Tag: writing

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The Required Struggle We Have to Fall For

January 23, 2014 jcladyluv

When I saw this post on Facebook I had just been thinking about how much I am getting tired of falling down (metaphorically speaking) on this journey of mine. It gets frustrating when what you want is right there, you can almost reach it, it’s so close but the closer you move towards it, it only seems to move further away.

If you’re like most people, you begin to question the end goal, wondering if it’s what you’re really meant to have, if it’s even what you really want. Then you start to doubt if it was every what you really wanted to begin with (okay well I’ve never doubted wanted to be a writer, just whether I had the ability) or have you just been trying to convince yourself of that.

But the reality is that if you were handed everything that you wanted, on a silver platter, so to speak, and never had to work hard to get there, would you really be able to appreciate finally achieving it. There is something to be said for hard work and struggling to get ahead. Once you know what it’s like to fail, to fall down often (in my case continually), to have to keep pushing through all the pain and all of the people who are going to tell you no, you don’t take it for granted when you finally get that yes and when you finally get to that level that you are trying to get to.

I sometimes think that people who were born with all the options afforded to them and who don’t have to necessarily struggle to get what they want so much don’t really appreciate what it’s like not to have it. It’s hard when you keep getting knocked down. Honestly, sometimes you just want to lie there and not get back up because you just get tired. But of course staying down is never an option, at least it’s not the one that’s actually going to get you where you want to go.

So if you are like me, feeling like you might just want to lie there. That’s okay for a moment, but don’t stay down. Stand up and keep going because the struggle, yes even the part where you fall down, is worth it to get to what God has planned for you.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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Giving It My All, Even if the Progress is Slow

January 22, 2014 jcladyluv

Facebook tends to provide a lot of inspirational sayings to me these days but I suppose it also helps to have inspirational people as your Facebook friends. Read a saying that said we have three choices in life, you either give up, you give in, or you give it all you’ve got.

I think last year, not sure at what point, I not only gave up but I also gave in. I threw in the towel and everything because I was just tired of fighting for something that seemed to be avoiding me at every turn. When this year started I realized that I needed to give it all that I’ve got and get back up and get into this fight again.

The problem I have every now and then is that my emotions tend to get the better of me and when things in my personal life are not going the way that I wish they were my focus is shifted. I am a great at multi-tasking when it comes to writing and working on different projects at one time but what I am not good at multi-tasking my personal emotions and my focus on my writing project.

I wish I was better at it but all I can say is that these last few days in which I have not been able to concentrate on my project are not going to get the better of me. I am not going to let it completely debilitate me like it did last year. I’m already doing one step better because I thought about not writing this post today and sinking deep into the emotion that I was feeling and as you see, that’s not the decision that I rested on.

Progress comes slowly sometimes but I am working on myself and on staying motivated. I’m not there yet but I am getting there.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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My Past is Preparation for My Future

January 21, 2014 jcladyluv

I saw a post on Facebook that had a quote that said “don’t look back, you’re not going that way”. It got me to thinking about the past and things I’ve been through, things other people have been through and how the past really does affect our lives.

It’s true that we can’t let our past hurts and tragedies alter our lives in such a way that it stunts the growth that needs to be made throughout. However, aren’t our past experiences a huge part of who we are, of what makes us stronger and more motivated, and what, all in all, equips us with lessons and oftentimes harsh realities that prepare us for the purpose that we are placed on this earth to fulfill. What we go through in our childhood, in our teenage years, in our early adulthood, they give us tools that we need to be able to deal with the long and at times tiring journey to our destination. Particularly if our past experiences are not so ideal.

There’s a saying that you can’t have a testimony without any tests, so maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to completely forget our pasts experiences. I will be the first to admit that I am an extremely emotional person and that I have allowed certain instances in my past to affect my present way too much, which inevitably affects my future. While I know that I can’t exactly forget everything that happened, I’m not even sure I can totally forgive (just yet), I do know that I need to let go a little.

