Tag: Path

In the Moments When You Think You’ve Failed

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failing post

I was having a moment the other day. Actually I had a few moments over the course of the past weekend. You know those moments when you just question and second guess every single little thing that you’re doing because you’re not sure if you’re really doing anything right. There were some things that weren’t going right in my actual writing the other day so it made me question whether I’m even still any good at this writing thing I love so much or am I just wasting my time. I looked at my numbers (my stats)on my blog posts and on the posts on the magazine and even though they were going up the increase just wasn’t matching up with the effort that I was putting in so it made me wonder if I was doing enough or was I just not good enough in that department either.

There were some other little personal things that I was having issues with which I’d rather not go into detail about that were making me question myself as well. Then my daughter and I had a, how shall I say, difference of opinion on something that made her upset with me (when I felt like there wasn’t any reason for her to be—typical teenage stuff) and because of all of the other little moments I had been having I was already feeling on the edge of having my emotions spill over so that moment with her just made me feel like I was now failing in the mom department as well. I’m not going to lie, I shed a few tears this past weekend because I just felt like nothing I was doing was good enough or right and I felt like I was literally failing at everything.

Then I went to church Sunday and my pastor’s message was about being ready to (fittingly enough) deal with adversity in life. He talked about how adversity makes you stronger and how nothing you ever achieve in life will be achieved without going through some great adversity. He talked about trusting in the relationship that you have with God and in the fact that while it may often times seem like things aren’t going right, that they aren’t going just the way you think they ought to go, and even how sometimes it may seem like the path you’ve chosen is wrong because of the turmoil or hard times you may be going through, that you have to not only trust God through the hard times or the uncertainties, but you have to trust that the relationship that you have built with God is strong enough to get you through those times until you reach the light on the other end of what seems like total darkness.

It’s not the ease of life that is what lets us know that we are fulfilling the purpose we are here to fulfill, but rather the strength that we discover in ourselves when we have come out of the hard times. That strength that propels us forward and allows us to keep moving, battle scars and all, to the next level is what lets us know that in the end we only fail if we never put up a fight. So even though I had my moments where I felt like I was failing at everything that I was doing, I realized on Sunday, that as long as I was still trying, still fighting to get my message out, fighting to fulfill my purpose, fighting to be a good mom and raise my child in the best way that I possibly can, I may not do everything perfect and I may make a lot more mistakes along the way but at least I’m fighting. That alone means I’m winning!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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

http://write2bemagazine.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/ 

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The Picture Isn’t Always Perfect

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Nothing is Picture Perfect 2

Oftentimes we like to paint a picture for people that things in our world are running smoothly. We like to put a smile on to pretend that things are perfect even if they aren’t. We like to highlight the things that are going well and leave out all of the mistakes that we have been making as we go. It’s the whole fake it until you make it syndrome. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have positive self-talk and to tell yourself that you can do this or that, even if deep down you are unsure of your capabilities. But to leave out the things that went wrong in your journey sometimes does a disservice, not only to you but to the people that you hope to inspire along the way.

If you think about it, there are no real mistakes in life. Everything that happens to us or even for us is by design and has already been mapped out by God. Even the slight detours we take are to teach us something, to show us what we are made of when we start to lose sight of the true depth of our purpose. It is in the failures that we truly triumph because we learn perseverance and it forces us to get back up again even when we don’t feel like we can.

I’ll admit that it feels good when you are presenting yourself to people as if you have everything all together and figured out. Particularly in the instances where you want to impress someone who impresses you, you want to seem like you can make all the pieces to the puzzle fit perfectly. Sometimes you fake it so well that you may even start to believe it yourself and it kind of gets you motivated in a way you may not have been otherwise.

The problem with faking it is that in leaving out the mistakes that you have made you also tend to leave out the lessons that you have learned from those mistakes as well. The people that you want to inspire and who may be looking to you for guidance are being mislead by this false perception of what success looks like and that really isn’t fair to them or you. There is no such thing as a flawless road to success and trying to pretend that there is only makes things look pretty on the outside, but it doesn’t change the reality of how messy the journey really is.

