Life is a series of choices that YOU make.
Your choices determine or create your life.
As the Grail Knight in Indiana Jones said: “But choose wisely, for while the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you.”
Use your choices to create a great day and life.
This is so true. Someone’s seemingly harmless words can haunt you indefinitely. When you speak to others, choose your words carefully and lift them up.
Life is a series of people teaching each other important secrets of life.
Over time, I’ve learned that everybody who enters your life does so for a reason. Sometimes it’s to help you learn a needed lesson. Sometimes it’s to help you navigate a tough time. And, sometimes, it’s to show you how not to be. They become an example of bad behavior that you shouldn’t repeat or the type of person to be careful of.
Think about all the people in your life. Does anyone stand out? What can you learn from them? At the same time, you entered their life for a reason too. What can you teach them just by being you? Be a special person to someone. Pay it forward.
Holding a grudge and not telling the person why is like spitting into the wind. Holding a grudge will destroy you. It heals nothing. It shows your real (poor) character. If you can’t forgive, don’t expect others to forgive you. Grudges block forgiveness and happiness. Forgive, forget, and don’t hold grudges. Holding a grudge is a sign it’s time to heal thyself. A grudge hurts you more than the other person.
Want to be Happy and Joyful? Put social media aside because Comparison is the Thief of Joy. You have a choice. Run Your Own Race! Become your Authentic Self. “To Thine Own Self Be True” Shakespeare. It’s up to you. Choose wisely.
Nature and the Mountains are Majestic. When your outside nature evokes feelings of grander, wonder and peace. After many years of being away from the ocean and mountains we drove from the High Desert of Utah to the Oregon coast. The closer we got I felt my mood improved. A sense of peace, wonderment, excitement and calm came over me. The same feelingsI get when going to the mountains of Grand Teton, National Park and so many more natural areas. For me it felt like coming home. I feel attached to mountains, coastlines, mountain meadows, peaks, lakes and streams. It’s a great feeling. It’s one I like to share. We should support organizations that work to preserve the natural world.
WWhen you feel stressed unsettled in your every day life go outside and claim your space in the world. Nature is calling you, listen to her call and go find her anywhere she is. Experience the Mountains, Ocean, Lake, Forest, Desert, a park in the city, wherever calls you.
Enjoy and share your time outdoors and in natural.
Whenever I find myself wondering and lost and ready to give up on my dreams, I turn to people like this and suddenly life feels better and filled with possibilities. You can do the same.
#Denzel Washington Wise Words for YOU!
This man has accomplished so many good things during his life. Let him be one of your guides on your path to personal greatness.
I hope you enjoyed Denzels talk and that you take away and use his wise words.
Thanks for stopping by and please return, John
No matter where you are in life humans tend to doubt and second guess their motivations and actions from time to time. They question their purpose, their reason for living, does their life mean something, are they valued. Maybe it’s time to rethink these questions and be sure you’re living authentically.
Watch this video to learn how Ben Angel says to find your purpose using 3 key emotions.
http://www.success.com/videos/youtube/how-to-find-your-purpose
Best-selling author of CLICK, Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business and Flee 9-5, is Australia’s leading marketing authority.
Finding your purpose can be a long journey full of twists and turns, but that’s OK—and even recommended. You can only discover your life’s mission by exposing yourself to new experiences, and that’s what prepares you to step into your purpose.
This kind of experimentation brings people closer to their deepest desires. It’s the gradual process of exploring and shaping oneself for the next chapter of their life that makes the difference. But when the mind gets stuck, focusing heavily on the absence of purpose, embracing the process can be a challenge.
No one was put on earth to do just one thing. That kind of lifestyle would only rob people of the experiences that create the person they are becoming. Without those challenges, no one would have the resilience to live out their true purpose in life.
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Hope you enjoyed this little tidbit today. You can Subscribe, on the right side of this page, if you’d like to be notified of future posts.
Thanks for stopping buy, John
We start out having a plan, a dream, a goal to achieve something great. With all the twists and changes that life sends us, sometimes, we get lost and lose our inspiration.
Here’s some great advice I found that will help you get back on track.
15 Ways To Get Re-Inspired
by
1. Be in nature
Be in nature at least once a month. It’s in nature that we find inspiration. It’s where we remove ourselves from the noise of our day to day lives, find clarity, and focus.
If you’re constantly “in it”, you’ll find your mind will clutter, and your inspiration will flee. Venture to the great out doors and let adventure inspire you.
2. Surround yourself with motivated people
You are the average of the 5 people you hang out with the most. If you hang our with millionaire’s, odds are you’re one as well. If you hang out with motivated people, you’re probably a motivated person as well.
Be very cognizant of who you hang out with. Choose your friends wisely. They’re influence on you is unavoidable.