I would say that I need to let go completely but those things are what makes me the person that I am and what will give me the strength to continue my journey into being who it is I am truly meant to be. Without the past I don’t know that I would be fully ready for the future that God has planned for me. So with that said, I tell you, that while you shouldn’t keep a firm grip on your past experiences, maybe you shouldn’t completely let them go because they are what is building you up to take on whatever is coming your way as you travel to your destination. Our pasts can only hinder us if we allow it to and if we allow ourselves to only remember the hurt and not the lessons that came from that hurt.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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If I Knew Then What I Know Now

January 16, 2014 jcladyluv

I have been seeing a lot of Facebook posts and news stories about people making notes to their younger selves, asking what they would warn their younger selves about if they could. It got me to thinking about what I would say to the younger version of me if I could somehow warn her or prepare her for the journey she will have to endure to get where it is she wants to go. I would definitely clue her in on the difficulty that she would have along the way.

If I could go back and talk to my younger self I think that I would start by telling her that her childhood and how her mother treated her did not have to be a defining factor for how her life would end up. I would tell her that while she didn’t get the love and support from her mother that she deserved and longed for, that she was still worthy of being loved and deserving of being supported in all her endeavors. I would tell her that her mother was wrong about her never having anyone that would love her or care deeply about her and that she was wrong about her not having a good future.

I think I would make sure to tell her that if no one else ever told her that she was beautiful that she needed to look in that mirror every day and let herself know that she was because in the end her opinion and God’s were the only two that mattered. I probably would tell her that she was a unique and special person and unlike any other and that she needed to carry the knowledge of that with her throughout her journey because there will be people who will make her feel like her uniqueness is somehow wrong.

I would tell my younger self to not waste so much time planning everything out and trying to force everything to go by a specific routine because the best things in her life are going to be unplanned. I would tell her that her plans for her life are nothing compared to the plans that God has for her so don’t get too upset when what she planned didn’t pan out. I would tell her that her journey is going to be full of hurdles and obstacles along the way that even though these obstacles seem like signs for you to give up, they’re just the opposite. I would let her know the that the harder the struggle the more rewarding the payoff will be.

I would open her eyes to the reality that the things that she wants out of life are not just going to happen just like that and that life is going to throw more curveballs than she believes she can handle. Then I would tell her how strong she is to have already survived the childhood that she has been through and that that is only the beginning of her story. I will get it through to her that she cannot live in her past pain because if she does she will never experience the joy she has yet to come.

When I was younger I was so in fantasy land about how my life was supposed to turn out. I thought that if I just set a plan in motion that everything would work out EXACTLY the way that I said they would. I made no room in my plans for error and mistakes. I made no allowances for curveballs and mountains that would be placed directly in my path. I gave no thought to the fact that my plans were not as big as God’s plans for me and the fact that God’s plans, whatever they are, were always going to prevail. So I guess the most important thing I would have to say I would tell my younger self is to enjoy life, enjoy the journey, embrace the struggle, and to just let go and LET GOD!

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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

I Hear No Differently

January 15, 2014 jcladyluv

I get so tired of hearing no. For some people, when they hear No they hear a challenge and it stirs within them motivation. That’s what you should hear when people tell you No. But that’s not what I hear.

I hear rejection over and over again. I hear me putting myself out there and putting my heart all in it for nothing. I hear you’re never going to be as good as them so why bother trying. I hear you’re never going to be good enough for anyone. I hear you’re not worthy and you have no value. It wasn’t always that way. I used to get fired up by a no and it instilled a desire to prove people wrong.

However, somewhere along the way it weakened me and certain people’s negative words and opinions of me started to seem like they may have had some merit to them. The negatives began to outweigh the positives and I bought into it. I keep hearing other people’s success stories and how they heard nothing but no’s until finally that one yes happened that impacted their lives forever. I read those stories and I think “where the hell is my yes?”

