Focusing On What You Want

Years ago I read a book called "The Secret," by Rhonda Byrne. It changed my life. Its simple message of focusing on what you want and not on what you don't want is something I can relate to. I spend just as much time as everyone else complaining and kvetching about what's wrong in my life. Really getting into it. Focusing on it. Getting mad about it. What I should be doing, and what the book keeps repeating, is focusing on what you want and making it happen.

This simple theme can be applied to my personal life but also to my professional life as well. For many years I worked in the field of advertising and wrote gags on the side, on weekends and evenings. Now I write full time for many different cartoonists. I've developed a routine, a regular schedule, of who I write for on which days, sending gags on a regular basis to many people. I need this structure, but I also need a direction - I need to have a goal - and a plan to get there.

This writing business is full of rejection, but it's also full of accomplishment and seeing your work in print and/or online. You try things. Some work. Some don't. It's important for me to constantly re-evaluate what works for me and what doesn't. What's easy for me to do and what isn't. And, then it's important to focus on what I want - on the goals I've set - and perhaps give up some of the projects that don't work.  When you figure out what it is that you really want you can make definite plans to get there. And, when you finally are working towards this goal you'll know it and the still, small voice inside you will be saying, 'This is what I should be doing.'

Any comments? Contact me at: gagsbyhelene@gmail.com.