Hustlin: A Non Hustler's guide to faking it till you make it!

No Urban Dictionary definitions for you this time cos let’s face it if you don’t know what hustling means or what a hustler is? You’ve been living under a rock and yall still using phrases like ‘work hard’ instead of Rick Ross’ fantastic offering to English vocabulary ‘hustlin’.

Hustlin is working hard at multiple aspects of your life to achieve your goals- monetary, financial, career, passion, academic etc. etc. Traditionally hustling is used to describe working as hard as you can and beyond that to get that paper!!!

But I think in modern context and particularly for ‘millennials’ hustlin has a general meaning of simply working hard at several aspects or one aspect of your life in particular to get yourself where you want to be. It could be trying to get into shape whilst juggling a heavy work schedule amongst other commitments, pursuing your passions whilst studying and helping out at home. It also in a lesser sense means working hard yet not being 110% perfect at everything, hustler’s are always continually working to better their game, higher productivity, better concentration, new skills and knowledge etc. etc.

I’m going to be real and say I’ve just in my opinion entered this whole hustlin world as I’ve recently acquired a job (my first job ever, fanfare rings all across unemployment land) , literally a week before uni started back up again for the second half of the year. So beforehand I was simply just doing uni and life in general i.e. finally having a regular and consistent exercise regime!! and trying to make this blog into my own idea of ‘successful’. Now I’m trying to get back into the swing of things with my exercise regime as I went on a one month hiatus due to the cold weather, accustom to my workplace whilst also adjusting to not only working but also doing uni, whilst still doing other things that I struggled to have time for before the job anyway.

I may be rambling but to all the ‘pro-hustlers’, the ‘long timers’, the ladies and fellas doing the hard yards- snaps to yall and exuberant African style shouting and exclamations!!! Yall are troopers, the real deal, don’t know how you do it and some of yall be looking beat and all snatched up compared to us with nothing to do.

I ain’t forgetting all my fellow sisters and brother’s travelling this road for the first time and feeling like failure at every corner but we keep getting up and trying cos we’re all trying to use the time we have to the best of our ability.

Word to the wise, Oprah is like the fountain or google of wisdom for me and she had Steve Harvey on her Lifeclass show to talk about his life experiences and his book ‘Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success’ .  Steve Harvey said there are 5 questions to understanding whether or not you have a lid on your dream, as in are you indirectly stopping yourself from achieving your dream. The questions are…

1. Am I excited about waking up in the morning?
2. Am I sitting around all day bored out of my mind?
3. Do I have time to do everything that anyone asks me to do?
4. Do I have time to watch all of my scheduled television programs and not miss an episode?
5. Do I believe I can achieve my dreams by myself?

In a way hustlers are fighting every day to getter closer to their dream or dreams because I believe and we all know it you can have more than 1 dream and in many forms. If you’re truly a hustler, I’m assuming the answers to the above question would be yes, no, no, no, no.

I’m not a hustler myself so feel free to give suggestions/tips on how to be more motivated and driven however I think there are some sure fire rules that most people follow.

1.     What are my goals?

2.     How can I get there?

3.     What can I do to better myself whilst I work towards that goal?

Let’s keep pushing ourselves beyond our limits because you truly never know what tomorrow holds. 

Static Silence Deafens Me

This is probably going to be the most confused, nonsensical, laissez-faire post I’ll have ever written but it’s going to reflect my state of mind for the last 6 months. This post for any living soul out there who regularly reads my posts will kind of explain my absence and just general lack of material.

 I hate that I keep comparing everything back to high school but that’s all I’m sure of compared to the present day. So in high school I was the type of person who was very sure of themselves, knew who they were and what defined them, understood my attributes and how they manifested in reality and where I stood in the world of high school. Now I feel like all that knowledge I had before is completely gone because I’m now in a new environment and I haven’t come full circle in terms of adjustment, self-awareness and feeling comfortable enough to truly immerse myself in life and have experiences. I’m finding that all this confusion and lack of answers is what I term as static silence- there’s no noise or that voice that’s always reassuring and edging you on, reminding you of who you are and why you’re going after something.

I find that having all this silence in your head sort of interferes with your ability to create goals and plans because you have nothing to mentally sound board ideas from .It kind of becomes like you have all these ideas or thoughts but you have nothing to attach it or base it on. You think well can I achieve this- am I capable? What makes me think I’m capable of for example having a blog and making it into what I deem successful? Currently I deem myself as just a wandering somebody with no direction, no tangible vision and no immediate drive.

