Lifeprints

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.

Writing Prompt:  In these economic tough times, the sense of success and failure may seem more extreme, especially if you have just been laid off, if your kids' college fund has been cut in half, if your retirement funds don't seem like they will last your lifetime.  Your sense of success comes from what you know has worked for you in the past.  But you may be experiencing a sense of failure right now.

Write down three places you have been successful in the past.  Now three past failures.  How did you get to those successes?  how did you move out of the past failures?  

No matter what your current situation, what are two small successes you experience every day?  How can those successes help you in these chaotic times?  Explore the "learning from failure" part of Colin Powell's quote.  You may find the reframing is not as difficult as you once thought it was.

"Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on good writing days nothing else matters."

Writing Prompt: What can you do to make tomorrow a good writing day? First, pick up your pen and put it to paper, or open your computer to a new page and let the words spill. Writing makes even a hellish day feel fulfilling. Try it!

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

Writing Prompt: If you could invent your future, the next year or five years or ten years of your life, what would you invent? How would you allow yourself to move toward this ideal future of yours? Write for 10 minutes, read your write aloud, and write for another 10 minutes.

What part of your newly flow-written plan can you do, right now, today, this week to move toward the invention of your future?

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go out and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Writing Prompt: What does make you come alive? How long have you been aware of this thing? And what do you do to nurture it?

Write write write about that. Then go nurture it!

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."

Writing Prompt: During this Thanksgiving holiday, flow-write for a few minutes about your own light, and about who rekindles your light when it goes out.

Write a short, unsent thank you to someone who has lighted "the flame within us". If you like what you've written, you might consider sending it to that person as a small Christmas present, tucked into a seasonal card.

Remember that your flame can only grow brighter by joining it with the flames of others.

"The point [of one's life] is to be less serious and more playful. Children have it right -- that is, until someone knocks sense into them and the life out of them. I always insist that joy is a duty."

Writing Prompt: When was the last time you felt the joy of your childhood? I mean as an adult, not when you were four years old!

Today, plan a joyful moment for yourself. Write it down. Swing on the swings at City Park. Run through the sprinklers on a hot day. Play in the sand. Hum while you do the laundry or the dishes. Buy yourself a balloon and wear it around your wrist for an afternoon. Pick a flower and put it in your hair.

Joyful moments are simple and they are easy to plan. Be a child. Reject deprivation!

"The only way to pass the test is to take the test."

Writing Prompt: We reach our goals and dreams one step at a time. Every time we discount our dreams, we are taking ten steps backward. Do you know what your heart desires? We are unable to move forward if we don't know the direction of our path. Name ONE thing you'd like to move toward. What steps will you take TODAY to go in the direction of your goals and dreams?

"The heroine enjoys her life by rearranging it according to her needs. She may say she is doing it for others, for humanity, but we know that she lies . . . the heroine knows that right here is where things happen, not somewhere else . . . that the world for her is a place where things are engendered and brought to life."

Writing Prompt: Are you the heroine of your life? What is happening for you right here? Muse on paper about the enjoyment you find in your life. If there is very little of that, what might you rearrange?

"Everything is sculpture. Any material, any idea without hindrance born into space, I consider sculpture."

Writing Prompt: What do you consider sculpture in your life? What idea have you been thinking about, an idea that might be "born into space" without hindrance? Write for 5-10 minutes about the possibilities for your unhindered dream.

"You do not need to leave your room. Remain seated at your table and listen. Do not even listen; simply sit and wait. Do not even wait; be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

Writing Prompt: Take 15 minutes today. Remain seated at your table. Sit and wait, still and solitary. When the 15 minute period is past, let your impressions flow on your paper. What is rolling in ecstasy at your feet? What thoughts floated Ior raced) through your mind?