Tag: negativity

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What’s Your Motivation When the Odds Are Stacked Against You?

July 30, 2012 jcladyluv

I read a blog post the other day that asked the question ‘Is having something to prove a good enough reason to do something?’ When I read the post the blogger discussed how perhaps we should not use someone telling us that we can’t achieve something or someone’s negativity altogether to influence or motivate whether or not we in fact decide to go after what it is that we want. She stated that people pleasing was something not to get caught up in. Initially I felt that she might have a point to that statement and that people’s sheer passion for doing something should be enough to ‘just do it’ and that it shouldn’t take someone else telling us no or rejecting our passion for us to go at it full force.

But then I realized something. Isn’t that the nature of how dreams are realized, and how businesses are built, and how people are made to be successful? I mean of course you dream something and naturally you want to achieve that dream no matter what and when you start a business you hopefully are starting that business because it is something that you’ve always wanted to do. But if you listen to a lot of successful people talk about how they got there and how they accomplished their dreams and started their businesses, a lot of it had something to do with what someone told them they would never be able to do.

Think of how many singers and film stars were told no, and how many times they were told no, and how many people even told them that they were crazy to think they would ever really make it. Now think about how that just fired them up to going after that dream with even more force and more drive. Think about Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates and how many people told them they would never make it and that they would never see their dreams become a reality and how those words must have fueled the fire that was already lit underneath them.

I remember hearing an interview once about an entrepreneur going after their dream and starting their own company (can’t quite remember who at this exact moment) and when they were asked what made them go after their goal when all of the odds were stacked against them, their response was simply ‘someone told me I couldn’t have it’. It’s amazing what someone telling you NO will do for your drive and ambition to prove them wrong and get what you want in spite of all the odds stacked against you. I hate to be told NO but if I really think about it, when I do get to where I want to be in life, those No’s will be what made me so fiercely determined to prove everyone who said I couldn’t do it wrong.

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

Oh the Obstacles We Duck and Dodge While Investing In Our Future

June 6, 2012 jcladyluv

“If you make the investment up front, the return will come back later.”

~Bishop T.D. Jakes

As writers we go through many obstacles, if we’re lucky, before ever really hitting our stride in our career (and I say our, because I am speaking my future successes into existence even though it is not quite a reality yet). We go through tons of rejection, writer’s block, having doubters and negativity with anyone who doesn’t see the vision, and often times we are our own and biggest obstacle that stands in the way.

I was just talking to Ms. L. earlier and saying that I really wish that my journey to this success that I know I am destined for could be going a lot smoother and with a few less obstacles to stumble over. But then I quickly took that back because I remembered something I heard while listening to Bishop T.D. Jakes talk about living your life on purpose. He talked about making investments in your future, in your purpose, and how sometimes our mistakes and our struggles are our investments.

They are what make our successes all the more worthwhile. He said that sometimes “what you think is working against you is actually working for you” and that “it is the digression that causes the progression”. I suppose that is what is meant when people say what doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger (although it never feels like that when you’re going through whatever it is you’re going through). Our struggles are in many ways our fuel and motivation to keep going and to keep dodging those obstacles as they come.

Bishop T.D. Jakes also said that when it comes to making investments into your future “you can never reap of a dividend where you don’t make an investment—you sow first and reap later; you can’t sow and reap at the same time.” I suppose that I have to be a little more patient as I make my investments and have a little bit more faith that everything will work out the way that it should.

I can’t honestly say that all of the obstacles along my journey have not had their purpose. It may not have felt like it at that particular point in time, but looking back on them now, they all, in so many ways, served their purpose. I think that all of the struggles that we go through are simply just preparation for when our success comes to fruition. Then we’ll be able to say to anyone who has something to throw at us to bring it on because there won’t be anything that they have to hit us with that we can’t handle.

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

Haters, Haters, Everywhere; Time Being Wasted with No Time to Spare

May 2, 2012May 2, 2012 jcladyluv

“Sometimes, people wanna tear you down. Keep in mind that it is because they want to be like you and you are so far ahead of them that to knock you down would be the only way for them to catch up to you.”

