Register in a gym
Photo by The Lazy Artist Gallery from Pexels
As soon as the festivity wears off, you must, as a matter of necessity, register in a gym.
Well, I don't mean that literally.
Gym in this context speaks of any challenging set of activities, aimed at transforming a person and keeping an individual fit over a period of time.
If you find yourself as a mediocre in a field that you ought to be outstanding, then you necessarily have to hit the gym.
I believe that anyone can get better at anything.
We only have to structure our daily, weekly, and monthly activities to align with our set down goals.
I remember being invited as a guest speaker recently, in a gathering that was exclusively organized for senior secondary school students.
I was to speak on, 'ways to improve on your studies as a student'.
I started by asking some seeming ridiculous questions.
The first was;
“Who among you owns a device with an internet connectivity?”
Quite a number of hands were raised.
I quickly began to mention some popular educational platforms on the internet. Afterwards, I asked how many of them have ever visited those platforms. It was not surprising to see that no hand was raised.
Anyway, I admire their honesty.
I mentioned a popular controversial YouTube movie series, reputed for promoting cultism, vulgarism, jujuism and criminality.
I asked how many of them know of that series.
They didn't have to say a word. Their facial expressions gave them away.
Was I surprised? No
Here is the irony;
If you were to ask, who among them wants to be given to crime, cultism, jujuism and vulgarism, I can bet my shirt on the fact that non would own up. Nobody will ever confess to nursing such obscenities.
If for anything, they will all affirm the fact that they want to take their studies serious.
You might want to frown at them, but don't be too fast.
From the young to the old, we have this funny habit of wishing to become one thing, but quotidianly engaging ourselves in another thing.
If what you do most of the time is not in line with who and what you want to become, the truth is you will never become it.
Do you need a prophet to tell you that?
We are products of what we consistently do.
What you're consistently doing now, determine what you'll become in future.
You don't spend most of your time reading law journals when becoming a medical doctor is your ambition.
Structure your activities to align with whatever you wish to become.
Let's say you want to become a better writer come 2022;
You have to spend the earlier part of 2022 in a writing gym.
What does that even mean?
It simply means that you should engage yourself in challenging activities that would make you a better writer.
I would be outlining things you can do.
- Have mentors or group of mentors you read from every day: The fact is, “it's easy for us to attract what we admire”.
One of the entries of admiration in wiki dictionary have this to say;
“To look upon with an elevated feeling of pleasure, as something which calls out approbation, esteem, love, or reverence.”
When you admire something or someone, you intently observe what the person does, and how he does it.
In this case, if you admire a person's writing style, endeavour to read from the person every day of the week for at least one month. The truth his skill will rub off on you, if you read with an intent of replicating what the person is doing in your own way.
- Get a person to coach you: This is necessary if you have a problem of being accountable to yourself. It's also necessary if you don't know specifically what your writing challenge is.
A good coach would make you accountable, and at the same time points out your difficulty before proffering a pragmatic solution.
I'm presently coaching two people on writing. One of them is actually my boss, a proprietor of one of the schools I'm teaching. The other one is a colleague.
When the second one started, she was quite terrible.
I taught her all I know.
Today she submitted a task I gave her, and it looked neater than mine.
I almost didn't believe that she could come up with such content, but she did.
That's what getting a good mentor can do.
- Join a writing challenge: After you might have learned from a mentor or group of mentors, it's time to actually learn. Real learning is done, through practice. Until you undergo a practice, you're yet to really learn. What you'll learn in the course of practice would be much more than what you did before then.
No one gets perfect before starting; we only start and keep on improving along the way.
I started writing professionally in the now defunct crypto blogging platform that was called 'Uptrennd.'
While I was there, I joined a writing challenge that was tagged “the marathon.” It was indeed a writing marathon. We were to publish a maximum of three quality and plagiarism free contents daily. I did it for the three weeks that the contest.
It was there writing discipline was instilled in me.
The truth is, without some seeming extreme measures, you might never grow.
So, you pick a week or weeks, pick a month or months. Register in a gym.
You'll see a great shift in your ability.
Best wishes.
