Let us begin our focus on gratitude this month. Thanksgiving can be a great celebration at the end of the month. How will you begin your month of gratitude.
REFOCUS THIS NOVEMBER
Tag: secret2anamazinglife.com
WHY AM I NOT A DARTED ANIMAL TODAY?
A great secret to an amazing life is the power of observation. It helps to play a little bit of detective when it comes to your own life. Examining why you do the things you do and more to the point how they impact you life can go a long way towards taking control of that very same life. Let me give you a personal example to help explain this point a little better. When I was a young child I used to watch this nature show. The opening scene involved these men flying over a group of animals in Africa and one would lean out and shoot a tranquilizer dart into the herd. The animal would continue to run for a few seconds before stumbling around as if it drank too much rum and then just fall over. This scene is very close to how I am when I wake up for work at 4:30 in the morning. Before the coffee kicks in, I am that animal that got the dart. I stumble around the house, tempted to fall back into bed.
This morning was different. Although as I rose out of bed after about 5 hours of sleep, I felt that I might have escaped the dart. Maybe the man circling above my house missed? As I continued to get ready I only felt more alive. After the coffee was brewed and I had packed my lunch, and kissed Margie goodbye, I was off for the 30 minute drive. I listened to the band Tito and Tarantula and sipped my coffee as I drove along. Just a little bit before 6am, I arrived at work and felt better than I can remember feeling in a long time! As I began my daily labors I began to ask myself some questions, “Why was I feeling so good?” I did not sleep a very long time. I actually ate a frozen pizza for dinner. Not a healthy energy giving meal. I took my usual vitamins, the coffee wasn’t that strong and nothing else seemed to be out of the ordinary. So why did I not feel like the lion in the picture above?
Why had I seemed to escape that feeling of walking in quicksand that envelops me every other morning? I began to recall everything I had done both the night before and that morning. Was there anything new and different? Obviously there was. Instead of sleeping away the first few hours of my day as I usually did, here I was feeling…well…almost human. I made notes of the songs I listened to on the way to work. I made note of what I ate for dinner, what Margie and I had done the evening prior. Nothing seemed to different. Tomorrow I am going to try a few of these activities again and monitor the results. I’ll keep you posted as to what seems to work for me. It may or may not work for you. As I write this, I feel like I should adopt the habit of Voltaire who drank 40 cups of coffee a day. I am sure my cardiologist wouldn’t like that and I might have to move my laptop to the men’s room, but I digress. What gave me so much energy this morning and why do I feel like I could fall asleep somewhere between the D and K keys on my computer?
This is what I mean by becoming your own detective investigating your life. If you have a day (or even a particular situation) that seems to work out quite well, ask yourself the elements that played into the situation. If you a day where it feels like you were flushed down the commode of life, investigate that too. What caused that situation to go south? Then, do more of the former things and less of the latter. Continually perform what David Goggins calls a living autopsy. Examine what things in your life give you good results and which hold you back.
TELEVISION SET OR MINDSET?
This morning as I was busy working on different errands that were productive, I was also listening to some great motivational/inspirational videos. Not only do they offer encouragement to accomplish the mundane tasks in which I was employed, but they can bring to light new ideas, or old ideas in a new light. This often gets the brain up and working and fosters some of the very posts you read here. This morning I heard a man observe that in today’s world, more people spend time worrying about their television set than their mindset. I do suppose you can replace television set with tablet, cell phone or computer and the fact remains the same, it just doesn’t sound as catchy.
This got me thinking about several facts. Are you aware there was a recent study to determine the average time a person in the US spends on their cell phone in a day? Can you guess what that number may be? 3 hours and 43 minutes! That means the average person spends 1/6 of their day staring at their cell phone. Much of this is geared towards social media and entertainment. If we add that to the time spent watching television, playing video games and a host of other sources of recreation, we would be well over the 4 hour mark. Let us just keep it at 4 hours for simple math. Can you imagine if you spent that same amount of time concerned with improving your mindset? Reading, meditating or practicing different mind-enhancing activities? How about half of that time? Say you split the difference and spent 2 hours on your phone and 2 hours reading for example. Do you think that could have a big impact on your life? What could giving up 2 hours of time spent in front of the television or cell phone or playing video games and using it to enhance the gray matter between your ears? You could learn another language. Maybe work on starting your own business? Learn the embalming secrets of the Ancient Egyptians or whatever else would make you smile and put you on the path of success.
