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    Staying in the Game: Daily Encouragement to Keep You From Giving Up
    Staying in the Game: Daily Encouragement to Keep You From Giving Up
    Staying in the Game: Daily Encouragement to Keep You From Giving Up
    Ebook195 pages2 hours

    Staying in the Game: Daily Encouragement to Keep You From Giving Up

    By Laura s Sparks

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    About this ebook

    This is a book of encouragement for anyone who is tired of playing small. Written in short chapters and designed to be read daily, the goal is to help you stop quitting and to keep you in your game. Life is too short to sit on the sidelines, let's get going if you're not and stay in it if you are. The world is waiting for your unique contributio

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDr Laura Sparks.com
    Release dateJul 16, 2022
    ISBN9798218015916
    Staying in the Game: Daily Encouragement to Keep You From Giving Up

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      Book preview

      Staying in the Game - Laura s Sparks

      Introduction

      This book is for Doers and Makers of all shapes and sizes and all walks of life. And while you may not have all the steps figured out to successfully finish your race, you have a driving passion to complete your mission. You are tired of playing small.

      If you are ready to take the leap, take small steps, or just gather strength to continue meandering, I promise you that being in motion is necessary for both the first and last steps of your journey. And that is the good news.

      So, let's assume that you have a viable idea and you have actually begun something. Perhaps it is just the smallest of beginnings. Maybe you are thinking that it is so dismal a start, that it will never or could never really, go anywhere. I can tell you, I have been there, too. I have tried and failed and walked away for long stretches. And while I may not have all the answers, I have learned that showing up is 50% of  your success. Staying in the Game is the other, and equally necessary 50%.

      I want to encourage you from a very fallible and humble place. See, when something truly grabs you enough to begin it, you can rightly take your place with 'the starters'. You have done real hard work to get here. Congratulations!

      If you have started, it is your responsibility to see it through. And that, my friend, is the essence of this book: Encouragement for your journey, to help you see it through.

      We will spend some time discovering your genius, looking into how we avoid pain and relish pleasure and how that can help or hinder goal attainment. We will spend some time honing in on your people, your why, steps for today and tomorrow. We will get brutally honest and set some big goals...all while learning how to enjoy the journey.

      Written in short chapters, easily digestible in bite-sized pieces, one per day for 12 weeks, with the idea you will have stayed in the game long enough to finish your project. Long enough to prove to yourself and the world that you are playing for keeps.

      There are open-response questions at the end of each day. I encourage you to take the time to answer them. If you really want to get to the core of what is holding you back, take these questions seriously. Do the work and see how much work you can get done.

      My goal is to give you all the self-help, motivation and inspiration you need to keep moving forward. Will you join me and get to work?

      No pressure, really, but your life is depending on it.

      Scripture Quotations are from the New International Version of the Bible.

      1

      Sick to Death

      If you picked up this book, you have become aware that it is time for a change. Maybe you have set goals and then you’ve forgotten about them. You may have even set some firm resolutions, only to have broken them within weeks or months of the initial commitment. You may have started, only to give up before you made any appreciable progress. Maybe you are sick to death of the unkept promises to yourself and know that it is high time to get in gear and do something!

      I want you to know that I have been there. I have made so many excuses that I finally began to believe them. And in the process, I denied myself any chance to finish anything. And that is just one of the reasons we are here.

      The actual goal of this book is to help you hit your goals. It is really that simple. I know that if you can stay in the game long enough, you are going to make something happen. And then, rather than sitting on your laurels, hit them again and again and again. I am convinced if you can do it once, you can and will do it again.

      I know that you have this in you.

      Let’s do this…

      Day 1 - Why is This so Important, Anyway?

      I am a firm believer that you were born for a reason, a very distinct purpose. And that purpose, that reason, will never get accomplished unless you hang in there and Stay in the Game.

      I have spent countless hours avoiding my own best work, with the busyness of life. It is infinitely easier to do more laundry, wipe the counter again or wander into the kitchen to peer into the refrigerator for a snack.

      But, I'm hungry! You may argue.

      Yes, I am certain that you are. However, I will argue that the hunger you feel is not a hunger for the physical, temporal food in the fridge. I contend, I will go as far as guarantee, that when you lose yourself in something that you truly love, something that truly engages your spirit, you will transcend such mundane things like physical hunger.

      I am also convinced that the hunger to accomplish that big dream or goal is as importantas the physical, bodily hunger that we find ourselves distracted by. And that, if you continue to deny and ignore the gnawing need to create, a very important part of you, will surely die.

      That dreamy, hope-filled part of your spirit will begin to wither away, starved for attention and nourishment. As a result, we get sick...though, not necessarily physically. We become sick of our excuses, sick of not accomplishing our goals, sick, quite frankly, of ourselves. Like ingrown toenails that have too much potential energy and nowhere to go, we fester on the inside until this gnawing is our spirit become impossible to ignore.

