I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. – Rosa Park
Taking action is the best way to lessen fear, anxiety, and doubt. That’s why it’s very important to take the next step toward your dreams as often as you can.
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Your homework is to break the steps into small pieces and little parts. Keep breaking them down into tinier and tinier bits until you get to the ones that are the perfect size and fit for you, then do them!
No matter how slow you go you are still lapping everyone on the couch. – Unknown
Don’t get discouraged because it seems as if others are speeding along, leaving you in the dust. Even though you’re going slow, at least you’re moving toward your dreams. That’s more than all the Couch Potatoes, Negative Ned’s, and Fraidy Frita’s are doing!
Doggedly taking one step, then the next, then the one after that will get you to your dreams. It doesn’t matter how fast you achieve your dreams or how long it takes you. All that matters is that you stick it out: you overcome the challenges, you work through the obstacles, and you conquer the setbacks.
Here are a few thoughts to power you through the rest of the week:
You have what it takes!
Inside you are the raw materials that you need to take you to your dreams. The talents and abilities are yours already. All you have to do is to roll up your sleeves and dive into yourself. Discover all the treasures inside!
You are on Earth for a purpose!
Your incarnation here on Earth was not a mistake or a joke. It also wasn’t some random happening or some arbitrary knocking around of a bunch of chemicals. You’re here because you have something to say or do or be that is of vital importance to the world. Cherish who you are!
The proof of this is looking at Nature. Life, abundant life, is jam-packed into every nook and cranny of the earth. Bacterial is thriving in the ice sheets in Antarctica; exotic-looking species of marine animals are thriving at the bottom of the oceans in the pitch black, under tons of pressure, and near thermal vents that spew out super-heated water and chemicals that are toxic to we humans. Life is everywhere and you are part of this relentless quest to live, to survive, to conquer, and to thrive; go for it!
You are in the right place at the right time doing the right things in the right way!
Even if it seems as if you’re off track, you really aren’t. There are gifts and benefits just for you that you couldn’t have gotten any other way or in any other place. These are essential to helping you achieve your dreams. So, dig in and find the good stuff waiting for you!
You are valuable!
Even though the world can seem quite chaotic and haphazard, there’s order to it. There’s a plan to all of existence and you are part of that plan! Listen to the Still Small Voice within you—it’s showing you the way!
You are needed right here right now!
You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t needed right where you are, right at these moments in time. The Universe is not wasteful or careless. Get busy taking the next step!
Your homework today is stand straight and tall in front of your mirror. Look at yourself right in the eyes and have a huge smile on your face. With as much enthusiasm as you can muster, say these pep statements to yourself.
Note which ones strike a chord with you. Jot those down and keep them handy throughout your day. Refer to them frequently and let their power and energy infuse you.
Then, take the next step! Break it down into smaller and smaller pieces, until you get to the tiny little parts that are just the right size for you. Then do them!
As you may know, I am a member of a farm CSA (click here for a link explaining the CSA concept).
Today, the pick-your-own portion of my farm shares included picking a half bag from the bean patch and a pint from the cherry tomato plants. When I got to the rows of beans I noticed that everyone was bunched up near the beginning of the rows. The same was true in the rows of tomato plants.
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As I made my way past the crowds to the end of the rows, there was plenty of beans and loads of tomatoes to pick. The plants were so full of vegetables (fruit in the case of tomatoes!), that I could stand in one place and, from just a few plants, fill my share for the week!
This got me to thinking….
Sometimes an idea or a dream comes to us and we don’t take it seriously; either we reject it outright or we put it on the back burner. We do this because it seems as if there’s a ton of competition and, to top it off, the Big Boys are dominating and cornering the market anyway. Why bother? you may think.
THIS IS THE WRONG WAY TO THINK!!
Just like there was a crowd at the beginning of the rows of beans and tomatoes but the end of the rows were wide open, it’s the same with everything else!
For instance in farming, a few decades ago it seemed as if the big corporate farming conglomerates were crushing and destroying small family farming and there would be no one left standing but the Big Boys.
Not true!!!
I don’t know about your community but within the last 15 – 20 years there has been a resurgence of small organic farms. And, because demand was there and is continuing to grow, these small farmers are thriving and more are opening every year. In my area there are CSAs of all types: some for vegetables, some for fruit, some for herbs and other medicinal plants; there are chicken CSAs, and one for eggs. There’s a CSA for beef and one for pork products….
The point is, there’s plenty, plenty, plenty of room for you and your idea!
Copyright 2014 Artisans Workshop Designs
Your homework is to pull that idea/ dream off the back burner and take a close look at it. The initial idea/dream is just the rough draft—the broad strokes.
It’s up to you—your job—to think about it from different angles and refine it so that you find your unique slant and offering.
Have you ever tossed and turned all night because your anxious thoughts wouldn’t let you relax enough to sleep? Or perhaps you did get a little bit of sleep but then in the morning did you find that you had a huge knot of anxiety in your stomach? Was it nearly impossible for you to get out of bed?
Did you then worry that you’d get nothing done that day even though your To Do list was long enough to wrap around the world a couple of times?
Yeah. I’ve felt this way, too.
What I’ve learned is that the most important thing to do is to be very gentle with yourself.
This is NOT the same as letting yourself off the hook!
Just because you’re anxious does not mean that you have permission to slack off or that you get a free pass on taking steps or bits of steps toward your dreams.
Not at all.
Still take tiny bits of steps toward your dreams!
