Motivational Monday

“To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don't worry about the darkness, for that is when the stars shine brightest.”
Author Unknown

“The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.”
Earl Nightingale

Since we're setting off on a creative journey, and each of us has to find their own path to our dreams, I wanted to share the two quotes above.

I do believe that as we set out on the journey towards our dreams, the path does become clearer as we go along. Although, there are times when I would give just about anything for a GPS or a tour guide! But, for many of our dreams, there are no road maps. So we have to forge our own path, little by little.

It can be hard to take those first steps towards your dream when it's something you've never done before, and you're uncertain of how to proceed. What you can try to do is to break the goal down into smaller, more manageable steps.

For example, when I made up my mind that I wanted to do a craft book on working with polymer clay, I had no idea how to go about doing that. But, what I could do was to look at similar clay books, and learn to break my own projects down into steps, and write up instructions outlining those steps - or step outs, as they're called. So that, by the time I was asked to do a book, I was prepared to do so.

So when you look at the dreams you have, the things you would like to accomplish - is there one thing you could do right now that would bring you one step closer to that dream? That's how we get to where we want to go. One step at a time. :o)

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

Today's Quote:

"All of us can take steps - no matter how small and insignificant at the start -
in the direction we want to go."
~ Marsha Sinetar

Still taking steps myself - to finish the Yorkie tutorial, which is almost done, and to work on the website. I also have some jewelry ideas I'm anxious to get to, once I get a couple more orders finished. There's never a drought of ideas and projects keeping me busy!

One thing that may slow me down a bit on the things I want to do is that it looks like I will be moving in 2-3 months. I am very ready to leave Las Vegas. Seventeen and a half years here is more than enough! I've had lots of fun living here, and gotten to meet some wonderful people. Sooner or later everybody seems to end up coming here to visit, so that's given me an opportunity to meet people in person that I never would have met otherwise. But I am very ready for a change. What I'm not so ready to do is pack! Fortunately, we left a lot of things in boxes in the garage when we moved in. So it definitely won't be as daunting as the last move was, after being in our house for 16 years!

About a year and a half ago, we sold our home. We were lucky to have quite a bit of equity in it, so we walked away with a very nice chunk of money. We fared much better than a lot of people have in Vegas' awful housing market. We chose to rent this house rather than purchase another one. We knew we didn't want to stay here much longer, and also knew we did not want to be buying another house here as bad as the housing market currently is. So we moved into this house brand new. We're the only ones who have ever lived in it, and it's a really lovely house. Unfortunately, the owner has been badly affected by the downturn in the housing market and the house looks like it's probably going to be foreclosed on. It's a case of a young man trying to expand his investments to fast too soon, and buying a house in the wrong city. For a long time, the market was hot here. Not anymore. Everywhere we look there are brand new homes sitting empty. The only good thing is that after our initial lease, we chose to rent month to month. So we can give 30 days notice and leave when we like.

So things will be a bit up in the air for me again for a while. I'm ready for the change though! :o)

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

The Law of Attraction has gotten much attention in the past couple of years. But the idea behind it is much older than that and wasn't always referred to by that name. Basically it is the power of our thoughts to create our lives, and the underlying principle can be summed up as "What you focus on expands." Another side of that is, "What you resist persists."

What you focus on, you get more of, but also what you resist you get more of as well. The reason is because the focus when you're resisting something is still on that something, so you draw more of it to you. For example, I had an ongoing problem with noisy neighbors. They carried on til all hours of the night outdoors, making it very difficult for anyone in my household to sleep, and repeated attempts at asking them to cease and desist on this behavior got us nowhere. They would apologize and agree to keep things down, but in reality would not change their behavior in any way. It got to the point that the only way we could get the behavior to stop temporarily was to call the police. So of course, all of this was very aggravating, and you can imagine that it was uppermost in my mind day after day. But the more I fussed over it all, the worse the problem became. It did not stop til I could take my focus off the problem, and focus only on what I wanted, which was peace and quiet.

That is the key. Take your mind off what you do not want, and do your best to keep it on what you do want. You will not attract money if you are focused on the lack of it. You will not attract success when you are focused on the lack of it, etc. All things have two sides. If you don't want a particular thing it's because you DO want its opposite. Focus on that.

It's not only a matter of what you think about, however. It really comes down to how you feel. You can think you are focused positively, but inside you are still feeling a great deal of negative emotion. It is the feeling that attracts, more so than the thought. You need to try to focus on the feeling that the desired outcome will bring to you. How will you feel when you have peace and quiet in your home instead of noisy rude neighbors? How will you feel when more money is flowing into your bank account than out? Focus on that feeling, and take your thoughts and feelings off the opposite aspect entirely. That is Law of Attraction in a nutshell and that is what will bring you the desires of your heart.

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

Today's quote:

"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”
-----Langston Hughes

Sometimes it's really hard to hold onto our dreams. Particularly those that seem the most impossible to achieve, or when we have no idea what steps to take to even begin to achieve them.

Were you one of those kids who was reprimanded for being a "dreamer" or told to "get your head out of the clouds and come back to earth"? I was. Obviously, I didn't listen! I can't imagine life without having dreams and goals and yet, there are times I find it very difficult to hold onto them. There are so many things that seem determined to rip them from our hands. The mundane everyday chores that have to be done, the bills that have to be paid, the family's needs that must be met. It is so easy to get so bogged down in "what is" that we lose sight of our dreams. Sometimes they seem so very out of reach.

But life is empty without them. I know people who are content to just go through life with their only focus on getting through the work week and getting that paycheck, whose only goals in life seem to be in buying the latest toys and keeping up with the Joneses, or sitting in the lazy boy in front of the TV once the work week is through. They have no ambition beyond that. Maybe they're happy that way, and that's enough for them. But I'm glad I'm not, no matter how frustrating holding on to my dreams sometimes is.

MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

----from A Return to Love, by Marianne Williamson

That is one of my favorite quotes. It just really hit home for me the first time I stumbled upon it. How many of us, when wanting to achieve something, have encountered that "what makes you think you can" attitude from others, or worse yet, from ourselves?

As much as the fear of failure is alive and well in most of us, I think the fear of success is even more insidious. We manage to create something wonderful, and then we worry, now what??? Are "they" going to expect even more from me? Am I going to be able to live up to the expectations? Can I DO this?

I think most of us have encountered people in our lives who were threatened by whatever measure of success we have achieved. Perhaps we have felt guilty about this, or perhaps they have tried to knock us down a few pegs so we're the ones now feeling insecure instead.

But as Marianne Williamson's beautiful quote above so eloquently states, playing small does not serve the world. We are meant to shine.

Have you ever witnessed someone else shining and been inspired to shine yourself? I have on many occasions. Here is just one of them. This quiet unassuming man had a big dream and yet he felt who was he to think he could achieve it? This video gives me chills and makes me cry every time I see it. Watch the looks of skepticism from the audience turn to looks of awe, and then to joy for this man as he lets his light shine:

Paul Potts, Winner of Britain's Got Talent Show

Never be afraid to let your own light shine.