Tag: Motivation

REGRET SHOULD BE FUEL

There certainly have been some things in my past that I regret and I am that proud of. How about you? I think most of us have a few of those. How do they affect you currently? Beating yourself up over them is not very healthy. It can be rather counter productive. It can ruin self-confidence, increase doubt and have you feeling down. Is the answer to forget about them all together? Not at all. Making a mistake and forgetting all about it can doom you to repeat the same one. Like the ‘Groundhog Day’ of bad behavior. That would not be good for anyone.

If the answer is not to dwell on them or forget them, than what are we supposed to do with all of the things we regret? If you are looking to live an amazing life, than put them to work for you! Let them help you to live a more rewarding life going forward. Perhaps you were not as appreciative of a gift that someone worked hard to give you in the past and that really haunts you. In that case, make sure to be grateful for the actions and gifts that people bring to you going forward. Let that memory serve as a painful reminder of how it feels when you are not grateful, or at least do not express it as much as you would like to.

All regrets can be put into use this way. That way, even regret can serve as something useful for us. In your life do you have any regrets? If so, how can you use them to improve your life going forward? This is a question we must ask ourselves. We all have regrets. The better we are at using them to improve our life going forward, the better our life would be. Turn your regrets from something holding you back to a tool to help move you forward starting today!

ALIGN NOT HUSTLE

Let me start this by saying that I am an advocate of hard work. I believe that many of us have a lot more in us than we are using. We fall victim to distraction. Life, however, is about more than just hustling. Going from activity to activity. That can be working, volunteering or even social appointments. We must make time for the ‘3 Rs’. Those, as stated above are rest, recovery and reflection. These are quite different than doom scrolling for several hours or binge watching a series on Netflix. Let us take a little bit of a dive.

In the ‘hustle culture’, taking a break is considered a fault. That is more to what we do on those breaks. When you work, you should be focused on work. When you rest, the focus should be on resting. It is that last part that has many of us fooled. Resting is not the same as being distracted. When you stop cleaning the house to binge watch television, your brain, and the rest of you, do not get a break. That is why you can end up feeling even more drained after the 1 episode that turned into 8 than you were when you first turned on the television. We need to make sure our brain has a chance to power down for a bit. It is possible. Trust me, at my day job there are people who operate in this mode an entire day. In all seriousness, giving your brain nothing to focus on for a while allows it to refresh. That will save you from burnout.

Recovery is another very important aspect of life. One I suffer from neglecting if we are being honest. You want to get something done. Maybe it is getting in shape or that yard work you have been putting off. Your body is getting tired and maybe a little sore. You must take some time to let it heal as well. As the cliche goes, “If you do not take time for wellness, you will have to make time for illness.” Letting your body and your mind recover from the trauma and hard work you put them through is important. You do not want either to break down. The same can be said for our spirit. Often we are so busy distracting ourselves with social media, television and every other distraction at our disposal, that we cannot understand why we wake up feeling sad or depressed one day. Your spirit needs time to recover. Especially in an age filled with negative influences around every corner.

Last is reflection. You may not think sitting and thinking, or even just pondering, is productive, but I am here to assure you of the opposite. It is in this action that new and good ideas come to us. If we are constantly feeding ourselves information, we are never creating, we are just consuming. Take some time to let your mind put all of those great ideas together and come up with something uniquely you.

In a hustle world, the 3 Rs are not an option to use when you have time. They are necessary to maintain progress. In many cases, ignoring them is what is keeping you stuck. Do not settle for distraction. Instead, have focused rest, recovery and reflection.

YOUR SEEDS OF GREATNESS

Let us have a discussion about the journey of self-improvement and becoming the best version of yourself. This is a self-improvement website after all. Many people are looking for the ‘lifestyle hack’ or the quick fix to transform into this magically positive and productive person. Others are searching for the secret knowledge, or the one thing that can turn their life around. After over 2 decades in this field, here is what I have learned – it is not that complicated. There are many paths to discovering and living your greatness. What makes you great may be different than what makes me, your neighbor or your child great.

This is where it becomes a bit tricky for someone who is coaching others to become the best version of themselves. If everyone is unique, how can you develop tools and strategies that will work for everyone? There are universal principles, which can be customized to the individual, that when applied work for everyone. One of these is understanding how all of this works. One of the best ways I have discovered is by using analogies that make it easier to understand. That is what we are going to attempt to do here today.

Think of an apple. Let us say that one of your friends gives you an apple. As you begin to eat it, the thought occurs to you that you would love more of these delicious apples. Inside that very apple is a few seeds. What happens if you plant them? Does each one give you an apple? No, it is not a one for one turn around. What does happen, eventually, is you grow and apple tree. That tree has many apples. Each of those apples have several seeds. If you continue to replant the seeds, you end up with an orchard and all of the apples you can enjoy. In fact, you can even share the apples with others at that point.