~Author Unknown

It always amazes me how the more successful a person gets, especially when they come from a tough and struggling background, the harder people go out of their way to tear them down. Last night I was on the phone with Ms. L. told and she told me the news about the four-alarm fire that broke out at Tyler Perry Studios inAtlanta,GA.

Then she read the ignorant and disgraceful comments that people were tweeting in response to the news about the fire. A lot of the comments were joking about his building being on a fire and other personal jabs that just weren’t funny and aren’t even worth me restating them.

It just made me remember how hateful and jealous people can be. It doesn’t happen all the time but too often when someone rises from their bad circumstances and makes something out of themselves, reaching a level of success that other people only imagine (unless you’re one of those people who goes beyond imagining and takes action) themselves getting to, people just get so jealous and downright mean.

I suppose that one could take into consideration the saying that the more haters that you have the more that you know you are doing something right. But I just really wish that it wouldn’t have to be that way. I wish that we didn’t have to find a way to look at people’s negative attitudes and spin them around to be something positive for us.

We are supposed to celebrate people’s successes, their rise from the struggles they had to overcome to get to the point they are at. We are supposed to be joyous for others when they succeed and not find ways to keep tearing them down in hopes that they fail. If people are so busy begrudging someone else the destiny that is due to them, it is no mystery why those same people have such a harder time than others achieving the goals and dreams that they strive for.

We are supposed to help lift people up instead of pulling them down just because we might not like where we are at that very moment. I am thankful that no one was hurt in that fire. I am also hopeful that Tyler Perry gets everything repaired fairly quickly and without delay. Not just because I think that he is a brilliantly creative being. Not even because there are so many positive messages that I get from watching his films.

But mostly because the good that he has done with his work, the success that he has achieved in which others are so hatefully envious of, is what allows him to employ 5 thousand or more people who need his success to continue. It is also the same thing that fuels him to help pull others up the ladder in their efforts to become successful.

Successful people help other people become successful too and if the haters looked at it in those terms then maybe they could learn something and maybe they could get to wherever it is they are trying to go. Time hating others success is only time that you spend wasting on the climb up to yours.

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

Cutting the Ties of Negativity That Keep Me Bound

April 12, 2012 jcladyluv

“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”

~Lucille Ball

It is important when being a writer, in business for yourself, that you have adequate support around you. People reassuring you that you will be successful and that actually believe the encouragement that they are giving you. People that you can bounce ideas off of and they get how your mind works and don’t automatically assume that you are crazy. People that don’t tear you down every chance that they get.

I think that I have built up a good circle of people who believe in my vision and what my purpose is. It may be a very small circle but it is there. The problem that I continue to come up against is the people, or person in particular, who continues to tear me down with every open shot they get.

Now I know that I am supposed to cut any negative form of energy that enters into my circle and threatens my belief in myself but family is a little harder to get rid of. Every time I get to a place where I feel confident in what I am doing and I begin to stop doubting myself (at least not on an everyday basis) this person says such negative, nasty, unsupportive things. Sometimes they just say things that are downright hateful.

I asked someone once how you are supposed to extract that negative energy from your life and your circle when they are family and you have to deal with them on a regular basis. This person told me that just because that person is your family doesn’t mean that they necessarily deserve to be treated the way people normally would treat their family. He said that if they are not living up to the title and are not giving me that emotional support that family is supposed to give one another then they are family in title only but not in their actions.

I never thought of it that way and even though I try to keep this in mind, every time I have to deal with this person (which is often because my daughter is very close to them) the negativity is just there and sometimes it seeps in my subconscious whether I want it to or not. Last night the negativity seeped in for a little while but for a writer there is typically a battle to keep out the voices of doubt, whether it is your voice or the voice of others.

