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Rejection. We have been taught to hate it. That it’s no good and doesn’t help us at all. Then again, maybe it does…

Rejection is when you get turned down. You’ll hear things like:

“No.”
“Not today.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Ha, ha, ha!”
“Red.”

Whether it makes sense or not, it’s not what you want to hear. We want everything to go our way, just the way we plan it. In reality, it almost never goes the way it’s planned. That would be too easy and like they say, “If it were easy, everyone would do it.”

Let’s start by drinking some water. Now, when you think about it, does rejection really hurt? It doesn’t hurt physically, but for most people, it hurts the ego. Being rejected time after time is no fun. There has to be a way to punch rejection in the face and make it run away, screaming and crying. If you’re tired of it, that’s good – that means you’ve been sticking to your plan. If you hide from it, that means we have some work to do.

We already established that rejection is not fun. It slows you down and robs you of your intended progress. Or does it? It can not rob you of your intended progress, not unless you let it. When people say ‘no’, they aren’t saying, “No, you horrible, terrible, no-good, geek!” They’re really pushing you towards your goal. When things don’t go as planned, that’s not a sign to stop and give up. It’s a sign to get on with it.

Think of rejection as an adventurous lesson. When you plan your work and start to work your plan, you’re beginning a journey. When you’re on a journey, you know where you want to end up, but DURING the journey, anything goes. It’s like climbing a mountain. On your way up, you’ll get tired, thirsty, bitten by mosquitos, scratched up by thorns and angry weeds, etc. But at some point, you make it to the top. You didn’t turn around to go back down and you might have even stopped for a minute, but you kept going to the top. You knew you had to get there, because that was the plan and the designated goal.

It’s the same thing with working your plan. People are going to reject you and at times, you’ll want to go the other way or throw up your hands. It’s a funky type of adventure – just keep going to see what happens next. You may even come across people, who may actually offend you. Take care of it and keep going.

Let rejection be your energy. It should make you want to go the extra mile, just to prove it can be done. At the end, you’ll have the most awesome-est story to tell! You could be one of those people you admire, who went through so much, just to get through to the other side. That’s what rejection does – it builds you. Instead of feeling bad, you should feel glad because it actually helps you along. It’s always going to be there, so get comfortable with it. Be rejection’s friend and see how far it’ll take you.

I had a friend who called me one day to ask if I wanted some watermelon. I asked, “Is it already cut?” She says, “No – you can cut it yourself.”

I nicely replied, “I don’t cut watermelon.”
“So how else do you eat it?” She replied.
“I buy it already cut.”

Why did I say that?

For the next ten minutes, she went on a rampage, telling me how crazy it was that I paid more money to buy watermelon that’s already cut. Here’s more:

“Why would you buy it already cut? You can cut it yourself.”
“That’s a waste of money.”
“You’re that lazy, that you wouldn’t cut your own watermelon?”
“But it’s free – I’m giving it to you!”
“You don’t want a free watermelon because you have to cut it?”
“Why don’t you want it?”
“BECAUSE I DON’T CUT WATERMELON!”

Can we move forward with our lives now?!

After listening to her rant for the next 10 minutes, I made a decision.

While listening to her, I decided to minimize my time with her. She responds this way whenever someone doesn’t do things the way she would do them. Not only is this a waste of energy on both our parts (she’s wasting her energy and draining mine), it’s a waste of time. I don’t know what she was attempting to accomplish by trying to make me feel stupid for not cutting watermelon, but whatever it was, it didn’t work. The conversation should have went like this:

“Hey, girl, I have 3 watermelons – would you like one?”
“No thanks, I don’t cut watermelon.”
“Ok, call you later.”

End of conversation. Energy and time saved for better things to do. Let’s move on.

(I don’t cut watermelon because I am no good with knives and big objects.)

I don’t do religion and I don’t do politics. I do me. I am responsible for what I decide. I hold myself accountable for my actions. I wait on no one to lead me. I make my move.

It may hurt. It may not work. At least I know that I tried and I can reset and begin again. Then again, it may work. It may be the best move made in my life. I won’t know, unless I do it. Although things happen, I will not accuse another person or situation for my place in life. I take full and complete responsibility.

There are people who are into religion and politics and other things. That’s fine, if that’s what you decide to do. One thing I know for sure: religion and politics, among other things, will always be there, but it won’t stop me from taking action on my goals. We all have the freedom to use our minds, any way we choose. Think for yourself.

Everyone is meant to do something different. We all have our parts to play. You can let life and it’s events affect you and make you stagnant, or you can stick to your plan and make things happen the way you imagined it. It’s totally up to you.