Today, ask yourself if you are spending more time in front of the television set (or phone or computer) verses working on your mindset. Is there some time you could allocate to mind-enhancing activities? Just for an hour, put down the phone and pick up a book, meditate or just sit and enjoy some nature. Make sure you are getting valuable ROI (return on investment) from your daily activities. Certainly, spend some time on enjoyable activities, but not to the detriment of accomplishing anything.
FIND THE GOOD
This site does not often touch on different spiritual beliefs. I believe that living an amazing life includes a spiritual aspect, but that aspect is a personal decision. As long as your path does not involve bringing harm to anyone else and includes becoming the best version of yourself it should not matter to me or to anyone else what that path is. Here is a great secret – the same holds true for the beliefs of others. There are some of us who feel that anyone who does not adhere to the exact same spiritual beliefs that we do is someone who is wrong or in the worst cases, an enemy. This creates not only undo stress, both in the party receiving the angst, but in the life of the people who carry these beliefs. Imagine going through life thinking everyone is wrong or your enemy? Very stressful. It also limits the opportunities for growth and collaboration. When you think someone is wrong on any level, it can be hard to include them as much, even in another level.
Today’s post is to remind you that people can be different without being wrong. Judgement drains a lot of energy and focus from our lives. On the contrary, acceptance and understanding can free up energy and create new and exciting opportunities for growth and collaboration. Accepting someone does not mean we agree with them or that we are even going to join them in their endeavors. If we focus on how we are alike instead of how we are different, we can do great things. It may be hard to both understand and accept someone who is different, but if we focus on the things we have in common it can do a lot to both bring us closer and to learn from each other. When I go out with my friends who are different faiths, they may dress different, eat different things and have different views, but they have many things in common.
The other day, I had lunch with two friends. One is Christian and one is Muslim. At one point, the topic turned to faith. I was interested to see how this might play out. They discussed their different ways of offering prayers and why they do what they do. They also came to the conclusion that they both do it for the same reason, to become more spiritually enlightened and to become closer to the God they follow. One said to the other, “Funny how a conversation can bring us so much understanding when according to the outside world we are supposed to hate each other.” They chuckled, as they had been friends for years. I thought of the sad truth of that statement. The media, politicians and even some religious leaders, keep our differences as talking points and what is most important. I think we can learn a great deal from each other if we only open our hearts and our minds.
One of the things that all spiritual paths have in common, that we can focus on today and share with each other, is the power of gratitude. All spiritual paths focus a great deal on being grateful. There are prayers of thanksgiving in any faith. I think beginning a practice of including one of those before we retire for the evening can work miracles in our lives. If we can also add being grateful for those who may be different than us, it can go a long way to opening our hearts and minds when we are awake. What is right for us, does not necessarily have to be right for everyone else. Last night, my mom, Margie and I were discussing our dream cars. Guess what? they were all different. None of us argued that the others should switch their car to ours. They liked their car for their reasons as we did for ours, and that was ok. We could listen unattached to why someone might like the car they did and even appreciate why without feeling as though they should change their minds and agree with us. Why can’t this be done with more personal things such as politics and religion? I do understand that there has been, and in some cases remains, persecution of individuals based on these categories. This is completely unacceptable. The truth is, this can only be changed by learning to accept, understand and love each other with open hearts and open minds.
Learning to accept and enjoy those who are different than us will not only create a more amazing life on the outside for all of us, it will create a more amazing life inside of our hearts. We will live life with a far greater peace of heart and mind than if we viewed everyone who is different as wrong or as our enemy. Let us all work on opening our hearts and minds and let us all end our day with a grateful heart. Not only for all that we have in our life, but for those who are different than us who can teach us so much and bring color and contrast to our world.