Stop trying to make everything look easy to everyone else because by doing that you diminish all of the hard work that you have likely put into your journey. Your path has more substance because of the obstacles and failures that you have had as you have walked along it. All those times you fell that you would like to instantly forget are important because they taught you that you are not a quitter and that you can get back up again. The detours on that straight and narrow road that you had planned to take likely gave you something that you needed at those particular times. Don’t leave out what you believe are the bad parts of your journey because odds are the good that came out of it wouldn’t have happened any other way.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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

http://write2bemagazine.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine

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Out With the Old and In With the New

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That’s the saying that people use when they decide to give up old practices and old ways that weren’t working and vow to shift their efforts in a new direction.  Well this year has just begun and that is exactly what it is time for.  Sometimes that saying can also apply to the people that you choose to keep in your life as well.

A part of forging a path that leads to being successful is making sure that you have the right attitude (a positive one), you have a heavy amount of faith, a drive to get to where you want to end up, and the right support system surrounding you.  If one aspect of your path is not right for you it throws everything else around it off, even if that one aspect is the people that are around you.

I realized yesterday (with some advice from my best friend Ms. L.) that sometimes there are just people that you have in your life that you outgrow and while there is nothing wrong with them per say, they just simply are not a good fit for the journey that you are trying to take.  It may just be that their direction and yours is shifting away from each other and your objectives are just too different from one another.

On the first day of this year, as you shift towards whatever direction you are heading in, or even if the path you were already on is working and you’re just continuing on, make sure that you reevaluate the people that are on your journey with you.  Make sure that they are not going to hinder the journey that you are on with their own objectives that are not aligned with yours.  Make sure that they are really for you and not working against you.  Make sure that they truly want to see you succeed instead of standing by rooting for you to fail.  Don’t keep the wrong people around you simply because they have always been there.  They have always been there for all of the wrong reasons.  Happy New Year and may this year be everything that we all dream for it to be.

I have the Write 2 Be Innovative… What is your Write 2 Be?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

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.

Nothing Like a Good Kick When You’re Down to Get You Going Again

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I have always known I wanted to be a writer (well obviously not as a baby but from the age of 6 so fairly young) and once I knew that writing was my dream I slowly began guiding myself towards that.  Now at 6 I wasn’t crafting novels or anything (although that is not unheard of today) but I began reading all kinds of different stories and discovering what types of stories interested me.  By the time I turned 10 I began taking the bad experiences that were going on at home and using those emotions that I felt to begin crafting poetry.

I started to envision all of the roads and paths that writing was going to take me down.  I admit I was always a bit of a dreamer and that my dreams of where I was going to go within my writing career were probably a bit exaggerated but I could have sworn that I was going to be somewhere so different by the time I reached my thirties and I always imagined the best of circumstances.

Here I am now, in my early thirties, and I am not even in the vicinity of where I thought I would be at this point in my life.  I feel as if life keeps kicking me when I’m already down and while I know that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, I don’t feel like I am getting any stronger with every struggle that comes my way.  I sit and wonder at times where did things get off track and wonder if I could only go back to that point where the course changed then maybe I could finally get to the point that I want to be at.

The problem with that is that going back and trying to reroute the course changes a lot of the good things that have happened, one of them being my daughter, and I can’t say that I would trade a lot of the experiences that I have had for anything else.  If I dwell on what could’ve been in some dreamed about future from when I was too young to know any better then I will begin to take for granted all of the good things that I do have.  Not only that but I will take for granted all of the lessons that my mistakes have taught me.

I suppose there’s a reason for everything that happens.  Even when you veer off the path that you were meant to travel on, the detours always provide something that you wouldn’t have experienced otherwise.  It’s hard when you feel like you are continually being kicked when you are already down.  However, the other side of that coin is that sometimes it takes a good kick to get you headed back in the right direction again.  It’s never too late to change the circumstances that are keeping you down as long as you’re willing to keep getting right back up for the next round.

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

Even In the Midst of the Storm

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I read an inspirational message on facebook the other day that made me stop and rethink about the things that I’ve been dealing with lately.  It read:

“Don’t confuse your path with your destination.  Just because it’s stormy now doesn’t mean that you aren’t headed for sunshine.”

I’ve been so frustrated with this path that I am on lately.  I have been second guessing decisions I made months ago, even years ago, and wondering if my gut steered me wrong this time.  I’ve been second guessing the destination that I thought my path was leading me to.

