Tag Archives: Practice

Ask the Right Questions

31 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Life, Thoughts in motion

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img_4754A few friends of mine would make fun of me saying I asked too many questions.  ‘Questionnaire’ is what they’d call me.

I don’t always need to have the full information but enough for me make an informed decision; after all my brain works, why should I leave all the decision making to someone else especially when it impacts me?

I made a decision to do things completely different and set a goal for completion at end of 2019.  To achieve it will require a different version of who I have been to date.

So I started asking myself questions, questions about what I would need to do, the knowledge I need to have, the places I need to be in, the people I need to talk to, the time frame it needs to be done in, the money I’d need to invest, what I’d need to invest in, the mind set I need to have, the practices I need to change, the ones I have to adopt, what I have to cut, and so on. And then I answered them.

I pushed myself to think past the confines that I am used to and this process has put me in a completely different headspace, and for the things I did (do) not know, I research, I study, I apply it.

Too often we think others know so much more than we do and completely undervalue the wealth of knowledge, skill and experience we do have or have access to. Don’t.

Ask questions, don’t be a zombie that follows the status quo. Challenge yourself and it might surprise you in realising what you know or even what you don’t know and now know that you need to.

If you want to live a life that is completely debt free, ask the questions, do the work.

If you want to live on a beach in a tropical country, ask the questions, do the work.

If you want to have £100,000 in 1 year, ask the questions, do the work.

If you want to buy your first property, ask the questions, do the work.

If you want peace, ask the questions, do the work.

You get my drift.

It’s not about knowing everything, it’s starting with what you know that gets you closer to where you want to be; whether it’s dealing with heartbreak, making a large purchase, starting a business or having a healthy relationship with your partner.

Xo

Am I Qualified?

29 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in Life, Motivation, Thoughts in motion

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facetune_29-10-2018-17-17-37-1.jpgEver had a new goal that you were super excited about?

You’re filled with the possibilities of what achieving this goal will do for you and you cannot wait to get started.

You plan and establish the actions you need to take and then unexpectedly your insecurities surface.

What if I’m not qualified?

Who said I am qualified?

What if someone thinks I’m not up for the job?

Doubts here and before you know it, it starts to feel like a pipe dream. Within moments, you have convinced yourself that you’re definitely not up for the job and resign that goal to the ‘do not attempt’ pile.

Why are we the very first to sap the life out of something? Our own worst enemy.

Do you know what qualifies those that do vs those that do not? Their belief. That’s it. Those that achieve the most, do not allow their past, failures or circumstances to dictate what they can and cannot do. In spite of it, they move full steam ahead.

You will always be better off for doing something even when it does not work out as envisioned. The trade-off is the wealth of experience, applied knowledge and skills gained, that not doing anything could never provide you with. It is also a stepping stone.

I bumped into someone I knew online through a mutual friend. I had not met them in person until this morning. We started talking about various things and he asked me whether an online series I was a part of was well thought out or improvised. What do you think I said? We winged that bad boy!

None of us really knew what we were doing, we just showed up and figured it out as we went along. In that same year of doing the series, I wrote, directed and produced my first short play. I won 2 awards for the play and a little bulb went off in my head ‘I’m a writer’, and always had been, but it wasn’t until that point, did I acknowledge myself. That was almost six years ago.

Do you think how I write now is how I have always written? Absolutely not! In the beginning, it was trash. I cringe every time I see something from the past, but I had to start somewhere, as terrible as it was.

So trust me when I say, you can do this. Little by little, step by step, piece by piece.

Xo

In All Honesty…

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Experiences, Less Talk, Lessons Learnt, More Action

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I’m just going to come out and say it. I’m shit at keeping up.

I am not a routine person at all and need free reign to, well, freely reign over whatever I so wish. I like to hibernate from time to time and ruminate over my issues and thoughts in perfect peace and having to be visible disrupts that. Schedules to me are a constriction and only further incite the rebel in me. But, as my mother would say, man cannot live by bread alone and in this instance I cannot be without discipline and consistency as those are the springboards to success.

