Tag: productivity

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Waiting Out the Storm Is Not Procrastination

July 15, 2024 jcladyluv

Writing can sometimes be seen as a mountain and the journey to become a successful writer can oftentimes be a treacherous climb. I procrastinate far more than I should but it is never for lack of ideas or lack of motivation so to speak. Sometimes I’m just trying to process where I’m at, get familiar with my new surroundings, catch my breath, and get up the nerve to keep on climbing.

It’s odd that I’m using a climbing metaphor here, given that I am deathly afraid of heights, but I got the inspiration for this post from a chat on a writer’s stream. It was a day when no one in the chat particularly felt like writing and usually when that happens it’s seen as one procrastinating. Someone very wise and motivating said that it is not procrastinating to wait out the storm. I love that and it made me feel mildly better about my act of doing nothing that evening, which I guess I needed that permission.

I think procrastinating is something that the world tells us that we’re doing if we are somehow not being busy enough and aren’t seen doing something that society deems as productive. The thing about being a writer, or a creative person in general, is that sometimes when we are seen to be doing nothing, we are actually at the height of our creativity. Words don’t just pour onto the page out of nowhere (okay sometimes they do but still, go with me here), they are typically formed in our minds first. We spend a lot of time thinking of what we want to say or how we want to say it before the words ever come out on a page.

Now I’m not an artist and I can’t draw worth anything, but I imagine that it’s somewhat that way for artists as well. So yes, we daydream, we stare out of windows, we lie down and stare at the ceiling, sometimes we just need a day to veg out on TV shows and movies but not to waste time and do nothing. These are things that fuel our creativity. They fill up or creative well so that we can create again because the well can run dry and that is exactly what we don’t want.

We encounter a lot of storms in life. I feel like it’s somehow meant to be that way. With no storm, comes no adversity, and with no adversity, comes no battles, and without any battles, there are no victories to be won. Does that mean that we’re always going to be in some kind of fight? Possibly? I mean if you’re a dreamer, you’re sort of always in a fight, aren’t you? One to make people see what you see or believe in you the way you believe in yourself. Sometimes the fight is quite literally within yourself.

But no matter what storm you are struggling with, know that it is okay to take a moment, find a safe spot to catch your breath, and just wait out the storm. It’s not being lazy. It’s not procrastinating. It’s not giving up. It is simply what it sounds like, waiting for the storm to pass so that you can finish making the climb all the way to the top, where your dreams are waiting for you.

Until next time… #BeDiligent #BeBold #BeFearless

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Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

https://jccarpenter.substack.com/

Accept the Unexpected

February 6, 2023 jcladyluv

“Life becomes more peaceful when you switch from expect to accept” ~ Thomas Gomes

I saw this quote this morning as I scrolled through Facebook, and it came on the heels of a rough start to my Monday. Not a seriously terrible rough start by normal standards of what a rough start would be. Just a rough start for my anxiety riddled, OCD brain who needs to have things go a certain way nearly every day for me to be able to function properly. I am a routine person, as I think I have discussed here before, and I am the type of person that if even one part of my day-to-day routine is altered, I freak out and I’m completely thrown off. I actually (crazily enough) expect things to go the way that I need them to go each and every day.

You would think that with all of the things that have thrown me off track in my life that I would be used to not having things go the way that I expect them to go but sadly I am not. I still take way too long to adjust myself to whatever changes have been tossed my way and the length of time I take to accept these changes and course corrections only makes me less productive and ultimately makes it so I accomplish less than what I had originally planned to get done.

In a normal situation, what I was thrown off by this morning (I won’t even get into what it was because honestly it would be far too silly to anyone who doesn’t understand my quirks lol) should not have affected me as much as it did. I should not have spent the better part of the first half of the day just struggling to cope with the changes and the fact that what I expected was no longer. I perhaps would have been much more at peace if I had just quickly accepted that this part of my routine was going to have to change now and that was just going to be that. It’s how I should have reacted and when I saw this quote it clicked for me. I’m wasting time I don’t have trying to control something I just can’t control anymore.