Having a sense of no direction, goals or well thought out plans makes me feel like I have no potential left because I feel like I have nothing going for me and I’m not creating an environment for me to have something to chase after. A friend of mine helped me realise I’m telling myself a version of the truth I want to hear and not reality or the real truth. The real truth is if you don’t have any goals or solid plans you will feel like you have no potential to achieve anything when really it’s simply undiscovered and not non-existent. 

So the consequences or manifestations of this confusion and all the emotional and psychological stress is it somewhat leaves you feeling paralysed from fear and lack of strength to push yourself to the limits of self-awareness and discovery hence the deafening sensation. You’re trying to stay alert and survive but nothing comes in, sinks in and stays there.

The consequence of all this for the blog is that feeling mentally exhausted leaves you with no energy to experience life and from those experiences are where inspiration for material comes from. With no material there are no blog posts and hence there being nothing on this blog for the past 5 months or so. Other consequences are sort of going back to basics of a shell with no fillings as in hobbies or drive.

There’s no use constantly discussing things with no action. I know to get myself back to a good place where I feel comfortable and aware of myself I have to literally throw myself into life and continually try/ attempt to try to push myself out of my comfort zone.

So I’ve decided to sign up for dance classes, do something about drama/acting which has always been a big part of me and my identity I guess, a new FFF challenge however this time it’s 3S’s ( which I’ll talk about in another post after this one ) , continue to work on my fitness and just continue to push through it all, work on myself and just push through all the uncomfortable and hard questions because at the end of it all if you’re not better or stronger what was even the point?

I’m not sure if this at all made sense but I felt like writing down exactly what’s going on so I can continue to make more sense of it and perhaps someone out there gets this or has experienced something similar before.

Comment below on ways/things that helped you find yourself again and how you motivated yourself.

Can't seem to let it go...

Urban Dictionary, my favourite source of hip & to it definitions says a ‘grudge is a bad feeling or hate you hold against another person for something bad they did or you think they did to you.’ I will not lie, I am, I think in my circle of friends and most people I know, the Queen of Holding a Grudge. I can hold one for years and with the same intensity and practically have identical monologues every time it’s triggered. Sad, I know. Why do we hold grudges? What triggers it and why is it for some of us, we just can’t let it go?

Personally, I find the grudges I’ve held the longest and with the most intensity were those that evoked feelings of ‘worthlessness, inadequacy, betrayal’etc. really personal, deep down, gut wrenching emotions I reckon. It wasn’t and still isn’t for me what they did or what I think they did, it’s the way they made me ‘feel’.

Feelings and emotions are extremely powerful, they have the power to give a memory or experience more power than it deserves or needs credit. They are the basis of how we feel towards people and map our interactions with them.

I should probably give an example of my worst grudge right or what’s the purpose of me typing away at theoretical and conceptual ideas without some personal and practical application and experience?

Bear with me here, it will sound utterly ridiculous and shameful but anyways I had (notice past tense) this best friend from a church I used to attend during my late childhood and early tween years. We left the church when I was about 12 but this one particular friend and I stayed in touch and were very close. The first couple of years of high school for me were kind of tough (shall discuss those another time) as an extroverted person and so having that just one, close, intimate friend made things easier. Here’s the catch, she lived in Newcastle, whilst I lived in Sydney. For years, guuurrrrrllllll ,I’m talking almost all of my high school life, I was the instigator. I called, texted, emailed, facebooked at a ratio of about all to nothing. Obviously there was external circumstances that meant she couldn’t call but she had like 4 other modes of social media and contact. The entire time, I knew I was playing second fiddle to other girls who I knew and were great friends with in the church but I always told myself, ‘run your own race’. I complained all the time to my high school friends, wrote about it in my diary and had hiatus periods instigated by me that saw periods of static silence due to my defiance. By the time I got to year 11, I learnt my lesson, Bye Felicia!!, clearly we’re not prioritising each other in the same way.

The main issue was, I’ve always believed and still do, that relationships of any kind are a two way street, give and take. I was doing all the giving and it was not only exhausting and frustrating but it also made me feel inadequate and insecure, was I being an annoyance and holding on to a friendship that was not wanted?

