If You Fail To Plan…

I love it when you guys send me email. I squeal like I’m 4 years old and just got a treat from my granddad. Here’s a reader’s question, posted with her permission. I’d like you guys to chime in with your perspective and any tips that will help our fellow Motivated Boss Lady with her situation.

From the Motivated Sista Mail Bag:

A Motivated CEO writes: I hope all is well with you this morning or afternoon… I have been a reader of your blog for a little over 7 months now and I enjoy reading your posts they are very powerful and most of all inspirational to me…

I’ m a 26 year old Black woman who is single. I haven’t been in a relationship for 4 years, majority of my friends are in relationships and sometimes its hard to be the only single person in the group. For some reason I can’t find love nor anyone who interest me. I’ve had alot of guys approach me but once I start talking to them I can tell we are on two different pages. I’m just in a place in my life that I just don’t want to keep dating just to date I actually want to date and hopefully find my husband and the father of my kids. People say I’m crazy because I’m only 26 and already looking for a husband but I say I’m not getting any younger I’m getting older….

I’m also struggling with my career I just finished school for event/ wedding planning but am currently working at an insurance company. I know my dream is to be a wedding planner but right now am kind of content working at the insurance company. It’s a great company but I know this is not what I want my career to be. I get sidetracked alot and that’s a major issue for me and something I’m trying to work on… my goal is by the time am 30 I want to be successful and comfortable where I am financially. That’s my goal and only have 4 years to reach it and at the pace I’m going I’m not sure if its possible. But like you said in your post (we are the only people that’s standing in our way) I’m the only person who can stop my dream from happening but its so much easier said than done… can you give me any advice on my confusion????

Girlfriend, I have two words for you: Specificity and Planning.

Click Here For My Response

How To Have An Epic Year

Sorry to be away for so long – I was off being epic!

I hope you haven’t given up your new year optimism just yet. If you still have some left, take a look at my latest video and see how you can have even more. Right around this time, all of those resolutions and goals loses their luster of newness and we tend to forget about them. Well let me remind you that you have great things in store for you this year!



If you choose themes for your year, what’s your theme for 2011? Are you still on track with your goal pursuits?

Top 5 Posts of 2010

This year was really big for Motivated Sista. I wrote my tail off, and I’m spending time this evening going through some of the posts from this year. Its part of my planning for 2011.

Hopefully you’ve begun your goal-setting for 2011. Join us on Sunday as we discuss how to have a motivated year. Click here to register.

Between the call on Sunday and the posts I list below, there’s plenty of motivation for you to kick of 2011 with a bang.

Here are the top 5 posts on Motivated Sista for 2010:

	10 Inspiring Quotes By Black Women This post, by far, is my most read post. I was feeling particularly inspired one night and I sat and wrote this. If you guys are on the Motivated Sista fan page, you know that I LOVE quotes. If you do too, you should check this post out.
	Your Best Vision Board Ever I just love these things. I won’t stop talking about vision boards. They just make me feel so good! This post contains 2 videos, that show you step-by-step how I made my most recent vision board. Making a new vision board is a great way to start 2011… hmm, maybe I’ll make another one!
	Come Drop In My Bucket I shared my bucket list and invited everyone to share their ideas with me. This was alot of fun and I really enjoyed it, I hope you did too.
	3 Ways Black People Hold Ourselves Back In honor of Black History Month, I thought it fitting to write about ways we as black people tend to hold ourselves back. I find it ironic that after facing slavery, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement, we find ways to keep ourselves and other black people from succeeding. If anything, we’d want to succeed to prove that racists are wrong about us, right?
	You Are Not Your Circumstances We all know that the only constant is change… but sometimes it can feel that someone has hit the pause button and you’re stuck in the exact same spot. In order to break free, try to move forward. Even if that means a very small step, just move.

How To Turn Right Side Up

I love it when you guys submit topics for me to write!

Today’s request is again from the Motivated Sista Facebook page: Dee suggested the topic “how to stay positive and motivate others when your world is turning upside down”.

I developed my own method around this problem during my first year of this blog. There were so many times when situations sucked, but I had to keep on pushing. Because how could I motivate you guys if I was attending a solo pity party? Now I’m definitely not perfect… if I just can’t give any motivation (I’m generally positive, unless I’m angry…lol), then I’ll take a break and come back with a new post when I have the motivation mojo.

If you haven’t yet mastered your own method of motivating others while dealing with your own situations, here’s what I’ve found.

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Keep Your Focus During Christmas

A few days before Thanksgiving, Lisa, one of our fellow Motivated CEOs and Boss Ladies, asked me to write about staying focused during the holidays. I was busy with other things and wasn’t able to blog on that topic before Thanksgiving. Since we still have Christmas to go, its still an important tactic to consider while we focus on our goals.

Are The Holidays Any Different?

I personally love this time of year (except for the weather!). I love getting together with family and friends, reflecting on how blessed I am and being grateful for everything I have and everything I am. This year, though, because I am a vegan now, I really thought about some of the rituals that we participate in – and how those rituals can ultimately knock us off track of our goals.

I’m not going to front… having heaps and heaps of food in front of me made it extremely hard to stick to my guns and resolve to follow the lifestyle changes I’m making. I’m proud of myself that I didn’t eat any meat; but I still overate and felt tired, sluggish and a little disappointed in myself after Thanksgiving. That was definitely one of those times where I lost control of my intentions and didn’t use my willpower to stay the course.