I think that’s what it was really all about and honestly what my quirks about having a consistent, unchanging routine ultimately stem from. There are so many things in life that we won’t be able to control. Things that happen to us and things that happen for us that we just have no real say in. So, it’s hard to find those few things you can control (at least for a little while anyway) and that you allow yourself to get used to being able to expect, and have them change on you, on a dime, out of nowhere.

Expectations are a funny thing. We’re not supposed to ever just expect for certain things to work out in any particular way, yet we are taught to have a schedule or routine to make sure that we are staying on track with our goals and aspirations. Aren’t routines and schedules in fact expectations? When you set up your day in a way that works best for you to be productive it is, in fact, based off of expecting for things to go accordingly. Maybe the trick is to learn to accept that unexpected things will happen, even if they throw you off balance for a little bit. Thank you, guys, for letting me vent and comment if you understand what it feels like to be thrown off and struggle to adjust to the things you don’t expect.

Until next time… #BePatient BeMindful #BeResilient

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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It All Depends On How High You Bounce Back

November 21, 2022 jcladyluv

“If you never know failure, you will never know success” ~ Sugar Ray Leonard

I haven’t written here in a few weeks, roughly about a month and I just want you to know that it wasn’t because I suddenly ran out of things to say. Aside from the fact that NaNoWriMo is this month and I tend to be more singularly focused on writing a brand-new novel in November, the last few weeks have just been inherently hard. I have been feeling like the Universe has just singled me out and said, ‘nope you can’t get any wins right now because you just don’t deserve to win’.

Now of course I know, logically, that that’s a little ridiculous because everyone deserves a win in life. It’s just not feeling like I’m going to get one anytime soon. It’s kind of like getting a couple of steps ahead for once and then getting knocked fifteen steps backward. It’s hard to feel optimism in that scenario. Yet, I am reminded of the fact that each time I think I’m not going to survive through the week, somehow by the time the end of the week gets here I’m still standing, and I have survived to fight another day, another week, another month, another year.

We’re getting close to the end of this year and that’s about the time where I usually reflect on the things I didn’t get accomplished and the plans that didn’t come to fruition so that I can figure out where I went wrong in my planning and plan effectively for the following year. However, it feels like my best laid plans don’t seem to ever materialize the way that I think they will, if they materialize at all. I thought for a moment that maybe I just shouldn’t plan anything, maybe I should just go with the flow but trust me, if you know anything about me by now, you know that my little planner heart would literally break without having a plan in place. So, what then? If the plans seem to not be working but I can’t just not plan, what do I do with that?

I don’t think I’m the type of person that could just not plan for success. Maybe the key is just to manage my expectations which could then manage my disappointment. Perhaps it’s just as simple as knowing that failure is the very life blood of success because how can you truly succeed without failing a few times (or in my case a few dozen times) because failure is the very proof that you are trying, that you are going for your dreams, and that you are not giving up on them, ever. As much as I may sometimes want to throw in the towel, it’s just not in my nature to give up.

I know that I want to be purposeful in everything I do in this life. I want to inspire others with my gift for words and motivate those who may also be struggling with big dreams and crushing defeats. You can’t do any of that if you’re just going to throw your hands up and say to hell with it, I give up. I’ve never been a quitter, and that’s not to say there haven’t been moments when I tried to quit (both at life and my dreams). It’s also not to say there won’t be moments in the future where I’ll have really hard days and want to quit again but I’m made of stronger stuff than that, and so are you! We’ve got this and no matter how many times life tries to knock us down we will keep getting right back up because that’s what success is truly about. It’s about continuing to get back up no matter what and no matter how long it takes to achieve the dream!

Until next time… #BeFearless #BeTenacious #BeDiligent

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Can There Be Grace In Failure?

