Unlocking Your Highest Potential: A Letter of Encouragement to You

via http://etsy.me/135ftmJ

Dear Friend,

Do you know that YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, AMAZING,

a BRIGHT explosion of LIGHT in the darkness that surrounds?

Do you know how much YOU ARE LOVED, IMPORTANT, and SO PRECIOUS, oh so precious that to lose you would bring so much pain and tears?

Do not be afraid.

Stand tall because you were meant to sit a top a mountain and SHINE BRIGHT, brighter than the sun. YOUR SMILE is needed; your love, your strength, your thoughts, YOUR WORDS, and the sound of YOUR LAUGHTER create bursts of HAPPINESS and JOY all around.

I know how it is.

I too have felt the on going frustrations of this life, the push of darkness against the chest, and the rejection that comes with being different, being other, BEING YOURSELF.

I understand the pain of waiting, the conditions that say nothing will change, that you’re stuck or worse, trapped in a dark, cold pit with no way out.

I too hear the voices that whisper criticism and negativity

one.

after.

the.

other.

The whispers that tell the lie, “You will not be loved.”

NOT TRUE!

They are all but illusions that dissipate when you shake them with the earthquake of power that lies within you. 

prosperoussoul.com

Yes, YOU! 

You possess boundless strength, a heart that sees eternity, and a soul that sings melodies more beautiful than heaven’s angels.

No one on this planet can BE YOU.

No one can create the life written in your footsteps and inked in the hearts of those who:

have met you,

shared meals with you,

laughed with you,

cried with you,

dreamed with you,

danced with you,

hugged you,

kissed you,
heard your voice,

and held your held.

Do not lose HOPE. Hold on to FAITH. And do not give up on LOVE.

Continue to create DREAMS that surprise you and lift you higher without end.

Don’t let hurt from the past cramp your heart and keep it from loving again.

LOVE again.

And again.

And again.

Yes, you really are that amazing.

And it’s okay to see some things like love, friendship, failures, victories, and dreams through a simple lens. Overthinking tends to bring more harm and confusion than good.

And if you must be afraid, take a step forward anyway because you never know where you can go, who you can meet, what you can accomplish, and all the things you can see, taste, feel, and know. 

Life is an adventure waiting for you!

And if someone should dare belittle you or sound off all your weaknesses and make you feel less than the amazing individual you really are, know that it speaks more loudly about their insecurities, failures, and shortcomings than yours. It’s not about you, but rather them. The truth is they’re jealous of you, your dreams, your power, and the light within you that pierces through anything and anyone.

And always be true to yourself and your voice because anything else or less would be a true tragedy and a great loss. This world already has enough of both.

So please, BE YOU and share the beauty that comes along with it.

via pamspence.com

And, always remember like my amazing friend Geo once said to me, “Never, never lose your sense of HUMOR.”

Loving you,

A fellow human being 

Know someone in need of encouragement? Please share this with them! :) 

Feature: My Top Five Favorite Articles from Brain Pickings (So far…)

Good Day, Folks!

Happy March 3^rd! I’m excited about this month, and it actually has little to do with my birthday, which is March 26^th by the way! March is about spring and spring means new beginnings and new beginnings are what I’m all about this season. Begin anew and finish, of course. I have a list of many projects that I want to finish, and I’m marking March with a big fat X to get it all done. My music of choice this month has an epic grand sound that makes me brave –think E.S. Posthumus, Immediate, Hans Zimmer, and many more. Onward and forward!

via animals.howstuffworks.com

However, enough of my rambling, I want to feature a website today that has tingled my creativity and turn the dial high on my inspiration meter. I’m talking about Brain Pickings, and you’ve probably already heard of it. In a nutshell, Brain Pickings offers delightful servings of inspiration, advice, and thought-provoking articles from artistic and intellectual legends of the past and artists and intellectual from the now. It is a truly awesome website that I highly recommend you follow and support.  Anyway, I wanted to feature five of my favorite Brain Pickings articles so far. Enjoy!! (These selections are ordered randomly.)

1.

How to Write with Style: Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Keys to the Power of the Written Word by Maria Popova. http://bit.ly/13MF7JH

In this article, writers aspiring for greatness receive ageless advice from Vonnegut on the craft of writing, which includes creating a voice that moves readers, makes them care, and most importantly, keeps them reading your work. My favorite is this:

“Keep it Simple

As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. ‘To be or not to be?’ asks Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story ‘Eveline’ is just this one: ‘She was tired.’ At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.’”

2.

How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love by Maria Popova. http://bit.ly/VwtGmx

This list of advice from many great sources helps the wanderer in the desert of no dreams and confusion take hold of a branch leading to a spring that was within our weary traveler from the beginning. My favorite is the Holstee Manifesto, which is on the lower right bar of this blog.