Don’t allow religion, politics, and other things, to guide your life. There is no success in that. Yes, believe in whatever higher entity that suits you, but in the end, it is up to you to better yourself. Hard times will come and knock you down, but it is your choice to get up and fight – blaming the government will do nothing. Stop making excuses and putting the blame on others. Blaming calms your mind and makes you THINK you’re off the hook. In essence, you’re hurting no one but yourself.

Get up, get out, and get something (Outkast in the 90’s). Make YOUR move.

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Some things come more naturally to some, than others. This doesn’t mean that you’re just bad, and can never improve in that weakened area, it’s just something you have to work on. Your strength, what you find that comes to you easily, is someone else’s weakness. It seems so easy to you, but to someone else, it stops them in their tracks. A hindrance, it may be (Yoda), but there are ways to push through.

One thing that a lot of people do is delegate. In business, when something needs to be done, it needs to be done efficiently. If my weakness is time management, I may never get the task done or it will take me all day to complete. In this case, delegation works better. Someone else may have way better time management skills than I do. If I delegate the task to their strength, then I can move on to something else that I’m awesome at. It all works out for everyone.

The other way to improve your weakness is to actually work on it. Acknowledge that you do have a weakness. This way, you know exactly what you need to work on. You may never become a shining star at that weakness, but you will be better than you were before. Take some time and practice it. At first, you may find it hard and boring, but you have to be persistent. It’s like your parents making you eat spinach when you were younger – you hated it, but you had to do it. The more you practice, the better you’ll get. At least you’ll have some idea on how to perform your weakness and potentially make it work, but you won’t even get that far without a little practice. I would rather do it at thirty percent than five percent (if I HAD to do it).

These are just a couple of ways to improve your flaw. You can delegate and keep it moving, or you can step up to the challenge and make the effort to improve. Actually, the process should be: delegate and then practice. It may be a weakness, but there is always room for improvement. It still may be a weakness, but when you have to perform it, the little bit you can do may be enough to get by. That’s better than just ignoring it and not trying all together. We should all strive to make ourselves better, even through our weaknesses. Drink some water, take on the challenge, and make yourself better.

The complaining and excuses, that is. It’s always something.

“I’m tired.”
“It’s too cold.”
“It’s not enough.”
“I can’t work with that.”
“It hurts.”
“I don’t feel good.”
“It’s not my problem.”
“That’s not in my job description.”

Complaining doesn’t help. You know what helps? Taking initiative helps. Being the bigger person helps. Pushing through until it’s done helps. Being a living example to the little ones helps.

Excuses are up there with complaining. It’s a fierce competition between he two. Imagine two people sitting in a park, saying to each other, “I bet I can do nothing better than you! I can give more reasons NOT to do it!” That’s Complaining and Excuses. Pitiful.

Complaining and making excuses is one of the worst things you can do to yourself (and others, because I hate to hear it). It gets you no where. You have a life that is meant for you to delve into and explore! You have the freedom to blossom into whatever suits you. For some, I guess that’s the freedom to do nothing.

Restricting yourself from your potential is like being nonexistent. Really, nobody cares if you mess up and frankly, nobody’s watching. Be the one to step out and try. The one who just goes out and doesn’t give a damn about ‘what if’. The next time you feel an excuse or a complaint coming on, just do what you’re supposed to do. Besides, you never know what adventure it may lead to.

Stop making dumb excuses, as to why you can’t do anything. Stop complaining about why you can’t make it happen. Stop complaining about the other person who’s making it happen. It takes the same amount of energy to just do it, as it does to think up another excuse. You’ll also feel better after you’ve taken action on what needed to be done. Participate in life! You’ll have so many stories to tell and experiences to share. I guarantee, it’ll be quite the thrill. Drink some water and stop the complaining and excuses. It really doesn’t help.

When you’re around friends and family, it’s easy to judge them on their current situation. For some reason, judging others is something most people have to make a conscience effort NOT to do. It comes to us so easily. Even if it’s not bad judgment, it’s still judgment. We all need to learn to focus on ourselves and how we can become great in our own potential.

As a child, you’re exposed to many things. As you grow older, you tend to take on the habits that were an influence in your environment (good or bad). Judging is one of those characteristics that we gravitate toward, unintentionally. Sometimes, you have to catch yourself and force those judgmental thoughts out of your head. Judging someone is almost like second nature.

