I try not to compare my journey to the journey of others and I try not to be envious of the opportunities that I see other people receive and then just throw away. I know that it is something that you are not supposed to do and it really doesn’t do any good because it doesn’t make your journey any more or less complicated than what it already is.
It gets hard when you see people in the media who seem to be throwing their wonderful opportunities that they have worked so hard to attain right down the drain. But then I remind myself that my path is mine for a reason. It is constructed however God decided to construct it and the obstacles that fall in my path are what God is using to prepare me for the next level of my journey that he already has mapped out.
I just have to keep fighting for my opportunities and removing my obstacles one at a time until I reach the destination that is in store for me. I really have to start remembering not to regret the mistakes or the bumps along the path because those will be the same mistakes and bumps that are going to catapult me to my highest destination possible. I suppose that I should stop wishing for another journey because then I may not like the results that come along with the change.
There’s this saying, “with great risks comes even greater rewards”, and I thought about that as I was watching a news segment about Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, discussing her success and her new book that is causing much controversy. She was discussing her thoughts on women and their role as leaders in the business world and how women, albeit ambitious enough, are always playing it too safe and that is often what holds them back in their efforts to succeed. She has taken many risks throughout her career and her several different roles as a leader and she has had many great rewards simply because she refused to play it safe.
It made me think about the fact that I am not a huge risk taker and if that is what is holding me back it would be a terrible shame. Is that what is slowing me down on this journey to the top? To say I am cautious would probably (if you ask my best friend Ms. L.) be putting it mildly. I think things through, sometimes too much, and then once I decide something I rethink it through again, a couple more times. The funny thing is that I don’t remember being this way when I was younger. Granted when I was younger I was limited in the things I could do because I was not yet an adult and most of my childhood I was not a working individual so I relied on my mother for monetary well being, but I don’t remember being so scared to do things.
I don’t remember over analyzing things nearly as much as I do. I mean I did to a certain extent because I had to analyze whether or not the risk I was taking was going to get me beat by my mother or in trouble in other ways, but I never thought of myself as playing it safe. So now in a time in my life where I should be throwing caution to the wind and just going for everything and every opportunity that could possibly come my way, I am resistant, I find that I just want to be safe. I don’t know if it was motherhood that made me that way or not but I know that I want my daughter to take risks and go after the dreams she wants without worrying what is or what is not going to go wrong.
The author of Wild, Cheryl Strayed, wrote her memoir about the journey that she took along the mountainous Pacific Crest Trail from California, all the way through Oregon and up to WashingtonState, with practically no money to her name and little idea of what it was she was really in search of. Somehow she managed to complete her trip as well as accomplishing a level of self discovery that she didn’t even realize she was looking for. She didn’t let the fear of not really knowing where she was going stop her, nor did she let the fact that she had barely any money stop her and she managed to get a New York Times Bestselling book out of it that landed on Oprah’s book club lists. She didn’t play it safe and she took a huge amount of risk and she got great rewards.
Now obviously, it is not realistic for most of us to go and try that, but the point is that we shouldn’t let things hold us back and we shouldn’t play it so safe that we miss out on the adventures that we could have in our lives. Now being overly cautious is a hard habit to break and I am not crazy enough to think that overnight I am just going to be this “throw caution to the wind” type of person but I do know that I don’t want to play it safe anymore and I can’t afford to over-think myself out of the next opportunity. What about you, have you been playing it safe lately?
I think that sometimes people, particularly artists, have a hard time trusting ourselves. I’ve noticed that with myself at least. I know I’ve shared with all of you in the past that I constantly second guess myself and then when I decide on something, I rethink it and wonder if I made the right choice. I wonder if I’m good enough. Sometimes I even think that when I have confidence in something that I might be getting too far ahead of myself because maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t be nearly as confident as I am.
I tend to give advice to others about trusting their gut and doing what they know if right for them and trust that God will not steer them wrong or allow them to get too far off course. I give good advice that I never seem to be able to take myself. I seem to have no problem filling my head with all of these false negatives, I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not strong enough, I didn’t work hard enough, I didn’t try enough, but the odd thing is that deep down inside I know those to be false statements and yet they are so much easier to believe then the truth. Why do we do that?
We tell ourselves the worst, perhaps trying to not allow ourselves to get big headed or to get overly confident or to get our hopes up, but why shouldn’t we be all of those things? Why shouldn’t we be confident and why shouldn’t our hopes be raised? Joel Osteen said something in one of his sermons that stuck with me. He said “you can’t have faith if you don’t first have hope”. We’re always so worried about the other shoe dropping from somewhere out of the sky to make everything around us crumble.