I didn’t necessarily win the time and productivity battle today but every day won’t be perfect and you have to just take the good with the bad. Tomorrow will be a better day, one where I will avoid all said persons projecting negativity my 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

Visualizing You Are Already Where You Want To Be

April 4, 2012 jcladyluv

“Attract what you want by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled.”

~Neville Goddard

I was watching Dr. Wayne Dyer on PBS last night and his program, Wishes Fulfilled. I got a lot out of the three hour motivational program (and dvr’d it so that I can go back and get more out of it later). He said things that I in some ways already knew and realized but sometimes hearing them from someone else, from another perspective, changes the way you receive the information. When his program opens he has a statement on the projector screen for the viewing audience that states “If you would like to accomplish something, you must first expect it of yourself.” Makes sense right?

I know that if you succumb to the negativity that builds up around you, you are going to eventually project that same negativity into every facet of your life. This week is about me getting my fire back that I once had and somehow lost. It’s also about getting back to that person who didn’t always let the negativity surrounding her overtake her. It’s about getting rid of that mentality of being so fearful of everything that she never enjoys what good could be happening in the present moment.

I thought that I would be in a certain place at this point of my life and because I’m not there yet I’m doubting every decision I make, every decision I don’t make, every opportunity that I take, and especially the ones that I don’t take. People always say to go with your gut when making crucial life decisions, but lately I’ve realized that my gut instincts aren’t what they once were because of that damn fear. It’s keeping me from seeing myself in the state that I want to be in and I know that if I don’t begin to see myself in that place, I might never get to that place.

Dr. Wayne Dyer said that people who say that they will believe something when they see it have it all wrong. He said that you will only see it when you believe it, and he’s right. I mean after all, if you can’t believe in and see it for yourself then how is anyone else going to be able to see it?

So instead of continuing to wish that I was more of a success, and agonizing over why I’m not, I need to act as if I am at the level of success that I want to be at. I should imagine that I am already in that place where my company is not only up and running, but it’s going strong. I can see it now!

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

Have You Danced With Your Fears Yet?

April 3, 2012 jcladyluv

“Let fear be a counselor and not a jailer.”

~Anthony Robbins

I know that I seem to talk about fear on this blog a lot but I feel that it is so prevalent right now and fear can be so paralyzing when you have no outlet for it. This is my outlet.

I realized last night that I am so much more crippled by fear then I could see. I was watching Oprah’s life class last night on her network and she just so happened to be talking about living fearlessly. Her guest, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, talked about dancing with your fear (facing them) and that fear is really about changing your story and your state of mind.

He talked about everyone having a story that they keep telling themselves, whether it is that you are worthless or that you are just always going to fail or many other negative things we tell ourselves. He recited a quote that if you tell yourself a lie enough times then you start to believe it, so if your story that you’ve been telling yourself for years is that you are never going to succeed or be anything, eventually you will begin to actually believe it. His theory is that if you change your story, make it more of an affirmation of what you are going to do and who you are going to be, then you change your state of mind and you will begin to believe it.

Oprah posed the question to her audience and those watching at home, “what is the story you’ve been telling yourself all these years?” I thought about it and when I talked to Ms. L. I realized what it was. Not only am I afraid that if I try to really accomplish my dreams it is just going to eventually fail, but I am also afraid of the other end of the spectrum. That I will actually succeed and begin to make that climb up the ladder and that I might do one little thing to mess it all up and end up right back where I started, at the bottom. I’m afraid of the not knowing and of the changes that will come. I’m afraid that I will prove to all of the people who said I would never be anything, that they were right.

Tony Robbins also said something else that rung true to me after he said it. He stated that sometimes we want those fears because it protects us from having to step into the unknown. I was never a completely fearless person, I always tended to be moderately cautious, but I never used to be that person that was so intensely afraid of change and all of the unknown things that are out there that I would sabotage my own self but somehow I have become that person.

So how do I get back to that person who not only accepted change, but welcomed it? How do I become that brave artist again that didn’t care (at least as far as my writing went) about what anyone had to say?