October 10, 2022 jcladyluv

Last week I felt like I was failing on multiple levels. I couldn’t seem to get anything to go right or work out right and I wasn’t saying all the right things to the people around me. It was just not my best week. However, when I go back and look at my footage for my writing vlog on my YouTube channel that I filmed all last week I see that while yes, everything didn’t go as I had planned it or wanted it to go, I also didn’t completely fail at everything. And what I did fail in, I learned some lessons from what I didn’t do right. I guess that’s the thing about the way we perceive things and how it may be seen to the outside world.

The thing that I can’t seem to get a handle on is how to have grace with myself. I try and sometimes I think I have a handle on a good self-care routine that allows me to have that grace. But most of the time it’s my own expectations of myself and my abilities that make it hard for me to cut myself any slack. I don’t typically worry about the expectations others have of me and that is because my own bar for myself is so unattainably high that I can’t seem to get over or around it. I want big things out of life. I want to leave a big legacy for my daughter and in this world. I can’t do that playing things small and yet I constantly feel like that is what I’m doing.

It seems that I’m always having to adjust my goals because I simply can’t seem to reach them, at least not in their entirety. It’s like I come close but fall short on so many levels. When I saw the above quote, it made me think about the fact that even in my losses perhaps there are still some wins in the lessons that I am able to take away and apply towards the next attempt that I make. It reminds me that as long as I at least give it a solid try and truly put in the effort to achieve the goals I set out to accomplish then I haven’t really failed because there are so many people who just don’t try at all.

I suppose the point in all of this is to say if you too struggle to allow yourself grace, if you also beat yourself up for the goals that you don’t get accomplished, that you are not alone in that mental tug of war. Try to remember, as I will also, that it’s not about how many times you get pushed back from the goal line or get knocked down. It’s about getting back up and pushing through towards that goal line. It’s about not giving up and letting the doubts in your mind win. it’s about taking the lessons that you learn from the initial blow and applying them to your next attempt. Make sure that you are taking some mental breaks from the pressure that you put on yourself and remember that taking care of yourself is also a win. It’s a win for your mental health.

If you are looking for some suggestions of some things you can do to show yourself some grace and maybe take better care of yourself, I just did a video last week, mostly for writers, but it applies to anyone really, about ways to better take care of your mental health in high stress periods of time. I hope that you check it out and I hope that you make just as much of an effort to show yourself some grace.

Until next time… #BePatient #BeHopeful #BeMindful

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

We Have Reached the Writing Holiday Portion of the Year

October 3, 2022 jcladyluv

It’s a new month and we have now entered a Writer’s favorite season, or at least this writer’s favorite season. It is Prep-Tober which is the month that we take to get ready and organized for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) in which writers challenge themselves to essentially fast draft a novel in only a month. To people who aren’t writers it sounds absolutely crazy to take on this challenge but to a writer this is our holiday season, and we get totally hyped up for it.

Now the secret that I’m not sure a lot of writers will really tell you is that it’s not really about whether we can finish the novel, in actuality it is about the community of writers that we have built up and the support that we give to one another throughout the entire month. That’s not to say that we don’t support one another every other month in the year but during Prep-Tober and NaNoWriMo that community outreach and support is multiplied times a hundred because it’s the one time a year where all of our goals are pretty much synced up in the same way.

I love this time of year because typically it is when I get to map out a brand-new project (I have done a couple of NaNo’s as a rebel before though) and I get to flesh out one of the many shiny new ideas that plague me throughout the year. I’m excited to get back to writing in my mystery series as I will be writing the fourth book in that series. Mystery is where my heart really is in terms of writing, well mystery and contemporary fiction, but mostly mystery. I do want to also write a historical fiction romance book but I’m not mentally or emotionally ready to write that one just yet, maybe next year.

If you too are writing a novel this November, I hope that you will come join the AuthorTube Community over on YouTube and perhaps subscribe to my channel (link is below) and some other wonderful channels over there to get your dose of community and, if you need it, help with your stories and overall motivation for the task at hand. Writing is not an easy feat, and it is inherently a solitary act, but it doesn’t always have to be. I hope that you all have a wonderful first week of October and if you are also a writer and are joining in on the excitement of our season, that your Prep-Tober kicks off in spectacular fashion.

