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Look For The Silver Lining

May 15, 2015
Total LIfe Makeover
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Counting My Blessings

thunderstorm

For several months last year I spent some time as a member of The Champion’s Club run by  Vic Johnson the author of  50 Lessons I Learned From The World’s Greatest Achiever. One of the things that he always stressed was the idea that in order to improve our business, we first need to improve ourselves. One of the best ways to make ourselves better people is by seeing the good in every situation.

This is why every night before I go to bed, I write down at least two things that I found was a blessing for me that day. Before I decide which two things to feel thankful for,  I have to feel the gratitude expressed. It may be something that I felt grateful for before, but there has to be something special about that gratitude that relates to that specific day.

My Blessings

Here’s a sample of some of my more recent blessings:

  1. I  am blessed with three wonderful children. All three of them are taking what like has given them and made the most of their lives.
  2. I blessed by the inspiration of  both of my parents. Both overcame physical disabilities and raised six healthy children.
  3. I am blessed with great friends who help me when I need it.
  4. i am blessed with a sound, creative mind.
  5. I am blessed with good health, and not dependent on any medications.
  6. I am blessed with a travel trailer that is fully paid for.
  7. I am blessed with a small truck that is fully paid for.
  8. I am blessed that I am learning self-discipline.
  9. I am blessed in that I have a love for continuous learning.
  10. I am blessed with a job that provides me with cash flow so that I can continue my passion of writing my novels and online articles.

The Art of Doing Exceptional Work

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Another aspect of seeing the silver lining , in addition to counting my blessings, is in doing something excellent relating to my goals on a daily basis. There are certain things that do every day toward reaching my goals. One of those things is that every day I work on learning Spanish using the online program Duolingo. However, I always try to do something else that leads toward my goals. Recently, my goals have involved raising the bar on the books that I have put out. I have recently had a professional photograph done of me as an author. I have again been rewriting my first book and intend to let my beta readers tear it up.

There is a fine line between determining to do excellent work and do it to the best of my ability and being a perfectionist. With perfectionism, we are often danger of not giving ourselves allowance to  do imperfect work as we learn to become more and more excellent. As perfectionists, we tend to want to do it all ourselves because we don’t think anyone can possibly do it as well as we can ourselves. This sets us up for procrastination depriving us of doing our best. Doing our best is what excellence is all about.

When we look for the silver lining in our daily pursuits, we feel better about ourselves. in the process, we try to excel even more because we want to prove to ourselves that we can do better than the day before. We become more self-confident. Self confidence leads to better performance and better performance leads to improved skills overall.

 

 

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Donna Brown is an ordained minister. As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues. Her upcoming book A Coward’s Solace will be available soon. Click here for more information about Cygnet Brown and her books.

What To Do With a Bucket List

May 8, 2015
Total LIfe Makeover
4 Comments

sky diver

Create your own destiny and learn how to fly!

 

A few weeks ago, I saw the movie the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and I have also seen the movie The Bucket List. What is it that both of these movies have in common? In both of these movies, the men realized that life is a journey and in due time, it comes to an end.  The most important thing we discover at the end concerns whether we really lived our lives or if we simply go through the motions of living.

Creating My Bucket List

The first lesson in the book 50 Lessons I Learned From The World’s Greatest Achiever by Vic Johnson is to create a list of life goals that we want to accomplish over the course of our lifetime that if you complete the list at the end of your life you feel as though you had a complete and wonderful life.. I have already done a lot of the things that I always wanted to do in my life. I have traveled to most of the United States. I was in the military (all state side), I had three wonderful children, and so far I have written and published 3 books with the fourth one almost ready to publish as well. I wrote my list as so far, my list consists goals related to being an author including writing, marketing, and speaking, and goals related to traveling (including learning languages). Still other goals are related to living healthy including exercise, proper diet, and living a simple life. My ultimate goal is to travel the world at leisure, writing, marketing, and speaking along the way. It also includes what could be the opposite, a simple home where I can live off what I grow as a person.

