the more successful sister
I’ve just started watching The Devil in Ohio that stars Emily Deschanel and I had never come across her before. Of course, I have heard of her
Read More...Tag: success
how to get the body that will drive men crazy
Follow these simple steps
And I promise you a body like JLo’s.
You’ll have the men falling
At your skinny little feet,
With literally no effort,
You can thank me next week
When you’re a shimmering goddess.
I was really curious about how to get more traffic going to my blog – I know that a blog about poetry and my own little internal world is probably not that interesting to 99.9% of the population so it’s a difficult task anyway.
However, my research threw up the intriguing point that titles are one of the most important things to think about. Now, I am a sucker for clicking on things that tell me I’ll get skinny in two days if I drink a certain tea, or I’ll make a million pounds if I start selling aloe vera products. I don’t act on them, but I definitely click through (sorry!).
Therefore, I know that titles are really important and so I researched what actually makes a good one. It appears to be a case of trying to work on our base emotions and hooking us in that way.
For example, something about earning lots of money quickly because money is a bit like a drug for most humans. Or, putting the word ‘secret’ in the title makes the reader think they are getting some information that nobody else has, therefore making us feel like we know more than the next man on the street.
It’s basically all about how we are wired and what causes dopamine to get flowing through our brains. And I thought that I’d try a few out so prepare yourself for a few poems about earning your first million and 5 secrets that Jamie Spears has been keeping about that conservatorship. Enjoy :0)
Much Love
Rachel xx
i’m starting to think i may have peaked
There is definitely a mountain, one for each of us,
Mine is full of rocky crops, slick with ice
And when I think I’ve got a hold on it,
Down I tumble once again.
But once I made it to the top,
I stood atop the summit, looking out across the world,
A tear ran don my cheek, knowing that was it,
I couldn’t reach much higher, all that I could do
Is fall with grace of which I don’t possess.
I have this horrible feeling that, as a human, I may have peaked. But then when I think that, I think exactly how long a lifetime is and how unknowable the future is and I wonder if there is something better still to come.
Back in 2013, I completed the Arch to Arc triathlon. I was the fourth woman to ever complete it and I was the first ever to do it without using a wetsuit during the swim section. It felt like the best thing that could ever happen, and to a certain extent, it still is the best thing. And I wonder if I could ever do anything better?
But then I also remember that I was drinking heavily and I would go back to my flat, alone, and cry as I drank to black out. And I wonder if that wasn’t actually just a living hell with a brilliant achievement plonked in the middle of it?
I’m definitely in a better place, emotionally, so surely I’m higher up my hypothetical mountain at this point in my life. And how long is life going to be? You hear about all sorts of people getting their ‘big break’ when they are past retirement age.
So, I guess what I’m saying is we can never really tell if we’ve peaked. And it’s hard to judge what makes a success. Is it being happy? Or rich? Or famous? I’m not really sure at this point. I don’t think we’ll ever know until we’re lying on our deathbeds looking back on it all.
I hope that there is more to come in the future, but I also realise that chasing that high that comes with success isn’t all that much fun anyway.
Much Love
Rachel xx
how to hustle
They tell us all that we must hustle
In any way we can.
Make more money, work and have a hustle on the side.
Put yourself out into the world,
Don’t waste the time that you are given
And most of all remember that
A person with no loud ambition
May as well be dead.
I swing between wanting to be a raging success and then ten minutes later I want nothing more than to never leave my house and just spend the rest of my life crocheting blankets and watching boxsets.
But society always seems to scream at us that we need to be hustling (whatever the fuck that might mean). I think that it involves putting yourself out there to make money and be that raging success that I sometimes want to be.
But does anyone actually know how one is supposed to put herself out there? Do I go to London and knock on doors? DO I become extremely vocal on Twitter? Or do I just keep plodding onwards and hope for that lucky break?
