5 Impediments to Success

As bad as external impediments are, often, it is the internal impediments that trip us up, throw us down and keep us back. They weaken our confidence, flatten our motivation, quash our determination and dim our passion to achieve our dreams. If we don’t weed out these impediments, they can destroy our dreams altogether. In order to succeed, we must identify and remove impediments like these –

1. Indecision. Do or don’t? Go or stay? Start or wait? Questions, questions, questions? No, it might be indecision, which can shift our focus, halt our actions, slow our progress and minimize our chances of success. It is far better to begin, do something, take one step and make adjustments later, than waste time hesitating and second-guessing ourselves.
   We’d be wise to be cautious and to evaluate our circumstances, our goals and the path we need to take to accomplish them. However, if we hesitate because we are uncomfortable with uncertainty, we will avoid taking those vital first steps or other crucial actions down the road. To move along the path before us, to attain any kind of success, we should learn to analyse a situation and make a definitive decision.

2. Inaction. Knowing what has to be done is a good position from which to take action. Instead, we over-think, over-analyse, over-strategize and do not act. When our dreams are at stake, we can’t afford to sit with thoughts, ideas and plans. 
   Dreams demand that we act by taking one step after another. Each day we should ask ourselves, “What action could I take today to move me closer to my dream?”

3. Regret. Regret decreases the quality of our lives and hangs like a dark and heavy cloud over our future. If we can’t undo what has been done or do what was undone, it is best to leave the issue in the past where it belongs. 
   If there is a chance that we can change things, we should and as soon as we can. Regret does not help us in the pursuit of our goals. Therefore, we shouldn’t waste time twiddling with it. Rather, we should be busy with the business of living our lives in the present and moving steadily and purposely towards our future.

4. Faithlessness. Our thoughts, our words and our actions tell whether or not, we believe that God can guide us to the success we want in our lives, our careers or our dreams. While faith in God is not a magic formula for success, faithlessness deprives us of the blessings God bestows when we believe in Him to guide and sustain us along the path we wish to travel.
   We can’t fake faith though. It must be real. It must be solid. It must be nurtured, deepened and strengthened. And we must learn to rely on God, the object and supplier of our faith, to fill us up, direct us, lead us and keep us steady and courageous in our various pursuits.

5. Impatience. We’re not a very patient lot. We have a learned desire for instant gratification. In fact, we crave and demand it even when situations scream “Be patient”. Sometimes, all the evidence before us dictates that waiting for a day, a week, a month, a year or longer is the best decision.
   Not because we are afraid or passive or indecisive but because patience is necessary and best, if we want a particular outcome.

If we are convinced that the life, the career, the relationships, the dreams we want are important, we must identify, uproot and destroy those internal impediments that hinder our success.

(This piece was published in the the Womanwise Magazine on Sunday 15rh June, 2013.)

Seizing the day

I'm really feeling it today. Today's going to be a super duper productive day - 

2 articles will be outlined, 1 will begin to come to life, 1 will be completed, 2 will be submitted and the proofreading project will advance to a reasonable stage. 

Coffee in my TGIF mug is steaming, rain is falling, clouds hiding the sun, Immi-poppit nearby. 

HOLY CRAPOLIE! Everything is just perfect. In fact, RITA can stay in bed if she wants, I'm ready to rumble.

I'm seizing the day.

Unprecedented double winners of the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

 The Whale House by Sharon Millar one of five regional winners of the 2013 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize, is now online. I read it and thought - well, hands down, Sharon can win the overall 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize with this story. I was right. 

She shares it with Canadian writer, Eliza Robertson for her story, We Walked on Water.






Razia Iqbal, chair of the Commonwealth Book Prize commented on this double win. 