But its a great lesson learned. Ultimately, holidays are days that we’ve made special in our minds, but they’re not any different than any other day. There’s still 24 hours in it, and once those 24 hours are gone, we can’t get them back.

We may have more tasks on holidays, less time for ourselves, and obligations for our time with the various holiday parties, shopping trips, dinners and visits that we make. But that’s no excuse for allowing ourselves to be derailed by others and to lose the momentum that we’ve worked so dilligently to build.

When You Fail To Plan…

I hate to say it, but I failed to plan how I’d use my time, which meant that I didn’t use it well at all. I had a vague idea of what I’d like to have accomplished with the time I had surrounding Thanksgiving, but I didn’t sit down and plan out how I’d use that time.

The strategy I plan to follow for Christmas is:

• map out the actual amount of time I’ll have over Christmas
• make a list of the tasks that I need to get done: shopping, writing, cleaning, cooking, visiting others, etc
• schedule my time, activities and rest period
• keep my schedule handy, so I’m not tempted to overeat, oversleep, and likewise waste time that I should be utilizing

The plan is pretty simple. The difficulty comes from making yourself stick to the schedule you’ve set.

Just like any other time, keep the vision of how you want things to be after the holidays: the body you are working to have (if you have weight loss goals/lifestyle changes); the budget you’re adhering to (so you won’t overspend); or any other goals that you need to work on during the holidays.

I feel much better about the likelihood of surviving Christmas with my goals intact. How about you? How will you implement these simple steps to make sure Christmas doesn’t derail your goals?

Is 2010 Over?

Have you already written off 2010 as over? Why are we in the habit of doing that? Is it because we’re so accustomed to marketing messages about Black Friday, Cyber Monday and after Christmas sales that we forget to look inward at our own events?



We still have 6 weeks left in 2010. Are there goals or intentions for this year that haven’t come into fruition for you? If so, its never too late to start, and if you can’t complete the goal in 2010, if you start now, you’ll be well on your way to completion in 2011.

Tune Into Your Positive Mind

Today’s post is Part 4 of my Motivation Mojo series:

1. Ramp Up Your Motivation Mojo
2. Tune Out Your Negative Mind
3. Tune Out The Naysayers

I love when I find a new goal to focus on. When I sit down and decide to pursue a goal, I have an immensely pleasurable feeling of adventure, of anticipation, of excitement. Here is something new and worthwhile that I’ve set my mind on. For a few blissful moments, I am on top of the world.

But that feeling fades quickly, in the face of self-doubt and the hard work that goes along with most accomplishments. In those moments, its great to remind myself why I set the goal in the first place.

This reminder comes in handy often over the course of reaching a goal. It’s especially helpful to focus on the end result of a goal when those naysayers in our lives are questioning us; when things are not going according to plan and delays and setbacks result; and when our self-esteem may not be particularly high and we feel vulnerable, unsure of ourselves and a little lost.

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Tune Out The Naysayers

This is part 3 in my Motivation Mojo series:

1. Ramp Up Your Motivation Mojo
2. Tune Out Your Negative Mind

Unless you live your life as a hermit in a mountain cave, you cannot escape being surrounded by people. Your coworkers, immediate family, members of your church, the friends you cherish – these are the people who live vicariously through you, who want to enjoy your successes with you and encourage you to be your best. Some people, whether consciously or subconsciously, can’t stand to see you do better than them and will try to hold you back. Then there are the people who just can’t understand why you want what you want, especially if its a different choice than they’d make themselves.

In the end, the intent behind a person’s negative words doesn’t matter. The fact that they mean well doesn’t take the sting out of their deflating words. A casual remark, unsolicited advice or unexpected criticism can infiltrate your thoughts and cause you to doubt yourself and the validity of your goals. This is doubly potent when you already doubt yourself and are trying to hold your dreams together in your mind.

Erect Your Own Fortress

Here’s a familiar scenario:

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Tune Out Your Negative Mind

In Part 2 of my Motivation Mojo series, I discuss ways you can tune out the negative chatter in your mind. For Part 1 of the series, click here.

Your mind is an immensely powerful tool that can be used for good or ill (don’t you just love how I made that sound like some superhero stuff?). One thing you should keep in mind – it is a tool for your usage. It is a tool, its not YOU. We are so accustomed to thinking of our mind as who we are, as part or all of our personality, but its actually not.

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Ramp Up Your Motivation Mojo

One of the biggest challenges of being motivated in your business and professional goals is staying motivated. As the challenges and discouragements come, its easy to just give up on our dreams or develop a pessimistic outlook on life. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Starting with this post, I’m publishing a series on how to maintain your motivation as you’re working on your goals. Check back often because I’ll be updating this often.

There is a tendency that, once a person experiences discouragement, they be-come mired in the feeling and take a long time to recover their enthusiasm. But what happens to cause discouragement anyway? Usually, it occurs when an external or internal thought enters your mind to counter the positive, motivating feelings you currently have.

Discouragement can be very insidious because your mind will grab hold to that one thought and create other thoughts that correspond with it. Before you know it, you are filled with fear, concern and doubt about something you were thrilled about, just a few moments before.

Feeling discouraged is a normal part of life. What’s not normal, though, is letting that discouragement stall your progress. You have to learn to manage the feeling so that it does not interrupt your progress. Since discouragement crops up from both outside and inside of us, there are several tactics we can employ to guard against it. That way, our natural enthusiasm and motivation for our goals flows more freely, and its easier to stay on course for their completion.

Click Here For Your Motivation Mojo

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