Marcus Lopes's Blog, page 3

A Gentle Reminder

Today, just be yourself. 

Because you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter, and you don’t need anyone’s permission to be—unapologetically—you.

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It’s Time

I know that I’m not the only one asking, what happened to 2024? It passed incredibly fast, and now we find ourselves with less than a month to a new year. It’s the perfect time reflect on what you’d set out to accomplish this year, and what you actually got done. The point is not to berate yourself, but to have an honest conversation with yourself about your intentions and your actions. Because it’s time…to cut the crap.

What Will You Do?

For the first part of 2024, I had wandered aimlessly. I d...

Winds of Change

For a long time, I had a consistent—and effective—morning routine. And it was simple. Write. Run. Write again. It let me feel productive, and that I was on the right path. There was, equally, a sense of fulfillment. But life is not constant or linear, and when the winds of change blow, that forces you to pivot.

Going Within Free with Kindle Unlimited

A new position in the company I work at has upended my morning routine, leaving me (temporarily, I hope) scrambling to establish a new routine. Wit...

WInds of Change

For a long time, I had a consistent—and effective—morning routine. And it was simple. Write. Run. Write again. It let me feel productive, and that I was on the right path. There was, equally, a sense of fulfillment. But life is not constant or linear, and when the winds of change blow, that forces you to pivot.

Going Within Free with Kindle Unlimited

A new position in the company I work at has upended my morning routine, leaving me (temporarily, I hope) scrambling to establish a new routine. Wit...

Do What You Love

It is not just a trite adage. When embraced as a powerful guiding principle, it can transform your life: do what you love.

Stay Real

‘Do what you love’ doesn’t mean that one day you wake up and quit your job and everything that is wrong in your life. I know. I did that. And I paid the price that came along with doing that. It looks good in the movies, where everything turns out perfect. But in the real world, it’s not so easy. Still, a happy life does involve following our heart’s desire. Runnin...

Hold Steadfast to Dreams

,What I love about life is that it’s not linear. There are mountains to climb and valleys to wade through. There are times of progression, when life is smooth and calm and just right. But there are, also, periods of regression, when I stand on the precipice of defeat. Not sure how—or if—I can soldier on. These phases are reminders that life is a journey. And through all the detours and ‘disruptions,’ we must hold steadfast to our dreams.

The In-Between Free with Kindle Unlimited

For some time no...

Keep Going

Every day that we wake up to a new day is an invitation to keep going. If you are, like me, writing a novel, putting in time at the page—no matter how many or little words you get down—is progress. When you show up at the studio to keep working on that series of paintings, that’s progress. Working on the content for your next course offering, that’s progress too.

Believe

In the chaos rupturing our world, it is easy to not believe—to not have belief in ourselves and, consequently, each other. But...

The Winding Path

It is easy to want to go from A to Z, from idea to conception, from unknown to superstar. But becoming an ‘overnight success,’ as we know, takes time—sometimes years, and in some cases decades, of work. Showing up day after day, and when you are constantly asking yourself, “What’s the point?” to do what the work requires. And I have learned that bringing any project to life takes you down a winding path. It is never straight or easy, never exactly what you expect.

Detours

While I consider writin...

Break the Cycle

I had set out back in April on a change journey because I wasn’t ‘happy’ with where I was in life. My writing—on my blog and social media posts—reflected that. That unhappiness bubbled over as I lapped up as much self-help literature as I could read, because I thought—erroneously—that there was something wrong with me. Everything I read made me believe, again incorrectly, that I wasn’t hustling enough, wasn’t committed enough, wasn’t worthy enough. Until I realized it was time to break the cycle...

Figure It Out

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve done something that has always been hard for me to do. I’ve slowed down. And to do that meant I had to make a meaningful attempt to cut out the noise. I’ve unsubscribed from ninety percent of the e-mail newsletters I’d signed up for, many of which went unread. I put away the self-help books I was reading or often referred to. Because I was blindly trying to improve myself without really understanding why. And instead of pushing forward willy-nilly, I had to ta...