Month: July 2024

WHO CARES CAN BE A WINNING MANTRA! 🙃

As you begin to read this blog, look at the battery indicator on your cell phone. How much do you have left? In my case, as I write this I have 94%. That is pretty good since the plug doesn’t want to stay in the charger anymore. That is a story for a different day. The neat thing is, it lets you know how much energy your device has left. As it starts to get low, it even changes colors from green to yellow, and finally to red. Same with the gas tank in your car. The closer the needle moves to ‘E’ the less energy you have left. This knowledge comes in handy. We know when we have to charge our phones, or fill the tank in our car.

As the cell phone battery symbol gets lower and the needle gets closer to empty on our cars, we know time is running short. You would think this would mean that nobody would ever run out of a charge or out of gas. You and I both know that is not so. There are people who are constantly doing one or the other. Sometimes even both! Not sure if they are bad at estimating how much time they have left, or just not very observant. Either way, there are people who seem to be having these problems often. You know the type.

If you find yourself with an almost dead battery on your phone, are you going to call up your friend just to chat? Probably not. Are you going to watch silly cat videos? I would guess not until you are near a charger. Same with a low gas tank. Are you going to drive around the block or take the scenic route to your destination? No. You are going to think of ways to save on gas until you find yourself at the pump. What on earth does any of this have to do with self-improvement and how can you use this to improve your life? Let us look.

How many times have we heard someone say, “I am running out of gas.” or “My battery is dead.” They are not talking about their car or phone. No, they are talking about their own energy level. There are far more of them than the people who run out of gas in the middle of the freeway. We don’t have gages on our bodies that show how much energy we have left. We just need to pay attention to their warnings. Just like a cell phone will start to slow down as the battery gets weak, so does our performance start to slip as our energy falter. We need self-care as much as a phone needs a charger, or a car needs a gas pump.

This could be a nap, a quick meditation or a day of pampering. One of the best ways is to conserve your energy as it starts to slip. Worrying about your neighbors business, world politics or arguing about sports is as productive as taking a scenic route when your gas tank is almost empty. Learning not to bother with what doesn’t matter, especially when our energy is low, can save us from having a dead battery of our own. Practicing good self-care can make sure it is charged and we can be productive and of value to others.

HOW TO POSTPONE DEATH ⚰️

No, this is not a post about a healthy diet and working out several times a week. Although that can certainly help you do more of the above. No, it is a reminder that you must get out and live! Do not save your energy and time for a date in the future to enjoy life. Here is the thing about the future – we lease it. The tricky part is that we never know when that lease is up. If there is something that makes you feel alive, the time to do it is now. If there is someone you love, tell them now. You might not get a chance tomorrow.

Being scared of making mistakes or of looking foolish is no reason not to do something that makes you feel alive and happy. To really feel alive will often require us to make some mistakes. Just know that you are learning and growing. It is just a lesson. It will help you have even more fun, and get more juice out of life, the next time you do it. Live today my friends! It is the only way to postpone death.

KEEP YOUR FACE TO THE SUN 🌞

I do not believe Mr. Whitman is advocating staring at the fiery ball in the sky. Not only would that be extremely bad for your vision, it would not end with an amazing life. What we are talking about here is something that we could all use a reminder of. That is staying focused on the positive outcome of the situation that you are facing. That is to say, the goal accomplished. When you do this, the challenges and obstacles, or shadows in this example, do fall behind you. They are still there, but you are not letting them overwhelm you.

What happens when we turn our back from the sun, or the forget to focus on the positive outcome of our situation? We end up looking at the shadows. This is just like the people who are constantly focused on everything that could go wrong. When you turn away from the light and stare at the shadows, the world appears to be a very dark place. If, however, you turn around and focus on the light, it seems like a much more enjoyable world. For all of you ‘realists’ out there, let me point out that the world itself has not changed. There is still light and shadows. What difference does it make what we focus on then? How life feels to us is the difference. If you asked someone if they would want to go through life feeling overwhelmed, depressed and negative, or would you want to feel happy, hopeful and positive? I am sure most of you would answer the second option. The tricky part is that our minds are naturally designed to focus on the negative. How can we overcome that?