The fact is that so many things can go wrong that we don’t need to add to it by standing by and waiting for what we presume might be the inevitable. Instead of worrying about this invisible shoe from some unknown place and filling our heads with all of these false negatives that we like to tell ourselves about our own abilities, why don’t we just chose to act now. Act on those instincts, don’t second guess, don’t over think, don’t wonder if you’re good enough, don’t question all that might go wrong, just take action.
Think of all of the opportunities you’re walking right pass while you are worrying and waiting for that other shoe that just might never drop. It’s a false expectation that helps to foster all of those false negatives that you have come to rely on to be true. Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves can end up being the death of all of our dreams.
Okay so as a part of my drive to make this year much better then the last couple of years, pertaining to my writing career, I suppose it would be helpful to address the things that hold me back from progressing the way I should be. I realized that when I blog the things that I need to improve upon and work harder at that it helps me to hold myself more accountable in making sure that I do just that.
So today I was thinking about all of the new avenues of freelancing that I want to get into and the magazines that I want to write for and I started to feel myself, once again, making excuses for why it just wouldn’t be possible for me to do those. Three thoughts always pop in my mind when I start to feel confident enough to try something different or shoot for something that seems out of reach at the moment.
1) There are so many writers that are better then me, what if my writing isn’t good enough to compete with them.
2) What makes me qualified enough to speak about certain aspects of writing if I’ve never done it before.
3) What if they just don’t like my writing style and they say no. What if the no’s just keep coming?
Those are the things that scare me about having my own writing business and having to do this thing all on my own. But those are the things that I also promised myself I would not let stop me this year. I can’t really stop those thoughts from creeping back into my subconscious from time to time but I can figure out how to combat them with positive thinking and find a way to move past those negative thoughts so that it doesn’t become a bump in the road for me.
Putting them out there, writing them down so that they become more visible and not just a voice inside my head accentuating all of the negative, actually really does help. It helps me realize that these are fears I can deal with. I may not be the best writer in the world (I’m not really sure who could claim that title) but I am a good writer and all I can do is work on making myself better and keep on knocking on those doors until people do say yes. That’s what I’m going to do. So for anyone out there is tired of hearing no from people and who may be feeling a little defeated, just keep knocking on those doors. Someone will say yes, but only if you keep on knocking.
I have the Write 2 Be Courageous and Bold… What is your Write 2 Be?
Write 2 Be Magazine will be debuting on January 15th, 2013 so please go join the magazine on twitter before it debuts on https://twitter.com/write2bemag and join the email listing for the magazine at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com. Also please feel free to go and friend me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310 and like my Write 2 Be Magazine fan page. Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.
I’ve been thinking a lot over this past weekend about what it’s going to take to become the media mogul that I have always dreamed of being. I know that it’s not going to be a piece of cake and frankly in the cases of most people it probably would have already happened by now. Perhaps if I hadn’t spent so much time standing in my own way I’d already be halfway to that point by now.
But nevertheless, I am not there yet. Largely due to the fact that I spent most of this year (a lot of years really) telling myself and convincing myself that I had took too long, and I had let too many opportunities pass me be, or that I didn’t have what it takes like Oprah or Tyler Perry and other impressive moguls (some still in the making) have, and that for those reasons it was just too late for me. Ever since I heard that message that I watched by Bishop T.D. Jakes about opportunities presenting themselves in chaos and about not counting up all of the things that I didn’t have or that I couldn’t do instead of relying on what I do have, I have shifted my focus into a different place.
I plan on taking this year and focusing on the things I can control and the things and more importantly the opportunities that I do have. There’s a reason why people say that it is never too late to accomplish your dream and I am going to stop telling myself that it is too late. Of course I have a lot of ground to make up for and a lot of hard work to do but I have also realized something else. I have to start paying closer attention to those media moguls that have essentially paved the way and laid the ground work for those that will come behind them (I will be one of those people).
So this week I wanted to share with all of you some of the media moguls (and one’s in the making) that I admire and some lessons that I’ve taken away from them that can help propel the next generation of media moguls to come. Tomorrow I will share with you what I admire most about Tyler Perry and the lessons from his journey.
I have the Write 2 Be Motivating and Inspiring… What is your Write 2 Be?
Write 2 Be Magazine will be debuting on January 15th, 2013 so please go join the magazine on twitter before it debuts on https://twitter.com/write2bemag and join the email listing for the magazine at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com. Also please feel free to go and friend me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310 and like my Write 2 Be Magazine fan page. Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.
“You will not be challenged in your convenience you will be challenged in your chaos”
~ Bishop T.D. Jakes
The other evening I was home, at a moment that I would not have ordinarily been home. My daughter wasn’t feeling well and even though we were supposed to be going skating, as we do every Sunday, at the last moment she decided that we should stay home. I for one had some homework to finish so I wasn’t full of disappointment. Needless to say, I think that God had somehow orchestrated this turn of events from what had become my normal because he needed me to sit down and hear a message that I believe he’s been trying to give me, but that I was too hard-headed to listen to.