Until next time… #BeBold #BeMotivated #BeInspired

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

Are We Going To Just Stare At the Wall or Find A Way To Climb Over It?

June 20, 2022June 21, 2022 jcladyluv

I’ve been staring at a wall lately and that wall has time written all over it. Time is not my friend. There is never enough of it and yet it feels like the time I do have can’t be adequately balanced in a satisfactory manner. I’ve been struggling lately with this balancing time thing with taking on something non-creative in order to pay the bills and having the creative side of me, that being writing which is like air to me, suffer drastically.

I mean I won’t say that I’m not able to write ever, but it’s a far cry from the amount of time I was once able to put into my writing and as I said, writing is like air to me so right now I quite literally feel like I am not able to breathe. I feel like I’m suffocating and all I can think about is writing but it’s the one thing I’m unable to do as freely as I need to. But I think that I’m looking at this the wrong way.

I’m staring at the wall and instead of figuring out a way over or around that wall I am just stuck, looking up at this massive road block, and wondering what the hell am I going to do. I’m not going to pretend I have the answer for this problem at this exact moment but I do know that giving up is not an option. We spend so much time staring at the wall rather than climbing over that wall and that is tantamount to giving up. I say we because I can’t be the only one who gets stuck at the road blocks that you come across.

Your wall may not be writing. It could be whatever you’re most passionate about and have been struggling to weave it into your schedule. If you are struggling too then I want you to know that you’re not alone and that we are going to climb this wall together because quitting is never an option when your dreams are waiting for you beyond that wall. We may need some time to assess the wall, to make a plan of action on how we are going to get over or around that wall, but one way or another, we will overcome the wall that is blocking our way.

Until next time… #BePatient #BePersistent #BeDetermined

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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

Find the Joy in the Simple Things

June 6, 2022June 6, 2022 jcladyluv

I was having an interesting conversation with a friend yesterday and he pointed out something that I was doing and hadn’t even realized I was doing it. In being so focused and frustrated by the place that I was not at in my life, at the age that I thought I should be there, I was not showing my gratitude for how far I have come and for the accomplishments that I have achieved and the battles that I was fighting that I have made it through. I want to be clear; I am very aware that I was in a much rougher place when this year started, I mean to the point where I didn’t even know if I would still have a roof over my head come the midway point of the year. My situation has changed dramatically and that hopelessness that (even though I was trying not to show it) was starting to set in is gone now. If I didn’t have a whole carload of other things to be grateful for (because I do) that alone would be enough.

It’s really good to have a circle (however big or small) of friends around you that will check you and tell you hard truths when you need to hear them. Or those that will tell you when you need to take stock in what you have instead of focusing on the things that you haven’t attained just yet. My friend (who is amazingly awesome) made me sit back and really think about how I sounded and more importantly made me realize just how much I’ve overcome in this year alone (we won’t even get into what I’ve overcome in my whole life—that could take forever) and I am so thankful.

There was a time, not that long ago that, although I tried my best to have complete and total faith that things were going to work out for the best, I was truly starting to get worried. For the first time in my life, I didn’t really know how they were going to turn out okay and that scared the shit out of me.

All of this is to say that I know times get hard, that times have been hard, especially in these last couple of years, but you have to make sure that you celebrate the little and simple things. Find the joy in the small things that make you smile and things that get you through the day. Also make sure that you have friends around you that won’t let you sit in “what if” land and will make you aware of all you have to be thankful for. The battles we are all facing, even if they are just in our mind, don’t have to make us lose sight of the moments of joy we experience along the way. We win those battles by not allowing them to hold us back and by not forgetting to conquer one thing at a time.