There is only one way to do that. Work on our perception about the world. Most people spend a good amount of time and energy trying to control outside circumstances. I equate this to not liking what you see in the mirror and trying to change the image without changing the person looking into it. When we focus on ourselves, what we see in the world, just like what we see in the mirror, will change.

There are a couple of very useful tools that can help you improve your outlook. One of them, and in my opinion the most powerful, is gratitude. Finding things to be grateful for can do so many amazing things for you. It certainly can help you see more of the sun and less of the shadows. It can always be worse, and there is always something to be grateful for. Another is visualizing the best outcome. Spending just five minutes a day visualizing how you would want a situation to turn out as not only helps you gain clarity on what you want, but it also helps fill your subconscious mind with the solution.

Start doing your best to keep looking at the sun and leaving the shadows behind you. Use the tools and strategies we discussed here. What do you do to help keep a sunny disposition in a world all too often filled with shadows? Put your answers in the comments and let us all help each other!

WE HAVE 2 JOBS ✌️

These are the two jobs we all have. Our lives should be dedicated to improving ourselves, and to contribute to the happiness of others, which you are doing just by getting the information here on this site. We give you the tools and strategies to accomplish both of these. Here is another amazing secret, by doing either of these, you are closer to accomplishing the other. Let us take a look at what we mean.

First is improving our lives. It is important to keep moving ahead. Why? The reason is that nothing stays stagnant. We are either moving ahead, or falling behind. This is true in any area of our life. Fitness for example. If we get in shape and think to ourselves, “I am in shape. Now I can stop exercising and just eat pizza and ice cream all day.” I am sure you can imagine what would happen. Another are which people constantly need reminding of is relationships. We somehow believe if we court someone, marry them and maybe even start a family, that we have this area of our life ‘handled’. Much like physical fitness, the fitness of your relationship will start to decline if you do not constantly work on that. The only way to improve your relationship, is to improve yourself. Learn to become more romantic. Learn to be a better listener. This holds true for every area of our life. Career, spirituality, and education. Obviously, the better of a person we become, the more we are able to serve others. We can see how that would help contribute to their happiness.

Speaking of contributing to other’s happiness, how does that help improve us? By finding ways in which we can add more happiness to the lives of others, we often have to learn, or at least practice, certain skills. This will only help us level up in our own lives. At the very least, we are able to practice our own interpersonal skills. That is how to relate to others. Especially in a world where far too much of our relationships are online, this is a skill that could use some polishing.

There you have it. Two jobs that compliment and help feed each other. If we focused exclusively on these two tasks, our world would improve exponentially. Do yourself a favor and ask if the action you are about to take would either help improve you, or add happiness to the life of another. If not, is it a good use of your energy?

GIVE YOURSELF TIME 🕒

One of the rarest character traits to have today is patience. Everyone is looking for things to happen yesterday. We want technology to be quicker and faster. We want our goals to be accomplished yesterday. Self-discipline and persistence are skills that you really have to look to find. It seems if a goal is going to take too much effort or too much time it is cast away and we pursue another avenue. I think you can see the obvious negative outcomes on our lives by adapting this manner of thinking.

One bit of collateral damage that occurs when we begin to think and operate in such a manner is that we apply the same logic to ourselves. It is perhaps a tired metaphor, but think of the butterfly and the stages it has to go through. Depending on what part of the butterfly’s life we walk in on, we will view it as a glorified worm, a hanging clump or a beautiful flying creature. I am not trying to speak ill of caterpillars. It is apparent, outside of Alice in Wonderland, there are not many people getting tattoos of caterpillars on their ankles.

It doesn’t help that people feel the need to only show us their butterfly stage. On social media the only time you see a ‘before’ picture is if there is an ‘after’ picture to go with it. It is natural to show yourself in the best light, but that is not always helpful to others who may feel they don’t measure up. Looking at pages and pages of people’s butterfly stage can make you feel like one ugly caterpillar.

