Tag: self-improvement

THEY ARE BOTH AVAILABLE. WHICH ONE WILL YOU CHOOSE?🤔

Here is a point that I have made over and over again. What is right is always available to focus on. Why do more people not do that? Because what is wrong is also available to focus on. I do not have to tell you which one is presented to us more often. That is why both an optimist and a pessimist are equally right when it comes to life. The glass is both half-full as well as half-empty. If this is true, than what does it matter? It matters due to the distinct difference in emotional state that each perception has. Why is emotional state so important? In life, it is the determining factor! It is not money that decides the quality of life. If that were the case, no wealthy people would ever suffer any forms of anxiety or depression. We know that is the case. On the flip side, no poor people would ever be happy. We also know this is not the case.

If it is not finances that determine the quality of life, it must be health right? Having good health plays a big role in our emotional well-being and that is why it is so important to take control of our health and to do what we can to increase the quality of our health. That being said, it is not the determining factor in our emotional well-being. If that were the case, no sick people would ever be happy and no healthy people would ever be sad. In fact, our emotional state can play an important role in our physical healing. When we are in a good emotional place, our immune system is stronger and we are more likely to take actions that will lead to healthier outcomes. Negative emotions, on the other hand, will lower our immune response and can often generate physical ailments in the body. Have you ever worried yourself to a sick stomach? Ever gotten so angry that your blood pressure went through the roof? Imagine what would happen if we continued these emotional states chronically?

We have all heard the saying, “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how you react to it.” The secret to our emotional state is focus and meaning. What we choose to focus on, and what we decide it means. Let us take the most difficult situation any of us can face; losing someone we love. We are going to experience the most terrible emotional pain. That is what happens. With great love we suffer great loss. What will we do with that pain? What will we decide that pain means? Does it mean that God does not love us and our life will be filled with pain? If that is what we decide, then yes. If we decide that it is a reminder of how much we can love and how important it is to cherish and create memories with those we love, than yes, that is what it will mean.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not trying to minimize the pain of losing someone you love. Whenever you remember them, there will be feelings of loss and sorrow. It is what we do with those feelings that matter. It can serve as a great reminder to communicate with those who are close to the end or facing some serious medical challenges. It can also be a great reminder to create memories with those who are still with us, as life can change in a second.

Tough times and tough situations are never fun. Just remember, in every life there is plenty of good to focus on. This does not mean being ignorant to that which is less than ideal, but to perhaps reframe it so we can put it to use for us instead of allowing it to use us.

HOW TO GO FURTHER IN LIFE🚶‍♂️

I heard this adage in a motivational speech I was listening to the other day. It really struck me as one of the great secrets to an amazing life. It not only works in the realm of walking, but transfers to all areas of life. If you tie your motivation for doing something to the end goal, you will only be motivated for so long and at a certain intensity. Not to mention, goals and destinations change. What we need to do is fall in love with processes. What do I mean by falling in love with the process and not just the end goal? Let us take a look.

If we take the example of walking, it will show us what we are looking at. If you are motivated to walk simply to reach a destination, you will approach it in a certain way. You will just consider what it will take to get from point A to point B. If, however, you are looking to enjoy the process of walking, you will approach it in an entirely different manner. You will look for the most comfortable walking shoes. You will make sure you are hydrated and take water with you for your walk. You would take steps to enjoy the process. This is the same if you are trying to get in shape, advance in your career, or any other aspect of life.

Most of our life is spent on the journey and very little of it is spent arriving at a destination. If we tie our happiness to the achievement of goals, we will be unhappy the majority of the time. It would be far wiser, and serve us far greater, to find happiness in the process of achieving our goals. Think of something you are currently chasing. This could be wanting to achieve that summer beach body, create more joy and less stress in your life or anything else. Then, ask yourself the very important question – “What can I do to bring joy to the process of what I am now doing?” If it is getting in shape, find an activity that you enjoy. This could be walking in nature. It could be swimming and pretending you are on vacation. It could be playing basketball with friends. If your goal is to create more love in your relationship, how could you make the process of that fun and enjoyable? As a bonus, the more you can enjoy the process, the more likely you are to stick with it. As it was stated in the title, you are likely to walk further.