      At this point, we have a choice. We can continue to ignore our greatest needs and desires for meaningful contribution, taking us down, deeper into denial. Or, we can choose to get into that creative work that is tugging at the deepest parts of us. Clearly, the longer we let this go, the harder it will be to pull ourselves out, or break our our established habits. And the harder it will be to bounce back.

      For so many reasons, we know that this doing nothing is simply just not the best choice. While it may seem easier in the short run, to stop fostering our creativity and pushing through towards our dreams and goals, we are definitely not creating long term happiness.

      So, today, I dare you to make the choice to seek out your purpose. I dare you to distill down your reason for being here on this planet. This work may not be the same thing that you do for a living, although that would be convenient. The thing that makes your heart sing, that lifts you up when you are down, that special thing that you can do with no regard, or a blatant disregard, to time. This is the thing, this is your jam, the game that you, must not, for the life of you, ever quit.

      Your creative work, that thing that you were we were created to do, is still out there, patiently waiting for you us to come back.

      It is for that thing that rest of this book was written...

      Welcome home

      What is an activity that you do that defies any concept of time...Something where you can while away hours, happily, and have no idea where the time went?

      What do people who know you well, think you are especially skilled at?

      What do you want to be remembered for?

       Day 2 – Paralysis by Analysis

      How many times have you given up or wanted to, simply because it the task at hand was just too hard? We have the best idea ever, we toss it around, we discuss it with our spouse, friends, family. They caution us, question us and look at us with blatant skepticism. We learn about all the things that we need to be careful of, things that will ‘need to be paid attention to.. The more we analyze it, the smaller the idea gets. We effectively suck the life out of it...by our very own scrutiny.

      While it is always serves you to take time to make some important decisions before you begin, when you overanalyze and effectively paralyze your progress, you are not doing yourself or your project any favors. We have all been there. We have all set goals, ignored them and avoided doing certain things. And ended up with more frustration, more angst, and little or no progress to show for it..

      Eventually, though, I began to learn a few things about staying in the game.

      Those who successfully complete things, though, spend years setting goals and missing, re-setting, and re-adjusting, but staying in it, no matter what. If you are going hard after a goal, this will give you encouragement. If you picked this book up to learn how to hang in there, you are in the right place. If you are doing it right, there will be mishaps and missteps, messes, and chaos.

      I have written and re-written this manuscript so many times, I thought I would go mad and then following some software problems, re-written one more time. I am a fellow sojourner, who, just like you, wants to play big, but finds herself repeatedly hijacked by the mundane tasks that seem to zap my time and energy.

      So, why in the world do I want to stay in this game? Why do any of us want to persist at all costs? No matter what the game, we soldier on for the sake of the payoff. We know that at the end of all the hard work, it will be worth it.

      There actually comes a time when all the thinking and planning leads to action. There comes a time when we have to trust ourselves and just go to work. And then, when the action is taken, trust that it is the right action and not second-guess it. This is our work.

      So, if like me, you are tired of playing small, I feel your frustration and your urgency. If like me, you find yourself shunted repeatedly, even daily, by mundane tasks, your willingness to let all those other things creep in, might be sucking the life out of your efforts. It is time to trust yourself and the process. It is time for you.

      What goal are you spending too much time thinking about?

      Can you take a leap and just do it?

      What is your next logical step?

      Can you take that step today? Why or Why not?

      Day 3 - Wait, What?…Without Losing My Mind?

      It is possible to achieve the most important goals of your life without losing yourself or losing your mind. In fact, I will argue that unless you decide to follow hard after the most important goals in your life, you very well could. Lose your mind, that is.

      It really is that important, and yes…life really is that crazy-making. I have spent most of my adult life serving people and helping my husband serve people. Mostly, it felt good and right. I know that I do good work at the clinic, and I really do love helping people. I have been blessed beyond measure with the skills to do my job and the ambition to stay in that game, even when it is tough.

      Other than the physical demands on my body, which are significant, the work itself, as a chiropractor, is quite lovely. People get great results and usually feel better when they leave. There is nothing inherently wrong with the work, it is very rewarding and even enjoyable. And I do love helping my husband. Being there for him, supporting him, being close to him, intimately understanding the stressors that he is under, all of that makes me feel like I am serving him at the highest level. I am kind of proud that I have not slacked off in any way, at any time, and yes, admittedly, even to my own detriment.

      This is also where I may have gone wrong.

      When my own personal goals got hard, emotionally taxing, I think I have naturally defaulted to his. I have let his goals supersede my own. He never directly asked me to do this, but I have let his crises become mine. I have tended his garden first, while mine went completely neglected. I have sacrificed for the clinic, over and over again. I did it altruistically, with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, as a result, I may have starved my spirit in the process.

      By neglecting the other things, like my writing, (and even my health at times!) I have communicated to myself exactly where those things sit on my own priority list. Ultimately, where I sit on my own priority list. As a result, I sometimes feel orphaned, alone, spent, and wasted.

      No matter what we have accomplished together, and this has actually been substantial at times, I don't always feel accomplished. Because my personal goals have been placed on the back burner, I can feel at times, like I

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