You’re probably wondering where in all this mess, is the grudge, you upset she didn’t give you the attention you wanted? you weren’t number 1, suck it up? My problem was, once I got out of my feelings (mostly) that it was and still is a reminder of just how much time I wasted on someone who clearly didn’t deserve it nor want it or need it when I could have focused those crucial early years putting time and effort into people who probably actually wanted to be my friend. Equal attention.  I loathe people and situations that waste my time. Life is short, I aint got time to waste it on things or people that clearly don’t and didn’t matter.

Trigger points are seeing photos, or her name on facebook, things that remind you of the past and I usually just think, ‘gosh why did I waste so much of my time on you and look where it got me, no where’. The worst feeling is when you back away and that person doesn’t come chasing after you and all your fears of your inadequacy and worthlessness as a valuable friend come true.

I have no idea really why we hold grudges, I think it has to do with the impact another person leaves on us and sometimes it seems so painful and unfair that holding on and putting the blame and energy on that person makes it easier than cleaning up the mess they left behind. The more painful the experience was to an individual, the harder and longer it takes to let go. Because at the end of the day, we’re mad and infuriated at the ‘emotions’ you evoked in us without us knowing and the intensity with which we feel them scares us and it’s easier to put some blame on you.

You’re wondering, so have you let go of this or are you still holding on?  Pause for dramatic effect…90% there. The 10% is just forgiving my inexperienced, young, vulnerable and lonely self. I’ve dealt with all the other mess by repeating the same monologue a thousand times (my poor friends who listened endlessly yet with such love and care, the true heroines).

Do you tell the person about your grudge or at least let them know how they’ve affected you? No. Not a single peep. Their response if it doesn’t match your pre conceived notions will only make matters worse. She’ll never know just how much was hidden behind the laughs, you were a great friend no doubt, just not the friend I needed and wanted and that’s okay. She’ll probably know now if she ever discovers this blog haha lol, ohh dear.

Don’t let the past steal the magic of today.

You said it would be 'the best years' but you lied.

When I look back at high school and think about what first comes to mind, it’s the words, fun, friends, assured, self-aware and stress. I thoroughly enjoyed high school, now reflecting upon it almost 2 years later. In retrospect, I wouldn’t change a single thing except perhaps studying a little harder and not taking the HSC so seriously ( final exams of high school that determine your entry into university in New South Wales, Australia ). Now? Now I’m in a limbo better known as ‘university’. Some of you university students would describe it as organised chaos, chaos, organised or no idea. To everyone who said, ‘university/college will be some of the best years of your lives’…, you lied.

Because this is my own personal experience and I’m speaking for myself and not others, I have never felt more out of touch with myself than ever before. I’ve briefly touched upon this here .A discussion with one of my best friends one night, made me realise just how much I’m not really liking university at the moment because I’ve always used my settings to help establish my identity and self-awareness. So when I can’t grapple with the setting… cue sensations of confusion, lost identity, more confusion and general anxiety along with laziness.  And when you feel like you’re losing yourself or have simply lost the ability to tap into aspects of the real you, you focus your energy on blaming something that you feel is causing this.

In reality, I actually have what some would consider a great university life: I have a great circle of friends, and know lots of people, I go out here and there and I still have a great, loving, present and supportive circle of high school friends. ‘So what’s the problem?’ you ask. Not really sure but here’s what I think I’m struggling with…

   1. Stability. I do a double degree in Science/Business. The friends I have in science, I only see once a week, my schedule can be very unforgiving in terms of scheduling catch ups.  You see a good friend you don’t hang out with normally once in a blue moon. There is no solid routine. I am a creature of habit and stability so this frustrates me a little.

  2. Connections. I don’t feel as in touch with the student body. Now I can take responsibility for this and say I don’t belong to any clubs or go to any uni parties. However, where y’all finding the time? Something must be lacking because I don’t see how you can fit it all in, great grades, great family life, great connections with high school friends, great connections with uni friends, achievers, extracurricular activities and jobs. You can’t tell me it’s all peaches and cream.