Adopt the same attitude as you do at work when you and your team come across a problem: everything does not come to a screeching halt. You may pause and take a little time to regroup, do some brainstorming and come up with a plan, but you don’t stop dead in your tracks. And, the Big Boss knows that production is going to be affected while the problem is rectified. That means she/he doesn’t expect everyone to get the same amount of work done as they usually do when everything is running up to speed.
This can be applied on a day when you’re feeling anxious.
Back off on the high expectations you have for yourself. Accept that your productivity, focus, and creativity are going to be off—lower than what they normally are.
And know that it’s okay.
You aren’t a machine or a robot!
The important thing is to be gentle and softly challenge yourself to take action in spite of your anxiety.
Understand that the steps, and the bits and pieces of steps, that are normally the perfect size and fit for you are probably going to seem too big and too much for you to handle when you’re anxious. If that’s the case, then break them down further. Break them into pieces that are so small and tiny that you’ll need an electron microscope to see them! 🙂
Be gentle and kind to yourself and, in spite of your anxiety, take a tiny, itsy-bitsy step toward your dreams.
Your homework today is to keep moving forward, even if you’re trembling and your stomach is all knotted up. You’ll find that as you get busy and do what you can to move forward, you’ll start gaining control of your anxiety. Its grip that seems to squeeze the breath out of you will loosen.
And that’s a cause for celebration!
Even if it loosens just a tiny bit of a smidgen, that’s fantastic! It’s that much looser than it was before you took action. That in itself is forward progress!
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Yay you! Celebrate yourself and how you took action in spite of your anxiety!
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Ziglar
Every day is fresh and new. It’s full of potential. The only way to release that potential is to take action. And consistently taking action toward your dreams is the only way to make them come true. The only way to consistently take action is by keeping yourself motivated.
Your homework today is to review the ways you motivate yourself and evaluate what works and what doesn’t. For instance, do you have a few songs that get your creative juices flowing? Do you find that a friend of yours is really good at making you feel like you can conquer the world? Perhaps reading books by a particular author, or holy or spiritual books, calms you and helps you think clearly and then to confidently take action.
Once you identify what works for you, make a plan to do it every day, preferably first thing in the morning.
KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE!!
This will ensure that you do it every day.
Follow through with this to give yourself every chance of success!
Do you do this, too: find yourself tripping over small projects that you’ll do later and wading past tasks half completed that you are planning to get to one day? And, if you’re like me, when you finally tackle and complete those pesky little projects and tasks, you find that they took less than 15 minutes to finish—some of them took less than 5 minutes!
So why the heck was I stalling and dragging my feet?
I spent more time moving around the projects—promising to do them real soon—than it took to actually do them!!!
Your homework today is to DO THOSE BITS AND BOBS!! Select one of them, set your timer for 15 minutes, then roll up your sleeves and dive in! Even if the job takes longer than 15 minutes, at least you’ve made some progress on it. Set your timer for another 15 minutes and dive in again.
Setting your timer for 15 minutes and working on a project, task, job, or THE NEXT STEP is a form of breaking it down into manageable chunks!
So get going and get at least some of those bits and bobs jobs done. The sooner you do that the sooner you can treat yourself with something fun!
We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.– Jesse Owens
Dreaming is easy; it can be a challenge to bring those dreams into reality.
But that’s okay!
Striving toward our dreams is supposed to be hard and scary at times. You’re supposed to run into obstacles and setbacks from time-to-time. Confusion and disappointment will occasionally be your travel buddies.
This is all normal and natural!
It’s at these times that you need your determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.
With your determination, ask yourself: Do you want to dig in your heels and hang in there with your dreams or would you rather throw in the towel and always wonder what if—what if you kept going, what would have happened?
With your dedication, take a moment to answer the question: How badly do you want your dream? Are you willing to tune your hearing to the Still Small Voice within you and follow the whisperings and urgings of your soul?
Will you use your self-discipline to strengthen your resolve and courage so you can do what you know you must do even though no one else you know is doing it—and they all think you’re a little bit nuts for doing it?
And will you put forth the effort—keep taking the steps that will move you closer to your dreams—even though you really don’t want to?
Your homework is to review your week with these questions in mind. Where did you fall a little short? When did you let yourself off the hook when you really shouldn’t have? What are you going to do about this—what steps are you going to take to improve yourself?
As always when you review your week, make sure you keep an eye out for the successes and achievements and forward progress you did have. No matter how small or seemingly inconsequential, it all adds up and it’s all good! Celebrate this—it’s important that you do!
One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. – Napoleon Hill
Every time you stay out late; every time you sleep in; every time you miss a workout; every time you don’t give 100%… you make it that much easier for me to beat you. – Unknown
Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.– Marilyn Vos Savant
Believe in yourself and all that you are, know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle. – Christian D. Larson
No matter how slow you go you are still lapping everyone on the couch. – Unknown
Most obstacles melt away when we make up our minds to boldly walk through them.– Orison Swett Marden
Your homework today is to keep moving forward. Even though it can be scary to go for your dreams, you have to keep going.
Determine the steps you need to take, break them into small pieces and little parts. Break those into tiny bits. Keep breaking them down into smaller and smaller increments where you feel confident that you can do them easily and quickly. Then do those bits!
I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply didn’t give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you. – Harrison Ford
…If I persist long enough I will win. – Og Mandino
When the world says, ‘Give up’, Hope whispers, ‘Try it one more time.– Unknown
History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. – Bertie Charles Forbes
You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have. – Unknown
Your homework today is to hang on and give yourself a chance to try again later on . Hold on tight and do what you can to take the next step. It doesn’t have to be a full step, a partial step is just fine. The tiny bits of steps add up and they move you forward.
Yes I Can Pep Talks 