"It is a measure of the quality we had to choose from in the shortlist, that we unanimously settled on two joint winners. It was impossible to decide between them, though each one is quite distinctly different from the other. Both fulfilled our criteria of excellence in style, originality and tone. The Whale House, by Sharon Millar, sets the scene immediately, and there are lush descriptions of landscapes as well as emotion. It is striking how even minor characters are drawn vividly in quick, tightly written strokes.  We Walked on Water, by Eliza Robertson, is an exhilarating story about the relationship between a brother and sister, both competitive swimmers. Writing with elegance about sport as well as the emotional bond between siblings is an impressive feat. The descriptive writing is nothing short of strikingly beautiful, in terms of emotions felt, the natural environment and the structure. Both these stories stay in the imagination and the heart, long after they have been read.”

8 Ways to Make Each Day Count

We live in challenging times and often, it is difficult to be positive, inspired and inspiring. It seems as if we are just dragging ourselves from day to day feeling exhausted, defeated, disappointed and hopeless. We know what we should be thinking, feeling and doing but we don’t because we are looking at the big story of our individual lives instead of making each day count for something - something positive and inspiring for ourselves as well as for others.  

Below are 8 suggestions to help us make each day count.

1.    Refresh our faith. We are vulnerable to fear and despair when our faith is weak or non-existent. We feel lonely and empty even in good times. Refreshing our faith daily with prayer, reading and meditation lifts the fog of misery for hope and courage to slip in. 
 
2.    Wake with gratitude. With all the challenges we face, we might be tempted to greet the day with discontent and grumbling. That’s a guaranteed recipe for a miserable life. While troubles may walk with us we can always find a few things to be grateful for. If we focus on those, we can ease into our day instead of stumbling and falling all over our own negative thoughts.  
 
3.    Set a mental course. Sometimes, when we have to jump into our day’s commitments, we might not have time to draft a to-do list, which is important to keep on track with all we have to do. Nevertheless, we can still outline our day’s agenda in our heads by recalling each task in two or three words to make them easier to remember.

4.    Link to yesterday. We can always identify something – a mistake, a failure, a success, a friendship, a problem, a solution, an idea, an injustice, a compassionate gesture from our past that can inform, improve and inspire our lives in the present. Even our futures, as veiled as they are, can be more promising with lessons we’ve learned as we travelled yesterday’s path. 
 
5.    Lighten our luggage. Harassed and exhausted, it is all too comfortable to lug the same old negative elements behind us day after day. Every so often, we should dig into our luggage and get rid of the old and irrelevant “stuff”, not just to make the load lighter but also to create room for the good “stuff” that lies ahead.  
 
6.    Tread purposely. With life as challenging, uncertain and short as it is, we should undertake every task with purpose – understanding and fulfilling our responsibilities with dedication and discipline. It is a habit that will save us from nursing regret and gradually, it will also bring joy into the mix. 

7.    Aim for excellence. Having to do the same things every day often makes us bored, complacent and inclined to mediocrity. Likewise, when faced with tasks that take us out of our comfortable place, we do them half-heartedly or with fear that we might fail or disappoint people. Excellence in everything is a good motto to tag to each day, even if for our own satisfaction.  
 
8.    Be gentle with ourselves. We can be too hard on ourselves. However, when we treat ourselves gently (relax, breathe, play, exercise and nourish our minds, our spirits and our bodies), we develop into well-rounded people who in turn, treat others gently. 

Despite the challenges we might be facing, our lives can still be rich, worthwhile and inspiring,. We can make each day count by using these suggestions to help us live each day in the flow of faith, gratitude, contentment, joy, purpose and compassion. What a legacy!

(Published in the Trinidad Guardian's Womanwise Magazine Sunday May 26th 2013)

Claim a room of your own to write, Keri Wyatt Kent did

I've been reading Keri Wyatt Kent's writing for years. She's the kind of writer who bares her soul, tells her stories and inspires readers and writers with the truths and triumphs of her struggles. 

Drawing on Virginia Woolf's famous lecture on women and fiction, in which  she said, 

"A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved. " 

Keri wrote this post for Tim Fall's blog. Her words and her experience reached deep into my own sometimes pitiful thoughts and my often achy-heart gripes and set me straight about the truth that crouches behind them. I must claim time and space (a room of my own) to write. With no more excuses to fool myself, I am forced to define, ask for, take or make what I need to fuel, fill, expand and explore my writing. And this is true for you too. Whatever your circumstances, whatever excuses you have been using, Keri says that you too can and should claim your own room to write. 