REMEMBER YOU ARE AN ARCHITECT 👨‍💼

You are an architect. You are also a construction worker, a home decorator, and a painter. So am I. Before you stop reading this and decide that I am going crazy, hear me out. You are building a house. So am I. Getting closer to insane you are thinking? This, of course, is an analogy. Your life is like you are building a house. One of the most important steps is to draw up plans. Can you imagine if you just started building a house with no plans? You wouldn’t have measurements, you would not know what kind of materials to use. There is a good chance that you would get through a couple of days and have to start all over again. You would make a lot of mistakes and it would take just south of an eternity. Then again, if you have a great set of plans, you know how long to cut the lumber, who to call for the plumbing and things go generally smoothly. If there is a problem, you can look at your plans and make an intelligent adjustment.

You might be thinking, “Only an idiot would try to build something as valuable as a house without any plans. For the most part, you would be right. Who would try to build the most valuable thing in their life with no plans? A lot more people than you think. I am not talking about actual houses, but the metaphor works for something even more valuable. Didn’t we just say that your house was the most valuable thing in your life? The only thing more valuable than that? Your life itself! Did you wake up with a plan for today? Are you someone who just wakes up to go to work and pay the bills? Do you have long term plans for your life? I actually had someone tell me, “I am just going to work until I retire. Then I will figure it out.” So, let me get this straight. You are going to wait until 60+ years of your life have passed before engaging that mass of grey matter that sits on top of your neck? Even if your plans would have to wait to be enacted until you retire, they would stand a lot better chance of achievement if you began planning and taking action now.

Plans are a great first step. They are a necessary first step. Guess what? You can’t sleep inside of a set of plans. You can’t park your car in a set of plans. There are many people who are great planners, but that is as far as they get. They spend their whole life planning. You have to get off your butt and start building. Just like house construction, there is a way to go about this as well. You don’t start building a house by assembling a roof. No, you start by laying a good foundation. How about your life and your goals? Do you have a good foundation? What are you building your life on? Are you selecting the best materials or going with whatever is cheapest? If you were building a lifetime house for you and your family, you would of course select only the finest quality materials. Guess what? You only get one life! You best select the best quality people, places and things to put in it.

One more quick thought before we wrap this post up. This idea came to me in the shower. Don’t all ideas come to you in the shower? When you are building a house, those investing in said house will want you to complete it in a hurry. What happens if you rush construction? You cut corners. You compromise safety and with the first big storm your house collapses. Same with your life. Sometimes the people invested in you and your life will want you to rush into things. Don’t. Take your time and build your life right. That way when the storms of life come, you know your house will be able to take it.

If you think of building your life like building a house, you will do so in a careful and well thought out manner. We could get into decorating your life and what you would want it to look like, but that is a personal preference. If you only were able to live in one house for the rest of your life, you would do everything to make sure it is a good one. Well my friend, you only have one life to live, so make sure it is a good one.

I COULD USE A LITTLE HELP OVER HERE!🆘️

Ever have one of those days you are just in a funk and have no idea why? That is me today. I am not even sure what emotion I am feeling. Is it sadness? Not exactly. Is it frustration? A little. For someone who writes a motivational/inspirational blog, this can feel like a double failure. Then, I recall something I always stress in my books and in my writing here. The goal is not to be happy all of the time. Not only is this unrealistic, it will set you up to experience the feelings of failure more often then not.

Frustration. It is a little of what I am feeling. I kind of feel like the kid in the picture above. In fact, he actually looks a little like me when I was young. That’s a little creepy, but moving on. Often, frustration can be a gift. When we are frustrated, it tends to force us to get off our ass and take action to change whatever aspect in our life that is not working. What if you are not sure what exactly is bothering your spirit? This is the dilemma I am currently facing. I began to look at possible culprits. With my commute, I have been working 55 hours a week, Monday through Saturday at my day job. The overtime is nice, but could it be burnout? It is not the most inspiring place, could that be it? My fourth book has reached a point where I am not sure where to go. Is that the source of my frustration? Due to the previously mentioned work hours, I haven’t been going to the gym as often. That affects your mood. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder and it is the middle of February. That cannot be helping.