“This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like something, change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love.”

&

“Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people, we are united in our differences. Ask the next person you see what their passion is, and share your inspiring dream with them. Travel often; getting lost will help you find yourself. Some opportunities only come once, seize them.”

3.

F. Scott Fitzgerald on the Secret of Great Writing by Maria Popova. http://bit.ly/14hnjVr

Always on the prowl for writing advice, I found these letters from Fitzgerald to an aspiring writer in her second year of college and to his daughter, Scottie, compelling and enlightening. These excerpts from the letters stuck with me the most:

“You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. ”

&

“But the amateur can only realize his ability to transfer his emotions to another person by some such desperate and radical expedient as tearing your first tragic love story out of your heart and putting it on pages for people to see.”

&

“If have anything to say, anything you feel nobody has ever said before, you have got to feel it so desperately that you will find some way to say it that nobody has ever found before, so that the thing you have to say and the way of saying it blend as one matter –as indissolubly as if they were conceived together.”

4.

9 Rules for Success by British Novelist Amelia E. Barr, 1901 by Maria Popova. http://bit.ly/Y7qefH

I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I’ve never heard of novelist Amelia E. Barr until I came upon this article who knows how long ago. However, I did bookmark the page, and when I finished reading it again, I remembered why I liked it so much. With my focus on super-achievement, dreams, and perseverance, Barr turns the light on in many dark spaces concerning the simplest things. I am partial to advice number six, which is pretty close to the mantra of my blog! Number 9 is a gem too: be cheerful.

“6. Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time means power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.” (Bold emphasis mine.)

&

“9. Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at moments of trial. One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful; to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery. Above all things else, be cheerful; there is no beatitude for the despairing.”

5.

Anton Chekhov on the 8 qualities of cultured people by Maria Popova. http://bit.ly/13zNJG7

This article surprised me—pleasantly of course. What I thought would be a list of stuck-up attitudes to uphold or access to resources afforded by wealth ended up stating qualities found in endless reservoir of our hearts. These are some of my favorite lines take from the various numbers: Cultured people…

“They do not pose, they behave in the street as they do at home, they do not show off before their humbler comrades. They are not given to babbling and forcing their uninvited confidences on others. Out of respect for other people’s ears they more often keep silent than talk.”

&

“They do not disparage themselves to rouse compassion. They do not play on the strings of other people’s hearts so that they may sigh and make much of them. They do not say “I am misunderstood,” or “I have become second-rate,” because all this is striving after cheap effect, is vulgar, stale, false….”

&

“The truly talented always keep in obscurity among the crowd, as far as possible from advertisement…. Even Krylov has said that an empty barrel echoes more loudly than a full one.”

So, what do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts!!

thanks for reading,

Sammy :)

Friday Specials! Tasty!

Happy Friday!

It’s everyone favorite day again! (And if you prefer another day that's okay too.) I hope you all had a great week. Had an awful week? Here are some kittens to make you feel a little better. 

Too adorable. I'm dying.

Aww, friends...or enemies? O_o

Last one. I promise. 

(Well. Must...resist...posting more.)

Oh, and I have snacks too. Munch Munch.

Where do you know gives you kittens and cookies?

No need to keep you waiting any longer. I’ve been about the blogosphere and found these great gems. Today’s Friday Specials:

  

1.) Are you a writer? Have problems being social? Check  

this out. Seven Traits of the Social Writer. http://bit.ly/Wbbpst

  

2.) Calling all artists! Here’s a challenge. Get 1000 true fans. The Technium: 1,000 True Fans http://bit.ly/10EvL4L

3.) Are you doing revisions on your draft? (I am!) Here’s a 

great checklist: A Writer's Journey: Revision Checklist - Part 1 of 2   http://bit.ly/Xk94uY

4.) Here’s a great list to create characters that screw up.  Good for conflict. Better Plotting: 7 Ways Your Characters Can Screw up Their Decisions http://bit.ly/13LZyqQ

5.) The better way to travel the world: Slow travel is the only way to travel - Eye & Pen: Travel   http://bit.ly/VOGe9Y

6.) For those still searching for purpose, here’s a list  packed with meaningful advice: How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love | Brain Pickings http://bit.ly/VwtGmx

7.) I intend to do more book reviews this year. A couple of reviews listed here tell you what it means to be specific when you review. Review Etiquette: Be Specific | JeriWB: What do I know? http://bit.ly/UB0B8n

8.) Kurt Vonnegut offer his words of wisdom on writing. How to Write with Style: Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Keys to the Power of the Written Word | Brain Pickings http://bit.ly/13MF7JH

9.) Plot or story? Story or plot? Is one more important 

than the other? Find out: Plot vs. Story by Anna Elliott. http://bit.ly/WMGPVd

  

10.) I woud like to end today's Friday Specials with an article on inspiration. Here's the great story of Mary Gottschalk and how she and her husband left behind lucrative careers in finance to live fivers on a sailboat. Their mission: circumnavigate the globe. Be inspired. 

