~*"Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”~
There is a blog that I love to visit. The project started when the author's Father was diagnosed with cancer and died 37 days later. The focus is about what you would do if you had just 37 days left. Her challenge is to do something, anything for 37 days. I'm posting it here as I've decided to take this as an opportunity to practice some discipline.
For the next 37 days I will do at least ONE thing towards marketing myself. One thing towards getting some art classes started here or running a creativity workshop or getting my book proposal ready to mail off (or actually mailing it IN)....SOMETHING each day that helps me move forward with the marketing aspects of my passions, even if it's as simple as buying some stamps. 37 days. Five minutes, or 10 minutes or one action, it matters not. Just that I DO something each and every day.
Lives can change in the daily actions.
~*“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.”~
I have a book titled "The Power of 5" that outlines the importance of repeated actions. It's so easy to put things off because they seem large and intimidating.
Starting a business.
Taking a big trip.
Building a house.
Getting organized.
Losing weight.
Being healthier.
In reality, we just need to DO it.
It's not the grand, sweeping actions that define the pattern of our lives. It's the daily things and in just minutes per day we can create habits and begin entire journeys.
I believe in the power of daily actions. I believe in myself. I believe the next 37 days will open doors for me. And so I begin (or really continue, in a more focused manner).........
*Both quotes are from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
6 comments:
this is a silly thing, really, but ages ago, like before kids, we were in the library and I happened to read an article in a women's magazine of all things, about a chocolate cake. A home made chocolate cake that the writer's friend made for her family every week. And when the writer looked at it, she realized that she always made the same cake and always did it the same day, and how this made it easier. It is the thing that anything done habitually becomes easy.
It is how we cut all our heating wood, and engage in our artisan endeavors, and milk the cow and churn the butter, make most every meal from scratch, et al. It is easy to add something else after one thing is habitual.
Also, the research on making habits is like 30 days I think -- do it for 30 days and it no longer takes effort to do. Etc.
Of course, cleaning out the attic and fixing the brakes on the van (or dying for that matter) are never going to be habitual. Thank goodness. But we still have to do them.
Yeah, I don't mind the occasional items I procrastinate about, being non-habitual.
I see myself giving time to things without being mindful. If I'm going to give time to something, I can not only be mindful about it, but take those baby steps towards my goals and dreams.
I think it's easy to feel comfortable when you ARE living a life you love, but I see where a lack of discipline is allowing my passions to swirl around without any focus.
I can take care of my own with these passions. So yes, turning certain activities into habit is the idea here.
I worked on my book yesterday. I'm sending it into a friend for editing today. Baby steps, baby steps.:)
oh yeah, everything is always moving, and it is either going in a direction you want it to, or not. And it is only in those smallest decisions that we, well, we man the helm or something like that.
>>but I see where a lack of discipline is allowing my passions to swirl around without any focus.<<
i really get this.
i too get overwhelmed by things that i see being easy for other people. but then i realized it isn't because it is easy for them, it is just because they have made the CHOICE to just do it.
i have the damndest time just jumping off that high dive.
the "just do it" nike way of thinking just eludes me sometimes.
it is all about habit.
i try to do something in my sketchbook each day.
the marketing part, well that just scares the hell out of me.
wow, so powerful and inspiring.
I often find myself inching toward the Thing and then falling/plummeting toward it when there is no room left in which to creep. I need to jump more. Thanks for planting some seeds in my brain.
Those baby steps are so much easier to achieve.
I did some simple things so far...editing, making up a writer's resume, cover letter etc...
Simple things, but if those aren't done I have a lame excuse to not move to the next thing.
I like that song from one of the old Christmas movies (Santa Claus is Coming to Town) where Burl Ives does the narration. "Put one foot in front of the other"....that's all it is really.
You can eat an elephant one bite at a time.:)
Or another favorite saying "The journey of a thousand leagues begins with one step"
Still steppin'.......
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