Acknowledge Each Stroke
Let me tell ya’ll….hustling and chasing these goals and ambitions can be IRRITATING!!! I got frustrated the other day because the work has been wearing me out (and because of this daylight saving time mess)! It’s like I’ve been in this intense grind for a minute, doing everything in my power to make things happen, and the big picture still hasn’t come together. Yes I understand that seeds take time to grow, and everything happens in due time, and blah, blah, blah. But that doesn’t stop me from tripping out from time to time…..hey, I’m human.
To deal with this feeling, I decided to open up one of my notebooks that holds my scribble scrabbles, notes, and ambitions. I flipped through the pages desperately seeking inspiration and in the process, I stumbled upon a list I wrote last year entitled 2018 Business Goals. I went down the list out of curiosity and came to a halt when I got to number 14.
Sometime in 2018, I wrote (among other goals) that I wanted to participate on panels at blogger workshops and conferences. When I read that goal, I smiled. I thought about that since writing that particular goal down, I’ve been invited to participate on three panels and have one more scheduled at the end of the month. If I had any doubt prior to opening up that notebook, it vanished soon after.
I wanted to post this on my blog not only for myself, but for you guys too. The first point I want to make is - writing stuff down and manifesting is real. I cannot stress that enough. I didn’t reach out to any brand to be on any panels. I just put the work in on my brand, and obviously the right people were watching. I forgot I had even written this particular goal on paper until I decided to open up my notebook out of frustration - now fast forward to 2019, and I’m doing what I wrote down in that notebook. It may not look exactly how I pictured it…but nevertheless, it came to pass.
“Write it down on real paper with a real pencil. And watch shit get real. ”
The second point I want to make is - stop focusing on the big picture so much and praise yourself for the small steps you have conquered. Because I’m not where I want to be, my work began to feel in vain. But after opening that notebook and seeing that I accomplished a small part of the plan that I set out to conquer, I suddenly felt like all of my hustling is worth it.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Think of your life as a picture you are about to paint. You set the blank canvas on the easel, do one stroke, look at the picture, then get frustrated because it’s not all there. It doesn’t make a lick of sense to get frustrated since you’ve only done one stroke, right? Exactly! But this is how we act when it comes to our goals! We do a few strokes (or hustles) and get mad when the picture doesn’t look complete (guilty as charged!)…..but if we take a moment to acknowledge that one stroke we just made and understand that it is a crucial component to the complete picture we are trying to paint - we will view it and celebrate it differently.
I have to remind myself constantly that in order to create the big picture, I have to do the small strokes. And without those small strokes, there will be no big picture.
Let’s concentrate on getting that one stroke right today, then hitting that other stroke tomorrow, then the other one the day after that. Then one day we will look up and the big picture will be staring us right in the face.
Stroking,
- Samjah Iman
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