I’ll admit that the better part of last year I literally just gave up (whew, there I said it). The no’s just bogged me down and sent me into a state of depression and I just didn’t feel like fighting for my dream anymore. I started to fabricate in my mind that the no’s were a sign telling me that this just wasn’t meant for me and maybe I’m not a talented enough writer to really make it. I just wasn’t motivated anymore.

The negatives became more believable than the positives because there were just not enough positives to go on. I kept waiting for something to happen, perhaps a yes would just fall into my lap because I felt like I could no longer just keep putting in my all only to get back nothing. Luckily for me, my love and passion for writing and for seeing all of my dreams come to fruition never died. It remained just as strong as it had ever been, it just got pushed down by all of the negative stuff that I was letting cloud my head.

As I stated in my previous post I have recently come to some realizations about myself and in reevaluating a lot of things, truths that weren’t clear and obvious to me before, I see that the yeses weren’t coming because I never truly believed they would. If I wasn’t going to believe in me how could I expect anyone else to?

Self-evaluation can be really good for you and in my case it kind of woke me up to all of the opportunities that I was missing out on because I didn’t really believe I was good enough to receive them. I was sabotaging myself with my own self-doubt. I’m not saying that I won’t still have my days where the doubt creeps in there. But now that I can see clearer what I was doing to my own dreams I am more aware of what needs to be done to get the yeses that I know I deserve to hear.

Of course there will be more no’s along with way but I have to keep in mind that if I hear a no it’s because God has something better and that it wasn’t for me to begin with. Are your own doubts and fears getting the better of you too? Just keep in mind that every door is not meant for you to open.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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

No More Self-Sabotage

January 14, 2014 jcladyluv

I have realized something the last day or so. I keep doing it to myself. Over and over again I will be headed toward something good and then I will overthink it, I will over analyze it, and I will read too much into things and interpret something that isn’t even there. All of it is me sabotaging myself, my own happiness, my accomplishments, my relationships with others. All because I suppose I still don’t get that I deserve those things just as much as anyone else around me.

I think fear plays a part in it as well. I’m afraid that if I do well people will expect me to always do well and what happens when I don’t. I’m afraid that when I have some semblance of happiness that something or someone else will come along and just snatch it all away. I’m afraid that if I let people in too far, if I let them get too close, that they will discover that I’m not perfect, or that I’m not like everyone else, and then they won’t care about me anymore and then they’ll leave anyway, so I just push them away first.

I got to thinking in the last couple of days that if I keep doing this, then I really will have no one, and none of my goals will be reached because I’m too afraid of what will happen once I reach them. I can’t keep getting in my own way and staying in my head all the time. It’s not a good thing and while I always felt that I sabotaged my own self in some way I couldn’t see it clearly before a couple of days ago. It wasn’t so obvious to me before as it is now and now I am on that mission to do something about it. I can’t always change my situations or things that just happen and I can’t necessarily change how other people are and their ways but I can change my ways and I can change how I react to things. I can be a better version of myself than what I am now. What does your better version of you look like?

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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

New Year, New Goals, New Deadlines

January 13, 2014 jcladyluv

It’s a New Year and I am a little late at getting started on my goals, one of them being returning back to my normal blogging style. It seems I was thrown a major obstacle in the first week of it being a new year. I had been anticipating this year and all of the things that I hope that it holds for me but I didn’t factor in that for great rewards there will more than likely be even greater struggles. It is so much easier said than done to just “get over it” and not let whatever the issues you are facing bother you. It’s particularly hard when you feel like every time you start being able to stay afloat some circumstance comes along to push you right back underwater again.

I have made plans for the New Year and set my expectations for myself and once again I am afraid that I might have been a bit too ambitious. However, I am going to do my best to make those goals happen and despite how this year is starting off I am going to try my hardest to make the most of it. This is my first blog post of the New Year and I am excited to see what this year has in store for me in my writing career and every other aspect of my life. Hope all of your New Year’s goals are set and that you aren’t as late getting started on them as I am.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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Thinking Out Loud

November 14, 2013 jcladyluv

I know that it is National Novel Writing Month and I am supposed to be participating. I had a plan, I signed up, and even tried to motivate myself to focus on doing it. Nevertheless, I have not written anything on the novel that I was supposed to be finishing (that truthfully should have been finished by now) and to add to the lack of production, I have not done a very good job lately of keeping up with this blog which I love.