ARE YOU A LION OR A GAZELLE?
This is one of my favorite quotes. There are many levels in which to explore it. I have looked at a few on this website already. Such as the location of the motivation. In the Gazelle’s case, the motivation comes from the lion. If the lion were not present, the gazelle would probably be watching Netflix, eating grass and chilling. Lion appears and we are off running. In the lion’s case, the motivation comes from within, specifically, his stomach. He does not need the gazelle to be present. His running comes from an internal hunger. If the gazelle was not present, he may be running after a water buffalo or some other African neighbor of his.
Today we are going to look at this in a slightly different way and see how we can put it to use in our own life. Let us first turn our attention to the gazelle. What is its motivation? Fear. It is afraid the lion will kill it and eat it. If it does not run fast enough this fear will catch up to it and destroy it. In this case fear is the motivation to keeping this gazelle alive. Proof that fear can be a good motivator. Now let us look at the lion. Where does its motivation come from? Hunger, the desire of a goal. In this case that goal is the gazelle in front of it. It knows unless it runs fast enough, it will not achieve it’s goal and very well may go hungry. If it does not eventually catch a gazelle it will starve to death and be destroyed. Showing that passion and desire for a goal is a very good motivator. Which one of these is better in our lives?
Do we let our fears follow us around and keep us running? Do we keep our goals in front of us and keep running after them? The answer is a simple one – YES! When it comes to seeking an amazing life, we should use every tool at our disposal! We should take our ‘gazelle motivation’ and think of what may happen if we do not keep running. What will happen, for example, if we don’t keep on top of our health? We may develop a very serious condition. We may subject ourselves to a great deal of pain or discomfort. We may even pass away prematurely and lose valuable time with loved ones. I say find a symbol of that and keep it in front of us. It is like that lion lurking to catch us to busy grazing on a pizza and too out of shape to run away from it. (Come to think about it, this could work for my own fitness) It may even help to print out a vicious picture of a lion and keep it somewhere that would motivate you. Maybe by your gym bag. Think of what might happen if you don’t maintain your discipline. Would it result in pain? Lose of health? Lose of time with your loved ones? Maybe even lose of your life?
Next, let us look at our lion motivation. What does achieving our goals represent? Will failing to achieve our goals have serious repercussions for us? What might they be? How many times can we miss our gazelle and go hungry before we starve to death? Take our relationship for example. If we fail to show our spouse, or more to the point have them feel, that we love them? How many times can this happen before the relationship starves of love? We need to keep chasing our goals and feed them with a successful ‘feeding’. As in the case of a lion, this could be a process that never ends. We may need to keep chasing happiness in a relationship for the rest of the relationship. If we miss to many ‘meals’ that relationship will begin to starve. Print out a picture of your goals and keep them somewhere you will see them. I like next to the bed so we can see them first thing in the morning to motivate us and last thing at night to remind us what we are working towards. If you worry about people knowing your goals, although if they are in your bedroom they should know your goals, then you can even print out a picture of a gazelle. As long as you know the meaning and it has an emotional connection, it will work.
When it comes to our goals and to living an amazing life, just like the lion and gazelle, we must wake up running. It would help to use both our fear of failure (gazelle motivation) as well as our passion and desire (lion motivation) to motivate us to run. Whatever we can do to accomplish this goal, we should take advantage of. What do you do to stay motivated and focused on your goals? Do you use both fear of failure and passion towards achievement?
HOW TO GET RID OF THE A.N.T.S IN YOUR LIFE (trust me, you have some)
In the grand scheme of things, ants are pretty cool creatures. They have super human strength. They don’t have lungs or ears. Some ants are both farmers and can swim. They have two stomachs and some species are asexual. If you are anything like me, you probably didn’t know many of these fun amazing facts. Do you know when ants suck? When they are in your house exploring your watermelon, ruining picnics and crawling between your toes as your are sleeping. Sorry for that horrible thought, but it is the month of scary things. Generally, even if we admire all of their cool traits, we would rather not have ants in our lives.