You may be thinking, “Cute apple story Neil, but what does that have to do with becoming the best version of myself?” In a word, everything! That apple that someone gave you is a tool or strategy that can improve your life. Inside of each tool or strategy is a ‘seed’ of greatness. These seeds can even be found in challenges, chance meetings and pretty much any situation in life. When we ‘plant’ the seed. That is akin to putting what we have learned into action in our life. Here where the magic happens if we do it the right way. Let us take developing an attitude of gratitude as an example. When we plant the seed and begin to utilize gratitude in our life, not much may change right away. This is what happens when you first plant the apple seed. It takes a while to grow the tree. If we water and take care of the seed, the quicker the tree will grow and the sooner we will reap our harvest. This is what happens when we continue to take the self-improvement action even if we are not seeing the immediate results.

What would happen if we plant an apple seed and three days later there is no tree so we dig up the seed to see if it is working? One, we would disrupt and slow down the growth cycle of the seed. Done enough times, the seed will die and nothing will grow. This is what we do when we are filled with doubt or stop using the tools and strategies because we do not see results in the time we desire. It is like wanting the tree to grow overnight. It often does not work that way. If we stick with it and water that seed, so we will harvest more than we had initially. Think of practicing being grateful. If we do it long enough to develop an attitude of gratitude, our life will transform in far greater ways than just being thankful. Remember this analogy when you are not seeing results as quickly as you would like.

1 SENTENCE ON LIVING LIFE

It is with a great sense of compassion that I write this. It is true that a lot of people are victims of not knowing what they do not know. In today’s world, unless you live in a dictatorship, you have access to more information that the richest and most powerful had just a few years ago. If you think in any way this sounds condescending, let me assure you that I can use myself as an example.

Before the year 2000, my life was a mess. My relationships, my career and my health. There was no direction to my life. Self-improvement? That was something I heard about in passing. My childhood consisted more of a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” sort of thing. Studying the power of the subconscious mind or the importance of taking care of your mental health? Never was a topic discussed. Let us face it, the public education system when I grew up was worried more about you finding the surface area of an ellipse than how to manage your stress and find direction in your life.

The point was that I was ignorant. How do we go from there to someone who teaches seminars on self-improvement, has a daily blog and three published books on the subject? It all began with a Tony Robbins infomerical. Yes, it was 3am and I was getting ready for work and you could get a ‘free trail’ if you called now. So, half asleep, I did call. It was so long ago that I was sent a tape cassette. I listened to that thing over and over again. I have come across many great sources sense that day, but Tony had, and still does, a great talent for speaking directly to the person listening.

The whole story is chronicled in my first book, A Happy Life for Busy People. After much hard work and the influence of my beautiful lady, Margie, my life is one I am happy and proud to live. Is there work to do? Of course. David Goggins (I told you there were more influences) puts it best, “There is no finish line.” Becoming the best version of yourself is a life-long journey. Matthew McConaughey says his hero is him 10 years from now. Meaning the more enlightened and knowledgeable version of himself.

The key thing to getting started is knowing that nobody is coming to save you. You have to put in the effort. If you do not know what to do, go to the library, go online and get the information. Take the actions and get started. Where you started from does not matter. What you do about it is what counts!

DO NOT PREPARE TOO MUCH FOR THE FUTURE?

This may seem a little contrary, but stick with us. There are so many people that spend their entire life in the planning phase that life passes them by. When they are ready to put their plans in action they are too old or life has provided a reason not to do it. It could be a health challenge or a situational change.

Life should be a balance of planning and action. Do not let life pass you by while you are planning to start it.

HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR SUFFERING?

Most of you reading this will be tempted to say, “I would not like suffering at all.” That would be an ideal life. It is also quite unrealistic. In everyone’s life, there is suffering. We do not get to choose when, or what kind we get.

What we do have a choice of is what we do with that suffering. We can grow from suffering. Like the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes. The other option is to let it destroy us. Shatter our hopes and dreams.

Suffering gives us few options. The one that we do have is a powerful one. That is what we decide the meaning of that suffering will be.

JUST A LITTLE TO THE LEFT….

Last post we discussed how small actions and habits can have disastrous results. That was a little negative. Although still very true. Today, we are going to look at the opposite. We are going to look at good habits and how, given time, they can transform our life positively.

To do this, let us look at a metaphor that might help put it in perspective. I do not play golf. I’m not sure if you do or not. We can all appreciate the basics. You got a ball and try to get it into a hole several hundred yards away.

At the point of contact, a slight change in the direction you hit the ball, even millimeters, can have a huge impact as to where the ball lands. Think of it. If you change the angle 2 millimeters and follow the ball several hundred yards, it will be in a dramatically different spot.

That’s often how positive actions and habits work in our life. We take one small action. Perhaps it is cutting out drinking our daily Coca-Cola. Nothing much happens right away. We follow that change for several months, or a year, and we discover our pants fit better and we have less inflammation.

Think of these examples when you make a small change. You might have to stick with it a while. After which, it may lead to a huge impact. Just like the millimeter and the golf ball.

INSPIRATION FROM A…TICK?

Where I live, right now is tick season. To be honest, every season it seems we are told is tick season. Ticks are nasty relatives of the aracnid (spider) family. They live on tall grass and hop on your body when you brush against them. The worst thing is what their bite can do. Ticks carry diseases such as rocky mountain fever and Lyme disease. These can, on occasion, even be fatal.

As my mother and I hiked through the park this afternoon, we pondered just such a thing. My mother remarked, “Isn’t it crazy how something so small can cause such damage?” It immediately started me thinking how true this is of many things in life.

Bad habits may seem small and insignificant, but can really add up. Say you throw a piece of trash on the ground. One wrapper, not such a big deal? If everyone in the world thought the same way, that would be roughly 8 billion pieces of trash! Just from one small wrapper.

The same holds true with people. Some people, dare I say,  share many qualities with the tick. Their ‘bite’ may seem harmless at first, but it can have impacts that could end up fatal to your goals and even you! How about the person always telling you that it is OK not to eat healthy or worry about your fitness. At first, it may even seem nice. You end up with lower standards and a stomach as big as your pile of excuses!

When it comes to friends who drink too much, or even drink and drive, it can be far more serious. Small things can have such an impact on our life that we must remain diligent in staying alert to them. Next post we will take a look at another example, but in the positive. Until then, watch your habits and watch out for ticks!

PERCEPTION CREATES REALITY

To many of you this may sound cliche or, at the very least, like some positive thinking nonsense. I do suppose it could be a little of both. That does not make it any less true. Much like anything in life, familiarity breeds contempt. Almost nobody I know enjoys going to work. If they lost their job, however, they would be happy to have an opportunity to earn money. Once back at a job, how long before they start to grumble about ‘having to get up early’? I am guilty of this myself.

My lovely lady is one of the most vocal critics of going to the gym. I think she spends so much time dreading it she might burn more calories doing that than working out. She did put this whole thing in great perspective the other day. After some introspection and contemplation, she looked at me and said, “I hate going to the gym, but I love how I feel when I leave.” Meaning going through all the sweating, moving your body when you do not want to and sore muscles are not enjoyable. Leaving knowing that you put in the effort and are one step closer to a healthier you is a great feeling. Wisely, she focuses on the future to be able to propel her to take productive action. It is a way to trick overcome her brain’s desire for inaction.

Speaking of working out. Recently, I sustained an injury that will prevent me from doing some things that I both enjoy and need to do. Now that I cannot do them, guess who is motivated to do them? Of course after the surgery I am going to be so motivated to go back to doing these exercises, right? That may be true in the short term, but after a few days of soreness from starting over, I will probably go back to dreading them. How do we change this to a constant state of motivation to do the things we know we need to do?

Many people ask how to stay motivated to take the actions they need to. I have written several books on the subject myself. It is the wrong question to be asking. Yes, it is good to have more motivation. Yes, it is good to find new and different ways to be motivated. Even with all of that, we will never be motivated all of the time. Not to mention, for most of us, motivation is a depreciating asset. As discussed in the earlier examples, you can be motivated at the start, but as time goes on that motivation becomes more difficult to maintain. What we need is a change in perception.

Inky Johnson, one of my favorite speakers, says that perception drives performance every day of the week. He emphasizes how important why we do what we do is. I couldn’t agree more. If you are working just for yourself, that is one kind of motivation. If you have a spouse and family depending on you, that is an entirely different kind of motivation. There is a difference between someone who works hard and a hard worker. Someone who works hard will do so if the boss is watching or the pay is right. Someone who is a hard worker will work hard because that is their character. That is the promise they made to themselves. How about you? What is your perception on doing the difficult things in life?

BECOME SOMEONE WHO CANNOT BE OWNED

Last post we looked at the kind of people you do not want in your life. Let us switch gears and take a look at the kind of people you do want in your life and the kind of person you should strive to become. The quote above from Epictetus gives us the formula. That is to be some who can walk away from desires in order to achieve goals. I am paraphrasing, but that is the lesson there. If your goal is to become healthier, but you often desire doughnuts and ice cream, you will have to choose one of them.

Here is another consideration. If we are constantly giving into our desires, they in a sense become our masters. If you cannot say ‘no’ to the doughnut in the breakroom, then you will forever be working on developing a healthy eating plan. That is not to say an occasional doughnut will ruin everything. What we are saying here is that you need to develop the will, the focus and the self-discipline to turn down immediate gratification in order to reach a long-term goal. That seems rather logical, but in today’s world, it is a rare quality.

Another prime example is getting hooked on social media. You know you are supposed to clean the kitchen, but you will take a break to watch just a few videos. An hour later there you sit, phone in hand with a dirty kitchen. It takes roughly 20 minutes for the brain to focus on an activity. Meaning every time you take that break, you are resetting the clock. Normal adult brains to require a quick reset around the 90 minute mark. It should not last too long, or you may find yourself unable to get started again. You must be able to discipline yourself or you will not achieve many goals in life. If it helps, make deals with your desires. You will watch that otter video after the kitchen is clean. You can have a doughnut after you complete your workout or reach a certain goal weight.

To achieve anything great in life, you must be able to delay immediate gratification to fit the long-term goal. How you do this is up to you. Doing it is not an option. Ancient philosophers knew it. In today’s world, it is even more important. Feel free to share your secrets for staying focused.