Here I sit trying to figure out why there is a disturbance in the force as they say in Star Wars. It can feel impossible to address the issue, when you do not know the root cause. Still, I know there are things to do that can feed your soul. Focusing on what I have to be grateful for. My home life is peaceful. It includes the most beautiful and amazing lady ever. I have my health, for the most part. I do have a job, although not the most inspiring. I have written three books and over 1800 blog posts. I am working on leaving the world a better place than when I got here. Really, this is a first world problem. I have enough to eat. I have a house to live in. Clean water to drink.

Next, I thought about ways to help my own brain. The first thing that came to mind is that I stopped journaling. Getting your thoughts down on paper can be a great form of therapy. It can also clear out some space in your head. It may even help me discover the source of these unpleasant feelings I am having. Listening to, and doing more meditation can also assist you in clearing out your head. Need to do more of that. Perhaps using my ‘happy lamp’ can help chase away a little of the winter blues? Even writing about it has me feeling a little better. Planning time with the love of my life to do something fun couldn’t hurt either.

So, I am asking for your help. What do you do when you feel yourself in a funk? Especially, when you just can’t put your finger on what is causing it. Thank you all in advance for any suggestions you might have.

YOU’RE READING THAT BOOK… AGAIN?! 📚

I ran into my friend Linda at my day job today. For those of you who may not have read the post about Linda that we shared some time ago, she is a wonderful lady that stops in the Post Office I work in. Linda lost her grandson a while back and we shared some thoughts and tears on that subject. She has not only become a great supporter of my writing, but a muse of sorts as well. She is one of those friends that every time I talk to them, I leave with many more ideas to write about and share with you.

On this particular morning, we were talking about books we enjoyed. I don’t even recall how we got on the subject, if I am being honest. The interesting thing we discovered we have in common, was that we both reread books. My favorite book is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. My best guest would be that I have read it seven times. Why on earth would I do that? Do I just have that bad of a memory? No. The reason why I read that book so many times is simple. I am a different person who is reading it. Before you think that I am referring to the multiple voices who take up residence in my head, let me explain. As we go through life we are shaped by many different life experiences. Hopefully, we use them to grow and we are ever evolving. If you are reading a blog like this one, I venture to say that is probably the case for you. Therefore, when you pick up a book a year from now, the person who opens the cover will be different than the one who did so last time you read it. In fact, the hand that turns the last page will belong to a different person than the one who turned the first page.

In life there are many circumstances that deserve revisiting. Whether that is a book, a skill you are trying to develop or a course you wish to take. You are a different person than you were last time you did any of those things. You are a person who has grown, evolved and experienced many different things in life. Even reading the same book, you will appreciate it in a new way and get something new out of it. What things could you revisit that you might learn even more from now than the last time?

DON’T RUN FROM IT, RUN THROUGH IT🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

When you are facing a tough challenge in life, it can be very tempting to run away from it. That will not facilitate growth of any nature. It is not our fault that we are predisposed to do this. Our brains are wired to avoid pain. I have learned two things about the storms of life from Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers. He said you are in one of three situations. You are about to enter a storm, you are in the middle of the storm, or you are just leaving a storm. This may sound a bit doom and gloom, but there are always challenges in life. Another thing he said is that there is too much pain in life to duck. No matter where you hide, it will find you. Don’t want to pay your credit card bill? They will find you and chances are, you will end up owing more.

The above quote from Wilma Mankiller seems counter intuitive, but it really is a secret to reducing stress in life. Your brain may be screaming “Get me the hell out of here!” That is the opposite of what you want to do. By running away from a problem, you only prolong it. Not to mention, you have the stress of knowing the challenge is still hanging over you. Conversely, if you run headlong into the challenge, you actually shorten its duration. It may be uncomfortable at first. No, actually it will be uncomfortable. The stress you will go through initially, will reduce the stress you feel long-term.