I suppose that “dancing with my fear” is a start. If I don’t face them head on and stop pretending that they do indeed exist then I am never going to remove those fears from my subconscious and my life. Fear can really be crippling and it can have the power to kill your dreams, if you let it. But I’m not going to let it. Thank you for letting me express my fears here to all of you. Knowing I can be vulnerable here helps a lot in the furthering of my dreams.

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

Jaded View of Things

March 30, 2012 jcladyluv

We live in an imperfect world. That is certainly proven time and time again. While the world is anything but ideal, I don’t believe there is a reason to be jaded about every situation that you face. People tend to take their bad experiences with people in life and transfer them onto others that they meet in the future. I am not exempt from that fact but I try my very best to not to make judgments based on what I have already been through. I would like to think that everyone and every situation is not predetermined by the past.

I think that if people spend too much time living in the past, believing that every experience that they had is going to keep repeating themselves, they miss all of the good stuff that could happen in between. My mother believes every person (men in particular) has an angle, an agenda. She is a person who has zero trust for anyone and believes that this world is full of dishonest people who are just going to hurt you. I on the other hand struggle not to believe that. I don’t pretend to think that everyone is an angel but I try not to walk around expecting to be hurt. I just don’t want to allow myself to get that jaded.

If you always expect the worst of everyone and from every situation that is exactly what you will end up getting. You get back what you put out into the universe and I don’t want to receive that kind of negative thinking. I want good things, I expect good things, and all I want to put out into the universe is what I expect to get back in return. You can’t make every situation you go through in life turn out exactly the way that you want it to. The best that we can do is deal with each situation as they come and take the lessons we learn into the next one without any prejudices thrown in the mix.

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

Spring Cleaning for Creativity’s Sake

March 28, 2012 jcladyluv

Ms. L.’s post yesterday reminded me that it’s that time of year again. You know, the time when everyone starts to begin thinking about all of the spring cleaning they have to do. I am really big on getting into the whole spring cleaning vibe and going through and tossing out old clothes, doing a big clean up around the house that involves not only mopping all floors but also wiping down all surfaces until they are spotless, and tackling the re-organizing my tiny little corner of an office in my room. But spring cleaning should not stop after the household messes that we have been putting off for just such a time for mass clean-up are actually done.

For us creative types spring cleaning doesn’t just end at the household, but it transcends to spring cleaning your mind, your spirit, and your body, in an effort to spark your creativity and become even more productive. For me, there are three things that affect my creativity in a negative way; if my house is a mess, if my body isn’t feeling its best, and if my mind is cluttered with conflicting and contradicting thoughts.

I feel like it’s not just my house that I have to get in order (as far as cleaning), but that I need to amplify my efforts on maintaining good healthy habits (helps with the stress), and most of all I need to really get my head in the right frame of mind and focused on what’s important and what needs to be done. As you all know I am really concentrating on getting that fire back about my writing goals and making the things happen that I want to happen. Hopefully spring cleaning on all fronts will help me do that.

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

I Guess I’m All Out of Sick Days Now

March 14, 2012March 14, 2012 jcladyluv

Oh how I have missed my blog! I know I haven’t posted since last week and it was completely unintentional. I came down with a really bad cold at the end of last week and I just wasn’t able to produce anything that I felt was worthy of being read and then my daughter had a virus over the weekend, which I in turn was inflicted with on Monday and Tuesday.

Needless to say, I have had more than enough time to realize just how important it is to have back up posts and plans of what to have ready for your blog in case of emergencies or necessary sick days that may need to be taken. In the regular work world where you go to an office from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday you get a set amount of sick days (that’s not to be confused with vacation days) and typically it’s about five. Well it’s been about that many days for me (I don’t count Sunday because I don’t blog on Sundays anyway) so I suppose that means I have completely used up my sick days for the year.

I guess that just means I really don’t have any more excuses but to buckle down and cast that self doubt I have about myself and my abilities out of my mind and do what I know needs to be done as far as my writing career. I have a lot of plans and things to work on and put in motion before this month is over and there is literally no time to waste anymore.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”