Journal 2.0

Found this on Zen Habits

Some excerpts I found inspiring:

I like to think of learning and growing as my in-breath and blogging and teaching as my out-breath. I constantly cycle back and forth.

In order to succeed in life, you have to make two decisions. First, you must decide what you really want. You have to get in touch with your truest, deepest desires, reaching the point where you’re able to tune out anyone who would reject you for wanting what you want. Desire must be all the reason you need. Secondly, you must decide that you and you alone will make it happen no matter what.

The second decision is critically important, but it’s one that a lot of people miss. It’s not enough just to set a goal. You have to actually decide that you’re going to be the one to create it – yes, you personally.

That was a very powerful lesson for me. Financially it may have been a low point, but creatively it was a high point. I applied this same strategy when I started blogging in October 2004. I was brand new to blogging and didn’t know how I could turn a blog into a successful business. But I just decided that I was going to succeed. I got in touch with my true desires and did my best to shed the false ones. I just wanted to create a website that would help people grow and that would help support my own path of growth. That was the seed of my true desire, so that’s what I focused on.

I don’t look to the world to tell me what I can do. I don’t ask permission. I just decide what I want, and I commit myself to making it happen. I don’t wait for a clear path to appear in front of me. I just start moving forward, and I create a path as I go along. I had to learn all of this the hard way.

The irony is that people will offer to help you when they can see that you’re 100% committed, when they can see that you’re going to succeed whether they help you or not. But they’ll often decline to help you when you seem too needy and uncertain.

I feel so much better than I did while writing my earlier post.

I just had (was given) the idea to “work” on our future for at least one hour every day–probably the first hour of our down time in the evenings. Corey signed on as well. So that’s two hours a day committing to our future. It’s like putting money in the bank.

And I feel better already.

I put in my hour tonight searching through all the saved tabs from earlier today, looking for ideas, helpful websites, and opportunities and organizing them. Then Corey and I had an impromptu meeting.

Some ideas for future one-hour sessions:

Read the Facebook book
Get on Writers Market and look around for jobs
Get on elance and look for jobs
Go through my writings
Re-read Writer Mama
Listen to the teleseminars I’ve downloaded
search for markets and write fillers
write memoir vignettes
check out the VA websites

I know now that whenever I sit down to work on our future, the right opportunities and ideas will come directly to me. I am attracting them just by committing to the hour each day. Thank you.

Oh God, thank You. I was really stressing my job last week. I couldn’t get anything right, and I couldn’t get motivated or organized. I was spiralling downward pretty quickly. But instead of giving up, I prayed. I asked for help in getting myself together. So Corey helped me move the bedroom around and set up the computer in here. I have an office now, and I even like it. The room looks and feels so much better than it did before. I had a superproductive day of work today and I am so grateful.

Also, it’s really sweet having a new, awesome computer. Yay! Thank you.