How about focusing on you? Judge yourself. Whenever you find yourself thinking negatively about someone else’s situation and how they could change it, think about what you can do to change yourself. Everyone learns in their own time. So what, she didn’t graduate high school? Don’t spend your time talking about her situation and how she should have done this and she needs to do that. You can either offer a word of encouragement or go work on yourself.

Look at yourself and know that you are a work in progress, just like anybody else. You may be ahead of the person you’re judging, but don’t look down on them. Often times, all a person needs is a nice, kind word. Your responsibility is to work on being the best you that you can be – not walking around telling everyone else how they should be. There are some things that you could work on, too. Be honest with yourself and supportive of others. There’s enough adversity going around, there’s no need for you to add to it. Thank you, but we have enough.

Work on you. Let others work on themselves. It’s not your place to tell someone else what their journey should be. Stop the silent judgment. If anything, offer a thoughtful word, work on yourself, and keep it moving.

You’re ready to start committing to your goal. You’ve done all of the research and you know what it’s going to take. The plan has been thought out and you’re prepared. The start date comes around and you realize that you’re not feeling it. It looked good during research, but now it’s time to do the actual work.

When people say they want to reach a certain goal, they mostly think about the parts they like to do. This can be fun and it’s part of the reason why you want to do it, right? Everyone says, “Follow your passion! Do what you love!” That’s called a hobby. If you want to make a living off of what you love to do, it’s called a business.

Now, you have to do business things. It doesn’t seem so fun anymore. You can only get paid under the table for so long. You will run into someone who will ask you to fill out an I-9 or W-9 for whatever type of tax or identification purposes*. Now, you need to temporarily stop baking cupcakes and start doing the paperwork necessary to make your business official.

Yes, I know you hate paperwork and filling out different forms and making payments to cover your business name with the state, etc. Well, you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. While you’re baking those lovely cupcakes, you also have to make time for the things you need to do to make your business grow and to generate more customers. You can pay someone to do these things for you or you can take the time and do it yourself. I know it’s laborious, but you should always aim to have all of your ducks in a row.

You just learned that you need a license in order to bake those lovely cupcakes you’ve been baking for the last ten years. You already know how to do this, so why do you need a license? Well, it’s the law (for example purposes). If you get a surprise inspection one day, you’ll be glad you did it. Get your lovely cupcake baking license and keep moving forward. Want to be recognized as a woman-owned business? That’s a task – you’ll need the last three years of taxes, articles of organization, the date your business started, meeting minutes, NAICS codes, etc*. Ask anyone in a legal business and they will tell you that there’s much more to running a business, other than doing the part you love.

It sucks that these things come up, but don’t let it ruin your passion for those cupcakes. There are many other things you will have to do, just so you can bake those lovely cupcakes. As your business grows, you’ll be able to hire someone to help you with the boring, tedious paperwork. Again, you don’t have to like all of the exhausting, monotonous work, but you have to do it. Don’t let it stop you from starting your business. Everyone has to do it – no one is picking on you. If it’s needed, then do it. Plain and simple. The complaining and whining will only hinder your progress.

One more time: you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. If it was easy, everyone would be successful.

*The examples in this post are merely used as a guideline in starting a fictitious cupcake business. Please do your own research in order to succeed.

Goals are ideas and things that we set out to achieve. They can be small goals or massive goals, according to what you are doing. There are goals for the day and there are five year goals (or even longer). It’s good to have goals, because you can keep track of how well you’re doing with your work. There are many types of goals you can plan out, but here at The Goalden Lady, we make it long term.

Long term goals scare people. The first thing they think is, “That’s too far ahead – I don’t even know what I’ll be doing that far in advance!” Well, that’s why you make long term goals, so you can have a map or a blueprint of where you want to go and where you want to be. If you don’t make a plan, you’ll end up with a lot of other people – no where. The earlier you understand this, the better. Make weekly goals, monthly goals, yearly goals, five year goals and ten year goals. Look at your long term goals, as well as your short term goals, on a daily basis. This practice will help keep you on track, because it is very easy to get caught up in something else and forget what you were trying to do in the first place.

Go ahead and do those year long goals. If you know what you want to do and how you envision your life, write it down and make a plan – build a blueprint. Blueprints show what you want something to look like, from beginning to end. If it’s not working, you can adjust it along the way. Writing it down can be scary, too, because you may fear that you won’t complete it. Writing it down may make you feel some kind of way, like you’re holding yourself accountable. Yes, that’s what responsible, successful people do. If you want to be successful, writing down your plans can give you a blueprint on how you could get there. You may not even know where to begin with your plan, but start either from the beginning or the end. Some people start from the end and write their plans backwards. Some start from the beginning and plan to the end. There is no correct way, but the good thing is, you can revise as you go along. It’s not written in stone.

