Roadmap to Success

One of the projects we were to work on for SR2 was a Landmine of Excuses. I decided to turn mine into a Roadmap and think about it more like If I follow this Roadmap all the way through then I will reach the end successfully and that will be the better plan than even giving credit to these excuses.

The start of the Roadmap theme

MY life is never just One road so I built many

My life has always had many roads and many choices. I have never felt like I was on just one road and sometimes I feel as if I am traveling down more than one road at a time if that is possible. I feel this Roadmap emulates my life very well.

My table at Tina's MY STUDIO business

The Roadmap coming along

I got the rest of the pictures off the internet, printed them as a 3x5 or wallet size and then glued them down with Extra bond Elmers Glue. I don't like to use Mod Podge for everything. I use all kinds of different adhesive.

The orange cones Tina and Kathy helped me design out of a Cheer horn stamp, Versamark Stamp Pad and white strips

Page One

Some of the excuses I chose for page one were "Let myself Believe the lie that I am not enough:, "Paralyze myself thinking about my fears", "Overwork on other things to avoid making progress on my goal", "Get too tired to keep going"
 

Page Two

Some of the excuses I chose for page two were, "Let other people tell me what I should be doing with my life", "Procrastinate by doing other good things that I really don't want to do", "Get hurt or distracted by other people's opinions of me and what I am doing", "Let myself believe the lie that if I have a bad day or week, I have failed entirely"

The last one there is a biggee with me. I used to think that all the time. I used to think that if I was having a good day and someone upset me or hurt my feelings or I hit a bump in the road of life, that my day was shot, ruined, kaput! I would even get angry and mad and upset if there was a person involved who created that bump in the road. I would actually say outloud or to myself "GREAT! Now my WHOLE day is ruined! "

I look back on that me and I can't believe I was her. I mean, come on, because of one or two things I allowed my WHOLE day to be ruined. What about all the good times we had that day? What about the rest of the hours in the day? What about about the rest of my life? The NOW me thinks about all of these things now, I asses and I move on. In that thought now, thinking about how far I come how much I have grown, I happily pat myself on the back and say to myself "Wow! You've come a long way! I am proud of you!"

Page Three

Excuses for page three were "Never stop to recharge", "Get distracted ny other people's goals
, "Get partway to my goal and then tell myself it is good enough and quit making progress", "Get bored working on my goal", and what usually happens to me..."Get lost on the computer or television" 


I am still working on the last one here. Once I started to see everything as it is and was, it all became more apparent to me that I was burying myself into the computer and getting so lost that I was doing the other things I wanted to do. I would even say "I really want to do art things but I am stuck here on the computer." Hmph! Funny I don't remember a gun being held to my head. I don't remember being handcuffed to it. Yet, I have allowed myself to allow that to happen. I have taken some time off Facebook and have paid attention to when my last post was. So far the shortest time was 3 hours and the longest time was 10 hours since I last posted or got on FB. From someone who used to post every 5 minutes and be one every day, I think that is pretty good. Another pat on the back for me. :)

Now I am working on my blogs that I follow. I see that as the next big step. Ridler Studios, Twinkle and many others have a widget called Mr. Linky. This is where everyone shares their blog and then we all go around visiting other people's blogs. Sounds supportive and friendly right? Well, it is but I have found myself sitting at the computer 5 hours later trying to read, comment and share with other bloggers.This is a good thing, it helps others, it helps each blogger to see other bloggers styles and what they do and there is even learning from it. In SR2 one of the things we learn is that you may spend your time in a good effort or good task, but is it the task or effort you WANT to be doing? Would you rather be doing something else? Is it taking time away from your other goals? We need to look at the whole picture and decided this. On top of the widget I always notice everyone's badges they have on their site. I think they are cute or unique, or perhaps there is a good cause or class involved. Next thing I know I have hopped around so much I don't know where I started. I copy the code and go into my blog and add the badge to my site and do this over and over. It can become crazy time consuming and again, hours have flown by and I realize I haven't worked on my goals or other things I want, but this is not that unproductive as it could help me learn and grow.

I am still deciphering out the blogs and how I am going to handle that goal of not spending so much time on other blogs. I have limited myself so far to signing up for emailed blogs where I can for the ones that really inspire me. Then they come into my email, I read and I am done. I already have a hour time limit for emails in the morning so if it exceeds that, then I will have to change. I already am cleaning out my emails because there are things I subscribed to I don't want. For the blog badges, I am staying away for now. I am not adding anymore and if I do see one that sparks my interest I may add it, but I am keeping track of how many badges I add each week so I don't get overloaded. If it makes me money, is an affiliate or gets me credit then it is more worth it. Otherwise, I need to perhaps make a time constraint for Blogs like 30 minutes or something. It is still a thought in progress about how to work it, but I know I will get better at it.
 

The back cover I put sayings all over mixed with 3D stickers

Tomake it unique I added a smaller page to give it character

I had so many quotes I wanted to add that I added another page

Quotes I really liked that jumped out at me:

• I want to remember that I am not my mistakes and that my mistakes do not get to define me
• I want to remember to shut out all of the outside voices, and to stay true to everything I believe about myself and my mission, no matter how weird it may seem to the outside world
• I want to remember that change in my attitude can get me through just about anything
• I want to remember that I am not perfect and never will be. I am good at a lot of things and I struggle at lots of things, this is the joy of life
• I want to remember that GOOD things can be enormous distractions from the things that are best and that its a constant battle to sacrifice what is good
• I want to remember that discipline takes practice, daily, hourly practice, its a learned , acquired behavior and not something I was born with
• I want to remember it is SO important WHO I choose to spend my time with
• I want to remember that sometimes I just have to get through the boring stuff to get to the good parts and that there is always always a new fun way to make things more fun during this time
• I want to remember I have done difficult things and I can do difficult things
• I want to remember the people I love are the most important in the world
• I want to remember love is worth fighting for
• I want to really really really keep in my mind and heart my end goal and if its still what I truly want each day, I want to remember that I will have to work hard every day and in the end...it WILL be worth it!

See how it unfolds into three parts

Last Page of the Roadmap

I had fun doing this and putting it together. I really thought about this project alot and think it would be a great teaching tool for homeschooled kids or even other like me. I can see how much my art has changed too and how much I have grown creatively. This Roadmap for Success will be a great guide for me along the way and I will remember it when I start making excuses. I also plan to use it for a great inspiration for the quotes I used on the back. I can pick this up and look at it anytime and get the boost I need to move forward.

Keep Moving On! :)