My relationship with posting is shoddy to say the least. I go through many peaks and troughs with it that I can only imagine for you is meh. *Whispers* If truth be told it’s an absolute miracle that I have been “blogging” for nearly 4 years!

So here is what I am going to ask of you, hold me accountable. No man is an island and no matter who it is, everyone needs someone to encourage or in my case push them to act. On my part I will do my best to continue cultivating discipline and be more consistent.

If there is something in your life that you know needs to improve, put the energy into doing just that. You will have good days where the progress is evident and palpable, but know that there will also be ‘bad days’ where you will want to throw the towel, bucket and sponge in, don’t. I more than anyone understands how an obstacle can come along and give you a swift kick in the shin, but continue to practice. Practice being better than you were yesterday, practice encouraging yourself, practice being disciplined in the small things so you can handle with more ease the big things, practice doing things out of your comfort zone so you can do more things out of your comfort zone, whatever it is, practice and don’t give up!

Xo

P.s How are we in March already?!

 

Don’t be a dreamer

08 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Late night, Less Talk, Life, More Action, Motivational & Intentional, Thoughts in motion

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I have been thinking about late night writing or posting should say. Why? Because I’m a vampire of course.
No but more seriously, there is bound to be a community of nutters, I mean like minded people scouring the internet for something to divulge into, right? People like me.

I had a pretend community called ISG, Insomniac Support Group because le struggle to sleep was real. It consisted of myself and one other guy on Twitter ha!

Anyway back to the matter. My first late night post goes a little something like this: Go to sleep. Just kidding.

What keeps me up at night? Erm a whole host of things, bills, bills, bills, have I said bills?  If I’m honest I try not to allow such things deprive me of sleep, usually if I am up till late, my aspirations are haunting me, literally.

I find that sometimes I spend a large amount of time thinking about them rather than actually doing them. The reason is usually because I have never done it before and truth be told my goals scare me lol, so what do I do instead? Procrastinate.

Last week I bought the audio book by the Shonda Rhimes “Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person”.

Shonda is both incredibly inspirational and a pioneer of her own kind. She consistently breaks the mould in various aspects of her life and is living it exactly the way she wants it. I applaud her boldness and her ability to say no to some things and yes to others, if you’ve read/listened to the book, you’ll know what I am referring to.

The thing that most resonated with me from her book, was something she said in her commencement speech at Dartmouth University, which she was petrified of doing. She said don’t dream, do.

Now you might say ‘yeah we know that Irene, we all know that’ yes we have heard it a trillion times but how well have those words permeated your skin? What’s the ratio of what you do to what you don’t do in respect of your goals? Be honest with yourself.

It was like I was hearing those words again for the first time. Its funny because my posts are riddled with ‘action talk’ yet I felt a renewed sense of attachment to the words ‘Don’t dream, do’ as if I had unlocked a new level on a game, the game of life. Maybe its because I knew I wasn’t doing nearly enough.

Yes its great having dreams, but dreams will remain a fantasy if you don’t do anything about it.

No sense in conjuring beautiful images of what you’d love your life to look like if you don’t in fact take any action towards doing something about it.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to do it, just keep doing what you know and be keen to learn.

The idea is to not keep still waiting for the perfect time or opportunity. Now is the perfect time and you are the opportunity.

Keep moving, keep repeating, keep practicing, keep learning, and most importantly keep doing.

By being proactive, the universe will aid and abet in order to get where you want to be but you have to do, consistently and persistently.

Okay that’s my lot. See you night creatures! XO

Growth in Leaps and Bounds

23 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Life, Motivational & Intentional, Thoughts in motion

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I was paid a compliment over the weekend about my blog, which is always nice to hear. The comment was your posts are so “well written”. I chuckled because my skills in writing are much better than what it used to be. Back then I didn’t care for punctuation marks, syntax, and I never, ever, ever proof read my work. As you can imagine, on reflection, it was abysmal.

