Learn to Run Your Race Well
/
"Slow and Steady wins the race” - Unknown
"Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock." - Matthew 7:24 - 25
"Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals." - Jim Rohn
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." - Booker T. Washington
For most of you the next question that I ask will be rhetorical, but take a moment to clearly think and analyze why you feel the way you do about your answer.Do you ever wake-up feeling mentally exhausted, tired and even frustrated in the wake of having slept for 8 hours?
It seems that across all industries there is the unnecessary game of catch-up. If you’re a part of the lucky 1% of society where you are ahead of the competition and in pace to win the race - bravo to you! As for the rest of the 99%, I’m sure I can speak on behalf of most to say that we’re barely keeping up to stay in the race. With the internet at everyone's fingertips, the world has become a dangerous world to create new ideas, content and even sometimes a practical reality where you can confess to the world that your freelancing business wasn’t all that you chopped it up to be. The fact is that the choice is always yours and you choose which truth (or lie) you decide to live. In the earlier stages like most we are like a newborn but quickly become distracted as we seek validation by the nay-sayers, the people who THINK they have it all together, and everyone on Instagram living what Kanye West refers to as the “Good Life.”
THE BREAKDOWN
Late in 2017, I had a creative break-down! We’ve all been there once or twice before, but for me, this was more than your average “writer’s block” or “funk” that could be cured with a pint of Nada Moo ice cream and a tray of brownies. I had been subdued, unable to think nor create original content. It all came to my breaking point and a question that I had never thought I would ask myself - Did I want to continue living the entrepreneurial life? I started to question if I was capable of going at the same pace and creative enough to steadily cultivate the ideas that once inspired me to start this crazy and dangerous race to encourage and develop a new movement of events. The digital age had bamboozled me with it’s constant distractions that produced a creative depression that told me that my work wasn’t good enough, my voice and efforts where small to my competitors and since my followers didn’t like that last photo I posted due to my lack of expertise in photography.
My vision would never make it to the steady stream of #inspiration or #lifegoals posts and maybe this would be an opportune time to throw in the towel.
You probably think that a little self-pity from a community of creatives would have solved my problems. But my bottled up emotions over the last two years were overflowing, and I needed a serious detox from the world judging and me seeking self-praise for everything I did. For those of you’ll that don't require self-praise or recognition - good for you! Bottle it up and sell it on the market. For the rest, us solopreneurs, womenpreneurs, hustlers, change makers and world shakers we need a daily dose of TLC, something I now realize that I wasn't getting.
THE PROBLEM
Of course, there are several articles on the surfacing that speak on the stress of social media with its faults and difficulties. But the resounding result is always the same; it’s our fault as humans even as creatives that we enjoy that little bit of dopamine every time we participate in any of these platforms. We are the ones responsible for making sure we only consume small doses of Emails, Twitter, Facebook Live, Instagram, Snapchat and any other platform, even though the rest of the world is operating at full speed. What sense does this make? If I enjoyed writing letters by hand in cursive, but the rest of the world refuse to speak to me because of the popularity of computers.
How are you not supposed to get entangled in the World Wide Web of lies?
After seven months of being on a mini-sabbatical and a creative fast from anything that didn’t add value; the time was spent on re-strategizing on how to stay consistent and on purpose regardless of the situation, the competition or the timeframe. During the time off and not worrying about my “haters” I was shocked to see that since I had gone underground that I had accomplished much more and had even picked up a few new projects that I hadn't in previous years. My lesson to myself - you will always win more recognition and a create a steady foundation if you take time to learn the lessons to go through the process of not having the perfect blog post every month that attracts 3,000 subscribers, getting 500 likes a day on Instagram or submitting 10 proposals that all get accepted. Why? Because this is the process of life and it doesn’t get easier as you learn life’s lessons. In retrospect, it gets harder, much harder. You become aware of how to address situations and to become more patient to not to jump the gun at every opportunity that comes your way.
You know the end result will benefit you, but you still have to stand in line to get the glory. Not every race is won with a big sha-bang.
THE RECOGNITION
As I reflect back on the life lessons that got me to this point, I ponder a few decades further and realize that this race has been ran many times before. My ancestors have handed the baton from generation to generation and their consistency, patience and sometimes what people would deem as "quietness" has broken down boundaries and have made significant changes in society.
So to the generations of men and women that came before me who stood in line to get me this far in my process, I owe all my gratitude and accomplishments to you. Without the millions of African Americans that fought the race for equality, I now know that the race is a constant race that doesn't have a real finish line but more so it is the starting line that opens doors and opportunities for the next dreamers and disrupters of the world. To the unknown fighters, I applaud them and have a listed a few names below to celebrate them not only in light of Black History Month but for every month they continued their race. Although, most times in silence I recognize they were never adequately recognized for the small but significant accomplishments they contributed to the Civil Rights Movement and Equality.
- Robert Smalls
- Caroline Le Count
- Claudette Colvin
- George Jackson
- Bayard Rustin
- Benjamin Singleton
- William Wells Brown
- Annie Turbo Malone
- Charles Hamilton Houston
- Martin Delany
- Matthew Henson
- Noble Drew Ali
- Henry McNeal Turner
- Rebecca Lee Crumpler
- Robert Johnson
- Maggie Walker
- Floyd Norman
- Margaret and Malted Roumania Peters
- Sherman "Jocko” Maxwell
- Hattie McDaniel
- Bessie Coleman
.....and so many others.
If you’re like most many of the names listed above are unfamiliar to you, and that’s completely normal, society chooses who they want to remember and what accomplishments it wants to accept. If I had mentioned the Million Man March or Dr. Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream Speech, you wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment to know what I was referencing. However, some of his earlier and smaller accomplishments aren't mentioned as frequently such as his sizeable nonviolent demonstration in 1957 where he served as President as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and led his first meeting held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to call for equal voting rights for blacks. The point is that no matter your story, stay patient and persistent as most of this success took over 50 years to reach their peak.
DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK
Instead of me rambling on and on about how you should change the trajectory of your race and your vision to keep on running at a decent pace. I know that many of you already know the answer to that question but have chosen to put it on the back burner. Maybe you've even discovered the answer in an recent article, a study or on someone’s Facebook page. Nonetheless, you’ve recognized that you can no longer keep running at your same pace. Perhaps it’s taking a toll on your family, finances, mental or physical health or even creating beautiful little puffy circles under your eyes. You may even recognize that you are no further ahead of the competition than you were a year ago. By no means am I writing to tell you that you should take a year-long sabbatical (unless it’s needed), nor am I suggesting that you become lazy and stop creating? I’m merely implying that there is no rush to win your race, the time will come when the time has come.
Don’t try to kill yourself to get to the finish line. You can’t win a race you're no longer in.
Now here is the section where you are probably expecting me to deliver a plan of action and goals to tell you how I got on "pace" for my race. Something where I would list that I took more self-care days, created two blog posts a month instead of 4, and 3 Instagram posts instead of 10. However, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't have have a plan. Imagine that! Instead of mapping out 2018, I’m deciding to be in control of my creative energy. If March comes around and I feel inspired to put 50 posts up in one day than I will do just that. However, if 2 or 3 months go by and I haven’t posted anything, then I will be content and happy with that understanding that I am not a machine but human, and things happen. Just because you run a few slow miles in a marathon that doesn't predestine your outcome.
In closing, this is what I have to say to all those hustlers and shakers of the world - make your mark, stay consistent and on purpose with your tasks and you will win the race. Your business or vision grows with a strong foundation, nurtured with time not by followers, money or by the latest craze.
