I saw this on a friend’s page and thought, “That was nice of them to share. ” Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you which friend it was. This message did bring something to mind. It was posted on my friend’s social media page. It was a wish for all of their friends to see, not just me.
As I thought how nice and refreshing it was to read something pleasant, with no ulterior motives behind it, I wondered why this doesn’t happen more often in real life. How come we do not share genuine messages with heartfelt encouragement with more people. “Have a good day.” not withstanding, how many other encouraging greetings do we offer?
What can be fun about this, is that it is an area we can be creative in. One of my favorites is “Drive careful and stay healthy.” I’m going to make an effort to share more specific greetings with people that encourage and uplift. I would love to hear some of yours.
This week, create your own luck. “Sounds great Neil, but how do I do that?” you might be wondering. In a word – prepare! It amazes me when people tell me how lucky I am. “You are lucky to have so many people follow your blog.” They say. What they do not see is the time and effort put in on top of working 56 hours a week at my day job and working as a DJ on the weekends. “You are so lucky you do not get sick more often.” Those who say this do not talk about eating healthy, working out or making sure to take my vitamins. My favorite is when people tell me how lucky Margie and I are that we have a great relationship. Am I fortunate and blessed to have such a beautiful and loving lady in my life? Absolutely! Do all of our days and plans go smoothly? Not hardly. We both get sick, tired and on each other’s last nerve on occasion. We have breakdowns in our communication. We also work our butts off to address these things. There are always threats looking for that chink in the armor of love. It could be jealous people. It could be people who are spiteful. Even when we do figure things out, there is the threat of taking things for granted or falling victim to familiarity. That is why we are constantly working to keep things fun, fresh and spicy.
Do you want to create more luck in your life? All you have to do is work harder. Do you want to be ‘lucky’ enough to write and publish 3 books? It will cost you many sleepless nights, lots of frustration and plenty of hard work. Do you want to be ‘lucky’ not to get the sickness that seems to be going around the office? You will have to work on staying in shape, watching your diet and perhaps taking a little extra vitamin C. Do you want to be ‘lucky’ in love? Let me tell you up front, you will have to work at it. Learn the art of active listening. Learn to apologize when you are wrong. Learn how to express your emotions properly and with thought for the other person’s feelings. Even before you get into a relationship, you can increase your chances of being ‘lucky’ when you find the one if you spend time working on yourself. The better version of yourself you bring to a relationship, the greater the chances are it will be ‘lucky’.
The formula may seem obvious, but it cannot be overstated. Like Thomas Jefferson said, the harder you work, the more luck you will have. What is important in your life? What area do you feel you would like to experience more ‘luck’ in? Whatever that area is, start to increase the amount of effort you put into it. You will find the amount of luck that seems to find you will only increase.
One thing that drives me slightly more crazy than I already am is the laziness in which we communicate these days. It is easier to understand how that can be helpful is texting or messaging someone. What is sad is when it starts to filter into real life conversation. Looking at the examples above can be helpful. Think of someone saying them to you. Can you imagine the difference in how they would make you feel?
Would you agree that to a great extent, the quality of our life is the quality of our relationships? Get in a fight with your spouse in the morning and how does your workday go? Have an argument with a coworker and what kind of mood do you come home in? The cause of most discord in relationships is communication. Either a lack of it, or the method in which it is delivered. Even if you are looking to take your relationship to the next level, mastering your communication is the key. Telling your spouse they “Look good” is nice. Saying something like, “The effort you put into that outfit really highlights your already attractive features.” creates a completely different feeling.
If you do not know how to communicate with skill, there are a million resources to help you in that area. Books on how to communicate. Reading poetry that makes you feel a certain way and thinking of how to work it into your speaking. Even reading greeting cards can help. Think about it. You pay $7 or more to deliver a folded piece of paper with often only a line or two. To get you to spend that kind of money those words have to be impactful. Want to be more romantic? Watch romantic movies, read romantic books and do so with the intent to learn. Want to learn how to genuine compliment someone? How about a boss or client?