3. Never think you’re “there”
I’ll always think that I have to improve on my writing – and that I have a long way to go to being a good writer. It keeps me inspired to learn and grow. If I thought I was a good writer I’d not only be lying to myself, but I’d be allowing laziness to peer its head into my life.
Laziness is the devil. Don’t think you’re great, be great.
4. Don’t attempt insignificant feats
Do you get excited by small goals that you know you can accomplish with ease? Of course not. It’s the big, audacious, bold goals and dreams that excite you, so don’t waste your time with the small stuff. Think bigger and be bigger.
5. Be healthy
Be healthy and active. If you’re healthy you’ll have more energy, and if you have more energy you’ll find that you’re far more motivated and inspired than you are if you’re tired and sluggish.
Take pride in your health and your work. Being healthy is a tool that you can use to your advantage, or something that can work against you. What’s great is it’s completely up to you.
6. Read often
Great men have always been voracious readers. Napoleon was, as is Gates, and so was Jobs. If you want to be inspired, pick up a book, it never fails. If a paperback book slows you down then you can always listen to self development audio books.
7. Have tunnel vision
Don’t have a back-up plan, a floor, or a ceiling. Failure shouldn’t be an option, nor should you put a limit on your success.
Focus on one goal, and let that one goal be the only thing that matters.
8. Get excited by adversity
It’s in struggle that we grow. Get excited about this. Too many allow adversity crush their enthusiasm and motivation, but it shouldn’t. It’s a challenge, and challenges are exciting.
Rise to them. Don’t get pushed back by anything.
9. Love problem solving
The road to success is, essentially, one big problem you have to solve. Let that problem excite you. Don’t look at your long, arduous road to success as a negative, instead look at it as a positive journey.
Your mindset will dictate how inspired you are and whether or not you remain consistently inspired and focused.
10. Remove negative people from your life entirely
Negative people are the cancer of society, but they don’t need to be a negative influence on your life. Just get rid of them, and get rid of them now!
If you’re only surrounded by inspired people, you to will be inspired, motivated, and happy.
11. Write 3 things you’re thankful for everyday
We far too often focus only on what we don’t have, rather than everything we do have. The problem with that approach is that happiness will forever elude our grasp.
If our happiness and motivation is contingent on a future accomplishment, when we accomplish what we’ve set out to do, we’ll then make our happiness contingent on an even greater accomplishment. Thus, happiness will always be out of our grasp.
Be happy and thankful first, then let that enthusiasm and energy inspire you to accomplish greatness.
12. Practice success
Practice success by identifying the little goals that you accomplish in your life. Write down your accomplishments, even if they’re small like going for a run or writing an article for a publication.
Practice success everyday and you’ll live life as a successful person.
13. Be a fighter
I love a man who grins when he fights. Winston Churchill
I love that quote. It reminds me of the song Fighter, by Bruce Springsteen. Enjoy adversity. Welcome it. Adversity is what will make you stronger. It’s only through great adversity that great men and women reach accomplish what they’ve set out to accomplish.
If success was easy, everyone would be there. Get inspired by your struggles just like a fighter gets motivated to step into the ring and see what he’s made of.
14. Eat healthy
Eating unhealthy leads to depression and obesity. It’s nearly impossible to be inspired when your body is uninspiring or you’re depressed.
As a simple rule for eating healthy, eat only things that you can pick or kill. Your diet should be made up of things that come from the earth. Stay away from anything man-made or packaged.
15. Study greatness
There are patterns to success. The more you study great people, the more you’ll see these patterns and incorporate them in your own life. Don’t, however, merely read about great people, study their lives. If you can, read about what others close to them have said, read articles about how they accomplished greatness.
Greatness inspires. The more you see that success can, indeed, happen, the more you’ll be inspired to accomplish your own audacious goals.
You can even read inspirational quotes, that will be sure to motivate you and shift you into the right frame of mind to be openly inspired.
It’s those few who are consistently inspired by a greater purpose beyond their own gain that shape the world we live in. So how do we join these few in forging not only our own successful endeavors, but seeing such profound success that the world benefits as well?
(from http://addicted2success.com/life/15-ways-to-rediscover-your-inspiration/)
Are you ready to get back on your life path now? Let’s go!
Thanks for stopping by, John
Some people are very confident in themselves right from the start of live. Others aren’t so much, and many are in between. Here are some tips on how to turn that around and truly believe in yourself and do the things you love and create your perfect life!
Here we go….
“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.” ~Honore de Balzac
You know what that voice in your head says…
You can’t do it. You’ll never be good enough. You’re going to fail.
This voice taunts you whenever you set a goal. It criticizes you when life gets difficult. It beats you down when you struggle to stand up against its running commentary.
You know you shouldn’t let self-doubt bother you, but it’s a sneaky critter. Sometimes, you just can’t contain it and it slips past your barriers.
