Today is the first day of winter. Where I live winter lasts about 9 months. (a slight exaggeration) Personally, I do not do good with winter. If there were a poster for Seasonal Affective Disorder, it would have my picture on. This is made even more challenging as I write a motivational website. In my writings, I advocate giving yourself something to look forward to. This is why I normally plan a vacation around February. That is right around when cabin fever starts to set in and I am moments away from appearing on one of those crime shows. “Author goes crazy and commits terrible crime.” Knowing me it would be breaking into a puppy mill and setting all of the animals free or breaking into an adult toy store and filling all of the blow up dolls with helium and setting them free. I might want to save that last idea. This year, I bought a car and am saving for my wedding so there will be no vacation.
As I sit enjoying the day today, focus will be very important. Although this does begins months of gloom and cold, it is technically the shortest day of the year. That means it will begin to stay lighter longer each day after. My new car certainly takes a great deal of stress out of the equation and is always warm when I get it. This will make the season a little brighter. I will be working on my fourth book which should provide me a great distraction.
For my friends living in colder climates that do not enjoy such things, what secrets do you use to make it through the winter months? To me a white Christmas should involve a white sand beach. Curious as to what everyone does when the beach is not an option?
This really is one of the secrets to living an amazing life. Not to spend too much energy on things we cannot control. Instead of worrying about whether someone likes you or not, spend more time on making yourself the best you can be. That way, if anyone doesn’t like you, it is more about them than about you. Most of have heard the saying, “I might not be everyone’s cup of tea.” Here is one to consider. You could be the best cup of tea ever, and there will still be people who don’t like tea. I am a coffee person myself. That is to say, you could be amazing and some people still may not like you. Maybe they have prejudices or preconceived notions that have nothing to do with you.
Another example is focusing on what you can control in an uncontrollable situation. I dislike cold and winter. As I write this, I am looking outside at snow blowing and temperatures below freezing. Try as hard as I might, I cannot control the weather. What I can control is making sure I have warm clothes and a cup of hot coffee, as mentioned above. I also plan trips to warm destinations and try to convince the love of my life that spending the winters in the tropics is a far better idea. It is what I can control in a situation that I cannot control. Focusing on those things instead of trying to change the weather is a lot less stressful and a lot more productive.
Save yourself some stress and focus on what you can change. When you seem to be facing a challenge that is beyond your control, ask yourself, “What can I control in this situation that is beyond my control?” You may not be able to control your job downsizing, but you can control polishing your skills and networking to place yourself in a better position. You cannot control the economy at large, but you can control your own personal economy. Stress less. Worry less. Control what you can.
In life we all have many challenges. One of mine is the weather where I live. Especially in winter. It seems the older I get, the harder it is to deal with the cold and snow. This year, I vowed to make the best of it and try to maintain a more positive outlook. For a while, mother nature seemed on board with this. The weather was unseasonably warm, and the snow was slight. My attitude seemed to remained elevated. This was good news for my family and friends. I thought to myself, “Neil, you just might do it this year!” Then, mother nature had a wicked grin.
I leave for my day job a little after 4am Monday to Saturday. This morning I woke up to over a foot of snow. As I trudged my way to where my car was parked, I saw it also was covered in snow. Upon reached my car, I discovered it was more ice than snow. Nothing starts the day off right like spending ten minutes chipping ice off your vehicle just to climb inside. Once inside, I began to defrost the windows. Once they were clear, I headed out. Trying to focus on the fact I was grateful to have a vehicle that ran. The plow that went through left a small ridge of snow in it’s path. I had to cross it to get out of the parking lot. As I did my car erupted in a chorus of sounds. None of them were very friendly. It would appear the snow had damaged some vital part of the exhaust. This happened on a Saturday. My mechanic is not open until Monday.
Driving around with a car loud enough to wake the dead is embarrassing enough, but now the temperature, which was doing just fine, is going to drop to ten degrees below zero. This makes my loud car, should it start, quite necessary. It would appear that my resolution to maintain a positive attitude is receiving quite the test. I must remember that is what the world does. I refuse to let it get the upper hand. This is not done alone. My friend CJ jokingly reminded me that some kids are trying to make their cars louder, in essence, I just gave myself a free upgrade. My friend Kurt offered his mechanic. Of course my lovely lady and her smile will keep me warm on the inside. There are my self-improvement skills I not only teach, but practice myself, that will keep me humming along.
