Tag: start

Modeled and Remodeled

Jennifred Jones

I see something modeled. I think I’d like to remodel myself to be like that.

Why?

‘Why are you, lady, always asking why and trying to make me ask ‘why’?’

My Uncle Babe, now gone to heaven, told me he was always trying to get people to think. Think about what? Think on their own. Think things through. Wonder about stuff. How and why and who said it and why should I do things this way. Could there be a better way? What rule says I’m not allowed to think or speak what I’d like? I think I follow my uncle’s same way. I like to think and see through things and help other people to do the same. It’s healthy to have your own mind…to use it well to think, create, make, suggest, start…just be at peace with your own way of life.

I’m not talking about purposely causing trouble or doing wrong things, but we humans can get stuck doing the same ‘ole, same ‘ole pretty easily and become bogged down.

So begin today. Think about your models and any current remodeling you’re contemplating in your life. Why have you chosen that model to remodel after? Is that what you really want or want to become? Is it because someone else thinks you need to be that, or you think you need to be that to be accepted by them? These are tough but necessary questions to ponder.

We don’t want to be a mere cookie cutter version envisioned by somebody else. Become who you are. Set your own standard. Stand out as a model of you!

Remember, are you remodeling yourself to your design, or are you allowing others to remodel you to their pattern?

Try!

Jennifred Jones

Try, try again!

The best way to conquer fear of failure or failure itself is to try again. There’s nothing like a fresh start to get you moving again…to get your ideas flowing.

‘Yea, but I’ve tried and failed so many times, I feel shut down and tired of trying!’

I had an old car. It was a 1984 Audi 5000s… butter yellow. Loved it! But sometimes it took many times to get started. One sunny, bitter cold day in Chicago, I was leaving my son’s and sitting in the car working to get it started. It was a combination of pressing the gas pedal, while turning the engine and holding it just the right amount of time until the engine caught. I couldn’t try too many times in a row, or it’d flood the engine, but I did have to keep trying. After a number of times it finally started and kept running and I was able to drive home. I knew it would start eventually; I had been through this a number of times previously. But I had to try. It could have seemed easier to quit and say, ‘It’s not going to work’…and then I couldn’t go anywhere.

It’s the same way in life in so many other areas. We tend to give up too quickly. We need to develop our tenacity…we all have it, but it has to develop from its seed form.  Really, it’s part of growth. Try and grow a little bit. Try and fail and stop and think. Try again and move a step forward. Then again until it works, and you feel more confident.

Have you given up on something you need to try again?

Be Your Own Teacher!

Jennifred Jones

Little kids love to learn anything. It’s all new to them. Exciting! Adventurous! Beginning to ‘adult’. and they like it.

Don’t say, ‘You can’t’; they will try to show you they can 🙂

We (I) need to go back to this part of childhood again. Seek out something we’re interested in – or maybe only a little interested in – and find out more about it. Maybe it’s a new hobby, craft, skill. Some new subject – farming, gardening, woodworking or refinishing, computers, finances, a new language…even better methods to clean your house…investigate!

You be the teacher and decide where to start learning. Which book, which YouTube video to begin; who you might meet for coffee to talk about it. You will be the teacher and you will be your student. Yes, you will grade yourself. No embarrassing call-out in front of the entire class, “Jones! you got a C- on your project!” You will quietly tell yourself to keep at it, and you will get better.

I love that part of self-learning. Actually this was the method of old when kids couldn’t go to school. Twasn’t any adult education night class either. You found a book or neighbor and learned yourself.

Really this is empowering! We don’t have to wait on anybody else’s schedule to allow time for us. No need to procrastinate. Merely begin.

So first, what piques your interest? How could I become better in a certain area? What could I learn that would help me save time around the house? And then after you get grounded in your new study, tell somebody else about it. As you teach them it further teaches you.

It’s so exciting to take the power of learning back into your own hands!

What can you think of today, what’s going through your mind right now you’d like to teach your new student – you- about?

Begin! Now!

(Right now I am teaching myself Latin again…been a few years since high school, but this language interests me)