In addition to taking time, people assume that life is a linear development. They forget we have peaks and valleys. In life you can be up one day and down the next. More to the point, you can be down one day and up the next. It is important to not view your entire life in just a section. Give yourself both time and opportunity. You might be in the caterpillar stage or you might just be in a valley. In working on developing our patience and discipline, it is important to start with ourselves.

IT IS NOT ABOUT THE SPEED 🏃‍♂️

In the nanosecond, results now world we live in, this can be a concept that is hard to warm to. Try to convince a younger person that the quickest way is not always the best way and you may receive some quizzical looks. Improving our diet and fitness is not a quick fix, but the effort is worth it. Just one example. If you want to accomplish anything, there will be challenges, delays and a host of other unexpected items to contend with along the way. We may want to throw away all of our junk food, start eating only healthy food and go to the gym everyday after work. What we really need to do is focus on small changes that will last and build on our success.

The fact is we cannot always do it all at once. We must be like water and use our persistence to cut through rock. It may take longer than we would like, but the results of not giving up are undeniable. Take a look at the Grand Canyon! Social change, like the kind Mr. King made, takes a great deal of time. We would like to change the minds and hearts of others overnight, but sometimes they need time. All we can do is persist.

Although you may not accomplish your goal as quick as you would like, if you take as much action as you can, accomplish it you will. It may seem like you are crawling at times, but remember, you are still moving forward. If you are tempted to think it doesn’t make a difference, maybe having a picture of the Grand Canyon around would help.

THE POWER OF SILENCE 🔕

There are so many ways in which technology, and the crazy world in which we live, have made it easier to be successful. One of the ways is to keep our mouth shut. What I mean by that is to understand the power of silence. In a world where everybody is doing almost anything for their fifteen minutes of fame, staying quiet and composed can put us above the crowd. One fact is that your words, whether spoken on a podcast, written in a blog or uttered in a YouTube video, will be used to judge and define you. I am not advocating never saying a word, just make sure they are good ones. Let other people fill social media with useless banter. Let us take the time to choose our words wisely. Pondering this brings to mind one of my favorite Abraham Lincoln quotes.

Honest Abe was pretty good with his words. His most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, is a rather short but powerful one. He often told amusing humorous stories, but did not waste words. One thing he did when he felt the urge to expound on the negative thoughts he had about someone was to write a letter. Then, he would put those letters in a drawer in his desk. Many were only discovered after his death. There is a valuable lesson to be learned from the former president here. If we feel the need to vent or spew some literary venom, we might want to confine it to a diary or journal. Let us keep our words short and powerful like Mr. Lincoln’s famous speech. Let that work remind us that you do not have to say a lot to have a huge impact.

THE BEST REVENGE 👌

This should be a lesson we learn as we make our way into adulthood. Sadly, that is not the case. When we are in school, if someone calls us a name we would call them one. Often, we try to think of a more insulting name to use. At the end of the day, both of us are insulted and walk away feeling a little bit less about ourselves. It is a complete waste of both parties energies. Watching the world of politics, it is clear several adults have never grown out of this phase.

Rising above the petty actions of our enemies is seldom, if ever, a fulfilling action at the time. What is great is how you feel upon reflection of the event going forward. “Yes, I was the bigger person.” is an answer that will last longer than any name you are called. If we lower ourselves to the actions of our enemies, we become no better than they.

Old Blue Eyes has some amazing song lyrics, but none are as good as this quote. While people are busy coming up with a bigger insult, we should be busy on improving ourselves and our lives. While they are spending their energy on actions to belittle or attack us, we can be working on bettering our lot in life. Then, at the end of the day they will be no further ahead, well we will be more successful. In fact, they will be further behind. Why? They have squandered the most valuable resource that we have – time. They have spent theirs concerned with our life instead of improving their own. Even if they succeed at temporarily derailing our life, how has it helped theirs? It hasn’t.

