Latest YouTube video shot on location in a cemetery
This weekend take time to go easy on yourself. Take time to recharge your batteries. I was speaking with Travis Jones who writes bringitivity.net last weekend. He took some bold steps to take some time away from the entertainment he does to focus on other more important aspects of his life. The result? A refreshed spirit,done great new blog posts and energy going into the future.
Even if you are doing what you love, what you are passionate about and it hardly seems like work at all, you still need to focus on you from time to time. My favorite way to explain this, especially to the givers out there, is that you cannot fill a glass from an empty pitcher. If you keep giving and giving eventually the pitcher will be empty and no cups will be filled.
Another thing this does is give you fortitude. Life is sure to present some challenges to you at the most inopportune time. If those challenges find your energy and inspiration close to empty you may get knocked down. If they come up against a fresh and energetic spirit, they don’t stand a chance.
So do something for you this weekend. Find something that inspires you or recharges your batteries. If you feel guilty about that, remember that you must have a full pitcher if you hope to fill someone else’s cup. So take care of yourself so we can all take care of each other!
Feel free to share this post as well as your ideas for recharging your batteries in the comments below.
This is a picture of the Phoenix the mythical bird that dies by bursting into flames, but then rises from it’s own ashes to be born again.
This is an important symbol to those of us who have had our lives figuratively burst into flames. Perhaps we have worked a good portion of our lives at a job only to watch the company, and our retirement burst into flames and disappear. Then finding ourselves to old to begin a new career our life feels like we are standing in a pile of the ashes of the hopes and dreams we once had.
Much like the Phoenix we must use those Ashes to rise again! So this weekend if you find yourself at some point in your life where you feel like you are standing in the ashes of your hopes and dreams and everything you wanted to accomplish rise again like the mythical Phoenix and Chase those dreams harder than ever feel free to even print out this blog post and this picture to inspire you and feel free to share this blog post to inspire others as well as to leave your story about how you Rose From the Ashes
Today’s P word as you may have figured out by the picture is perspective. This word, as we are going to use it, is close to attitude. It is, however, a little more. Perspective is how we view the world. What many fail to understand is how vital it is to have a healthy perspective on life.
So let’s ask ourselves what perspective is healthy? The first word that comes to mind is grateful. Having a grateful perspective can change the way life appears to you. In my own life i have constant reminders of this. When my hours at my job were cut from 45 a week to ten it seemed I had been left up a creek without a paddle. Then I went down to help at a homeless shelter. Not only did these people not have jobs, many did not have homes. Today as I write this i strained a muscle in my arm at work. The man who served me my coffee had only one arm.
I was explaining this to a man I work with at the post office and his response was “so what it doesn’t change anything”. After inquiring what he meant he explained my arm still hurt and my hours were still cut even if others had it worse. He was right of course, the reality of my situation did not change. What did change was how I felt about it
How important is that? As we discussed earlier in this blog feeling good about our life is one of the major indicators of a successful life.
Another conversation I had with this gentleman explains it perfectly. He had informed me we are all like the lemmings who eventually jump off a cliff to their death. We are all just slowly marching towards that cliff. Shocking him, I agreed. While he saw this as a ‘why bother’ I saw it as the importance of making every moment count. We never know where the edge of our cliff is. He further informed me whether the “lemming” was focused on all he had to be grateful for in his life or just thinking about the fall, he is going to die. Again, I agreed, but added “which one do you think will have more fun on the way down?”
It was the famous speaker Les Brown who said “you can’t get out of life alive, so you might as well have fun while you’re here”. Isn’t that the whole reason we are here? If you are not enjoying your life, you are wasting the life that has been given to you. So do yourself a favor and develop a positive, healthy and grateful perspective. It may or may not change your reality, but it is certain to change how you feel.
Feel free to not only share this post, but share your ideas for keeping a healthy perspective in the comments below.
Ok, so you have decided to start the journey to a positive and rewarding life. That’s great, but do you realize how important it is as well? Let me explain. I know several people who have hard time making decisions mostly out of fear of making the wrong one. Not only does this lead to inaction and an inability to move your life forward, but it comes at the cost of one of your greatest assets. Making a decision actually liberates us from lots of stress and worry as to whether or not we are doing the right thing, or on the right path. Let us take the decision to bring more joy into our lives. If we make that choice with clear conviction a great deal of our life becomes clear. Simple test, take any situation in your life, is it making you happy? If the answer is no it tells you that situation, as it presently stands, will not work in your life. If the answer is yes, that is an area of your life you should try to grow. Not only that, but knowing the ‘end game’ allows us to stay focused when the inevitable challenges show up. If a ship is knocked of course by a storm, it does not give up and head back to port. No, it adjusts its course and continues on. We must be like a ship when the storms of life come calling. If we find ourselves without joy, we must adjust our course and set sail as soon as possible. The further we get off course the longer it takes to get back. So remember to know your destination, have it firmly fixed in your mind. (writing it down may not be such a bad idea either) If you don’t know where you’re heading, you will never get there.
If you make the decision to live a life with more joy and love, you will be amazed at the power you will have over your life. When life tries to get you down just repeat to yourself “I am determined to live a life of inner peace and joy” or whatever words strike your fancy. Make the decision, that is the first step. The rest is just figuring out how to make it work.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 