Tag: Planting Seeds

The Fruit is the Last to Grow

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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

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Are You Watering Your Past or Your Future?

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I saw a post on social media that posed this very question and it made me really think and start to mentally check off some boxes in my head. I spent a good portion of the beginning of my adult years (really into my early thirties) regretting things I didn’t get right as I grew into my adulthood. There were so many things that I would’ve gone back and changed and done again if only I could have. At the time I didn’t see anything wrong with playing the “what if” game, but now I think I was really doing myself a disservice.

Now I can see, that while I will admit that I have made some mistakes and some moves in my life that took me off track a lot and some decisions that changed the entire trajectory of my journey, they have also made me who I am today. I’m not perfect but I think that I’m a pretty good person who has done some good things with my life and those things from my past helped me get here. Now I have a lot more good things I would like to do in this world for lots of people as I’m sure we all do which is precisely why we can’t keep reaching back in our past for the things we didn’t get right. Our past is the history that made us but definitely not where we should live in.

We have to remain focused on the here and now so that we can steadily move forward towards the future we are making for ourselves. I know that it’s easier said than done to not live in regret and constantly wonder but to do so would be watering the seeds of the past and not the seeds of the future that we are journeying towards. Yesterday has already happened so today and the future, are really all that we have.

As we are going forward on our own paths to the purpose that we are striving to fulfill we have to be careful that we don’t start to nurture resentment for things that have already taken place. It’s true that those are the things that shaped us into the versions of ourselves that we are now. However watering the seeds of the future is going to shape and mold us into the versions of ourselves that we have yet to become, most likely the best versions of ourselves. In a garden it would be meaningless to continue watering dead plants, dead things don’t grow. We water the seeds that have yet to sprout because that is where new life breathes. Don’t keep watering the dead things in your life when there are new seeds just waiting for you to tend to them so that they can grow.

Until next time… #BeMindful #BePresent #BeFocused

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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Planting One Seed At a Time

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“Most of the time multitasking is an illusion. You think you are multitasking, but in reality you’re actually wasting time switching from one task to another.”

~ Bosco Tjan

There always seems to be a message of inspiration for me in some part of every day.  Whether it’s in the conversations that I have with Ms. L. (which frankly always hold some source of inspiration), or something that is being said by someone in the gym I go to or on TV, or even if it’s sent in an email.  Yesterday there so happened to be an email that I felt spoke directly to me.  It was one of Tyler Perry’s Inspirational Corner Messages that he sends out to everyone who is on his email listing.  It was a message on how to become successful.  It was right on the money and exactly what I needed to hear.  

He spoke about his success being due to the grace of God.  He spoke about narrowing your focus and planting your seeds.  He essentially said that when it comes to the success that we want out of life for ourselves, all we can do is plant the seed in the ground, water it, and believe.  He advised that to be successful one must narrow their focus and concentrate on one thing at a time, one idea.  That one idea, once made a success, will give birth to all of your other ideas.  If you spend time spreading water over too many seeds you don’t have as much water for one seed, that one seed that you feel is most important to bloom.  

I realized then the reason why I have been feeling so lost lately within my writing.  Ever since this year has started, I have felt so much pressure (that I placed on myself) to tackle everything on my goal list.  Trying to figure out how I am going to work on all of these different projects that I want to get done over the course of this year all essentially at one time.  The rational response is that of course I can’t work on all of my projects at once but the overachiever that lives inside of me wants so badly for it to be possible.  I’ve been wasting so much time trying to work out a plan in my head to make it happen which has resulted in me getting nothing done at all.  

I must narrow my focus.  I must take what is the most important thing to me and concentrate on how I can make that work and make that successful.  Once I thought about concentrating on that one thing, I didn’t feel so lost anymore.  My direction became a little clearer.  If I focus on becoming the well known author that I was meant to be and acquire the agent that I am seeking to find for my next novel, then all of my other ideas will come to fruition.  

I always thought that if I could be really good at multitasking than I could get everything accomplished relatively at once.  However, it hasn’t been working that way so I must shift my efforts to something different, something that is going to work.  Multitasking, I think works for those who have already reached that level of success that they strived to get to.  When you are just trying to get to that level of success you must narrow your focus.  I must narrow my focus and plant one seed at a time and give each individual seed a chance to bloom in their own time.  Until tomorrow…Focus on that one seed and the rest will eventually bloom!  

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

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Planting the Seeds of Motivation

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“A guy says, ‘I wish someone would come by and turn me on.’ What if they don’t show up?  The best motivation is self-motivation.” 

~Jim Rohn, US motivational speaker 

I haven’t written anything here in a while and it was a break from writing that I hadn’t expected to take.  Somehow I have been letting stress and worry, and a little bit of fear, get in the way of my love of writing and my motivation to progress within my writing career and continue moving steadily forward.  I stalled.  I sat at the computer and stared at blank pages with the pages taunting me with their white empty space.  I tried for a while and I just couldn’t get inspired and the words just wouldn’t come.  

Now the whole time I was unable to write was not completely wasted because I did do research on some projects that I have on my list to start working on but I still felt quite unproductive.  Finally I realized that my stress and fear was increasing and that I couldn’t continue to toss my writing aside in hopes that the stress and fear would go away sooner rather than later.  I started to actually research things like what to do for lack of motivation and how to get motivated again.  

Guess what?  There is not magical cure for writer’s block due to depression and that there is no one right answer of how to move past it.  One piece of the same advice from many different successful and accomplished writers that stuck with me was that even when you don’t feel like writing, make a schedule and write anyway.  So I wrote out a list for all of the projects that I want to work on and get done and then I mapped out the week and began to decide what projects to work on and on what days to work on them.  

Now I don’t know if this is going to work and how well of a job I am going to do at sticking to the schedule that I set out to do but I do know that this blog post that I am writing at this very moment was the first thing of my schedule to do today and as you see I have completed that task.  All I can do is take this one day at a time and hope that I do what I set out to do.  

I guess I just always thought that it would be like it was when I was a little younger, where the words just flowed out of me and I had to actually stop myself from writing because otherwise I would’ve never slept.  Inspiration and the motivation to write was never a problem.  I hadn’t planned on life getting in the way and throwing me off my path.  

Now I am learning that sometimes inspiration and motivation aren’t just going to show up and tap me on the shoulder and the words can’t always flow that easily.  No matter what I still have to write because honestly I can’t see myself being happy doing anything else.  I am planting my own seeds of motivation and now I am going to work on steadily moving forward because I can’t afford to take any more steps back.    

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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