It seems even harder if you are a bit of a quiet and anxious person (hi there, that might be me) and I’m just becoming a little bit curious as to how I’m supposed to be this ambitious girl boss?
I don’t even think I really want to be a girl boss because my nervous disposition means that I need to take regular breaks. I’m thinking that once again, I don’t fit into one of those perfect boxes that we are forced to squeeze into.
At least Bridgerton has just been released on Netflix so I can just be unambitious on my sofa for the next few days.
Much Love
Rachel xx
on being quotable
Finding clever words that roll from silver tongues
And light the sky like peppered fireworks
Dazzling the excited crowds that gather far below,
That is want I want to do with parcels of
My syllables that spread before the readership
And show them what reverberates inside my golden soul.
I always feel really jealous of writers that are quoted over and over again. I see their amazing words that can be lifted from their work and applied to so many aspects of life, and I think, why couldn’t I have written that?
Charles Bukowski appears a lot, and then there’s JK Rowling, and not forgetting Maya Angelou. There are so many others but their words echo across the internet and sink into our hearts when we are feeling downcast and uncomfortable in life.
They make the rest of us wonder why we’re not as inspired as they are. Where do these words come from? Are they sent down by angels, and whispered into ears while they sleep? Or are they just a little bit cleverer than me?
Whatever the secret to their magic may be, I wish that I could have a little of it sprinkled over me this Christmas. I never want my face to be recognised in the streets but I would feel honoured to know that my words have healed.
Much Love
Rachel xx
why do some people make it and others don’t?
Lady Luck and the God of Talent
Often war over who will be
The successful one in life this year.
Will it be the underdog?
Or will it be the prodigy?
There’s really never any telling who,
But surely that’s the fun in all
The effort that we make to win,
To try and reach that mountain top,
Regardless of the prize that waits?
I often wonder what it takes to become really rich and really successful (whatever that may mean). I mean, did JK Rowling really become the most successful author in the world because she is the most talented there has ever been? Is Roger Federer really that great at tennis, or is he where he is because he was privileged enough to be given tennis lessons when he was a kid?
There is no denying that these people have worked bloody hard, and there is a hell of a lot of talent involved, but is success more about luck than anything else?
I just can’t see what separates one actress from another, or makes a singer worthy of a record deal and everything that goes with it. I can see that if you want success then you need to put your work out there, but surely you are really just waiting for that lightning to strike right where you happen to be standing?
For that reason, I always try to see my writing as the thing that brings me joy, regardless of the fact that it may never bring me any riches. I wouldn’t mind a bit of luck though. It would be nice to have some validation.
But then again, am I strong enough to take it? Perhaps we are given what we can handle and the powers above know that I wouldn’t be able to handle it. We’ve all seen the pop stars that fall from grace when it all gets too much and perhaps I’m just being protected from that. I mean, I don’t think that I could handle the bashing that JK Rowling has taken over the past few months.
Whatever the stars may have written out for me, I just hope that I have a really fun and love filled life that provides me with the stories to tell in the writing that I enjoy so much.
Much Love
Rachel xx
anyone else just freeze up?
When Life with the dreadful capital L
Heaps on the careful demands of the day
I don’t run into action with rifles and bombs,
I just stand in the trenches, waiting for death,
My heart in my mouth as I watch people burn,
In glory or pain, I’m never quite sure.
All that I know with the heaviest of hearts
Is I’ll never be seeing them ever again
Unless it’s on the front of a newspaper page.
I believe that life is made up of so many opportunities, and I also believe that I have probably let so many slip through my fingers. Watching Revolutionary Road last night, I heard one of the characters say that we have five or six of these life changing opportunities and most of us let them go and then wonder why we’re sitting in a life that we hate when we’re old and ready for the grave.
I can probably agree with a lot of that, but I also know that when I’m overwhelmed, I have a tendency to just freeze and I wonder how many opportunities I have lost through that? I certainly know that I’ve got myself into trouble with my freezing before.
