Just Say "NO!"

Since returning to work after a one year hiatus from my career to devote to my son, I have been making huge strides towards building my business and career. Thankfully my hard work has not been in vain as I have been quite successful in building a livelihood for which me and my family can be proud. However, I recently have found that a potential enemy to my productivity is spreading myself too thin. As a result, I have begun to screen every opportunity to determine if they support my overall goals and objectives. When they don't, I have learned to just say, "no."

I've always been a person who does a lot of things well. In high school, I was a spokesperson for a foundation for young girls, a choir member, drama student, and JROTC Lieutenant. Oh, and I was a girlfriend too (haha). I managed to excel in school, obtain a college scholarship, and travel around the country singing with a choir. In addition, I managed to make every birthday, picnic, and holiday function. Nothing really seemed to suffer and so I carried these expectations to college and throughout my adulthood. However, over time I have found that the whole thing will possibly crumble if I don't narrow my focus.

As a teen, life was easy because I was only responsible for a few things: go to school, clean my room, and act like I had some sense. Of course there were deeper lessons to learn than I've mentioned, but you get my point. I had the freedom to "do it all" because I was only responsible for school, community service, my social life, and a few chores at home. Today, I'm responsible for nurturing my myself and marriage, mothering a child, paying bills, and building a business and career. They all require a level of focus that the JROTC drill team did not.

We as women wear numerous hats. We're daughters, wives, mothers, and career women. Our desire is to do it all well. Somehow, we find a way to multitask and complete five different tasks in one time frame. WE are AMAZING! But I dare say that we would would be much more productive if we had to the courage to say "NO". Every time we say "no", we say "yes" to those things/people that really need our attention; making our success inevitable.

I'm not sure if it's the pressure to succeed and be considered a "grinder" that has most of us staying busy, but frustrated by the lack of results. Perhaps our desire to have it all NOW causes us to say yes to everything. However, we later wake-up realizing that we've spent so much time being the jack of all trades, but master of none. There's nothing wrong with having lots of dreams, but every successful endeavor is built with intentional focus, practice and consistency. No business, relationship or career is built overnight. But if we're patient enough with ourselves and our process, think of how sweet the journey would be.

So I pose this question to you sis: What do you want? What do you really want? Is everything in your PDA supporting those goals? If not, then I charge you to get rid of empty activities and replace them with efficient tasks that directly support your vision. It's time to see you dreams manifested. It's time to say, "NO."

Be Consistent, Be Successful

With the new year still giving many of us a greater sense of motivation, lots of new goals have been written, proclaimed and sought after since January 1. But some may have told you that your too zealous; an idealist whose really not in touch with reality. But you're convinced that "you can do it"---and so am I.

Here's the challenge: many people don't realize their dreams because they don't work towards them---consistently. Anything done in spurts, once in awhile or just on a whim is not gonna cut it. You have to focus and be intentional about your goals. Otherwise, you'll look back a year from now wondering what happened and how you managed to let another dream slip through your fingers.

This shouldn't be another year of just hoping or talking about what you wanna do. Go do it! The worst that could happen is that you fall flat on your face and fail miserably in front of everyone. But instead of focusing on failure, focus on success. Answer the question, "What would I do if I knew I could not fail?" Your response to this question perhaps is what you should consistently focus on this year.

So here's your challenge for the month: What is ONE thing you are willingly to do consistently over the next 30 days? I know you have a long list of things you need to get to. But don't focus on the entire list. Just focus on ONE thing and do that ONE thing well and consistently. I don't doubt that you'll find yourself being more productive and closer to accomplishing that goal.

I wanna hear about your progress so feel free to shoot me an email and let me know about your journey.

Love ya!
Smooches!
...and hugs too!
Latasha