K.E.Y.S (Keep Educating Yourself into Success Passion and Purpose)

Jamie Clark

• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing Group
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781641112000
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Crescita personale
• Subtopic: Miglioramento personale

We live in a world where success can seem so close yet so far. I am here to encourage you that all of us has a purpose in life. Doors open when you become a student of your craft.

When your will to succeed becomes greater than the fear in your heart you will begin to accomplish everything you have ever imagined. Faith mixed with hard work and determination will take you further than your sight. Remember the keys you possess are your keys not your friends or anyone else's. The keys you possess are within you and they are customized to unlock your doors.

Day 1

FOCUS

The first word I want to dive into on my journey is focus. I tend to tell myself that if I can focus on one thing, I can accomplish many. In order to be successful, you have to be able to perfect one thing before moving on to the next. I would like to identify the things that throw me off my focus. Hmm? Good question: What is it that really throws me off my focus?

For me, life in general throws off my focus. I am sure you have this issue as well, but that is why it is called life. As I stated earlier, I am a fiancée as well as a mother. I have to create a balance between being a good mother and a soon-to-be wife. I have to find ways to communicate with my fiancé that are not just about our daughter and keep the relationship between us exciting and youthful. At times I lose focus within the relationship because I'm focusing on what our child is in need of at that moment. My focus can be off when I am consumed with the negative attributes of work. Upon me identifying some of the things that I lack focus on, I want you to also think deeper about your challenges as I begin to create tools to help me regain my focus.

What are some good tools that help me focus more? I'm glad you asked! It would be time management. Lists seem to work very well for me. I am one of those messy-organized people. Meaning I have no sense of numerical or alphabetical organizational skills, but I can tell you exactly where something is or where it should be. Pure chaos.

Allow us to take the time to get focused on the process ahead. For the next five days I am going to focus on all of my ventures, picking one day to dedicate to each individually.

Today I met with my group for our YouTube channel (Sh*ddd Let's Talk). It was very refreshing, I was focused, and I felt like I stuck to something and got it done. In order to make progress, take things one day at a time and allow things to unfold into the next step. Do not rush; everything takes times to create.

At times I make excuses as to why I don't get certain things done. I have to make the necessary changes and just do them, but that's what I'm focusing on within this journey: to do better to figure out what I am going to change and grasp a better understanding of it internally to make this a great journey. I will also write in my journal to set my goals for the New Year. Focus on the journey. Focus on what is important.

I want you to figure out what throws your focus off and determine how you will eliminate your focus-throwers one by one, day by day. One thing I know I have to do is focus, shut out the outside world, zoom in on me. It is OK to only think about me, my goals, and my ambition. I want you who are reading this book to write down what throws off your focus.

This is my list:

1. Working with difficult people
2. My two year old (she's unpredictable)
3. Life itself
4. Daily chores
5. Being tired
6. Social media
7. Senseless conversations

What's your list?

How will I eliminate the seven things on this list or monitor them so that I can become more focused? Difficult people I can choose to walk away from, and I do not have to indulge in situations with difficult people. In my job I do have to talk to difficult people daily, but I do not have to allow it to consume my energy. I have learned that ten minutes of meditation allows me to eliminate negative energy. It is up to you to decide what is worth your energy.

My two year old is going to be my biggest challenge, but I have been working on a consistent schedule for her so that she is on a routine. I believe if I create a routine for her my ability to focus will become a lot better. It is all a working progress.

Life in general is an off-balancing experience, but choosing what you will allow in your vicinity is a start. Life is the one thing that will go haywire whenever, however—we cannot just control all of the ins and outs of life; it is impossible. We can control how we find balance and how we maintain our household daily. This goes back to me knowing I do well with lists and utilizing lists to my full advantage. I need weekly lists since they help me focus my attention and stay on track. No matter how much life gets out of hand, that list will keep me focused.

Time management, all in all, will be a major part of my journey to help me FOCUS! In order to get to the next level of whatever the achievement is, focusing on the task and the journey ahead will allow me, you, and everyone else who wants it badly enough, to be as successful as they would like to become.

Day 2

DISCIPLINE

It is day two and the word of this day is discipline. Day one we discussed being focused. With being focused there comes a sense of discipline. According to the dictionary, discipline means the practice of training people to obey rules and/or a code of behavior; using punishment to correct disobedience. Discipline, to me, is creating a routine I can stick to.

Success calls for making the decision to do or not to do. In my decision-making process I tend to lack discipline because I now know I lack focus. When I gain the focus I then can train my thoughts or my processes to become disciplined.

Now I'm questioning myself as I write this down to you. I mentioned trying to create a solid routine for myself. I don't mean the day-to-day stuff like going to work, etc. I mean time management. When I was younger, my father would make my brother and I iron all of our school clothes on Sunday night for the week. Discipline: the will to stay focused on the task and continually do.

I am thirty-one years old, and most weekends I try to visit my father after church on Sundays because this has become routine for me. It is also a part of me being disciplined in my routine. My nephew lives with my dad, and sure enough, on Sundays my dad irons his clothes and makes my nephew do the same. I have witnessed this for twenty-three years; that is true discipline. What my dad did and is doing is creating time management skills; he created routine, focus, and discipline.

A light bulb just went off as I am writing. That's my start: this Sunday I will get my daughter's clothing for school ready for the week. The journey is about the start. If I don't start, I will never finish anything.

As I reclaim my focus and my discipline, it takes me starting and finding the ways to my success. By preparing us for the week I free up my time. In order to focus on my crafts and ventures, I need the time. The thirty minutes I waste looking for our clothes in the morning is an hour wasted, due to having to look for the clothes and then iron them (wasting time). The goal is to not waste time, but only manage to it a lot better than I have done.

When we create habits that will allow us to not waste so much idle time, we start to witness things being taken care of. We all want to see tasks on our plate being completed. By becoming disciplined in our work, we create drive and will to continue pressing forward, even when everything seems mundane.

I will list my favorite quotes that will allow your brain to really dive into what it means to be disciplined, and hopefully it starts the juices flowing into the stream of success.

1. “Your level of success is determined by your level of discipline and perseverance.” —unknown
2. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” —Hebrews 12:11
3. “Motivation will die; let discipline take its place.” —unknown
4. “One of the most important keys to success is having the discipline to do what you know you should do, even when you don't feel like doing it.” —unknown
5. “Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.” —John Maxwell

Day 3

SACRIFICES

Sacrifices. So far, we have openly discussed focus and the things I want to change that will eventually help my growth. I'm learning that I will have to sacrifice my time, my sleep, and my wants. Definitely my wants.

For instance, I have an app on my phone. It basically looked at my last four months in the year 2019 and gave me a brief synopsis of my spending habits from my main account. As I came up with obtainable goals for 2020, one of which was to save money. According to this app, I'm off to the wrong start. It stated that in three days of the New Year I already spent 130 percent more than I did in the month of December—crazy, right! This is the same app that told me I spent 30K in fo...