Hello and welcome to another week of ponderings at The LifeWalk!
For many years, I ran various businesses half-heartedly. For example, when I was in direct sales, at the beginning of my career, I worked hard. I did a lot, but I was t doing the right things. A mentor called me out on it when she once asked what I did that day to make a sale or find a new customer. I had done a lot of “playing office” but I hadn’t talked to anybody. I hadn’t made any calls or shared my business with anyone.
Once I started using that one question as my guide, I worked less and my business grew more. And, I began using that question with others I was mentoring.
This week, let’s talk about “getting your life right”, or doing the things that will bring you what you really want.
Here’s to success 🥂
~Suzanne
We all want to succeed at whatever it is we’re doing, whether it’s building a career, raising a family, building a relationship, or creating art. But are we willing to do what it takes to get there?
Are we willing to put in the hours of work to build that career? Take writing for example. If you’re here on Substack, you’ve likely seen the many folks who tell you how to grow your following or become a better writer. Most have the same message: do the work.
Doing The Work
If it’s your career, there’s work to get educated, get experience, and keep up with the industry.
If it’s your family, there’s work to raising children (of all ages) by providing food, clothes, and education.
If its a relationship, there’s work to do with your other to “makes things work”.
If it’s creating art, there’s certainly inherent talent, but also the refining of skills and expanding creativity to produce something new.
In all of these, there is an aspect of working on yourself. Before you can be or do for someone or something else, you need to get your life right.
When things go wrong, sure, sometimes there are external factors that contribute. But we can’t control those. We can only control ourselves and our actions.
We can’t control when an employer lays off employees. But we can control whether we keep up with our skills to be marketable to another employer, or become self employed.
We can’t control how our children will turn out, but we can offer them the tools they need to learn and grow, including love, nourishment, and a good example to follow.
Consistency is key.
We can’t eat one apple and expect the results of our lifelong junk food habit to disappear.
We can’t write one blog entry and expect to gain a thousand followers.
What are you willing to do to make things happen in your life?
Focus on yourself (not the external events or people). We can’t change the outside influences, but we can change what’s inside ourselves and how we react and respond to them.
What I’m Reading This Week
Here are some other ‘stacks that have caught my attention this week. Check them out and subscribe or share if you like what they have to say:
As appeasing as some mindfullness-oriented writings can be, I'm often wondering if it instills some complacency. Your words feel right - everything needs work, what are you willing to put in? I'm personally more inclined to this line of thinking. You're writing is great (I've read a couple others as well) - I'm subscribing to read the next ones!