’t want it bad enough if I’m not willing to just sacrifice everything? You see what I mean? I question and second guess everything and I just would really like to be sure about whether I’m doing all the right things or not. I would like to not feel like I’m failing at absolutely everything.

I guess I’m just sharing this today in case there is someone else out there who is feeling this way, or similar to how I’m feeling. What makes things worse sometimes is when you think that you are alone in the things that you are feeling so if you are also having some doubts about the direction you are going, you’re not alone in feeling that way. Understand that it is a period that we all go through (maybe some of us more than others lol) and we just have to keep pushing forward. Sometimes we are just going to have to keep pushing through, even with all the questions we have rumbling around in our minds. It’s the only way to make those dreams of ours come true. Even if you are not like the ones who leap first and ask questions later, if you have to be nudged a little off that tree branch, the important thing is that we still take the leap, otherwise we can never soar.

Until next time… #BeBold #BeBrave #BeFearless

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Movement is Never Optional

February 27, 2023 jcladyluv

If you have been following along with my blog for a considerable length of time, then you know that I am allergic to change. I say allergic jokingly but really, I am so averse to change that it nearly sends me into full blown anxiety attacks when my routines and things that I’ve grown accustomed to being a certain way have to change. Either an anxiety attack or emotional meltdowns. It’s not a good thing by any means and I know that regulating my emotions and dealing with inevitable change is something that I should have learned to be alright with by now but alas I have not gotten to that place yet. Not sure that I ever truly will.

This is the reason why change is one of the things I talk about so much on this blog (that and fear). The way that people have to work on being disciplined in any one area, or work on keeping things clean, or their issues with time management (shoot that’s another problem I have lol), is the same way that I have to consciously work on dealing with change. Simply put, my natural personality does not adjust well to change on its own, so I have to forcefully adjust myself to the things around me that need to change.

I don’t always realize when a situation needs to be altered, when there needs to be some movement forward in a certain area of my life. I often have to have things crash in around me before my brain says okay you’ve fought this point of change for a long time now, so it’s time to just adjust. This is the point where movement is no longer optional. The point where if I don’t actively and intentionally make the decision to move forward, life is going to move me regardless, but just not in the direction I wish to go. It will move me backward.

We never want to move backwards in life because then the journey is just made to take that much longer. I truly think that if I hadn’t been so resistant to changes and to moving overall, that I could possibly be much farther ahead on this road that I’m on by now. The fear of changing (there’s that fear I talked about earlier) paralyzes and causes me to stand still a lot more than I should. Now in some instances standing still can be a good thing, but usually it’s when you want to take in all that has progressed around you, not to keep from progressing period.

A lot of the time when I think about the word movement I only think about physical movement, as in exercise. Because I suffer from chronic pain and am in some level of pain almost every single day (some days are level 1 or 2 and others are level 10 pain) I have this thing where I look for days where movement can be optional. However, I never really thought about movement in general terms for life. I didn’t think about the fact that for career success, for getting goals accomplished, for just attaining your dreams, you have no choice but to move. If you don’t, your dreams and your passions in life become stagnant. They stand still.

And that stillness doesn’t just affect you. It affects every life you and your dreams were meant to touch. So, the next time you think about just standing still and giving up, or even if you’re someone who, like me, is averse to change, just remember that if you don’t move forward, it doesn’t protect you in any way. It just keeps you stuck, in the same place, doing the same things, never growing, and never changing. So don’t hold yourself back simply by being afraid to just move.

Until next time… #BeMindful #BeCourageous #BeBold

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Let’s Not Play the Comparison Game

January 23, 2023January 23, 2023 jcladyluv

“Comparison is the thief of joy” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I try extra hard not to compare things happening in my life to the things that happen in the lives of those around me and in my circle. I would say that out of all of the days in a month, over half of them I succeed in that mission because I know that we can never see what someone else does in their everyday life to achieve whatever level of success they’re having at the moment. In reality the truth is that most of the time, if you are not succeeding at whatever dream you are chasing the problem isn’t someone else’s efforts on their journey but perhaps your lack of effort in your own, or it could just simply not be your time. Most days I remember that. Most.

There are some days, maybe a little over a handful, where you truly feel like you are doing absolutely everything that you possibly can, and you see someone on a similar path as you and everything seems to be working out in amazing fashion for them. Frankly in those few days the shit just feels unfair. You’re working your ass off, pouring everything you’ve got into this dream and vision you have, and sometimes pouring things you don’t have in the emotional tank and still…nothing. You think, how much damn adversity is one person supposed to go through before they just break. That whole notion where it’s just not your time and your time will come just seems like utter bullshit on those days and you’re just mad at anyone who is on the adjacent path and are just traveling along with no bumps or obstacles that YOU can see. Does any of this sound like feelings you’ve dealt with? No! Just me?