This post is about a different kind of ant. If you noticed in our title, A.N.T. is an acronym. It stands for automatic negative thoughts. These are the pesky little thoughts that can creep into our minds while we are enjoying our watermelon. It can ruin a seemingly fun time we are having at a picnic. For all I know they might even crawl between our toes as we are sleeping. They certainly crawl through our minds no matter what we are doing. Just like the pesky little insects, they can literally come out of nowhere and multiply by the thousands!
Much like the interesting, although annoying, insects, negative thoughts can be tricky to get rid of. If you find yourself having several negative thoughts ruining your picnics or crawling through your toes while you are sleeping, the question is how to rid ourselves of them. We are going to use several mental versions of the ant killer above. In this case, it would be A.N.T. killer. The first is to acknowledge they are there. If you do your best to ignore the ants in your pantry, not only will they stay there, they may very well grow in number. Same holds true of our negative thoughts. Closing your eyes and saying over and over, “There are no ants.” will not get them out of your pantry or your head. What will? We are going to look at a few steps to take that are not only affective, but enjoyable as well.
First things first. Get a handle on the A.N.T.s you have. I recommend doing this for a the very minimum of 3 days. Carry a little pocket notebook with you and jot down any of the negative thoughts you have. We can’t begin to deal with something unless we have a concrete idea of what it is. At the end of each day take a look at your list. Are these thoughts true? Most of the time the answer is ‘no’. In this case the simple solution is every time you catch yourself thinking that thought, counter with a firm dismissal and replacement of a positive thought. An example would be if you are constantly saying to yourself, “I am so stupid!” or some version of that. As soon as the thought enters your mind, say to yourself, “I am not stupid! This is my mind’s weak attempt to hold me back from becoming all I might be!” This is not only true, but correcting yourself and reminding yourself that you are in control of your mind and not the other way around, will go a long way to turning things around. Follow this up with a more constructive thought. “I am intelligent in many ways and expanding my knowledge base daily.” In fact, spend some time thinking of what an empowering statement would be to you. Jot that down in your notebook you carry with you. This may seem awkward at first, but it will feel empowering soon enough.
Another tool is to surround yourself with things that are inspiring. As you can see, I am writing at Starbucks today and this is my screensaver. It is a picture of myself and my lovely lady, Margie. Not only does her cute face make me smile, but the knowledge that there is someone who loves me that I get to come home to is a very positive thought. I suggest using screensavers, as many of us look at them a million times a day, to inspire us. If that is a picture of the person you love, your dog, a special spot in nature or an inspiring quote. Do this on your phone, your computer and any other place you can think of. Print out pictures and place them on your desk, your mirror and here is a great idea, keep one on your dash in your car! We drive almost everywhere these days and having some inspiring picture to look at along with some ‘feel good’ music will make that journey an empowering one. Even if some A.N.T. tries to hitch a ride.
A few last thoughts about A.N.T. or automatic negative thoughts. Just like the insects, they are never going to be totally gone. One will always continue to pop up now and then and be dealt with, whether that means catching it and setting it free, or stomping on it and crushing it into submission. The next thing to remember is just like insects in your home, thoughts in your head are best dealt with quickly before they have a chance to establish themselves and start to grow. If you have an established colony of A.N.T.s in your head, know that it may take longer than if there were just a few strays. Also, remember after extermination, if you don’t keep on top of them they can come back and start another infestation. There are also many ways to get rid of ants, both the thoughts and the insects. Some work better than others and some work better in certain circumstances than others. We have looked at just a few in this brief article. I would love to hear your methods for getting rid of the automatic negative thoughts in your life. If you want to include something for the insects as well that wouldn’t hurt.
OWN MONDAY MORNING!
In honor of my upcoming book, Monday Morning Miracles, I wanted to share a quick inspiring thought to start the week. Monday can be a tough day for all of us. Back to work, back to school and just time away from our family and friends.
If this Monday has you feeling uninspired, here is a solution, inspire someone else! If you woke up feeling unmotivated after only 2 hours of sleep because you had to DJ (purely hypothetical 😉) motivate someone else! Feeling sad and already missing time with those you love? Spend a good portion of your Monday cheering up someone else!