I’ve been hit with a recent storm of bad weather and agonizing over just how long this particular storm was going to last because Lord only knows it’s not my first and it probably will not be my last.  When I read that post on facebook I started to realize that maybe that’s what I have been doing for the past couple of weeks during my own personal torrential downpour that I have been experiencing lately.

I have been confusing the path that I am on with the destination that I am eventually headed towards.  I have been forgetting that the rocky path has absolutely nothing to do with the destination that God has already laid out for me.  I’ve had a life full of days of bad weather and what seems like even less days of sunshine.

I may have to weather the storm right now, in this moment, but I have to remind myself that with every storm the sunshine does follow.  And sometimes after the storm there’s even a rainbow just to show you how bright it is on the other end of that storm that you’ve just weathered.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

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

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Everyone’s Path is Different

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Okay I know I should be typing away, working on the next chapter in my novel, or beginning to outline the next novel, or something of the creative nature.  But it’s Sunday and I tend to get a little relaxed on this particular day of the week.  I happened to get caught up in watching a marathon of this TV show called Life After which focuses on certain celebrities who were really popular and just seemingly fell off the map.  

It was interesting because as someone who intends to be involved in every aspect of the arts (because my talents are not limited to just writing) and the media culture I like to see the people who have done it before and done it successfully and some who haven’t.  I also like to discover that the perception that I’ve had of some of these actresses, actors, and singers have not been accurate.  I like discovering that some of these entertainers are not the diva’s or jerks that they came off as, and to top that off, that some of them were actually really smart and successful business minded people.  They do what they are good at and they have created empires out of their talent.  This is something that I aspire to do as well.  

I have always wondered what it would have been like if I had a mother who was supportive of all of my talents (in addition to writing, I can act and sing) and artistic endeavors.  Would I have been able to become the childhood star that I sometimes daydreamed about becoming?  I look at some of the stars that were those childhood entertainers and how it seemed to have hindered them more-so than help them, and wonder would that have been my fate too.  Although there are those stars who were childhood stars and are still rising today.  I suppose no one ever really knows what could have been.  

Watching the show Life After today, whereas in the past, I might have envied them and their success at such an early age, today I was just reminded that everyone’s path is paved a certain way for many reasons.  I walked the path that I was meant to walk and I will have my turn and I will have the chance to follow the lessons of those who have maintained their success as well as gain knowledge in where others may have fallen short.  See television can be very inspiring in many different ways.  Until tomorrow…What’s inspiring you today? 

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

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

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

The Best You

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“The best way to get approval is not to need it!  Focus on being the best you and the rest will take care of itself.”

~Chris Gardner 

It is natural for people to want to seek approval from others.  More often than not it is of the one’s that are immediately around you, like your friends and family.  We want them to accept us and to be proud of us and to support us in our endeavors and always encourage our ambitions.  When we don’t get that support and that approval, especially from family, we are crushed.  

As hard as we may try to hide it and act as if it doesn’t really matter that they don’t get our goals and that they don’t approve of the path we chose, it matters.  It begins to feel like if the one’s you love and are supposed to be able to look to for support can’t be there for you then everyone must be against you.  However, the problem isn’t them for not approving the goals we put forth; the problem is us for depending on the approval of anyone but ourselves to begin with. 

On the journey towards being successful in our dreams and or passions the focus has to be us; what we think, what we approve of, and what we demand of ourselves.  At some point we are going to have to realize that seeking the approval of anyone else is only going to be our downfall.  People spend so much time trying to do what others expect of them and trying to be perfect in order to fit someone else’s standards.  What they should be focused on is meeting their own standards and not so much on being perfect but on being the best that they can be for themselves.  

Trying to be what everyone else wants you to be can become exhausting and it wastes entirely too much time and energy that can be better spent.  If the people around you are making you feel as if you aren’t meeting their expectations, then you need to reevaluate who it is that you are surrounding yourself with and if they are really what you need to be focused on.  I know, easier said then done.  

It’s hard to let go of that need to be accepted and I know because I’m still working on the letting go part.  But I am starting to realize that all the time that I’ve wasted trying to seek approval and be accepted could’ve been time that went into actually accomplishing the very things that I sought approval for.  So today you should stop and ask yourselves, whose approval is that you really need?  Theirs, or your own.  Until next time…Be the best you that you can possibly be and everyone else will just have to follow suit!  

 

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

https://writetobe.wordpress.com/

http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/

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

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

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress