Over the course of the last several months, I've had several people tell me how amazed they are at my recent successes. Some think I’m lucky. Some are proud of me. Some are inspired by me. Some have said I make it (whatever “it” is) look easy. In fact, one of my closest friends (whom I lovingly refer to as my “lab rat”) has coined a term in her household...she calls it “The Julie Show.” I laugh every time she says it. Some even say, “You have the most exciting life!” (Huh?! I begrudgingly do laundry and scrub toilets and struggle to pay my bills and raise good kids just like the rest of the regular world…trust me, it’s not that exciting.)
But, I have been choosing to take any opportunity that is offered to me in a positive light and attempt it with courage. There are plenty of times that I fail or fall down. Sometimes, I choose a night out with friends over getting to bed early to sleep. Sometimes, that decision bites me in the ass when I have to crawl out of bed to meet a friend to run the next day. Trust me, I pay the price. But to me, the tradeoff is worth it.
I agree that I feel extremely happy and blessed with regard to some of my successes as of late. Achievements in my running and fitness goals, success in completing and selling several new paintings, honored with praise from happy readers who have enjoyed my book or blogs…they are fantastic, happy accomplishments in my eyes. But, let me set record straight… it’s not easy. I don’t have any special Pixie dust. I wouldn’t want any of you who follow my adventures to think that I am magically ‘blessed’ with these good things… If you want it, you can have it. But you have to make your own magic.
I work all the time. And when I say all the time… I mean… All. The. Time. Do I get out and have fun with friends and family? Sure! But a part of every day, I work on making some of my goals closer to a reality. Whether it’s hitting the gym or heading out for a run, writing for an hour on the laptop, getting online in the wee-hours of the night and networking with other writers or bloggers, or taking a few hours to work on a new painting… it’s all work. (Admittedly, work that I mostly love, but work nonetheless.) If I stop, my road to success will stop. Buyers for my paintings will not come knocking on my door unless I continue to paint and market them. Readers will not flock to my website without me trying to promote the crap out of it. Stories will never get told, unless I sit down and take the time to write them. Personal records will never be met, unless I get out there and put the miles in.
Just to put my “successes” in perspective… I should probably also tell you that for every one success I might achieve, I have at least TEN failures. Sure, I hit a personal best time at the last 10K race I recently ran. But leading up to that race, I suffered over training, had some horribly disheartening runs, bailed on a 10-miler and, need I remind you all of my struggles with learning to run with headphones? (Especially on the dreadmill…ugh. Refer to my blog entitled “Skullcandy Adventures…”) Even during my last race, I failed to hit my 5K PR by a mere SIX seconds. Six. That can really mess with your mind. You analyze every aspect of your race when you’ve finished. “If I just cut my walk break by 6 seconds, I would have hit it. If I just laid off on my speed that last half-mile, I could have kicked it up sooner and had a better sprint the last two-tenths…" It goes on and on… But, I think in order to achieve success, we have to have failures and be accepting of them. We have to learn from them and continue to move forward. If we stop at step 2, we’ll never get to steps 3 and 4 and so on and so on…
As for the writing front… Sure, I have a book available and it seems to be striking a positive chord with readers…but let me remind you of the 32+ rejection letters I received from literary agents (refer to blog “The Notorious Kingdom of No.”) And, new readers won’t buy my book unless I work on getting it available to independent store owners, teachers, students, bloggers and other readers who are willing to share it with their friends. It will not magically climb up the best seller list on it's own.
You may have heard the saying, “Every journey begins with the first step.” But, as I said once in a previous blog, in order for your journey to continue, you have to keep taking steps and some of those steps are really going to suck. Magic doesn’t happen on its own. We create it. It’s there for us to grab and make happen…but we must take the steps to make it happen. It’s all around us... in every day, in every choice, in every thought. And even when you fail (or fall off the treadmill), you are still one step closer to grasping your dreams than if you never took that step to begin with. With every new step (or stumble) you take, you make just a little more magic. You become a little braver…a little stronger… a little happier…a little closer to being a Pixie.
No one can do it for you.
You create your own magic. (And you don’t need the Pixie dust to do it.)
Okay then! Back to our regularly scheduled programming…it’s on with “The Julie Show”…I think there is some editing to be done, a painting to be framed, some bloggers I’ve got to call, some books to mail out, a few writing contests to research, a run I’ve got to squeeze in and… oh crud…I’ve got to clean the bathrooms today…
"The universe if full of magical things,
patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."
- Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960)