I’ve always been a very sociable person. By nature I’m an extrovert and a loud and chatty one at that. So for me and I feel like for extroverts when we lack stability and connections, it almost kind of sends us into a spiral, we lose that sense of self. I believe an extrovert’s sense of self is highly linked to a sense of stability within an environment and strong connections. With all this being said, I realise that my extrovert nature and tendencies feel most at home in environments that are familiar, stable and have strong connections. Perhaps that’s why I like to stay at home, and I absolutely love to see and constantly chat with my high school friends, it feels like home, they are home, it’s a comfortable, inviting and safe place.

At the end of the day, I would be discrediting the institution that is university if I was to say, I haven’t had any fun. I have. Truly. I just wish y’all didn’t gloss over other things, like heads up, you may start to feel lost and confused as you race toward your 20’s but it’s okay, it happens, things get more so unbelievably complicated, breathe, it’s alright, it has to. 

I wish you had said, ‘University will be some of the most challenging, rewarding yet best years of your life; stay awake and don’t waste them.’ Do I have a solution?, yes, of course, that’s what Fearless, Foxy and Fabulous is all about, see a problem, find a solution and fix it. Take the time to enjoy the confusion however uncomfortable, ride the wave in all its force and fight that mother of a beast until you finally get it, whatever the answer is that you’re looking for. No pain, no gain right?

Are You Prepared? // Being An Adult

If you’re 19 and on the verge of turning twenty at some point this year or already have, y’all  are experiencing what I call the ‘20 something disease/syndrome/conundrum/whatever’! Cos I am and I think it has a cast a spell over my creative juices and so ladies and gentlemen ( it does not discriminate this disease I like to think ) here are a few Top 5 lists of things that are stressing me, on my mind, clouding my judgement and forever stifling my last few precious days of innocence.

Top 5 Stressors

1. Am I in the right degree? ( yes, 2nd year and still confused )

2. Job security? Will I get a job after I graduate?

3. Will I secure an internship during my degree?

4. Am I networking enough?

5. Will I be able to buy a house when I want to? ( the current housing market in Australia is a mess, y’all should be sweating like me (or not because you’re probably sane) )

Top 5 Life Questions

1. Am I good daughter/sibling? Do I spend enough time with family? ( soon you might be married up and gone )

2. More importantly, am I good friend? Am I there? Am I present? Do I do enough?

3. When and will I get married? halllah wait, who though? Black, white, Asian, mixed, alien ( I’ve been asked this before but I’m down with the swirl cos everybody is beautiful *cue music* ) 

4. Who am I? What happened to the girl in high school? I don’t know who this alien inhabiting my body is anymore!!!

5. Am I in the right place? Am I doing the right degree, making the right choices and priorities?

How about one more y’all, the mother of them all….

6. Will I have enough time to get everything done? You can interpret that for yourself, friends.

Top 5 Nonsense/Trivial Things to worry over for nothing

1. Do people think I’m funny in a good way? I have a comedic/humorous bone right? More importantly am I keeper?

2. Do I sound stupid when I talk cos I mumble a lot?

3. Wonder if I have time this week to schedule in all my tv shows instead of studying…

4. Can I afford to buy yet another packet of Coles 6 pack, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies? or another Betty Crocker packet mix?

5. When will I lose my fabulous metabolism? What do people see when they look at me?

Clearly I’m one, confused puppet, if you share any of my concerns or have completely different ones, leave us a comment and let me know… (Please, I can’t be the only soul in the world thinking such things…or am I?)

Here’s a final, coherent thought…What is it about your 20’s or what is the perceived notion about your 20’s that has so many of us confused? 

Detox Cocktail with a spicy kick of reality: Expectations

Detox in modern day terms-( and no- not the name of the rumoured, has- not- even- been released  album by Dr Dre for those hip hop enthusiasts who might mistake this post as a rant about that ) -means a treatment designed to rid the body of poisonous substances especially alcohol and drugs.

Detox in my own terms means to rid the system (system being ourselves) of all toxic and foreign matter. The type of detox cocktail I’m going for here is more the social and psychological.

The biggest downfall for girls in all aspects of life is having expectations. Not saying that expectations are bad, but over fantasising and dreaming is what will eventually lead to heartache and distortion of reality.