I then recalled a time where I had written a post in anger about what I would consider at that point, a tumultuous period of my life. It was 2012 and that year was rough! You name it, I went through it! The brief conversation I had over the weekend caused me to go looking for this post.

When I found it and re-read it, I was howling with laughter. The write up was a complete and utter mess! It was only once and strictly for the purposes of venting, but goodness me, was I possessed? Probably, I honestly thought I was cursed, because my life was Murphy ’s Law personified: Anything that could go wrong, will go wrong*

Anyway, I mentioned the above to prove that where you start isn’t always where you will be, if you continue to practice and push forward, you WILL get better.

Below is the post from 2012, read at your own peril. Apart from the strikethroughs that I have inserted, this has not been altered, just to show you how bad it was. The post represents growth, not only in my writing ability, but also in me as a person. My mentality is completely different, stronger, less impenetrable with negativity, and I most certainly don’t stay down for as long. I now know better and for the most part, I try and do better.

Parental advisory, there are a lot of expletives, let’s just say I was VERY angry…

“Diary of an Angry Black Woman

So the day is the 7th July a Saturday to be precise and I have a meeting scheduled with a friend to conjure up our plan for world domination..ok not really. Just a business meeting really. She lives in Essex and i, in south london. We arrange to meet in Stratford as its in the middle for both of us..well sort of…what a big fucking mistake that was.

This is how my day began…I start getting ready for my 3 pm meeting, telling myself I WILL BE ON TIME -_- I jump in the bath and lather myself up, thinking about today’s pending events. Whilst doing my make up (thinking I still had ample time) i look to my laptop and see its 14.24, shit, fuck shit shit fuck where did the time go?! however this particular friend suffers from the same disease i have “johnny come lately” so I didn’t worry too much about being on time, although i felt a little defeated at not meeting my goal.

We were to meet up in Westfields Stratford but there was a problem, the car park for Westfields was closed and will be till 19th September…no i do not think you heard me.. till the 19th OF SEPTEMBER! WTF ? this is ridiculous sooo all of my tax money into a car park I cant park in? All because of the bleeding flipping Olympics, this is fast becoming the bane of my life. Did I mention I have no road tax? At a cost of 107 GBP for 6 months only, I’m finding it extremely hard to let go of that money coupled with the fact that wait…I don’t actually have that money to give…its long being legit *bbm not interested face* However I have an absolutely clean record and have no intentions in becoming a statistic so I make arrangements to sort it out before travelling to Stratford. Id managed to go unnoticed thankfully by the authorities but going to Stratford, a police hotspot I didn’t want to risk it.

I leave my house and make my way to my local to sort out my bank card, I say sort out what I really mean is to extract money from where there was no money…just call me a mathemagician ha! that was dry I know…anyway before leaving my house I call my credit card holders and tell them to unlock my card as id blocked it a few weeks ago- This was to source the road tax payment. I get to my local, put money in a pay and display ticket machine…20p per 8 mins! Ok it’s not much but when brokeness strikes every fucking penny counts. I do what i have to and leave.

The time is now 15.30 and I’m a long way from being at my meeting. I thought to myself do I chance it and go Stratford anyway or buy the road tax ? I guess fate would have its own way or maybe not…as I was driving to Stratford , I approach a post office and thought fuck it, ill get it now. I read the tax renewal form and distinctly at the bottom reads no credit card allowed FFS bummed! luckily I had made this discovery earlier on and transferred the very little that i had left into my current account from a lack lustre savings account *sigh* I had printed off a balance statement which showed I had only a fiver left in it…a fiver. Need i say more about my current affairs? times were definitely hard right now but i chose not to cry and bury myself in it but to remain cool, calm and collected. My insides were raging THIS CANNOT BE LIFE-im too nice for this stuff but whatevs right now, whatevs.
Moving on..i hop out of my car and walk towards the post office guess what? its motherfucking closed! just my luck. *sigh* 😦 i get back into my car and conclude ill go to Stratford anyway throwing caution to the wind, and in any case my friend was already there so I didn’t have a choice. I drive trying not to care that the big bad wolf may appear at anytime.

