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Blueprinting Your Life

carriesuepepper • May 21, 2010

I live on the ocean in a two-story home.  That is the first affirmation I read each morning and night, along with others.  It is in my stack of blue (index) cards.  Years ago, when I was working with one of the best and most influential mentors of my life, I went through a course called “Blueprinting Your Life.”  There are many courses and seminars that focus on goal setting, but this was the first I’d ever experienced.  Not only did we talk about goals, we talked about writing our life plan – starting twenty years in the future.  Where did I want to be in 20 years?  10 years?  5 years?  1 year? And so on.  It was easy for me to say because I’d always known where I wanted to be when I was older – on the ocean in a two story home.   Writing my books.   Getting there is the hard part for most – and it’s not because we don’t have what it takes to do it, but we lack that mental fortitude it takes to keep believing against all odds.   It takes constant work to get our minds to believe it, to get that subconscious programmed.  It takes a lot of work and most aren’t willing to go through it.

I remember when I first moved into my little studio apartment after being homeless, living in my car for several months.  I was living pretty close to the edge and abundance certainly wasn’t in my vocabulary.  Yet, when I first acquired that adorable little place, I felt flooded with gratitude and hope and love.  At that time in my life, it was every bit as good as a two-story home on the ocean.  I remember clearly knowing that it was going to be a rough climb back and that I would need help.  I’d been reading Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking at the time and my little blue card inside read: WINNERS NEVER QUIT AND QUITTERS NEVER WIN.  I was no quitter.  I took out a piece of cardboard and wrote one word on it:  FAITH , then taped it to my wall.  I looked at that word every single day and I grew stronger.  I knew that that one thing was all I needed in the entire world.  And I knew that I needed to write it down so that no matter how tough things got, how much I doubted, how much my mind wandered, I could always look back at it and it would pull me back to the strong part of myself that had the power to make anything happen – anything that I wanted.

I drifted away from the reading of my blue cards for a few years and, I have to admit, I can feel the change.  I know how powerful they are.  I know that actions repeated become habits.  I have new mentors now – a plethora of them – and each day I learn new lessons and new principles.  I read the good books.  My favorites:  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino, Lessons from Great Lives by Sterling W. Sill and Dan McCormick, Aspire by Kevin Hall and many others .  Some are unusual and not what I would normally have thought I’d be reading.  I even have a copy of The Book of Mormon.   No, I’m not Mormon, but a good friend of mine is and he gave it to me as a gift.  I asked him where he turned in times of despair and he brought me this special book.  The lessons we need to learn come at us from places we would never imagine, but if we close our eyes to them, we are stifling our growth.

  It isn’t always easy to pick one up – don’t get me wrong.  I love to read but I get busy and I feel that I can’t slow down long enough to read these amazing teachings.  I think that I must hurry on with my day, with tasks that would go so much better if I just made the time to, as Covey says, “sharpen the saw.”  One of my mentors once said, “you have to go slow to go fast.”  Again, the mental clarity and the internal strength that must be in place before stepping into the world.  That armor that will make me invincible and believable and bring the passion and light into my eyes.  That is what I want to offer up.  I want to share what I know is true.  I want to help others to see it, to see their dreams up there in big bold color, splashed across a huge billboard for the entire world to see.  I live on the ocean in a two-story home.   Come and play with us and make your blue cards, your dreams, your life whatever you desire them to be.

The post Blueprinting Your Life first appeared on Carrie Pepper.

Carrie Pepper

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By Carrie Pepper • 30 Nov, 2023
Out on my morning walk, street signs acted as memory joggers. Perhaps they were nudges so that I could remember, and be grateful for, these two women who were there for me as a kid. BRADFORD was the first sign. Grammy Bradford. I never called her anything else and I have no idea what her first name was, but I do remember she was there to tend to me when I was little while my mother went off to work at her government job "in procurement," which she hated. I know nothing, really, of what she did there, but I do remember the room. It seemed there were hundreds of desks in this huge room, no partitions. Dark grey desks and heavy black telephones. I visited her there a few times and she'd give me tablets and pens to keep me busy. I was ALWAYS thrilled to have a tablet and a pen! What she did there is a mystery to me, but when she and my father would argue, which was often, she'd always say, "I want my own money," and so off she went to work every morning at the Defense General Supply Center. He told her she didn't need to work, that he could support her, but, again, she wanted her own money. Back to Mrs. Bradford, Grammy. She was a bit on the heavy side (which I thought made for the best, most cuddly hugs) with long grey hair that she wore up with tons of bobby pins. She always wore a floral bib apron with large pockets and she'd fill them with pears when we'd go to that special corner of our back yard. Oh the smell! Those yellow pears and the carpet of yellow leaves. Memories of Grammy Bradford brought back memories of Thelma Massenburg. She looked exactly like Aunt Jemima (OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKES, we can't say Aunt Jemima anymore!) Recently a friend told me he'd made pancakes and I asked what kind of syrup he used. When he said, "Pearl Milling," I thought it sounded kinda cool, but when I looked it up I found out it was the new name for Aunt Jemima syrup. SERIOUSLY? Anyway, she was wonderful. She cleaned our house, scrubbed the floors and walls and worked harder than anyone I'd ever seen. I loved her. She always wore a bandana tied around her head. She lived in a tiny reddish tar papered house with ten children. Who knows where they all slept! She was diabetic and I was a little stinker and liked to tease her with Hershey Bars. I'd wave one in front of her nose and she'd smile and say," "You bad, chile." The last time I saw her she was in the hospital and her eyes were very, very yellow. Liver disease. The scarf that was always wrapped around her head was gone and I am sure that I could hear her say, "You bad, chile," although she probably didn't. Thank you my sweet Thelma. My Aunt Jemima.
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