 

Thinking Outside The Box

The second lesson in the book relates to thinking outside of the box. The idea here relates to the idea presented in the book Acre of Diamonds where a man sold everything he had, including his farm in South Africa to search for diamonds. He died broke. Several years after his death, the largest diamond field in the world was discovered right on the farm that he had sold years earlier. This story relates to the premise that what we want in life is usually right in our own backyard. In other words, look around you and looking at your surroundings with a different viewpoint.

This step involves a radical step of identifying a goal and taking massive action to begin accomplishing that goal.

I am taking two massive goals this month. First  Goal I am: “Developing a simple lifestyle so that I can focus my resources toward traveling, writing, and speaking in different locals”.To start going in this direction, at the end of April, I bought a used travel trailer that I am moving out onto my friends’ place at the edge of a national park to live in and to fix up. I plan to later this month that begin doing a little gardening. Maybe next month I will be able to get a few chickens and a goat.

The second Goal that I am taking Massive action on is: “Become a best-selling author.” A step that I have taken this month is that yesterday I had a session with a professional photographer for my author photograph on my books. In addition, I have updated my bio and the cover descriptions on all of my books. I intend to have help coordinating the covers of The Locket Saga so that they don’t just look like individual books, but that they look like books in a series. I will put all of these aspects together and update my books by the end of the month. Then I will update my website and include these new looks to my books on my site.

Creating A Dream Board

This lesson involves identifying who you want to be and create a dream board.

In this exercise, I created a dream board with the words Speaking, Ministering, Author as the center. Then I used mind mapping to create words that describe that sort of person.

Words that I used to describe this person that I want to become would include radio blog, Bible courses, speak at churches, Youtube videos, visit women’s groups, helping people, sharing what I know with others, traveling around the country, and visiting book stores,  festivals, meeting many different people, It involves living in peace, living healthy, and living simply.

 

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Donna Brown is an ordained minister. As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues. Her upcoming book A Coward’s Solace will be available soon. Click here for more information about Cygnet Brown and her books.

Creating My Own Destiny

May 4, 2015
Total LIfe Makeover
2 Comments

50 lessons

Here we are in a new month. Last month I read a book by Vic Johnson twice. It was called 50 lessons I Learned From The World’s #1 Goal Achiever. In this book, Vic shares the life lessons from John Goddard the adventurer, explorer, author and lecturer. In 50 lessons, he teaches about how each of us can create our own success.

John Goddard had an experience when he was fifteen years old that changed his life. He was in his family kitchen when he heard one of his parents’ friends that he wished he was “John’s age again” and that he wished he could start over. This inspired John to write down 127 specific life goals. He accomplished most of these goals along with another 400 that he set through his life’s journey. The fact that he had a rare form of cancer did not keep him from his goals.

Vic tells how he met John. In 2006, Vic cold-called Goddard and was shocked when the famous man agreed to meet with Vic and his wife Lisa for dinner at his home. They met again numerous times over the next several years.

The book’s message is this

” Live your life as You see fit, not to listen to what the naysayers and even your own fears would have you believe is possible.”

 

This month I intend to use the lessons that I have learned to guide the affirmation that I am focusing on this month. That affirmation is

: I create my own destiny.”

God’s Will Is That We Live Our Lives

This may seem to some people like the opposite of my focus last month which had to do with my spirituality as a Christian. Doesn’t God determine our destiny? Well, the truth is, God gave us a will to do with as we wish. He gave us creative ability to spend our time on this earth either to his glory or to our own. Take my novels, for example. My novels are my own creation, but at the same time i believe that it is my destiny to write them. I believe that someone somewhere will be blessed through my work.

This Month’s Project

Every blog post this month on Mondays and Fridays, I am going to go through the lessons from the book and apply them to my own life. I am not certain how far I will get through the fifty lessions this month, but the goal is to get as far as possible at applying the action steps that are part of this book. I hope that it blesses you, my blog readers as much as it blesses me.

2014-04-07 07.07.08

Donna Brown is an ordained minister. As Author Cygnet Brown, she  has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. which includes When God Turned His Head and Soldiers Don’t Cry, the Locket Saga Continues. Her upcoming book A Coward’s Solace will be available soon. Click here for more information about Cygnet Brown and her books.

 

 

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