Do you think this is not so important? Remember, people may forget what you say to them, but they will never forget how you make them feel. People are driven by emotion and they back up that emotion using logic. That is why your words must illicit a powerful emotional response. More to the point, a positive one. People give their attention, their time and their business and money to those who can make them feel important, valued and happy. You can do that by not sounding like a teenager sending a text. Do not be lazy with your communication. Learning how to properly communicate and convey your emotions will transform your life.
Who among us does not have a to-do list? There are things like taking out the garbage, doing the dishes and laundry. In all the craziness, how many of us add ourself on the list of things to take care of. This made sound cliche, but if you do not take care of yourself you will not be able to take care of anything else.
Think of when you have a schedule full of events. Kids soccer practice, dinner with friends getting an oil change or whatever it is you have planned. Suddenly, you get the flu. All your plans come to a crashing halt. You would think the one common denominator in all of our to-do activities (you) would be something we would put at the top of the list. Most of us, however, keep self-care as an item we will do if we have ‘extra time’. How many of us have any of that?
Today, make sure you take care of yourself so you can take care of everything you need.
We always like to post encouragement on Wednesday. We are going to ask two questions of ourselves today. Feel free to share your answers in the comments below if you would like to add to the encouragement.
The first question is who are you proud of today? Is there someone you feel good above and beyond? Someone who makes your life better by what they do? Let them know and spread a little cheer.
The second question is often more difficult. Why are you proud of yourself? What amazing things have you done? How do you make the world a better place?
How many of us see obstacles in our life and right away have the urge to fight them? If there is a chance to adapt and work around them it would save us a great deal of energy that could be spent focused on success. What a waste of time and energy it is to argue. Even if you manage to ‘win’ the argument, chances are you will have ‘lost’ the relationship. If the person agrees to go along with your ideas, it is never with an excited passion. It is better to state the solution you are aiming towards, and try to come up with a joint solution.
Next time you encounter resistance while working towards a goal, remember to stay focused on the solution and not the problem. Go around the rocks if you can.
In many ways, I consider myself a modern-day stoic. There are many great thoughts expressed in this philosophy. Above is one of them. This is why it is so important to not only think of, but decide on and WRITE DOWN specific goals. View them daily, if not several times a day. Can you imagine having free plane tickets with no destination in mind? What good would they be? It is a shame to have good fortune thrust upon us and to not have a plan to make the most of it. As much as I like this quote on face value, I find that flipping it around makes it even more valuable. Let me explain.
I believe when you have a firm and worthwhile destination every wind is favorable. You can tell when the wind is blowing in your favor. You raise the sails and make the most of it. When the wind is blowing against you, you lower the sails, you may even have to row a little. If you get caught in a terrible storm of life, you know to ride it out and make sure your ship is pointed in the right direction to get back on track. When you have a solid destination in life there are two types of events. The one that makes you say, “This will certainly help!” That is when the wind is blowing in your favor. The other is when you say, “I can learn and grow with this.” That is when the wind seems to be blowing against you.
Think of trying to eat better. Someone brings in healthy snacks to work. (It could happen) You think to yourself, “This will sure make eating healthier more enjoyable and easier. The next day someone brings in doughnuts and soda. (This is far more likely) Then you say to yourself, “This will certainly help test my will power.” In both of these situations you get closer to your goal of eating better even though one of them is more helpful than the other. This holds true with fitness, study, cleaning the house or any situation you can think of.
In life if you do not know where you want to go, how on earth are you going to get there? We must make our destination firm in our minds and remind ourselves of it often. Life today is filled with distractions more so than any other time in history. Staying focused on our path places us in the top tier of successful people. Where is the port you are sailing towards?
Oh, another good one! When you look at things from a different angle, it can often help you to better understand the absurdity of some of the actions we take, or things we believe. When we are young, we always want to do what the ‘cool’ kids are doing. Sadly, depending on who we think is cool, this can end up with us eating tide pods. What is even more sad, is that some of us never outgrow this desire. We want to do what the ‘cool’ adults are doing. We could be involved with doing something that brings us a great deal of joy until some ‘less informed’ individual comes along and tells us how foolish it is. Suddenly we feel the urge to give up what brought us joy or at the very least, we can feel foolish for allowing it us to bring us joy. Either way is has stolen some of the happiness we had formerly experienced.