Well, I have had a few of those days already for the month of January and I’m telling you, sometimes it just makes me want to throw in the towel and give up on everything. But then I look at my vision board and see this quote I put on there for this very eventual moment. It says, “You didn’t come this far, to ONLY come this far”. I need the constant reminder that I’ve come so much farther than I have to go (at least I hope so because truthfully, I can’t see the entire road ahead of me) and that if I quit now, it will have all been for nothing. Honestly if I didn’t believe in my dream and my vision so emphatically, I probably would have given up on it a very long time ago, but I believe in this and I know this is what I was put here to do.

This is what I need to remind myself of when I start comparing my journey to the road that other people are on because the only thing that accomplishes is it makes me resentful of that person (and that’s not who I am) and it plants seeds of doubt in my own mind about my journey. I have different abilities and limits than the next person and I can’t map out my journey according to someone else’s level of effort and ability because, once again, their journey and mine won’t be the same.

So, when you have those bad days where everyone’s road starts to look so much easier to you than your own, just remember that while it’s natural to have those feelings, you have to put into perspective that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. As the quote says at the top of the post, comparison is the biggest thief of joy and I for one want more joy in my life, I don’t want to be the one stealing joy away from myself. Don’t you allow yourself to be the thief of your own joy. Just make sure to keep watering the grass on your own side of the fence.

Until next time… #BePatient #BeBold #BeMindful

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

When Does Later Become Now?

January 9, 2023 jcladyluv

I don’t know about you, but I have spent large parts of my life planning for later. I’m a planner by nature so most things I do have to have some kind of plan or else I can’t function. In other words, I am not a fly by the seat of your pants kind of person. I don’t do well with spontaneity (and believe me I have tried). Now you might say, well planning is a good thing. You need a solid plan to build businesses, careers, and to really see your dreams through, don’t you?

The thing about planning so much (or at least as much as I do, which would probably be considered over-planning) is that you’re making plans for what comes later without thinking about what can be done now. I heard someone say the other day that people who always wait and plan to do things later, are people who never get things done. Now I’m sure this wasn’t meant literally because as I said earlier, everything needs a plan of some kind but there is a such thing as planning so much that you become stagnant and unmovable. A point in which you’ve made all of the plans, you’ve done all of the research, you’ve got all of your ducks in a row and then you find yourself so used to being in the planning stage that you start to wonder, well what now. What do I do with all of this planning now?

You start to overthink whether you’ve made all of the right plans. Did you research all of the right things and were your sources of research correct. You begin to wonder if you should now plan all of the ways that things can go wrong and subsequently what do you do when they don’t go as you originally planned. This can become a never-ending cycle of planning and preparation which turns into you never actually getting the thing you’ve been planning all this time for done.

So, with that in mind I’m going to make conscious efforts this year to do the things that I have been wanting to get done for a while right in this span of time that I have now. I don’t want to keep waiting for things to be perfect like I had been doing because that’s never going to happen. There were so many things that I didn’t do last year all because I was waiting for some magical “right” time to happen. I was waiting for everything to fall into place after doing all of the planning and research for the perfect moment. I was waiting for the right circumstances to be in play. But all of that waiting doesn’t bring you success.

You know what I’ve learned by studying really successful people and combing over the facets of their lives and how they built their dreams up into reality? They never waited until later. I mean sure they planned and researched but they didn’t allow themselves to become consumed with the idea of “perfect timing” and what that would look like. They planned and then they leaped and said let whatever happens happen. Did some of them make mistakes along the way? Of course they did but you can’t make mistakes if you don’t take the jump to begin with.

On my vision board there’s a saying that says, “It’s time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap” and that’s what I want to do this year. I’ve spent years planning things out and researching things to the point of exhaustion. This year (as afraid of heights as I am lol) it’s time for me to just close my eyes and take that leap of faith. Faith, not only in myself, but in what God has placed inside of my heart to do and the mark I am meant to leave behind in this world. So, if you’ve been waiting for some magical right time to just go for whatever it is you want, that time is NOW! Just Jump!

Until next time… #BeFearless #BeBold #BeBrave

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Are We the Mistakes We Make?

April 11, 2022 jcladyluv

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.”

~Matthew 7: 1-3

I swore I was not going to write about this issue and yet here I am getting ready to do just that. We all know (unless you are living under a rock) about the slap heard around the world that happened at the Oscars roughly two weeks ago. Well, I’m not going to say that I believe that Will Smith was right for responding to a tasteless and crass joke about his wife’s medical condition in the manner in which he did, or even that Jada Pinkett-Smith needed to be protected in that way. What I will say is that if you read Will Smith’s book or know anything about his childhood then you can understand why HE felt that he needed to be protective in that way.

Violence is never the answer, and he could have, and should have, handled it differently. However, I will not sit here in judgment of this man who has had a 30 plus year career without nary a blemish and who has been beyond an extraordinary example to all who are watching, over the one time he dared to show that he is in fact a human being and that he does make mistakes just like the rest of us mere mortals. He made a mistake. He is aware of that mistake, and he has since apologized multiple times for said mistake. There is no time machine, and he can’t go back and erase the mistake he made so what more is it that people want him to do?

