Rise!

It's when ordinary people rise above the expectations and seize
the opportunity that milestones truly are reached.

Why did I just start singing Andra Days', "..And I'll rise up.....". I guess it does relate in some way. Anyhu on to today's dose of motivation. In order to rise, we must start. Simple right?! you'd think so. There are three things I recommend you know before you start;

Where you started
What direction you're headed
See yourself where you want to be.

Now, how I see it?! It doesn't matter if you're starting with a trust fund of 1 mill (lucky you) or from ground zero. The plan is to build, to grow and expand or as my wall street gurus will say, capitalize.

It is important to know where you start because when the going gets tough, compare it to where you started and you will see that you have moved. Most at times without pictorals ( pictures, graphs, charts etc) it is hard for us to see our own progress. When you begin a natural hair journey for example you have pictures in which you can clearly tell growth is occurring although hard to see on your own or when you start a weight loss journey that initial scale number is what you are constantly using to compare your progress. In your life's progression do same!

When you do eventually start, there are many paths you can take and I mean many so it is important that you find what works for you, what most aligns with your strengths. Mind you that along the way you might have to again restructure these paths and that's okay but always remember it is what works for you and not what worked for A or B.

Less focus on the face here please. It was finding its pose.

The vision has to be real. You have to be able to see it so much that you can touch it and the drive to get there will burn brightly. Ways to do this are creating vision boards and if you're not about that cutting out paper life then plain old pen and paper will do. I could barely color in the lines in kindergarten (hence todays' eyebrow struggle. My kids will have so many coloring books they might end up being future Picassos) so cutting paper shapes issa no. I write everything down and I date it cause I know a couple of years from that day I'll be back to give to give a testimony. Can I get an Amen?

As we draw closer to the end of yet another year (I literally remember New years' so well), analyze how far you've come, redirect the paths that did not work out, have new visions of where you're going. Restructure all this and watch yourself RISE to the occasion in 2018!

This is officially the last post for 2017. It is so surreal! While I have not been as consistent as I wanted to be, I did better than the year before and will do even better next year. This space has grown since I first decided to start blogging and I couldn't be more grateful to you all for the support. There are great things planned for 2018!