This brings two points to mind for me. First, there is a special spot in hell for people that make fun of someone who is doing, wearing or engaged in something that makes them happy. If it is not harming anyone else, what business is it of yours? The second point is that we give far too much importance to other people’s opinion. We touched on this last post. Comparison really is the thief of joy. You would not let someone come in and redecorate your house, why let them do the same for your life? Even if someone comes into Margie and my home and tells us they don’t care for our picture of Marilyn Monroe or Nat King Cole, my first thought is “I don’t really care.” Not to be rude, but it is our house and it makes us happy.
One of the ways in which I experience this the most is in an aspect of my relationship with Margie. When we feel an overwhelming love or appreciation for each other, we may post something on social media. There are people who are offended by this. They say things such as “You two make us sick.” or “We already know you love each other.” Again, first thought in my mind is…well…I can’t say my first thought, but it isn’t a worry about offending these people with the love I express for the amazing woman in my life. Here is the ironic part. We have witnessed these same people post negative things about their partner, or when they do find that special love, post the same things they were so bothered by that we posted.
My point in all of this is that you should do what fills you with joy. Do what makes you happy. If someone expresses a negative thought about it or you, examine it for any validity. If there is none, let it go and go back to enjoying life to the fullest like you have. Life deserves to have the most joy it can and you deserve to have the greatest amount of happiness you can.
Many people find themselves in a state of unhappiness. There is a way to turn that around. That is to begin to work on becoming the best version of yourself. It begins with an honest evaluation of where you are now. This can be a bit deflating, but in order to know where you want to go, it is necessary to know where you are. Think of looking at a map. If you were to look at your destination, but have no idea where you are, how would you know in which direction you should go. It is the same with the journey of your life.
I once heard Tony Robbins say, “Progress equals happiness.” Earl Nightingale’s definition of success is, “A progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” Both of these bring up a good point. It is not the accomplishment of goals, or reaching a certain point that brings us the greatest deal of happiness. Although those certainly should be celebrated. If you notice in both quotes, the word ‘progress’ is featured. Think of trying to get in shape. It certainly is a great feeling to look in the mirror and find yourself at the level of fitness you desire. Do you know what is an even more exciting feeling? When you realize you have to by a size smaller in clothing because the size you have been wearing for the last couple of years is now too large. You know you are on your way!
One of the greatest thieves of joy is comparison. It can even upend progress. Have you ever had this experience? You are feeling good about the progress you have made towards some goal. Smile on your face, joy in your heart. Then you run into a friend who has made greater progress towards the same goal, maybe even in a shorter amount of time. Suddenly, your happiness is crushed. You go from feeling like a conqueror to a failure. It is worse if you are just about to start your journey of self-improvement. You pop on social media and see pictures of people who you went to school with that have not only already accomplished the goals you are striving for, but have surpassed them.
The phrase that comes to mind in all of these examples is “Who cares!” That is them. We never know anyone’s complete story. Maybe they post pictures of their career success but fail to mention the happy home life it cost them. Maybe they appear to be madly in love, but are fighting addiction. Another important point is that each journey is unique to the individual. I am more impressed with someone who has managed to reach a state of inner peace after fighting the demons of depression than someone who has reached inner peace after inheriting a fortune from their family. That is why it is so important to be focused on improving ourselves and the challenges we have overcome.
Here is a bonus way of making this more fun and enjoyable. Look for the small accomplishments of your friends, family and even your coworkers. Celebrate them as if they were your own. You never know what it took for them to overcome that. The more you help others celebrate their wins, the more joy and peace will come to your heart. Not to mention, the more likely they are to celebrate your wins as well. Remember, there is enough room for all of us to win!
Remember that doing the right thing once in a while is not what will take you to the top. Want to get healthy? You don’t go to the gym, or workout once and then you are done. You need to show up and take care of your body every day. Want to improve your diet? It is not a faddiet, but improving your relationship with food that works.
These are obvious examples. If you think of other important areas of your life the same holds true. Want to be a better spouse? It is respecting and learning about your partner every day. It is showing up and working hard at it. Same with career. The same goes for self-improvement. It is showing up daily. Winning the daily battle against laziness and procrastination. Discipline is what will solve 80%of your problems
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 