So there I sat, trying to do my homework, flipping through the channels on the TV for something that could provide some background noise but that wouldn’t distract me from what I needed to do. I came across a program on a channel that showed religious programs and there was Bishop T.D. Jakes discussing opportunities that are given even in your chaos. Now the program was halfway over but I believe that I turned to the channel at the precise moment that I needed to turn to it so that I could hear exactly what God needed for me to hear. In fact just as I turned to it he was saying that it is the insecurity of the times that defines who you really are. That caught my attention.
He went on to discuss about how in a moment of chaos, God will send you an opportunity. In a moment where you are counting up how many mistakes you have made, there will be a turning point in which you can choose to stand up, make the u-turn on the path that you are on, and get yourself back on track. There will be an opportunity where you will be given to get things right.
Perhaps the most hard-hitting thing that Bishop T.D. Jakes said in his message was that, in general, we keep telling God what you don’t have, from friends, a husband, or even the degree you feel is necessary, that we keep missing the moment for that opportunity to happen. He stated that “the devil’s got you counting up what you don’t have when you ought to be looking at what you do have. What you do have is an opportunity. God is setting you up to completely turn your life around.”
Immediately I called my best friend, Ms. L. She knew how important this message was to me because it’s the same one that I’m sure God was sending her to tell me so many times before that I was just too depressed to hear. I was just in such a bad place about where things stood in my life and about the “chaos” that seemed to be surrounding me. Nothing seemed to be going the way that I thought it should’ve been going. But I don’t think that the cloud that I was under was allowing me to see the opportunity that was right there this whole time.
In fact it was because of Ms. L. that I finally felt that cloud lift. It was her that pointed out that my brand for Write 2 Be wasn’t as clearly defined as I thought it was. It was her that helped me put into better words what my brand really stands for (yes writers can benefit from the help of other writers). I suppose in a way I was listening to the message that God was sending through her, but I just missed a large and necessary portion of it. Ms. L. has told me before to stop counting up the things that are going against me, to stop checking off all of the things I didn’t have in my favor, and to focus my energy and time and attention on the things that I do have going for me, the things that are being placed in my path, and in my favor. I just didn’t hear it before.
So hear me when I tell whoever it is out there, that person who is sitting there with those thoughts of everything that they can’t do, and all of the decks of cards that are stacked against you, there is, in the midst of all of that, an opportunity that you have not chosen to take yet. No matter what chaos you think you are in, you are being handed an opportunity, you just have to choose to take it.
Be whoever it is that you feel you have… the Write 2 Be!
Write 2 Be Magazine will be debuting on January 15th, 2013 so please go join the magazine on twitter before it debuts on https://twitter.com/write2bemag and join the email listing for the magazine at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com. Also please feel free to go and friend me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310 and like my Write 2 Be Magazine fan page. Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that fear is something that I struggle with on a consistent basis. Being afraid of failing has been something that has kept me from doing a lot of things that I have wanted to do. Too often I have been afraid that I wasn’t good enough to make it, or good enough to even risk trying.
I guess it stems from my childhood being told by my mother on an almost daily basis that I was never going to be good enough. After a while of hearing the same thing repeatedly from someone who is supposed to shape how you think and feel about yourself, you start to believe that it’s true. It is that fear of not being good enough that has always made me feel that I couldn’t take certain risks if the preparation wasn’t perfect.
When it comes to query letters for articles, or pitching a novel to publishers or agents, or even sending out a resume to newspapers and magazines I want to work with or for, I have always held back if I didn’t feel that the package that I was sending off was perfect. A lot of times this resulted in me taking months just to send one thing off. Trying so hard to make everything perfect only really results in a lot of wasted time and lost opportunities.
It has taken until I was an adult with my own child for me to realize that those voices telling me that I wasn’t good enough were the voices that I needed to tune out. That the voice that I should have been paying attention to all along was the voice within that whispered that not only was I good enough but that I was going to be greater than even I expected.
In a sense I have failed at being perfect because I’m not ever going to be perfect, and certainly not everything I do or write is going to meet the standards of perfection. However, if I just continue being the best version of me that I can be, that is good enough. It’s good enough for me. It’s not always the loudest voices that deserve all the attention. Sure they’re loud and extremely difficult to ignore but often times the loudness is just a distraction from the whispers of what we should really be listening to.
Ever wonder what might have been different if all of the opportunities that you have been given, you had got it right the first time around? If you had the money to do everything that you need and want to do to become successful would you actually be doing them right now instead of just wishing you could be doing them?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that I need to do to get things going the way that I need them to be going and how the lack of money has held me up from actually following through with a lot of those things. I’ve also been thinking about all of the opportunities that I have had that could have enabled me to be in a different place right now that I have just somehow squandered away. What kind of difference would it make if I had got it all right the first time around?