Until next time #BeCourageous #BeMindful #BeGrateful

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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

We Can’t Always Be In Bloom

May 23, 2022 jcladyluv

It is impossible to be continually productive, every single minute, of every single day, in every single year. With that knowledge, I’m wondering why I keep beating myself up when a few minutes go by without me being productive on something. I haven’t been doing so great with my writing these last few weeks, mostly because my schedule changed due to taking on things to better provide financially for me and my daughter who has just entered college. The problem with doing things you have to do to survive is that the things that feed your soul (in my case, writing) fall by the wayside and that is literally killing me.

I’ve said it here many times before, but writing is like breathing for me. If I can’t write, then I am not a very happy person and probably not pleasant to be around. Writing makes me happy; it helps me think, it allows me to expel emotions that I would otherwise hold onto, and it just centers me. I have not found the balance yet and it is making me depressed and anxious and extremely overwhelmed and unhappy.

I shared some more about these struggles in a video I posted on my YouTube channel last week for Mental Health Awareness Month and I go more in detail about what I’ve been struggling with and just how much it’s been affecting me. It did make me realize (along with a really good friend of mine) that I am not a machine, and I cannot always be in the doing phase. Sometimes I just have to be in the phase of simply being and I have to be okay with that. It’s hard for me because so much of my identity is tied into my writing. I mean I’ve been writing since I was little (like 8 or 9) to get all of the emotions I could never verbalize out so to not be able to find the balance to do what I love is hurting.

I am going to try and work out a schedule to see if I can figure out a way to balance it all out without losing sleep (which was my initial plan) and have even crafted a schedule that I am crossing my fingers and praying it works but even in saying that I know that to protect my mental health I am going to have to be okay even if I don’t figure it out. It’s okay if everything I want doesn’t happen all at once.

Until next time… #BeMindful #BeReflective #BePatient

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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

The Struggle to Find the Balance

May 16, 2022 jcladyluv

What is balance these days? I’d like to think that I know how to balance things pretty well but then I have to remind myself that multi-tasking is not really the same thing as balance. Then again, I guess that depends on what I mean by balance. I don’t mean balance in the sense of juggling all of the many tasks that you have to do on any given day. I mean knowing when you’ve taken on too much and you need to just sit out a few rounds and pick up where you left off later. That is the type of balancing act that I struggle to conquer.

I am an all or nothing type of person most of the time. I don’t like to do anything half-way, it’s either I throw my whole self into whatever task it is, or I would just rather not do it at all and wait until I can give it my full effort. The problem with that way of thinking sometimes is that you can very easily end up with a lot of things not getting done or burning the candle at both ends trying to make sure that everything does get done.

Last week I got really lazy (at least it was lazy in my mind) and while I didn’t just throw all of my projects and work to the side, I certainly was not nearly as productive as I know that I could have, or should have been, if I were giving it my full effort. I was just tired. I was mentally tired. I was definitely physically tired (given quite a few physical issues that have been aggravated over the last few weeks) and quite honestly, I was emotionally tired.

I’ve been stressed about a couple of different things, not just creatively (or should I say writing business wise) but financially as well. I hadn’t even realized just how stressed the financial thing had me until it looked like there was finally going to be some resolution on that front last week and I just breathed a heavy sigh of relief and the realization of just how stressed that had me hit. I just didn’t feel like doing much of anything last week and I allowed myself to lean into that feeling.

Now going into this week, I know that I can’t be the same amount of unproductive as I was last week and frankly, I feel a little more refreshed, so I am ready to get back to the creating of things. But I think that having that balance of allowing myself to lean into the “lazy” feeling last week helped. I think every once in a while, it would be okay to just not put quite as much pressure on myself to get everything done. It was just far too much.

We have to know when to stop juggling all of the things in the air and to just let a few of those tasks fall by the wayside. It’s not as if putting off one or two things is going to completely throw everything off course (and if it would then those are the tasks you absolutely should not drop) and you won’t be able to get back to them the next day. We have to find the balance between being able to do it all and not draining ourselves physically and mentally actually trying to do it all. You’re not alone in trying to manage everything because I haven’t got it all figured out just yet either. We can learn how to balance together.

Until next time… #BePatient #BeMindful #BeKindtoYourself

Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine