Few things in life can be so helpful as a purpose. It is not only a light in the darkness, but a compass on the high sea of life. After all, how can you know if you are going in the right direction if you do not know where you are headed?
The first step is deciding on your purpose. For some reason, this is glossed over in most education systems. Your purpose does not necessarily have to even be tied to your career. Your purpose could be to bring as much light and love to everyone you meet. It could be to volunteer to help animals.
Yes, your purpose in life could ultimately be intertwined with your career too, but the point is that it does not have to be. My life purpose is pursued outside of my daily vocation. Yours could be as well. Just make sure you have one. Do not wake up, pay bills and die. That is not what life is about.
Another fact to remember is that you can change your purpose. Yes, you can give your all to something and discover it is not for you. People change. Life changes. Your purpose can change as well. Do not let commitment scare you from deciding a purpose to begin with.
Decide your next port of call today. Then, raise the sails and set out on the journey. If you arrive at your destination, or even just get close, only to discover it is not for you, all you need to do is adjust the sails and change course. Just make sure you are headed towards somewhere.
I’ve been spending my yearly vacation at the Wisconsin State Fair. It is truly a fun time. Depending on who I am here with, we go see bands, a bird show, a magic show and of course go to eat. The prices range from acceptable to insane. At one of the more pricey venues I saw this little bit of kindness.
Although their prices were high at this stand, they did a little good by collecting the can tabs for Ronald McDonald house. A great charity! WIth all of the cans that were consumed, they could earn a lot for the charity. Not sure how many people knew of this, but it was nice it was there.
In an event where profit is often king, it was good to see some charity. This is like life. Just that little bit of good can go a long way! Can you think of a little action that you could take to bring kindness to the world?
Today we have reached 1500 days in a row of a blog! That is over 4 years! I recall reaching some number, it might have been 100 days, and asking myself (because I write alone) can I do this for an entire year? The answer was of course I could. There is no rule of law that states I could not.
The question was less about the ability, or legality, of being able to do something. Although I must confess asking those of myself too. It was more a metaphorical look in the mirror. Did I have the discipline to maintain wiring this every day? Would I even have something to talk about for that long?
That was over 4 years ago and there is no signs of slowing down! The world around us is a crazy place but that is a never-ending source of inspiration. Through these past 1499 blogs we have both grown in number of followers and locations in which people read this. Still working on Greenland, but that is a story we have discussed before.
As I reflect on this accomplishment, there is one amazing thing this shows me. That is that I have the discipline to stick with something daily for over 4 years! If I can do this with my writing, what else is possible? What am I leaving in the table?
How about you? What in your life are you good at sticking with? Can you learn tools that will help you in other areas of your life? Is there an activity that you enjoy that you could do daily? Maybe a walk after dinner? Spending 15 to 30 minutes a day reading? Try doing one thing you enjoy. It may give you the tools and motivation to accomplish more in your life!
In the middle of enjoying the Wisconsin State Fair, this message appeared in my coffee cup. My mother, whom I was with, noted what a powerful reminder that was.
All too often we wait for later, tomorrow or next year to have a good morning, afternoon or evening. It is important to remember that one day it will be your last one. Crazy part is that you may not know that it will be the last.
That means right now is the best time to have a good morning, afternoon or evening. Make a life having as many good moments as you can! When the end does come, at least it will come with little to no regret.
Discipline is one of the words that I think we are taught incorrectly. When we are growing up Discipline is taught as something that happens to us of we misbehave. We get disciplined. At best it is used to convince us that we need to do things we might not want to do such as study or clean our room.
What we seldom, if ever, are told is that discipline leads to freedom. Discipline is the key to our success. When we have goals and things we want to accomplish in life, it is discipline that is the key. Here is the crazy part. As we grow older we think there is no punishment if we are not disciplined.
You might think as an adult you are free to act as you see fit. That is true to some extent. What you are not free from is the consequences of those actions. When you cease to remain disciplined as an adult, it is you who suffers. It is you who will not reach the goal you are working towards. It is true your family and friends may suffer as a result. Lack of discipline, however, is really a betrayal of yourself.
An amusing quote for sure, but one that has a powerful meaning. It is not really about the hoofed animal, but the people who are actually below even them. We are talking about those folks who spend their time gossiping, going behind people’s back, lying and just operating as disrespectful humans.
Just as a pig is home in the mud, these people are at home in despicable behavior. When we try match them in deplorable actions, not only are they more experienced, but we reduce our character by our attempt to emulate them.
When you see someone engage in petty or underhanded behavior, just say to yourself, “another pig in the mud.” Then, move on making sure you rise above their behavior.
*we apologize to any pigs that were offended by these comparisons*
When it comes to becoming the best version of yourself, Charles Bukowski is not the first name that may come to mind. Like yours truly, he worked for the United States Postal Service. He also shared some of the same opinions of it. He was a drunk and a generally unpleasant person. All of that being said, he does have a good point here. Our mortality should be a great motivation for people to come together. Either they ignore it, put it out of their minds or do not believe death will happen to them. As if they are not subject to the same laws of biology the rest of us are.
When a rather cynical coworker of mine discovered that I also write self-improvement material and am a student of the same, he had an opinion he felt the need to express. “What is the use of trying to improve yourself. We are all just lemmings falling off a cliff. We are all going to die.” I could not argue with him on the last part. Whether we look like a lemming has more to do with who are parents are than how we live our life. This fatalistic view of the world is one that unfortunately far too many people hold. If we are lemmings falling off a cliff, I would argue the point of life is to have the most fun on the way down. You can only have the best life if you are the best version of yourself. That is the entire purpose of self-improvement.
One of the ways in which to improve our life is to embody this quote from old Charlie above. We are all going to die. Do not take too much personally. Do not get hung up on trivial matters. The more rules you have for your enjoyment of life, the less enjoyable your life will be. Instead of finding ways and things in which to be upset, look for and find ways in which to enjoy life. The same holds true for your neighbor. If you want to find reasons to hate your neighbor, you can find them. If you want to find reasons you should invite your neighbor over for a BBQ and a laugh, you will find that too. It is all in what you are looking for.
Charles was right about one thing, we are all going to die. We should use this as motivation. Our time is slipping away right before our eyes. We should find as many ways to drain as much joy out of life as we can. The best way in which we can do that is becoming the best version of ourselves. The best way to have the most enjoyable time with others is to understand that one day we will run out of that time. Use it to laugh. Use it to love. Use it to connect.
The other morning at my day job I was listening to a motivational podcast. Many people ask, “Why after almost 2 decades in the self-improvement field and writing four books and publishing three, do you still listen to self-improvement material?” The answer is quite simple. You can never know everything. There is new information being brought to light all of the time. Becoming the best version of yourself is a life-long journey. There is no finish line.
Another, and perhaps more applicable, reason to listen to different motivational material is that it is presented in a different way. That is why you can have so many successful people in this field. A lot of their messages are the same. What is different is how it is delivered. You may hear something said by Tony Robbins and it may not resonate with you at all. Someone else may tell you the exact same tool or strategy, but in a different manner and you get it. The same holds true for those of us delivering those messages. That was what happened on this particular day.
The saying I heard is one that may be of use to you. Your personality creates your personal reality. To be honest, I do not even recall which person said this. Looking at the way it is worded, I would guess it is Tony Robbins, but I could be wrong. Who said it matters less than what we can do with this. In the two photos above, we see both what makes up a personality and how we can use our personality to fit into a career that would be most beneficial for us. Neither of these are complete lists, but it sure gets you thinking.
Let us take a look at a more personal example that I think will help this make a little more sense. At the afore-mentioned day job, we have a gentleman who stops in every morning. We will call this man ‘red truck guy’ as that is what he drives. His purpose for coming in? The best that we can figure is that he comes in to complain about his life. He comes in before the business is open and gives us a graphic description of how everyone in his life is incompetent in some fashion and how they are all out to get him. This is not an exaggeration. After several minutes, which seems longer, of complaining he departs. Here is the thing, this man creates the life he complains about. He has negative opinions about people based on about every factor you can imagine. He treats them as he views them. Then he acts surprised when these same people treat him negatively. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Our personality is reflected back to us in the life we live. If our personality is warm and welcoming, that is how the world treats us. If, like in the example of our unfortunate fellow above, we find reasons to dislike our fellow man, life will be a negative experience for us. It is a reflection of the 2000 year-old emerald tablet. This said “That which is below is like that which is above.” Many of us have heard the saying, “As within, so without.” That is how our personality reflects our personal reality. Does this mean if you have a pleasant personality your life will not experience any difficulty? Of course not. You will have a life that will be a lot better to deal with those challenges. It will be filled with a lot more loving and supportive souls to assist you on that journey.
Last post we discussed growing pains and why they just might be the key to success. If you haven’t read that yet, it just might be worth a look. Today we are going to talk about your diet. If you want better health, it should not shock too many of you that you need a better diet. Certainly the nutrients that you put into your body will determine how much energy you have, how well your immune system functions and even how good your mood is on any day. The food we eat can play a far more impactful role in our life than we may think. That is why our diet should be one of the first things we focus on. There is one aspect of your diet you may not have considered.
Your diet is a lot more than what you eat. It is also what you watch, listen to and read as the picture above says. Have you watched a movie and it puts you in a certain frame of mind? We all know music can help change our state. In my first two books, I give you a great tool to take advantage of this. Now science is starting to show how certain music can help assist the body in healing itself, strengthen the immune system and a great many other processes. What we read and expose ourselves to can influence our state of mind. Do you know those folks who listen to political talk radio all of the time and are always in a good mood? Yeah, me neither.
There are people I like to listen to when I want to get motivated. There are movies I like to watch when I want to laugh. That is true in all of our lives. It is a wise person who notes these ‘dietary’ elements and makes use of them. There are things that we can eat that make us sick (anchovies for me) There are also things that we can eat that we just do not enjoy. (Cauliflower here) We are usually pretty good and taking note of this. Somehow those people whose company brings us down we still hang around. That talk show that always fills us with anger and hate for our fellow humans, that is what we listen to on the way to work. Why?
When looking to get healthy, we must look at all aspects of our ‘diet’. We must also make use of all of them. Add what is healthy and remove that which is bad for our health. That health can be physical, mental or spiritual. We must look at the whole person and the whole diet. There are so many opportunities to improve our health, why not take advantage of as many of them as we can?
Have you ever heard the phrase “Growing comforts”? Everyone, however, knows about “growing pains”. That is because growth can be painful. It is almost always difficult. Do you wish to grow in your life? In your career? Do you want to grow the love and the passion with your spouse? Do you want to improve the quality in all of your other relationships? How about improving your health? I am guessing if you read a site called Secret2anamazinglife.com, the answer would be ‘yes’ to all of the above.
Here is where the irony comes in. Everyone wants growth. It is natural. You would like your health to be better. You would like you and your spouse to have a closer and stronger bond. You would like to move ahead in your career. If we all want growth, and we all agree that there are ‘growing pains’, why do so many of us seek a life of comfort? The irony is this – if you seek a life of comfort and ease, it will come back to bite you in the end. Les Brown said it best when he gave us the equation, “If you do what is easy life will be hard, but if you do what is hard, life will be easy.”
Every improvement in our life will take our time, our energy and self-discipline. These things are seldom easy. If we are to seek and do just the things that are easy and give us pleasure, our life will begin to suffer. If you do not put the time and effort into growing the love and connection between you and your spouse, it will not stay the same, it will begin to fade. If you are always looking to cut corners at work, do you think your career path will improve? When the company needs to downsize, who will be at the top of their list? If you do not have the self-discipline when it comes to your health, how long before your body begins to fail you? Sure, it is more pleasurable to not exercise and just eat all of the food that tastes good, but where will that leave our health in five or ten years? You know exactly where you will be.
It is for these reasons that you should choose the path of improvement not the path of ease. There may be some growing pains, but there will be growth.