And self-doubt is greedy. When it’s loose, it devours your confidence, strips logic and reason from your mind, and steals happiness from your heart. In return, it leaves you with only fear and insecurity.
You try to remove self-doubt by forcing yourself to “think positive,” which usually doesn’t work as well as you think it should.
The more you fight your self-doubt, the more it fights back. However, with self-knowledge and understanding, you can use self-doubt for your benefit.
When I was a child, I was in love with drawing. For me, drawing was as exciting as going to the playground.
At some point in my childhood, I decided I’d become an artist of some kind. But the critics in my life were quick to cut me down. I’ll bet you’ve heard the same kind of clichés:
“Art is great but not a ‘realistic’ future goal. While it’s a nice hobby to have, you can’t really make a living out of it. You’ll just be another starving artist.”
As children, we internalize these negative messages and parrot them back. If the adults say so, it must be true, right? By adulthood, every time we have a small hope, we’re the first to snuff it out:
“Drawing is nice but not necessary. I’ll never be as good as the real professionals anyway. I don’t even have a degree from an accredited art school.”
For years I stopped myself before I even tried. I did it because I was afraid.
I was afraid of what people would say. I was afraid everyone would hate my art. I was afraid of failing as an artist.
When fear grabs you, your beloved goal forever feels out of reach. But it doesn’t just stop there, does it?
If left unchecked, the infectious bite of fear and self-doubt can spread. You unconsciously start questioning your knowledge and abilities in everything you do. And if you’re like me, you desperately want to find a cure.
One fateful day I realized that trying to beat out my self-doubt wouldn’t rebuild my confidence.
If I wanted to believe in myself, I needed to face my self-doubt and be willing to take care of it.
Before, I imagined self-doubt as a life-sucking monster. Now, I realize it’s actually a fearful, angry, and lost creature secretly crying for help.
Like fear, joy, and sadness, doubt is part of human nature, and it needs understanding. If you want to improve yourself, you need to tame your self-doubt, not fight with it.
That means paying attention to how you react to things, understanding the root of your insecurities, and taking steps to address your fears.
Now I no longer tell myself, “I’ll never be a good enough artist.” Instead, I ask myself, “What can I do to become better?” And I take baby steps.
I went from drawing every few weeks, to every week, and now every two to three days. Re-framing self-doubt has also helped me cope with other challenges, like successfully starting a small business.
Self-doubt doesn’t have to be as monstrous as we make it out to be. It’s all about perspective. The following tips will help you manage your self-doubt.
Learning how to recognize when your self-talk takes a turn for the worse is crucial. When you hear yourself saying, “I can’t,” or, “I don’t know,” or, “What if,” a red flag should go up.
Instead of telling yourself, “I can’t do X,” say, “I can’t do X yet. But I’m working on it.”
Or if you start wondering, “What if I fail?” you can respond by saying, “Then I’ll try again.”
Doing this transforms a negative situation into an opportunity for growth. In the end, it’s about giving yourself a chance.
Toxic people are convinced that everything is impossible, and they are quick to shoot down ideas. They’ll poison your mind into a state of hopelessness.
Don’t let them steal your energy just because they’ve lost theirs.
Instead, surround yourself with supportive and passionate people who can both inspire you and bring out the best in you. You can find them among friends, family, books, or blogs like Tiny Buddha.
They will lift you up when you feel down and help you see the bright side of your darkest fears and doubts.
This one is tough. When you’re down, you’ll more easily remember the bad instead of the good. And oftentimes, the “rah-rah” pep talk just doesn’t cut it.
So, I suggest writing a list. Grab a piece of paper or small notebook, or open a blank document. Now write down your successes, big or small.
If you’re a bit bashful about your achievements, ask someone you trust to tell you the great things they think you’ve done. It’s refreshing and a great confidence boost.
And finally, keep your list with you at all times. It will help you find your way back to yourself whenever you get lost.
You probably spend more time being your own worst enemy instead of being your own best friend.
But you deserve to treat yourself better. After all, you have the rest of your life to spend with yourself.
Think of it this way: Would you mentally abuse or condemn your loved ones? Would you let them suffer in their time of need? If not, then why would you do it to yourself?
So, be kind to yourself. You are more capable and worthy than you give yourself credit for.
Self-doubt never disappears. Over time, you just get better at dealing with it.
It will greet you every time you fall out of your comfort zone and whenever you strive to do something great.
But know that it’s not something you have to fear or resent. Your doubts are only thoughts, not your future.
Sure, something may go wrong. But if you never try, you’re losing an opportunity to improve your life.
Are you willing to risk that instead?
This advice came from our friends at Tiny Buddha.com. A great blog, worth following.
How to Believe in Yourself in the Face of Overwhelming Self-Doubt
Thanks for stopping by, come back soon, John