When we help others it not only brightens their day, but it can’t help but reflect on us! Not to mention, it fills our surroundings with inspired, motivated and happy people! OWN MONDAY, DON’T LET IT OWN YOU!
WHAT CHANGES THE WORLD
The statement above is one everybody should do their best to remember. It is one that everyone should do their best to live by. No matter what kind of leader in life we are, and trust me we are all leaders of some sort, it bears noting that what truly inspires others is not our words, but our behavior. It is even more important that our words and actions are in accord. What is your opinion of someone who constantly says one thing, but then acts in a way contrary to their words? There are lots of names we have for these people, none of which are good. What about someone who feels the need to go around and share their opinion on a topic with everyone who wasn’t even aware they wanted to listen? Again, fun titles we may bestow on these folks as well.
Think of the people who inspire you? Is it the person who is constantly telling you that you ‘should do this’ or ‘should do that’? Especially if they are not doing anything or worse doing the opposite of what they are telling you to do. Do these people inspire you? They inspire me…inspire me to do without their company. How about the people busy working on what they think is important in life? The friend that has been diligently saving and now has enough to buy themselves a new car? Certainly more inspiring than the friend who tells you that you should be saving more while they are out spending their entire paycheck at the local watering hole. How about your boss that tells you to be more dedicated to your work while he leaves early every Friday to work on his golf game? Then there is the boss who is there working when you get in and is still there when you leave. Which one would you rather work for.
The most important category that I can think of where this principle comes into play is being a parent. This doesn’t even have to be a biological parent. It can be adoptive parents, step parents, aunts, uncles, or anyone that a child may look up to. We can spend hours or longer thinking of the perfect lessons to think of for our children. In reality, only one will matter – how we live our lives. Do our children hear us saying things like, “It is no use. I will never be able to do/afford that.” or such dangerous clichés as “Rich people must have screwed people over.” What we say repetitively can be absorbed more than we think. Still, it is our example that will be picked up by children the most. We tell them to always be honest and take care of their obligations, but we are 2 months behind on the electric bill and are trying to buy more time by saying we never received the bill that is sitting on our coffee table. We tell them all people should be treated with kindness and respect but don’t say something when our friends make racist or prejudiced comments. I believe if you want to positively affect a child’s life, whether you are a parent, teacher or just an adult who has influence in the child’s life, start thinking more in terms of “What can I show this child?” instead of “What can I tell this child?”
One of the greatest things we can do is lead by our example. How we conduct ourselves does a lot more to tell the world about us than what we say. How we conduct our relationships tells the world how much we love our spouse than what we say when they are sitting next to us. How we approach our work will tell others what kind of discipline we have. Saying someone’s time is very important to us is a nice gesture, but do you think they will believe us if we are constantly showing up late to meet them? Begin to think what actions we can take to truly express our character and what is important to us. I would love to hear some of yours in the comments below.
THE JOY OF HARD TIMES
The joy of hard times? Were you dropped on your head when you young or what Neil? Actually, that did happen once, but that is a story for a different time. You might think the idea of hard times containing any amount of joy is a crazy notion, but just a little reflection can tell us there is a great deal of truth in that idea.
As the picture with the great philosopher, Winnie-the-Pooh shows us, one of the way hard times bring us joy is the revealing of true friends. How many times have you faced a challenging situation, only to receive an act of kindness from a friend that was completely unexpected and overwhelmingly gracious? It has been my good fortune to experience more of those than I can count. You may know that you have a good friend, but in challenging times we have the ability to feel that we have a good friend.
The revelation of true friends, although one of my favorite, is not the only gift of joy hard times give us. There are others that we need to appreciate. One of them is the gift of resilience. If someone said they consider you a resilient person, would that not be a good compliment? Yet, if we were to think about it, how could one become resilient without facing a good deal of hard times and surviving them? How resilient would you be if everything was provided for you? If you never had to withstand any of the storms of life, how strong would your character be? Many of you might be mumbling under your breath, “Keep your resilience! I don’t want anymore challenges.” I can understand that. It is never a good feeling to have life throw something at us that we were truly not expecting, but that does not change the fact that it contains something that is helpful.