It can be so tempting to run from your problems, but doing so only makes them last longer and become bigger. Face them. Run through them like the buffalo. You will find that your life contains a lot less stress than if you would spend it trying to avoid problems. As an added bonus, you will have tremendous growth of character that you would not get by avoiding the storms of life.

TO FIND THE BLESSING, FIND THE HUMOR.

I think by now most of you know that I am not a fan of winter or winter weather. We were doing pretty good making it through with not much in the way of snow and cold. Then, in the space of a week, we received almost a foot of snow followed by temperatures well below zero! It was so cold, even the sun took a vacation, which did not help anyone’s attitude. If you walked outside for any length of time, you ran the risk of your nose freezing shut. For someone who enjoys sand beaches and palm trees, this was a little hard to take.

In any situation, I recommend finding the lesson and the blessing. Asking yourself the questions “What is positive about this?” and “How can I use this?” Thinking about the permafrost that was once my backyard, I was having difficulty finding anything to enjoy about it. Even my car was not to thrilled to be out in the elements. Then I saw the picture above online. It not only made me laugh, it brought up a good point. The roads here are filled with holes from the plowing and road salt sitting on the concrete. When it snows and freezes, it fills the holes and, for a little while, the road is actually smoother. Do not get me wrong, I still would rather be laying on a beach chair under a palm tree, but this makes the cold a little easier to take.

How about you? Is there something that you really do not enjoy? Have you asked yourself the two questions, “What good can I find in this?” and “How can I use that?”. If you are having a tough time, try using your sense of humor. It can often shed light on something that at the very least will make you laugh. It may even show you a positive way of looking at something that previously you could find no positive. If you have any examples, please share!

MARGIE AND I ARE NO LONGER LIVING TOGETHER! 🫨

For roughly 9 years (we actually don’t know when we first got together) Margie and I have lived together. We went to bed together every night, we woke up in each others arms. She even once had a cute little thing to say about brushing our teeth in the same sink. She made her cakes in the kitchen, and on occasion, I wrote in the living room. We watched movies on the couch together. As our busy lives ticked away we always had the fact that we were living together to come back to at the end of the day. That is no longer the case.

In January of 2022, I had to undergo open-heart surgery. Most of you know this story. If you don’t, I wrote an entire book, The Beat Goes On, that chronicles my journey. This includes a brief flirtation with death. After all of that, my life, and consequently our life, was never the same. You would think this would happen all at once. That it may be one of those epiphany moments. It didn’t. There were small changes. Especially after writing the afore-mentioned book, realizations began to dawn on me. This began to create changes in my life. My writing took on a new sense of urgency. My humor became far more valuable. Of course, as the title of this post says, Margie and I stopped living together.

Why after years together and coming out of such a traumatic experience, would we choose to stop living together? Let me clarify. We are still under the same roof. We still look forward to collapsing in each other arms after a long hard day. We still watch movies on the couch. How can I say that we don’t live together? The reason I say that is there was a dramatic shift in how we perceive our relationship. When you are living with someone, you are just going through a day-by-day existence. What my medical adventure taught us is that we are actually dying together.

At first blush, this may sound a bit morbid. The thing that makes life so valuable is the fact that it ends. If it were not for the possibility of death, life would cease to have much meaning. What sounds scary, but it never-the-less true, is that every second we live, we are one second closer to death. It is that constant ticking of the clock that should make every second more and more valuable. When Margie and I realized that we were slowly dying together, everything became more precious. Moments we spend in the kitchen being silly. Nights that I read to her in bed. Trips to the grocery store. You never know when any of there could be the last of its kind.

Knowing that everyone we are share our life with, we are actually slowly dying together may sound like one of the most dark ways of thinking, but it is the opposite. Could you really be mad at the driver who cut you off if you think about the fact that both of you are on earth dying together? Him, perhaps sooner if he continues to drive like a fool. How about the customer that is rude to you? Your life, and theirs, is continually growing shorter. Are you really going to waste any of it on anger? I think the realization that we are all on earth dying together fosters a sense of compassion for a stranger. You never know when their life, or yours, could end. Make every second the precious treasure it is.