What ever you do, do it big! Someone once said that if you shoot for the moon, you’ll hit the stars. Don’t say, “I want to be a ballet dancer.” Instead, say, “I want to be a ballet dancer in New York, performing on Broadway, in the next fifteen years.” This is more specific and a pretty big expectation. If you apply pressure (work on it everyday), you’ll get that diamond (your dream). Drink some water, write your plan, and put in the work to get there. Don’t stop at the small goals, but allow it to build into your yearly goals. The smaller goals will come together to contribute to the bigger goals, and your overall blueprint.

Ultimately, you should have a plan on what you want to do. Having a one, five, or ten year blueprint can seem overwhelming, but once you break it down, it’s not as hard as it looks. When someone asks you what do you do in your spare time or what are you working on, you have your plan to refer to. It doesn’t look so good when someone asks this question and you answer with a dumbfounded look or an “I don’t know.” Always know what you are doing with your life. Know what you want your life to look like in the long term. Build a blueprint, and build your ideal life.

I was supposed to do it yesterday. I could give ten excuses, but that wouldn’t help, even though I feel at least one of them is valid. I still did my daily work, but I didn’t do this part.

Usually, I beat myself up over not following my plan or forgetting to do what should have been done. When I (used to) do this, I end up wasting time by allowing the negative voices to take over my head. At some vulnerable point, I start to believe those voices. Then I go into a funk and that takes up another hour or two. Sometimes, I might even go on a shopping binge to make myself feel better and that could take up an entire day. It takes me quite some time to get back on that horse.

Now, I do feel some kind of way about not doing the part I was supposed to do yesterday, because now, I’ve broken the chain (and the chain was really long). Today, I am in a new space. Instead of sulking and feeling awful about what I didn’t do, I plainly decide to continue. No drama involved. Just continue. That’s it. Nothing happened and no one died. I am still here, working on being better than I was yesterday. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue. Yes, I did feel bad for a moment, but I realized that if I beat myself up over it, that’s more time I’m wasting. I could’ve been doing more work and making actual progress.

It’s not the end of the world. Things happen, but the quicker you get over what happened and move on, the better off you are. Yes, I am slightly disappointed in myself for missing that ONE day (and I won’t make excuses), but if I wake up tomorrow, it’s another day and another chance. Start a new chain. This is just what the Goalden Lady is about. Make no excuses and keep it moving.

It happens to most people. You don’t follow through on your goals. You don’t make that phone call. You don’t speak how you feel. You don’t try. All of these examples are symptoms of fear. Fear can either stop you, or it can motivate you. Some of us don’t even know that fear is the thing that’s stopping us. You must let go of fear, move forward, and continue to build your life.

Fear can be a learned reaction. If a mother is scared of water, she will unconsciously place that mental burden on her child. She overreacts every time they go to the beach and the child ends up passing on this trait to their future child. On the other hand, the child can decide that they aren’t going to be afraid of water and take swimming lessons. This is how fear can be turned into motivation. Whatever it is that scares you, learn how to do it or deal with it. After you’ve dealt with it, you won’t fear it anymore (for the most part). Don’t scare your children into your fear.

Fear can be an invisible monster. That monster that says, “You can’t win this race – look how fast they are and how slow you are.” For some reason, most of us tend to believe the negative before we believe the positive. The negative makes it easier to walk away, but the positive makes you put in some work. That invisible monster on your shoulder, that whispers sweet negative things in your ear, enjoys seeing you listen to him. He really enjoys seeing you draw back from a challenge that you want to try and accomplish. That invisible monster has reached his goal, but you have turned away from yours, because of what he says. It may be hard, but don’t listen to him. Don’t give in. You are responsible for what you do, so don’t let that invisible monster stop you from doing what you want to do. If you listen to him, you’ll end up regretting it, years down the road.

Fear won’t do anything back to you, if you say ‘no’ to it. It’ll just keep taunting you, like a bully, until you give in. You kill fear by doing what you want. Even if you fail or don’t do it right the first time, keep trying. Fear and failure are like the Negative Brothers. One stops you from doing something and the other makes you feel bad to the point of giving up. Know the fear and go on. Don’t give up. You know what it feels like, so when it rears it’s ugly head, keep going. You can do anything, but you must put fear in it’s place. It doesn’t belong in front of you, it doesn’t belong beside you. It belongs behind you and that’s where you should keep it. Take responsibility of your life and move forward – have no fear!