You're welcome @dreemport
This is superb @mmykel and comes at an opportune time to reinforce my current thoughts on my own writing. 100% agree that everyone should find and join their own "gym". I need to find time to stretch myself in my writing too... I feel like I am being more responsive and reactive at the moment instead of sitting down and working on something that comes purely from me. There is nothing wrong or bad about the former, but I need to get some balance and get my creative juices flowing again. !PIZZA !ALIVE
@mmykel! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @samsmith1971. (3/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want.
I'm glad that it met you well.
Yeah you need to strike a balance somewhere.
Personally, I write better when I'm being responsive. I guess it's because i can argue any matter down.
But here's my typical write-up when I'm not being responsive.
I mostly motivate or persuade.
I love having you.
Thanks @samsmith1971
P.S: I attached the Christmas spoken word poetry you requested to your comment on the post.
And motivate me you did! Between you, @khoola Mat, some inspiration from the words of Matthew West, a singer and songwriter, and a Dreemport prompt, .... I did a 5-minute free write this evening, and it was scary but I also loved it❣️ I saw the poem, it was really lovely @mmykel. Quite beautiful. It's no wonder your boss wanted lessons after that!
Okay. I will check out the dreemport prompt.
I have been missing out of dreemport challenges and other challenges lately.
I believe that I'm gradually zoning in again on my activities in here.
go to the tester-teem channel in discord and look for a team leader. we can each have two...challenge ends tomorrow. so if anyone is still looking then you could still write today and tomorrow and support one of the dreemport staff members. i am actually Dreemport staff so I wasn't officially taking part in the challenge. I just wanted to do it because it meant something to me. Did you see my freewrite from earlier this morning Stop the world...
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I vividly understand your point. This is just like an irony of trying our best to expand our horizon. To become someone great, we have to go the extra length and seek professional help too. @dreemport
This is quite motivational for those who wants to improve on their writing skills. I haven’t been a writer for a while now sometimes I miss it and most times I don’t because I have a lot on my plate. Maybe next year will be different.
I noticed that too. You've been absent from the scene for a while. Did I just confess that I sneaked up on your profile? 😀
And you are wonderful write up. I'm sure that some people are missing your write up.
I enjoyed reading this and have reblogged it. Every single line makes a lot of sense to me that I had to call my daughter to join me in reading this.
I love the part you said one needs to do things that align with what they want to become, else they won't become that thing. I also enjoyed the tips you gave on writing consistently and better. It was a wonderful reminder. Well done. This is awesome
Dreemport brought me here.
You're welcome. I'm humbled, to say the least.
I'm sure your daughter learned one or two things from it.
Yes she does. I have always told her to act like what she wants to become in future, that will help her get more serious with her studies of the related subjects. So your post alluded to that and that's why I got her seated to read with me. 😂. Well done
Well I really should hit the gym too because I've been lagging behind in a number of ways. Truthfully, when I heard you say everyone should hit the gym, I looked at myself and was like "with which body biko", hehe. But then you broke it down and reflected what you actually meant.
It's normal for us to want to do something and end up doing another thing. Most times i dread putting on my data, because sometimes I just can't concentrate on the real reason I actually put on my data. It is at that moment that one message would pop up and I'll just want to check, from checking I'll end up spending hours replying messages and defeating the real reason.
Are by any chance talking about Selena Tested?? 😂😂 Because that movie has infected a lot of people o, including grown ups, now everyone is using their slangs. Ómo, it's hard breaking to see that the worst of things na hin dey trend pass for this country.
Came here via Dreemport 🥰❤️
Staying focus is a real challenge. Infact it has deprived us of living our best life.
Anyways this things can be salvaged. It is through discipline.
You can put off the pop up messages for a while. I have done it severally.
As for the movie_if you dont gerrit fogerrit. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, I'm trying to be disciplined. For one, I have tons of pending messages on whatsapp, nowadays I just spend time rummaging through Hive looking for cool cash, 😂😂.
I swer, if you dongerrit, leave it
That's the way to go bro. In life we sacrifice something for another.
I pray you make the cash.
Cheers to more money. Lol