I tried to pinpoint the reasons behind my recent lack of motivation towards writing in general, thinking that for some time it has been my focus and determination to finish up my degree that was enabling my laziness when it came to my writing. But now that I am finished with my Master’s degree (and have time to contemplate whether or not I want to enter the doctorate program) I thought for sure this would be the perfect time to get back into high gear with all of my writing efforts.

Sadly, that has not been how it was been working out. I have felt so un-motivated to write anything, and feeling a lot like what I say doesn’t matter. I’ve been mostly feeling a little depressed that my writing career hasn’t evolved into what I thought it would have already been by now. I even mentally entertained the idea that there could be a possibility, that somehow I was not cut out to be a writer like I had dreamed about since the age of 6 and that maybe all this time I thought that God was instructing me that this was my calling and maybe I was wrong, maybe I assumed what I wanted to assume and that wasn’t what my calling was at all. I even entertained the reasoning that my heart just wasn’t in it anymore, that maybe the amount of rejection for my (what I always thought was talented) writing had somehow hardened me and that I just couldn’t muster up the energy to try it anymore.

All of those thoughts have been running through my mind and life throwing other monumental curveballs at me in the interim has added its share of unproductiveness. But then I think of the fact that if that were truly the case, if it truly was not in me to do anymore, if this truly was not the calling that I had always perceived it to be, that I wouldn’t still have so many (good) ideas that flow through my mind and so many ways that I feel I can use my writing, my words to implement things that will not only change my life but the lives of the other people around me.

My whole message for Write 2 Be is to instill empowerment to people, in particular to children who are constantly told that they can never be what it is that they want to be, that there is nothing that they can’t do with the willpower and determination to make it happen. Sometimes I have to remind myself that even when it seems like what I am trying to do doesn’t matter, that it does, and not just to me, not just for my daughter, but for anyone who has ever felt discouraged and who has ever been overrun by their fears of never being able to be what it is they feel that they were truly meant to be. I can’t say why my motivation has dwindled these past several months, but I know that I am definitely not throwing in the towel on my dreams and on my purpose.

I feel like I needed to write this because I get the feeling that I am not the only one of you out there who has had these feelings and these doubts. I suppose the hardest part of feeling the fear and doubt in yourself is thinking that you are all alone in thinking what others are too afraid to say out loud. So this is me thinking out loud and hoping that it helps the rest of you who might be thinking the same thoughts and feeling the same way know that someone else gets it too.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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Don’t Think I Forgot that It’s NaNo Time!

November 2, 2013 jcladyluv

I know I have been unusually absent from my blog recently and I am trying to get back into the swing of things. I haven’t forgotten what time of year this is (aside from the dreaded beginning of the holiday season). It is National Novel Writing Month and while I do not have a new novel outlined and ready to go, my plan (which is my failed plan from last year’s NaNo) is to finish a novel that I started during NaNo about two years ago (wow, didn’t realize it has been that long). My first attempt at a mystery which I had such excitement about, and still do, is begging to be finished and I am going to put forth my very best effort to do it. I have to admit that I am off to a bad start considering the fact that NaNo started yesterday and today, the second day of NaNo, is almost over and I still haven’t opened my novel file to work on it yet. However, today isn’t over yet and I haven’t thrown in the towel at all. NaNo is also usually a really good time to work on maintaining my blogging so look for November to be a very productive month from me. I hope that all of you who are doing NaNo this year have a very productive month and that if nothing else you put forth your best effort. Good Luck fellow NaNo Writers and hopefully you’ll clue me in on what you are working on this month!

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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