One of the worst misconceptions about life made by girls is in the ‘love’ department. We watch movies, listen to songs, read books, hear about other people’s love lives and have grand expectations about love, how it happens, when it happens and who will be that boyfriend. The worst is girls having the expectation that at some point within their teenage phase they should obtain a boyfriend. Now let’s get real here ladies and gentlemen. Pop culture and other sources of knowledge would lead us to believe that dating in high school is a frequent and normal part of the experience for everyone. Lies.  A research done by Child Trends Data Bank an American organisation found that the levels of dating had actually dropped to 17% in 2012. Furthermore they went on to say that levels of 12th grade students who were not dating at all increased to 36%!!!. So in America, according to this report, more than a third of 12th grade students reported not dating at all, nothing, nah duh, all of highschool mates!

If the statistics,the American stats because I couldn’t find any on Australia but we’re similar so let’s just go with that ) show that less than half of the population lives the fantasy, why is it that we still long for this dream? I’m still trying to understand this myself but one factor is becoming clearer-mindset. It’s all about your frame of mind and how you allow yourself to think.

You have to make a conscious effort to actually reprogram yourself to reverse every expectation founded on fiction and misrepresentations of reality. Don’t expect to magically fix yourself overnight or a couple of months. It’s an ongoing process.

The only way to change or detox your mindset is to expose yourself to different materials and environments. Read more classical works that actually explore real and tangible themes. Don’t be afraid to do the ‘nerdy thing’. How will you differentiate yourself from the crowd if you’re like every other carbon copy on the dance floor? What makes life interesting is our differences and certainly not our ability to match our friends.

Here is a list of books to read that should hopefully start to widen your horizons on the possibilities of life other than romance and that oh so sweet high school romance or simply show the pitfalls of having way too many over the top expectations.

1. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
2. Act like a lady, Think like a Man by Steve Harvey ( there’s a  movie also-it’s great :) )
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

My number one tip to achieving this detox that overrules the above 3 suggestions is to actually try and stop yourself from day dreaming about how you will meet ‘him’, what he will be like, what you’ll be wearing, all the wonderful times you’ll  have. Because you are actually training your brain to not live in the present and so you aren’t actually living each and every day to its full potential. You are kind of walking around with sunglasses on set to only pick up particular wavelengths. Those wave lengths are what you’ve cooked up in your imagination. So when something magical or unexpected happens, when a guy who is probably exactly what you need not want, comes by, you will completely and utterly miss him because you aren’t fully aware and awake in that present moment.

And that’s how girls complain, they don’t have the life they wanted or the guy they need, or they will never meet someone because all these expectations they have, haven’t been met. No you probably have it all, you’re just not present enough to notice and that my friends is how time goes by and people leave and when we notice we are already two seconds too late.

An open letter to men (em creepers out there)

Boys, Boys, Boys, whoever told you that girls like a persistent guy and that, that methodology is guaranteed to wear her down & make her yours.
Lies.

Let me give it to you straight fellas, there is a certain breed of women out there who will tolerate such nonsense at the fear of breaking your fragile hearts until they reach a certain breaking point.

The persistent guys are usually the nicest, sweetest & at times the most caring of the lot. Now I hear some voices saying ' you girls, always go for the bad guys that will eventually break your heart'. Noooo, there are also practitioners of the persistence methodology who are 'bad'.

So ultimately it’s not about the guy really, it’s your never ending barrage of texts, calls and other forms of social media that drive us mad especially if we've friend zoned you multiple times & are not responsive. We stop seeing you for your positive qualities and instead see a parasite sucking out our soul & restricting our ability to speak.

Now there are several ways a girl will react after you've pushed her to the breaking point:

1. She will delete & block your contact
2. Get one of her best friends to reply to your texts in such a harsh tone you'll think the Wicked Witch of the West is real
3.She'll tell you straight out that she doesn't like you nor wants to date you 'ever'- major emphasise on 'ever'
4. She gets one of her guy friends to gently tell you 'back off mate'

In the end you get rejected for your unwavering persistence on a girl that never liked you back not because she doesn't like you as a person...well human being yes, parasite tendencies not so much.  You don't just lose us as potential romantic partners' boys, too much 'move making' and you lose us as friends as well.

So as women we vow to continue to be brutally honest when you drive us mad & to friend zone you endlessly.

So dear men, please give us some breathing space, if we like you back & want you, we will accept your advances...we ain't stupid & if you know she's the 'one' have a little patience, if it’s meant to be, it will happen in its own time, it always does.

Love the girl sick & tired of hearing from you endlessly.