Intentional Success

“Plan tomorrow tonight. Don't just let the day happen to you - Success is intentional” – Shun Strickland

As soon as those words came across my computer screen, I felt a deep case of déjà vu. I have often muttered the same words after a grueling race to accomplish an impossible task. Mind you, the same task would have been possible with enough preparation, but due to procrastination, I am often left scrambling. Ok, so I already have a clear understanding of the essence of what the message was telling me. Proper planning, efficiency, and success walk hand in hand. Those same attributes are what I strive for. Intentional success is something that I have desired for years. I have practiced it on several occasions and it has worked wonderfully. 

So why have I become known as the queen of procrastination you ask? Well, it is something that I just kind of fell into, just like many things in my life. As a young teenager, I remember my older sister admonishing me by using the adage “poor planning leads to poor performance which yields poor results.” At the time, her words were met with fierce eye rolls. Deep inside, I knew she was right. I used to thrive and survive on the adrenaline of last minute cramming or worse, last minute research paper writing. Over the years, I convinced myself that I did my best work under pressure. I got away with it in undergraduate school work, but it came back to haunt me in Law School. In my adult years, intentional success is what I desire and procrastination is something that I now want to nip in the bud. They say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” but I believe that there is always an exception to every rule. As a young professional, I want to be the best at what I do. I want to be so far ahead of the game that nobody can ever accuse me of slacking.

How will I accomplish my goal of intentional success? Well, there are a lot of factors that have to come together in perfect celestial harmony (perhaps I am being a tad bit over dramatic.)

The said factors are:
1. Taking a personal inventory of my current situation
2. Setting goals and commitments
3. Developing mechanisms to abandon the need for external affirmation
4. Forced repetition
5. Doing proper research and self evaluation when I do not achieve the desired results
6. Engaging in activities that interest me
7. Developing a support system
8. Repeating steps 1-7 until it becomes a way of life

I have set these rules for myself. In the following days I will post several blog entries containing a brief breakdown of how I arrived at the aforementioned 7 rules. I will explore each of them in separate posts. In developing the rules, I realized that I needed a short and sweet view of what I needed to work on. Having a long list of goals would only serve to confuse me. I thought long and hard about what I need to change at this point in my life to be able to achieve intentional success. These rules do not apply to everyone, as we are all different. These rules were developed after a personal inventory of my strengths and weaknesses.

Are you on a personal quest for Intentional Success or have you achieved Intentional Success? If so, how did you do it and what were your experiences? Feel free to share your ideas.   

Defending Kim Kardashian

Defending Kim

I woke up this morning and the world was abuzz with news of the Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphreys split. After the much televised and gossiped about wedding took place, there was nothing left for the world to do but speculate about the couple’s impending divorce and wish them the worst. When they were together, everyone rooted for them to fail. When they finally did split up, instead of the naysayers breathing a sigh of relief, they seem to have unleashed their rage against Kim. Having so many people speculating why they were together and why they had a lavish wedding, could anyone expect them to make it? I am shocked and would like to address two issues that I have with everyone’s response: 1.) Marriage is a covenant between two individuals, why is Kim the bad guy?, and 2.) It’s Kim and Kris’ marriage, how does its dissolution affect the world?

Marriage is a covenant between two individuals: why is Kim the bad guy?

A majority of the tweets, facebook status updates and blogs have been slamming Kim about filing for divorce. Some seem to paint her soon to be ex-husband as being duped into proposing to her (the man-eater). Last time I watched “Keeping up with the Kardashians” it was Kris Humphreys who got down on his knees amidst a room lined with candles and a rug littered with rose petals to propose Kim. Having been around her and her family, I am sure he knew very well what he was getting himself into. He is 26 years old and, even if he was beguiled by the charm and the money, he had a chance to back out; he did not. I do not consider myself a feminist by any means, but it saddens me to see that the woman is once again being blamed for the breakdown of a marriage. Granted, the sacred marriage lasted only 72 days, but why is she automatically the villain? That being said, I have heard nothing but negative comments about the Kardashian-Humphreys marriage from inception. I don’t propose to know the girl, but from watching shows and reading about her, perhaps they both fell fast and madly for each other but did not have the support system to honestly tell them to slow down and keep their feet grounded. With a mother who practically pushed her to the altar, it’s no wonder the couple did not take time to know each other.

I can attest that marriage is a good thing, AND I can also say that marriage takes work, patience and teamwork. Not every tingling feeling is love and even love if not properly fed and nourished dies. I also don’t think we should judge Kim and Kris since we don’t know what led to their “irreconcilable differences.”  Would the world still react harshly towards her if we discovered other details that would have led an average newlywed to file for a divorce? By shunning and prejudging her so publicly, are we sending a message to our youth to simply “grin and bear it?”

 72 days may be short for most individuals, but depending on what they were going through (i.e., domestic violence), it may be exactly enough for a party to ascertain the need to get out. I support the institution of marriage; therefore, I think it would have been worse for the young couple to stay married for the sake of saving face. I also caution people to remember that both Kim and Kris are people, and a barrage of words, even from strangers, can cause a world of hurt.

It’s Kim and Kris’ marriage, how does its dissolution affect the world?

I have read threads that range from people feeling emotionally betrayed, citing the wedding and nuptials as a sham, to expressing outrage at the amount of money spent on the wedding. My take on it is: Why does it matter? How can anyone derive any form of satisfaction from two individuals divorcing? If people felt so passionate and adamant against the couple getting married, why did they not try to do something about it before they said “I do” (i.e., send Kim or Kris a warning tweet)? Now that they are headed towards splitsville, everyone feels the need to tweet and retweet the announcement that the couple is calling it quits. For those who expressed shock at the amount of money spent on the wedding, well, it’s what they wanted, AND no, that money could not have helped the orphans in Somalia, Tajikistan or wherever remote place that people are starving, because it would have probably been spent on something else. To those who point and wag their fingers about what the couple is teaching our youth I would say, the lesson begins with you. If you, or anyone for that matter, are letting our youth learn important life lesson from reality TV shows, I would say hie thee to the nearest Big Brother Big Sister, Boys and Girls Club, Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of America or the local YMCA.  Finally, for those fans who feel hurt and betrayed that the couple is splitting, you may have been “there” when the cameras were rolling (notice the sarcastic quotation marks), but you certainly have not been a part of the marriage after the cameras stopped rolling. It is only news because we make it news. If it indeed was publicity stunt (which I highly doubt), then they have succeeded in their ploy. I urge you to take a chance that it was not a publicity stunt. In that case, we should put ourselves in their shoes and let them go through their season with dignity.