On my way there I’m thinking of where I can possibly park. Stratford a former dumping ground for all things unimportant had fast become a tourist magnet with the erection of the now infamous “Westfields” and it being the pinnacle for the Olympics. ‘The Stratford City’ as they are trying to rename it IDGAF it will always be a craphole to me. Good for the economy my ass..what about its inhabitants why cant I fucking park in the car park…morons!

Having an AHA! moment I think ill park in the other car park attached to the original mall…yeahhhhh I say convinced I got it sussed out and the answer to my present problem solved right? WRONG! as I come closer to the car park I see the sign ” Car park closed” -_____________________- you’ve got to be kidding me. I begin to think hard and fast of the next option.

I drive away from Stratford centre to the residential area in hope of finding a space. I turn into one road and seeing a single yellow line I think I’m in luck but my luck ran out straight away when I see a ticket warden issuing a ticket to a car in front of me. Great! However it is better to have seen that not to as that would have been my second ticket in a month and I wasn’t down for that shit…not today not ever! I hate those yellow looking pieces of paper ever noticeable from a distance..bloody bastards. I drive on with no progress, now I’m tired, stressed and frustrated. There were park and displays but i wasn’t prepared to pay for one I’d rather be in a car park.
Morrison’s wasn’t far but my friend’s recent ticket from there put me off so I didn’t even bother venturing inside. I think I have another “bright idea” and decide to drive to my friends in Forest Gate to park at hers and ask if she can drop me to Stratford..long winded I know but I just didn’t want a ticket or to pay a park and display no friggn way. I ping ping ping her to ask her of her availability, she gets back to me a minute away from hers to tell me she wasn’t at home. Fab just Fab.

I park up on the road and just sit there. Thinking about my pitiful life where did it all go wrong? Lord why me? What did I do? I remain there for about 10 minutes. I figure to just pick my friend up and we go to another area where there’s parking to have this meeting. I ping her to let her know my plans and she calls me to get understanding of the plan..Something she rarely gets. As we confirm the new meeting point “Bus stop” the phone goes dead.”hello, hellOOO” nothing. Hmmmp I ping her and call her but her line is dead, now is not the time for this to happen. I shouldn’t really expect any different there was always something wrong with her phone. I sit there for another 5 minutes or so hoping she’ll call back but nothing.

I decide to drive past the said bus stop which was the Stratford station one, yer the one brimming with hundreds of people yep that very one. How in the world am I supposed to see her? What I had wanted to tell her was to stay at the taxi rank bit where she’d be more visible but I couldn’t. As I draw nearer to Stratford bus stop I stay in gear 2 so as to get a better look but that was a waste of time, I saw no one.

I park in another residential area and wait for another 20 minutes, I get nothing from her. I ping her to let her know what I’ve done and how I have now left Stratford. Driving back to south london I look at my phone and I see my messages have ‘D’ next to it, are you fucking kidding me?! I park up on a road near Canning town station and wait..true to form she rings me and relays to me that her phone switched off and wouldn’t turn back on Cheers Shitberry! She said she came to the bus stop station and didn’t see me and is now on her way back home to Romford.
What a friggn waste of time and petrol.. Through no real fault of ours, the plan for world domination was put on hold.

I also found out that Morrison only charged 1 GBP for 2 hours NOW you tell me! ugh. Im just not in the mood.

So there we have it. I’m at home trying to unwind and eventually prepare for my tonights date-This better be worth it, I’m not prettying myself for another epic fail.

Moral of the story? I should of just fucking skyped.

Signed-ABW “

*Adapted by John Stapp