As for the beautiful (and smart, she is not just beauty.) lady that I share my home with, we are no longer living together and we have never been happier or more in love.

INSIDE OR OUTSIDE?🦁🦌

I have written several times about the story of the lion and the gazelle. How every morning if Africa a lion and a gazelle both wake up. If the gazelle doesn’t run fast, the lion will eat it. If the lion doesn’t run fast enough to catch the gazelle, it will starve. Either way, they both have to run. On the surface, you would say they are both motivated by the will to live. There is one difference I noted. The gazelle’s motivation comes from an external source – the lion. If there was no lion present, the gazelle would just relax and watch Netflix, or whatever gazelles do in their free time. It is like the coworker who only seems to be busy when the boss is watching. Otherwise they might be in the breakroom…watching Netflix. Their motivation is based on an outside source.

The lion, on the other hand, has inner motivation – his hunger. If there is no gazelle present he will look for one or hunt something else. He has to eat. Here is an employee who has the work ethic to do a good job even when the boss is on vacation. They often come to work early or stay late. Their motivation is driven by a desire to do a good job, whether anyone will ever know.

How about you? Are you a lion or are you a gazelle? Do you need outside motivation to chase your dreams and goals? Are you running from and responding to every situation in life or are you laser-focused and running after your dreams? Does your realization that you are not quite the person you wish to be drive you to push to get better? If not, how could you develop this lion mentality? Can you only go “Beast Mode” in the gym, when you have got enough sleep, the sun is shinning and everyone in your household is getting along, or do you workout because it is Tuesday and that is what you do? Are you working out to impress everyone else, or because you want to be the strongest healthiest version of yourself?

One of the best ways to develop that inner motivation is to get clear on your ‘why’. What are the reasons you are chasing a goal? What makes is so important to you? What would you gain if you achieved it? What would you lose if you did not? Get clear on that and you will become a lion and pursue your goals and dreams with the ferocity of a lion on the hunt.

IT AFFECTS EVERYTHING!😳

One of the most ironic things that I hear as a life coach is that people do not have the time for self-care and self-improvement. The misconception here is that it is somehow a separate area of your life. They will say things such as “I know I need to take better care of my mental and physical health, but I really need to focus on my money situation.” or “I would love to spend more time improving the way I deal with stress, but the kids keep me so busy.”

Do you know what the common denominator in your money, your parenting, your career as well as every other area of your life is? I give you a really big clue, you can find it in the mirror. You are the common ingredient in every area of your life that you are trying to improve. Worried about your health? Here is an interesting fact, do you know that you are 11% more likely to have a heart attack on Monday morning than any other day? How can that be? We hear about smoking, alcohol consumption and diet being risk factors. None of them would make Monday worse than any other day. What the data tells us is that life and job dissatisfaction is one of the main risk factors for heart attacks. When you are going to a job that is killing your soul every week, it might be killing more than that. If you are having an issue dealing with work stress, not taking the time to get help and learn to use stress in a healthy way can end up costing you a lot more than just medical bills.

How about money? Everybody needs to focus on their finances. What would we need to be more financially healthy? Energy? The ability to deal with stress and change? Focus? The ability to perform better at work? How are all of these obtained? We could focus on each area one at a time, which a lot of us do, but there is a quicker way. That is to focus on you. If you improve yourself, you will be a better parent, a better employee, a better business owner, a better friend and a better lover. When we improve ourselves, our lives improve. If you bring a better ‘you’ to any area of your life, that area will improve.

In closing, we need to stop treating self-care and self-improvement as a separate area of our life. Instead, we need to understand by focusing on improving ourselves, every area of our life will improve. If we focus on our physical health, for example, we will be sick less often. This would allow us to use less sick days at work. It would give us more quality time with our children and our spouse. That would make us better parents and lovers. If we improve our mental health and ability to deal with stress and change, that will help us be a more patient and attentive lover, parent and coworker. If we work on improving our listening skills…well, you get the idea. Focus on yourself. It is one of the best things you can do for everyone else.