Take the above advice from Mark and Frankie. Do not be like your enemy. Instead, focus on creating your own success.

IT IS OK TO STUMBLE 🔙

A few posts ago, we wrote about how important it was to get out of abusive relationships. The same can be said about a job situation that is slowly killing your soul or any other harmful situation. Although these are logical steps to living and amazing life, they are far from easy ones. Relationships can be very difficult to get out of. Shared economics, promises of people changing, family and religious expectations can make things difficult. That job may give us a false sense of economic security.

As the picture above tells us, just to attempt such things takes a great deal of bravery. If we let our boss talk us into staying a little longer while we keep our eyes open for another opportunity, that is understandable. Do we give that person we know won’t change another chance? That’s up to us, but we must consider our own well-being. These things may take several attempts to accomplish before we can finally follow through. Do not beat yourself up if you fail on your first attempt. The fact that you are endeavoring to better your life takes a lot of guts.

Whether it is giving up unhealthy eating, smoking or an abusive partner, it may take time and several attempts, but each one is an act of courage and a chance to learn something new about ourselves and our situation. Even if you stumble, do not beat yourself up, and certainly do not give up! You are brave for even trying.

2 WAYS TO STOP THE WORLD FROM GETTING YOU DOWN 🌎

The world can sure seem like a tough place these days. I say seem for a very important reason we will get to in just a little bit. Negative news seems to come at us from every corner. It is delivered on our phones, our laptops, the evening news and even at work in conversations with coworkers. In this country there is an election looming so I am sure we will all hear about how terrible the world is and how much worse it will get if we don’t vote for a specific candidate. It doesn’t even matter the party, the message is pretty much the same.

All of this can be pretty overwhelming. Even those of us who do our best to stay away from such things often can’t help but be subjected to them. It can leave you feeling a little less than hopeful about not only your life, but the state of the world in general. There are a few things to keep in mind, and two specific things you can do, to keep this from happening. At the very least, you will have it happen less often and it the feelings of despair will not last as long.

The first thing to keep in mind is that things are never as bad as you are lead to believe. Fear is what sells. Think of AI for example. Yes, there are many scary things that can be attached to it, but there are also miracles waiting to develop from it as well. Think of what it will mean to the world of medicine and the treatment of disease. We will be able to develop treatments and cures far quicker than we have ever been able to before. Technology has made personal communication more difficult, but it has also helped people stay in touch and find each other. Change is always a double edged sword. Knowing that there are both good and bad in everything will help balance things out. Knowing that you may be one of the few people thinking this way will also help put things in perspective. Most people who converse with you will just be repeating what they hear. This is often the fear and negativity we just mentioned.

What can you do when you are exposed to all of this? The answer is what kick-started this blog. The first thing you can do is to make sure you have enough positive influences around you. Here is a hint – you can never have enough. Subscribe to funny or inspiring pages on your social media. Subscribe to a wonderful daily motivational blog, such as secret2anamazinglife.com. That way you will be sure that each day motivation will come to you. There are free motivational apps for your phone. Make yourself a ‘happy playlist’ of songs that lift your spirits. Make sure to spend time with people who do the same.

Here is a lesson that I learned that caused me to start this blog in the first place. That is that you can either be part of the problem by complaining about how rotten the world is, or you can be part of the solution by making it better. The negativity of the world frustrated me, and still does on occasion. When it seems that the level of negativity seems to be growing out of control, I use that as motivation to increase the amount of positivity I bring to the world. If I am feeling this way, I imagine many others are feeling the same, if not worse. If my words and actions can make their life a little brighter, perhaps it will start a ripple and I will be doing my part to make the world a better place as a whole.

To recap, if you want to keep the world from bringing you down, make sure you have enough positive influences and become part of the solution. Bob Marley referred to complaints as ‘prayers to the devil’. I have to agree with Bob on this one. Sitting and complaining without acting only makes the situation worse. Ask yourself what you can do to help change things for the better. If you can’t come up with anything, go help someone else while you are thinking about it. I promise you will make the world better for two people if you do.