A week away from our everyday lives and commitments, a secluded beach house with miles of shore to walk, a full-service hotel ... would be wonderful. Nevertheless, we can find simpler and dare I say, more practical/affordable "room to write" in a few alone-hours at home on a Sunday afternoon, a weekday morning at a nearby coffee shop, time at the library a couple times a week, you know, those small but priceless treasures of undisturbed time that entice ideas/stories to rise to the surface and make their way to the page or screen.  

Each writer might think that she (or he) is alone in this issue but that's not the case. Keri knows that only too well. The difference is that once she realized that she too was entitled "to get to _______" like the writers she knew or read about, she embraced it, made it a reality in her life and is encouraging us to do the same. 

Now, if Keri can ask for/find/make time and space (a room of her own) to write, so can languishing writers everywhere.  

Thank you Tim Fall for featuring Keri Wyatt Kent and thank you Keri for sharing your story and inspiring us to claim a room of our own to write.

Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2013 - Sharon Millar from the Caribbean

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2013 is no slight thing. It's big , as they say on their website:

"Commonwealth Writers has partnered with Granta magazine to give regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize the opportunity to be published by Granta online during the week commencing 27 May.

John Freeman, Editor of Granta said: “The Commonwealth Short Story Prize searches across a vast territory with relentless curiosity to select the brightest new talent from each region, and this year is stronger than ever. With voices that arrest, affirm, disturb and illuminate, this new crop of writers turn our expectations for what a story can do, and of where they are calling from, inside out. This partnership is an example of what the magazine can be at best – a beacon for those writers we didn’t know we were missing out on – and we salute Commonwealth Writers in their continuing good work.”

There were five winners - Congrats to them all. But I'm over-the-moon happy for and proud of our Sharon Millar who cupped the prize for the Caribbean region.  

You can read the full piece at the Commonwealth Writers' website but I take great pleasure in quoting what they said about Sharon and her story, The Whale House and what she said about writing. 

Caribbean

 As a woman recovers from a miscarriage, it resurrects an old conflict and a long kept secret. Bush medicine, teenage sexuality, and difficult moral choices culminate in this uniquely Trinidadian story – one of marriage and the secrets we keep from the ones closest to us.

Sharon Millar is a Trinidadian writer who lives in Port of Spain with her husband and daughter. She is particularly driven by the landscape of her homeland and her work touches on issues that affect her as a Trinidadian citizen and as a woman. The worlds of her stories are occupied by protagonists who struggle with moral issues, crime, illness, loyalty, betrayal, and all the other messy things that make up a life. Writing from a Caribbean island right here and right now allows her to illuminate complications that lie beneath the surface of a young state trying to move forward as a cohesive society. She is conscious of pushing past the Caribbean stereotypes of exoticism and tries to create characters that are universal in their desires and conflicts.

THE WHALE HOUSE,  Sharon Millar  (Trinidad & Tobago)

“Writing is such an intensely solitary and private practice. It’s difficult to explain to people what you do and how you do it. Winning a regional leg of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize is thrilling (really thrilling!). It’s a powerful experience to realise  that your work can go out into the world ahead of you and hold its own.”

Sometimes it's more about the character of the writer

Sometimes it is not the book a writer writes or the award and prizes the writer wins. Sometimes, it is simply the writer's long and disciplined journey. Sometimes it is the humility and grace with which the writer responds to receiving an award and prizes. Sometimes it is the sheer inspiration that radiates from the writer's words and her story. 

Trinidad and Tobago's Barbara Jenkins won the Hollick Avron Caribbean Writers Prize 2013 with her book Sic Transit Wagon. And while the congratulations continue to pour in, Barbara wrote this post for the Hollick Arvon's blog.

All is not lost

No matter what challenges we're facing, how complicated our lives may be, how defeated and depressed we feel, all is not lost.

If we find some way to make each day count, we can pull through, survive, triumph and eventually leave a legacy of courage.