At the moment, I have this essay and then a lot of lesson planning on my plate. It’s not too much for me to cope with but my head keeps telling me that it is and so I find myself sitting on the sofa, just staring at the wall. I’m not even doing something that I enjoy instead; I’m just wasting the time away.
Meanwhile, I feel like the rest of my cohort are running over the top and into the fire. Of course, they may be running away from safety, but surely it’s worth running to see where I end up? There may well be something amazing on the other side of that wall of fire, and I’ve just been too scared to run through and have a look.
I’ve decided that if I freeze, from now on, I’ll just start writing. So this might be a load of drivel, but at least it’s got me up and doing something. I just need to make the move so that I’m actually doing the thing I’m supposed to be doing!
Much Love,
Rachel xx
i’ve been on wordpress for a whole year
I just got a little notification from WordPress to say that it is one year since I set up this blog. I can’t believe that a whole year has passed and how much has changed.
I thought that this blog was going to be a bit of a self help manual, but then I realised that I don’t know how to look after myself, so I couldn’t really expect people to listen to my advice.
Slowly, it was poetry and words that came to the forefront and now I just like to write what is on my heart that day. There is always something that is there and I hope that it resonates with somebody who reads it.
I think that is the important thing about writing; you don’t need to be hugely successful, you just need to touch the heart of one person. We are all so wrapped up in trying to be rich and famous and I think that we should stop chasing that. It’s not good for our mental health and it just eats us up inside.
It’s far better to just write for fun and really value the knowledge that you have made a difference in someone’s day. I hope that I’ve given you something worthwhile to think about at some point over my year and I hope that I can continue to do so.
Much Love
Rachel xx
What to do when life goes wrong?
There are times in life when everything is going stupendously. The flowers are in bloom and there is a spring in your step. But what happens when life takes a turn for the worse and everything just goes a bit wrong?
I was thinking about this today having just watched an interview with Glennon Doyle. I had come across her before and I knew her work but I didn’t really know anything about her life before she was a big writer and married to Abby Wambach. I didn’t know what had led her to the point that she was at when I came across her.
In the interview, she spoke about how she had the blog that she still runs called Momastery. She was a Christian mommy blogger with a husband and a couple of kids. Life looked pretty amazing from the outside, and it sounds as though she thought it was pretty amazing from the inside. And then disaster stuck and her husband told her that he had been unfaithful for the entirety of their marriage.
Now, for a lot of us that could have spelled the end of everything. The perfect life that she had portrayed on the internet had just been blown to smithereens. But instead she picked herself up and wrote a book.
Then, rather than worry about what people thought of her in the small community she had surrounded herself with she married the woman who she fell in love with, Abby Wambach. She didn’t care that people who had previously followed her were saying that she was wrong, she did what her heart told her to do.
And now, the two of them are one of the biggest power couples out there. They have a following of millions and they raise millions of dollars for charities that mean a lot to them.
I bet that there were some really dark days in between her husband leaving her and her marrying Abby and being where she is now. There must have been times that she got down on her knees and asked her God why life had to go wrong in the first place. But she persevered and kept following her heart and just look where she ended up.
There are times in all of our lives when a catastrophic event sends us careering off course, ending the life that we have come to know. But we need to remember that it is just lining us up for the next step in our life. And when life goes wrong, that is the time when we really truly grow. It’s the time that teaches us the most about ourselves if we are willing to stop and learn.
So next time something bad happens, remember that Gods timing is always perfect. You have been dealt that blow so that you can become a stronger person and be in the right place for your next blessing. If Glennon’s husband hadn’t left she would never have met Abby and if they hadn’t faced difficulties together then they wouldn’t be the inspiration that they are to so many young people.
Life has a funny way of working itself out so just enjoy the ride and really appreciate the full human experience, and that includes the bad parts!
When the time is right, I, the LORD, will make it happen
Isaiah 60:22