Learning to love Living out of Control: Mary Gottschalk | Write On The Water http://bit.ly/11Exu9x

Thanks for reading and have an awesome weekend!

Sammy :)

Big CHANGES!

Changes are good. I like changes. Changes mean growth. If you’ve been following my blog lately, you’ll see that I’ve done a little work around here. First, I’ve renamed it to Do it WELL. In my last post, I realized that I didn’t want to make this blog about me, but about you and everyone else who happens to come along here. I called it Do it WELL because I’m a firm believer of doing well whatever it is you dream to do. If you don’t give it your all, why give anything at all? Second, I’ve developed seven little gems that will inspire the new entries of my blog: creativity, wellness, joy, unlimited potential, community, goodwill, and achievement. If you look to your right, you’ll see I’ve added some links to help readers who are aspiring authors. To your left, you’ll see a series of links that for anyone searching to improve his or her state of mind and find motivation and inspiration from a variety of different voices. I found these sites to be quite helpful. 

 

Four things will be coming soon:

  1.) A corner for stories on people who persevered and made it

       

  2.) A corner for good news (people doing good things for other people) because we don’t hear it that often

  3.) A corner for game changers (people unafraid to take risks or simply go against convention) 

        

  4.) A corner for teachers on living with less

I’ll be sure to search for a minimum of three to four articles for each corner and try updating them every several days. I’ll do a feature twice a week on any of these interesting stories I pick up on my search. 

Well, what do you think? What else would you like to see? Please let me know! I’d like to hear your thoughts, comments, suggestions, or ideas.

Thanks for reading,

CSS :)

Channeling Inner Desires to Motivate: ESPER, an Introduction

Hi There!

Are we stuffed with turkey? Or in my case, salmon? :-D I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving day and weekend. If your Thanksgiving was awful, I'm sorry about that. Just remember you can always make better days ahead. You can start with now! :-) 

Happy Happy Joy Joy! Wait, Wrong Cartoon.

Today, I want to talk a little about channeling inner desires to motivate. I mentioned several posts earlier about how I’d learn to overcome the serious writer’s block crippling my writing. I can’t believe that it was only a month ago that deep discouragement over my lackluster progress overwhelmed me. I didn’t think I’d ever produce something that would be published. 

Just replace "Bloggers" with "Writers". My parents reaction to my writing!

 At first, I thought the culprits behind my procrastination were laziness, lack of discipline, and boredom, but the truth had been fear of rejection and lack of faith in my writing abilities. Understanding these deeper meanings helped me progress to the next phase of achieving my goals and ultimately, my dreams: channeling my inner desires to motivate me to write productively on a daily basis. We all have our unique motivations for writing, and I’ve tapped into mine. It’s been driving me to action like I’ve never experience before in my life. I realized that my inspiration comes from within not from the outside, and I had to clearly identify my purpose.  I credit the website Personal Excellence by Celestine Chua for helping me unravel all these issues. If you struggle with procrastination, self-doubt, or goal setting, I highly recommend it.  Reading Celestine’s writing transformed my focus on life and my writing.

For the next several days, I’m going to share my experiences using the goal-setting/achieving model ESPER that Celestine explains on her website. ESPER stands for Establish, Strategy, Planning, Execution, and Review. I’ve decided to use ESPER to finish editing COT. As I’ve told you before, I made some big changes to COT (changing one of the female MCs to a male) so it’ll involve some rewriting and reworking. I’m very excited about the edits and rewrites I’ve made so far. My novel is bursting with vitality and new energy because I’m finally writing the book I want to read! Not the book that I think others would want. That’s just stifling. Letting go of all my inhibitions and loving the world I’m creating infuses COT with a freshness I didn’t think it could ever possess.

Attitude is key in all of this. Your writing reflects your attitude. If you’re unhappy, fearful or dissatisfied with yourself, then the prose won’t represent your highest potential as a writer. I’m not saying you have to be super high on life to write a great novel because history shows us a ton of amazing writers who suffered from difficult emotional issues. If you don’t believe in yourself and the words you’re putting down, then you won’t convince your readers that your writing matters. And that’s what I desire. For someone to read my book and think: it matters that I’m reading this or I’m not wasting my time reading this book.

I do the same thing.

If you checked out the link on ESPER, I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Thanks for reading,

CSS