Lamisha Serf-Walls

Success Redefined

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I have made it just past a month since starting this blog (woohoo!) and I am very proud.  Not only have I stuck with my writing every week day, but I have also managed to keep my creativity flowing and I have found that I am never lacking in material or ideas.  Success!!

Or is it?

When I started using WordPress as a platform for my blog, I was (and still am) very excited about how easy it is to use.  For a newbie like myself it was easy to set up and start blogging, and while there are still many things to learn, I feel confident with what I post each day.  In addition to the easy set up, I found (rather quickly) there is some great statistical information you can get in one click of your mouse.  Information about how many people viewed your posted, what country they are from, the number of “likes” for each post, and how many followers you have.  And being the numbers gal that I am, sometimes I find myself obsessing about the numbers.  How many views do I have today?  How many “likes” do I have?  Any new followers?

Crazy right?

I know I just started this magnificently creative, and courageous journey and though I keep telling myself that “every new blog takes time to grow”, I feel a little disappointed in the numbers.  If one of my posts doesn’t have many likes or views, I am starting to wonder about my content.  Is it boring?  Did I post too late or too early?  Should I have certain topics on certain days? Questions that are taking my focus away from my flow of creativity and joy in my writing.  And since I started this blog for two reasons, (to inspire, empower, and motivate others to achieve their dreams as well as to have a creative outlet for my thoughts), I realized that getting the most likes or followers on my blog is not as important and should not be my main focus.

Easy to say, not as easy to do.

So I am redefining success as it pertains to my blog.  Creating a blog and sticking with it was one of my dreams and here I am blogging about it.  I am enjoying the creativity, thoughts, and muses that come about in my daily life because of my blog and am happy to share with others in hopes that as they venture towards their goals, they will know that they are not alone in their journey.  I am enjoying the journey, the connection with other bloggers, and my own space to share my thoughts, visions, words, etc.  I’d say that is a success, a mini success maybe, but a success none the less.  And as my blog continues to grow (and it will), my definition of success may also change.  One day, I might set a goal for a certain number of followers/likes/blog awards etc., but I’m not there yet.  As for today, I am enjoying the process of creating something that matters to me.  And while I will still check out the numbers and statistics (because I’m curious), I will not allow my confidence to waver if I don’t have as much traffic, or “likes”, because while they are great, they are not the reason I am on this journey.  Those things do not define me as a blogger, writer, creator or person, but in time as I continue to make progress in my writing and blogging, those things will grow naturally.  It just takes time and patience. 

That is the great thing about goals.  When you create your dreams or goals, you get to decide what is successful and what isn’t.  For instance, if you are looking to lose a certain amount of weight, you are bound to have a bunch of little successes along the way and it is important to celebrate them as you go.  It builds the momentum and positive energy you will need to stay the course and reach your ultimate goal.  Same thing goes for any goal really.  If you are starting a business, celebrate when you decide on the name of that business.  Celebrate when you find the space for that business.  Celebrate when you have 2 clients, or when you have 10.

The main thing to remember is to celebrate the journey because it is there that you will find many little successes that once built upon, create the life you once dreamt.

Think about it.  How do you define success as it pertains to your most current dream?  I would love to know.

What can you do now???

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It isn’t often that dreams happen overnight.  If it were that easy, everyone would have accomplished their dreams long ago.  The reality is that any goal, dream, or aspiration takes time, patience, planning, and a lot of hard work.  I have often felt stuck or frustrated because my dreams weren’t materializing as quickly as I would like and it seemed that even taking the first step was more difficult than I thought it would be.  So I often ask myself the question, “What do you do when you are waiting for the pieces to fall into place?”

What can you do NOW?

The first thing I did when I realized (and realized again) that life coaching was the path for me, was a lot of research.  I looked at websites for different life coaches to see what it was all about, even though I had a vague understanding of what the job entailed, I wanted to see how others were doing it.  So I scoured the internet for as many life coach as I could find.  This just happened to be right around the time we were planning on moving to SC, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to see if there were any life coaches in the area we were moving to and see if maybe they could use some help in their business.  I learned very quickly life coaching isn’t really that type of business.  I did, however find one woman who was willing to speak with me regarding her experience with her business and the training she went through before starting her business.  After speaking with her I thought I would feel inspired and motivated to keep moving forward, but what I felt was the exact opposite.  I realized the first person I spoke to was in it purely for the money, ironically enough it can be a tough business to be in for the money.

While I was slightly discouraged, the passion for helping people achieve their dreams didn’t stop.  So I kept talking about my dream with some of my friends and realized my best friend knew not one, but two life coaches.  She was able to connect me with one that was able to explain to me her process, training, and overall business and the conversation was wonderful.  I left the conversation feeling more empowered, more excited, and more motivated than I had been before.  I was on my way.

Many months passed with our move and settling into a new area and I began to feel stuck again.  Now I knew what I was meant to do, and I really just wanted to jump right in and do it.  I was mentally ready to begin my training courses, however I had no idea what programs would be best, what the cost would entail etc.  So the next logical step was to research the programs and find the best one for me.  It took me a few weeks to read through the different program options and weigh all of the pros and cons, but I finally found the program for me.  The next step would be to get the money together to begin the courses so I could keep moving forward, but one of my goals along this process is to limit any new debt and to ensure that when I begin my programming I have paid off as much as possible.  Incurring new debt for this purpose was not something I wanted to do.  So, I made a decision to spend some time paying down some of my debt first, and then beginning my program a bit later.  A task that requires a lot of patience and faith.

So that is where I am today.  Part of beginning this blog was the result of the thought…What can I do NOW??  I needed to be able to reach out to people to motivate, inspire, and empower them even if I couldn’t do it through life coaching…yet.  It has certainly allowed me to feel better about moving forward, bit by bit, to reach my goals and while there are still some days when I want to just throw my plans to the side and dive right in, I know that my planning and patience will benefit me in the long run.

The moral of this story is this: Even if you feel you can’t jump right into your goal, find something you can do today that will put you a little bit closer to it and keep you inspired to continue moving forward.  If you want to write a book (one of my dreams), maybe you can begin with writing one page a day.  What ever your dream may be, thee is always something you can do today.  You just have to figure out what that is.

I am a reformed believer that there is always something you can do to put you closer to your goals no matter how far away they may seem.  Each step makes a huge difference and will keep you on right track.

My question for you today is this: What can you do today to put you a little bit closer to your dream?