If I had finished college the first time I went and completed my degrees then, instead having to work extra hard to try and finish them up now, so late in the game, then I might already be working in the media industry now as I have always dreamed of. I might have already moved to New York like I wanted to all those years ago so that I can be surrounded by exactly the right people I need to be surrounded by. I could have all the right contacts and connections and I would already have my foot in the door that I am trying hard to kick down now.
I could have learned from the best how to be the best and already be halfway up the ladder by now instead of still being on the second or third rung. I probably would already be on some New York Time’s best sellers list and I probably would have already had about three or four novels out by now because I would not have had any other responsibilities to worry about other then myself and my work. I could have already achieved so much by now if I had only done things right the first time around.
Money would most likely not be an issue (being a New York Time’s best seller and all and working as an editor for a publishing company while freelancing for some of the most prestigious magazines that are housed in New York) so I would not have any problem trying to get my own media empire started because with only myself as a responsibility and my work of course, I could put away money towards that empire and the things that I need to do for it. Life could be so different right now.
But the catch to all of that what if stuff is that if all of that had transpired (so-called) right the first time around, then I wouldn’t have met my daughter’s father and I wouldn’t have my wonderful, beautiful, and intelligent daughter who I would not trade for any amount of money, success, or fame. She is the reason that I get up in the morning and I really have a hard time trying to ever envision my life without her in it. She makes me want to fight harder to get things back on track and to make sure that she never gets off track. But also she is proof to me that sometimes what you think would have turned out better if it had been done right the first time around, might not actually be the case.
I don’t even know if all of that would have come to be without her coming along in my life, but I do know that the possibility is not lost. I also know that she has enriched my life in ways that I think make me a better writer and a better person. We can always wonder what would be different if we had another attempt at doing things all over again but when you really think about it, perhaps what you considered to be right in the first place was all wrong for you. Perhaps for our second shot at things, rather then wishing we could go back and do things differently we should treat our new opportunities as if they are what’s right for us now. Let’s try not looking back at a past we can’t change, but instead looking forward to a future that was meant to be.
Good intention without the action to back it up is just that, intention. There’s no real follow through involved in the things that you intend to get done, just a lot of wishing you had actually accomplished your task. I had a plan this morning to get all of this work done on a couple of my projects and I even went to the great lengths of bringing my notebooks and my laptop out into the dining room where the T.V. was not on to distract me (I have a T.V. in the living room but the only one who really watches that one is my daughter).
I tore myself away from one distraction only to be plagued with a lot of emotions and thoughts running through my mind about some personal stuff that lead to me calling Ms. L. to talk, thus diverting my attention away from all of the work that I had intended to get done. The conversation that I had was good, don’t get me wrong, and it was something that I needed to talk out with someone (since I can’t really talk them out with the person that I really needed to talk them out with), but it gave me another excuse to use for not getting any writing done.
I suppose that one could say that talking out what was going on in my head did in some way help me get something done. If I hadn’t I would still be sitting here, staring at a blank computer screen with a bunch of unnecessary thoughts running through my mind (that have nothing to do with any project I’m working on), and I would become completely blocked. In addition, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity of writing this particular blog post.
Sometimes what appears as us being unproductive can help us break through those walls that are blocking us from our greatest potential. I guess the good intentions that you don’t always manage to follow through on just might lead to something else that was intended to work out better for you in the long run.
The year so far has gone by so fast already. We are already in the month of May and I find myself feeling like I just want to hit the rewind button and begin this year all over again.
I had set out to do so many things this year and once again I am in another year of endless letdowns (some of my own making). I don’t know if it is that I set my goals for this year way too high or if I just didn’t bust my ass hard enough to make them happen by any means necessary (probably the latter).
I wanted to travel this year (nowhere specific, just anywhere to get out ofMaryland). I wanted to have my second novel in process of publication already and getting ready to make its debut to the world. I wanted to go to a vocal coach and get my voice back in shape because I wanted to make use of it before it’s too late. I wanted my freelance writing career to become a lot more successful then it has been and getting me to the level of income that allowed me to do the things I wanted to do this year.
So much time I have wasted worrying and stressing about the everyday necessary single mama type of things that there just wasn’t any energy left over for the things that I just want for me. I know that you are probably saying that it’s not too late, the year isn’t over just yet and that is true, but it’s hard for me, at this very moment, to see this year turning out the way I had hoped it would.
I could’ve sworn that this year was going to be my year. I could feel it deep down in the very pit of my soul. Were my gut instincts wrong? Was I thought off in my timing? Is it next year that I have to look forward to?
Well the year isn’t over yet and I do still have a lot of things I could still put in the works, at the very least, to begin the next year off with a good start. I just hope that I can still make the rest of this year that is left count for something.
Write 2 Be 