Which brings us to the last gift that hard times bring us – manure! You may be wondering what the product that comes out of the wrong end of an animal has anything to do with our life and our suffering? Plenty! There are things that happen in life that happen to us that are a complete pile of…well…let us say manure to keep the censors happy. Much like the organic product itself, these life problems stink and we wish they were not a part of our lives. That does not mean we cannot put this to work for us. One of the main uses of manure is for fertilizer. The same is true of the manure in our lives. Our challenges, our set backs and all of the manure type events in our lives can either make our life stink, or we can use it to grow some wonderful blessings. A seed that is buried in the ground and covered in…manure, which can be how our lives feel at certain points, grows into a tough and sturdy plant. Let the manure in our life do the same for us.
Hard times never feel good and it is my sincere wish that all of you never experience more hard times than can be helped. As much as I wish that, we are all bound to experience some times that really challenge our ability to smile. It is that deep knowing and understanding that even in the darkest of times there is light to be found, that can keep us moving forward. Look for the gifts in the hard times my friends. Notice the friends that reach out and help. Feel the strength of character and resilience you are building by just withstanding the storm. Use all of the manure situations in life as fertilizer and grow blessings out of the dung that life throws at us.
STICK WITH IT
Who likes to wait for their goals? If I were back to giving seminars, I would not expect very many hands to be raised in regards to this question. Many of us are like this small child in the picture above. We get on that new diet, head to the gym, maybe even go inside and then come home and look in the mirror to see if magically we lost a few pounds on the drive to and from the gym. We have all done something like this, haven’t we? Expected results that were disproportionate to the time we had spent working on them.
I once read a description on the relativity of time that stated “How long 3 minutes is, depends on what side of the bathroom door you are on. The same is true when you are working on your goals. I know the journey of getting in shape is certainly an example of this. When you begin to eat healthier, it may feel like you haven’t had pizza in the last decade, when really it was just last Thursday. Same thing for working out. You may hear yourself telling your friend that you can’t remember the last time your muscles didn’t hurt. It is then when they help you with a comment like, “What do you expect? It has only been a week since you have been working out .”
It is the middle of the week as we post this. So much can seem overwhelming or that we are even running short on time to accomplish our goals for the week. We must remember to be patient with ourselves. Remain focused on the long-term solution that we are striving for. The principle of compound interest works not only in the world of finances, but in our professional and personal goals as well. Beginning with small steps towards our goals and maintaining and building on them is the formula for success. After 20 years of poor dietary choices, swapping fast food for a healthy lunch may not seem to make the pounds melt off, but doing so for 6 months will make a huge difference. Building on that lunch time improvement to discover additional healthy meals, some you may want to try for dinner, can lead to a healthier lifestyle long-term. Attempting to give up all your burgers and fries and only eat salad and water for every meal, would certainly lead to you giving up and going back to the burgers and fries. Not to mention, it is not very healthy to begin with.
Remember to be patient with yourself as you work towards your goals this week. Consider what small steps you could take, that will be sustainable. This is the secret to success. In a world where we are all looking for the ‘six-minute abs’ solution to all of our problems, remember lasting change is the secret to success. Look for small action steps you can take and maintain over time. Remember that there is a good deal of time between planting and harvesting. A quick note on that. Different plants take different amounts of time until they are ready for harvest. Your beans do not ripen at the same time as your tomatoes. In fact, one tomato plant may bloom before the one right next to it. Although this seems obvious, we may forget this same rule applies to people as well. Just because neighbor Bob got his degree and new Bugatti by the time he was 40, does not mean we are falling behind. It may be that our plans may bloom later. Sure, it may be a little deflating waving to neighbor Bob in his fancy ride from our Ford Escape, but we must be patient with ourselves and keep tending our own garden. Like compound interest in investing, our small actions over time will lead us to look up one day to amazing results!
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 