We cannot keep throwing people away because they display that they are human beings. We get so caught up in the idea of perfection and in us admiring people who have maybe reached the level in their lives that we are seeking to get to that we tend to put them on this unrealistic pedestal. We hold them up as a model (which is fine until you take it too far) of the dreams and levels of success that we strive for and then we act shocked when they make a mistake. It’s almost as if we somehow forgot that just because they are a celebrity or someone in a position much higher than us that they are also human beings just like the rest of us.

I don’t know anyone who has not made a mistake and honestly far worse mistakes than Will Smith made that night. I don’t think that any of us are in a position to judge another man (or woman) by their worst mistakes because Lord help us if we are judged by ours. We don’t (or we shouldn’t) just toss someone aside simply because they disappointed us. We should instead show that person some humility, show that person some grace, show that person some forgiveness and do for them what we want other people to do for us when we mess up. I mean even Jesus got angry and flipped over a few tables (Matthew 21: 12-13) and if Jesus can be imperfect than who are any of us to expect perfection from any ordinary or even extraordinary human being. Be careful who you are tossing aside and make sure that you can measure up to the judgment that you are casting onto them.

Until next time… #BeMindful #BeHumble #BeGracious

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPU35EkFSbuxgekCp4LfI5g

Give Up What is Weighing You Down

April 4, 2022 jcladyluv

It is not easy being a creative entrepreneur. Yes, I know being an entrepreneur period is hard work but when you are a creative individual you are not only expelling all of your emotional and mental energy into what you are passionate about. You are also having to tap into a business mindset that, if you’re anything like me, just isn’t something that is second nature to you. I think for creative individuals what stands in our way more than anything is our own self-doubt and lack of confidence in our ability to conquer the things that don’t come natural for us (like business know how and anything related to math in general lol). We get so hung up on what we think we can’t do that we lose sight and focus of what we can do.

So much of what holds us back from living up to our full potential can typically be relegated to an extension of one thing, fear. Whether it’s a fear of failure, a fear of success, a fear of change, fears of financial ambiguity, fears of disappointing either the people in our lives or ourselves, or just a fear of what is unknown. We come up on these boulders (obstacles) sitting there in the road, standing in the way of us getting to our destination. It seems immovable at first because we’re just seeing this obstacle that is taking up the entire space of the road and that instant feeling of defeat sets in. We spend so much time focusing on the boulder (obstacle) itself that we don’t even realize that if we just give it everything we have inside of us to move it, if we just physically push it off to the side of the road, then we can continue on the journey to reaching our goal.

Fear is that boulder in the space of our minds. It can take up so much space in our head, forcing us to lose focus on whatever particular thing we are fearful of in that moment. It can overwhelm us so much that we don’t even realize that if we just tackle that fear head on, just give it everything we have and push past it, then we can move that fear aside (at least for that moment anyway) and continue pushing through to accomplish our dreams.

Fear is a heavy burden to carry. It weighs on us like that immovable boulder. It starts to seep into our everyday lives until we are afraid to do just about anything that will move us forward. Fear likes it when we are comfortable because when we get comfortable then we never truly grow and we stay stuck right where the fear wants us to stay. Still. So if we want to succeed at all of those dreams we’re so passionate about, then we have to give up all of those fears that keep us weighed down and tethered to that box we get so comfortable staying in. In order to fly, to really soar beyond our wildest dreams and imaginations, we have to be willing to let go of all of that dead weight.

Until next time… #BeBold #BeCourageous #BeFearless

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPU35EkFSbuxgekCp4LfI5g

Give Yourself Some Grace

February 7, 2022 jcladyluv

The mind is a funny thing. Sometimes you can find yourself slip back into old habits and old ways of thinking without even realizing it. I try to maintain optimistic because my spirituality has been a way for me to be assured that everything is going to work out the way that it is supposed to in the end. However, lately I have heard myself sink back into my old ways of thinking and have found myself saying things like ‘I know that the other shoe is going to drop soon’, or ‘when it rains, it pours, or just yesterday I said ‘the Universe is working against me’.

Now instinctively I know and believe deep in my heart that God is going to make sure that I’m okay, even if things don’t go as I planned them to, or even remotely the way that I want them to. But my old anxiety and self doubt creep in and I realize I still have some work to do to get rid of that self-sabotaging nature. Without realizing it, I have been, once again, giving power to fear and doubt about what I am capable of achieving.

I think that it gets lost on some, those who don’t struggle with mental health issues or constant anxiety and overwhelming and crippling fear, just how hard it can be to stay in a positive mindset. I constantly get from people how positive I am and I don’t mind that at all but make no mistake, it is work to try and keep a positive frame of mind. Some days are astronomically harder than others and the good days can start to feel like they don’t happen often enough.

I’m writing this post today because I want people to give themselves grace, as I am trying to give myself some. Grace when you’re not feeling at your best. Grace to make the mistakes you need to make so that you can do it better the next time. Give yourselves grace to let yourself cry when you feel like it. Allow yourself some grace to just be honest when you’re not doing okay to be able to say so without any feelings of guilt. Give yourself grace to, on those days when things are just too overwhelming, simply do nothing but be.

Until next time… #BePatient #BeCourageous #BeKindToYourself

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine