passion is the life blood flowing forth from you to connect to the world...

what is your burning desire...

what keeps you up late into the night without regard to time or space...

what fuels your soul?

You must be able to passionately describe your vision. You must have a fire burning inside you. You must be driven by your dream. I received this question from a former coaching student. The following is the question and my answer...it describes my feeling about passion...

I am a fan ... read you in the The Faux Finisher all the time ... you have the life I should have had ... and hope to have something similar soon ... thank you for your inspiration and your advice ... M

M:

Thank you for your kind words. I pray that your dreams come true soon. You can always start part-time while doing another job. I did!! It takes patience, but is worth it in the end. If you have a passion for painting and believe in your skills, you can do what you love every day...I promise.

To help you do this, I will share a Secret Plan to reorienting your life around your passion. This is actually a session from my Mini Business Workshop. The plan begins with passion and leads to success.

The first step in the plan—starting from the heart and discovering your passion—by identifying your dreams. Start from any other source and you set yourself up for frustration and regret. Fulfillment comes only when the results you seek and the activities you embrace are in accordance with the person you are. You cannot look to reason or judgment for insights into your soul. Who you are is what’s in your heart.

Make A Decision, Make A Commitment

You have probably thought and dreamed about having your own business for years. All too often people convince themselves that you could not succeed. You fail to make the DECISION TO GO FOR IT.

This is the simplest step to take for your future, but many people fail to take it and live their lives with regrets. Just decide that you are going to go for it and make a commitment to make this goal a reality. It’s that simple! Do you know how many great artists are working jobs that they hate, dreaming of something else, but refusing to take this one step? It costs nothing to decide. Commitment is free. You are limiting yourself. Why?

You must be able to passionately describe your vision. You must have a fire burning inside you. You must be driven by your dream.

My second little secret to achieving your goals is writing them down. Take a sheet of paper and write the following - "I must be a decorative painter and I am committed to making this a reality." That is all you need to do now. You have taken the first step toward your dream, you have put it on paper. Now your brain can start working on how to achieve it. I am proud of you.

After you come to terms with your Dream, it is time for reasoning and rationalizing. You must clarify your purpose and define your actions—you need to think. Because the world can often dissuade you from pursuing your passion by presenting roadblocks. You must pursue it with forethought and care. Careful and thoughtful planning can help you define a purpose and set a strategy for following your Dream. This is our Business Plan

Once you have felt you passion and thought it through, it is time to act. Equipped with both your passion and your plan, you will begin to make changes in your life. This is Taking Care of Business.

If you remain true to your passion and follow these steps, you will find the results you seek. And you will also reap rewards you never anticipated because passion can take you to another level of living. It can open worlds and expand horizons. It can bring new awareness and heightened perceptions. It can empower and improve. Your idea of Success may change as you begin to fulfill your potential, but your passion will propel you onward to even greater achievement and happiness.
so what point am i trying to make with this? last night i spoke with one of my mentors. He asked me about my new business model and asked me to describe it. I faltered at first and then went on to describe 2 or 3 business models i am trying to marry... He listened and then said, "Rebecca, you have a track record and an established brand with the Doing What You Love. You have credibility and name recognition, why do you want to change that?"

this was written about me a few years ago:

A master decorative painter, widely-read columnist, popular motivational speaker and instructor, Rebecca E. Parsons has spent over 30 years honing her craft. For the past fifteen years she has been advising, mentoring, and consulting creative entrepreneurs worldwide. Her knowledge of the business and her passion for successful entrepreneurship have made her the industry’s most recognized advocates for business success. Her book “Do What You Love–Love What You Do, The Step–by–Step Guide to Creative Business,” is hailed as the best business guide on the market.

so i am wondering why i have lack of clarity and focus at this time...i need to follow my own advice and teaching...i opened my book this morning searching for the passages about passion and realized i need to sit down and read my own book!!! and do what i have always told students to do -- ACT!!!

being and doing...

abraham hicks

the courage to stand in my own truth...

for those of us in the midst of realizing that our plans for ourselves may be different from those of our destiny….life can be confusing, exciting, terrifying, enthralling…and more than a little off balance…so I ask for the ancient path…and walk in it…

at a crossroads...which way to go??

“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient path, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16)

to the reflective mind, i am in the midst of a major spiritual transition where i am to grow my higher wisdom…i have created all the experiences in my life…to learn specific lessons, hopefully gaining wisdom and understanding within the process…if learned, i integrate the lessons into my being…if not, i am bound to repeat them until i do…

i must admit that my perception of a perfect world may be skewed…i have been searching for a way of fitting or molding my future according to the conditions unfolding in my life…i did not choose them…i did not even see them coming…but they happened nonetheless….

in 2008 the focus of my energies shifted to survival…my long-term goals dissolved into immediate life-saving concerns…and my personal world became very small…job loss leading to bankruptcy and foreclosure does this...

practicality is the main goal of each day (and i am so not practical)…forward visioning has been put aside until i become more centered…i find myself betwixt and between reality and possibility… the confusion, illusion, and delusion can get the better of me if i allow it…i choose not to allow it…

so i am embracing the prospects and possibilities of a destiny much different than what i had planned…

during this journey i have been forced to take inventory and open baggage that had been so carefully tucked away….i am confronting my worst fears-loss of security, my job, my home…but i am discovering a new strength…a new wisdom…even a new power (if i dare to speak it)…

i realize that i am moving into a new paradigm where my sense of restriction is vanishing…my fading commitments and obligations have become obstacles to my getting to my new and improved future…

i thought trust was my only issue…but i have learned during this time that i do not know how to receive…

earlier this month a friend became very upset with me over my inability to accept the offers of help i have received…she said i was like the man standing on his roof in a flood who kept refusing help…of neighbor on a cow, a man with a rowboat, people in a power boat, and a rescue helicopter…all the while he prayed for God to save him and kept saying, “No thanks, I have faith in the Lord, the Lord will save me.”

the waters rose higher and higher and eventually the man on the roof was washed away and drowned. Upon arriving in heaven, the man said to God, “Heavenly Father I had faith in you. I prayed to you to save me and yet you did nothing. Why?” God shook his head and replied “I sent you a cow, two boats and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”

this week i spoke to a friend who was in Spiritual Direction formation with me…she said i needed to let others minister to me so that when i am able i, in turn, will be able to minister to others…

so simple, so profound…i am learning to open my heart and receive…

why is this so hard for me? i have always been the one with the solutions…a helper, a giver, a fixer…i ‘prided’ myself on being the one with the God-given wisdom to serve others…

P R I D E that nasty little fault of mine…so the inability for me to find the right, best or any solution has shattered this prideful self importance which is really rooted in low self-esteem…yet i was standing within the pool of prideful self-pity refusing to see the offers of help for what they were…OFFERS OF HELP!!!

a hand of help offered by those who care about me…and i was stubbornly refusing to receive…

“There are so many opportunities available to you in your world. All you need to do is be open to see them. Complaining about life and your circumstances blinds you to what is right in front of your eyes – and that is the possibility of you being “in-charge” of your life and not your complaints running it for you” -Yvonne Rice

this is a big one for me as i am struggling between trying to control everything and letting go and letting God be in control…and i am not even sure how to do this…

i remain conflicted…i know God helps those who help themselves and i also know i need to get out of the way and let God work…but i am unsure exactly how…how to get out of His way…

any suggestions?

short of sitting on the couch until ‘they’ come and put me out of my home…i do not know how to stop working toward bankruptcy, foreclosure, and trying to find employment

each morning i ask for guidance and direction and i believe that what comes to me is what God is sending…even though it feels uncomfortable and unpleasant…and i would prefer to be anywhere else doing anything else, yet here i am 13 months past my job loss still holding on somehow…

if i stop and allow myself to sit with this for a moment, i am amazed…how on earth am i still here in the home i love when my saving account is depleted, foreclosure papers sit on my desk, collection calls overwhelm my phone line, and i am surviving on raman noodles…yes, one can survive on nothing else but raman noodles for several months…but that is another story…

God has indeed been good to me this past year…He has sent me help exactly when i need it…a small commission job…help from my church…help from my family…nothing in excess, but just enough to survive another few days or weeks…and that is how it has been…

i believe that i am going thru this so i can help others in the future...allowing people to minister to me so i can minister to others...does this make sense...and i have decided to stand in my own truth even if i am judged...

this is my path at this time and i claim it and embrace the fruits of it to come...

if you know of anyone who would benefit from reading my blog recounting my adventure in foreclosure, bankruptcy, and job loss please pass the link along...

down...but not out blog!