All of this serves to remind me that tests are a part of life. They give our resolve strength. They require us to change our focus on what we do have to be grateful for in order to make it through them. It also gives us a platform to demonstrate to others, by our example, that they too can make it through their challenges. When we embrace life’s challenges and put them to work for us, we grow. When we let them get us down, we become less of who we could be. I am going to do my best to grow from this challenge and I invite you to do the same with the challenges in your life.
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!
For those of you has been following this blog for any time, or those who know me, realize winter is a tough time for me. I drive to work in the dark, drive home in the dark. For someone who loves the sun, this is tricky. Not to mention, we have not had a sunny day here in several weeks.
One thing I’m working on this year, is to find as many positive things as possible. Even though I write these blogs, trust me when I tell you there are many issues I’m working on too. Staying positive in winter is one of them. Today, while checking the weather on my phone, as you can see in the picture above, I noticed the sun had set a minute later! That means, the days will start to lengthen from here until June!
One minute certainly isn’t much, and you can see Friday it will be -2, but it is something. That’s kind of the secret to remaining positive. Finding the little light in the darkness. It is the flower growing in the crack in the pavement. It is the smile from a stranger on a tough day. Look for all the good you can in your own life. Remembering, quite often, the little things are the big things. ☺️
What a crazy week it has been! November in Wisconsin, the state I live in, can be one of the hardest months for me. To say that I am not a fan of cold weather is one severe understatement. My good fortune is that up until recently, the weather has been mild for this time of year. In fact, last Thursday the high temperature was 75 F. By the next day, the high temperature was only 40F. If you are keeping score at home, that is a drop of 35 degrees in one day. On top of that, I get home from work at roughly 2:40pm and today the sun set at 4:29pm. Not much light to enjoy which causes the energy levels to plummet. I even started wearing my winter coat.
All of this can really cause my mood to go south as well. This year, I am determined to keep my spirits up. I am going to really put into practice a lot of the things I teach in my first two books, A Happy Life for Busy People and Living the Dream. I am also exploring some new things such as daily use of a ‘Happy Lamp’ for artificial sunlight and creating a list of things that lift my spirits. This should help a great deal. Those of us in the Northern hemisphere could use a little lift and I am suggesting you approach it as a challenge. That is what I plan to do. I can’t change the weather, but I can find more and unique ways of adapting. If you have any other additional tips and tools to help keep my mood up as the sun stays down I would LOVE to hear them.
Above is a picture of the Mitchell Park Domes. They are 3 giant green houses, for lack of a better description. They are only a few miles from my house. They are an important part of today’s post. Before we get to what the 3 giant glass domes have to do with living an amazing life, let me share a personal fact with you. I strongly dislike the winters here in Wisconsin. It gets so cold some animals sleep through it, many leave the state entirely. Unfortunately, at this time, I am not an animal that fits into either category. Therefore, I must make certain adjustments. This post will focus around that. Just like a lot of what we learn here, it can be adapted to your situation.
The winters here also lack sunshine and things that are…well…alive. The trees look like dead sticks, all the plant life is brown and shriveled up. I don’t mean to sound negative, especially after last post about the power of positive thinking. These are facts and they can make it difficult for someone, like myself, that has Seasonal Affective Disorder. That is where the lack of sun and such throws your hormones all out of wack and can cause feelings of depression. This used to pose quite a challenge for someone who writes blogs and books about living an amazing life. Especially since winter seems to last roughly 9 months here. Then I began to put into action many of the things I learned and began to teach. I would love to share with you what I came up with for my situation, in hopes you can apply it to your own.
I realized one of the most dangerous things about Seasonal Affective Disorder, or any condition, is the feeling of hopelessness you can fall into. Although I am not able to move south for the winter just yet, I realized there are other things I can do. Plan a vacation to the sunny Bahamas with my beautiful Margie, like I am this winter. That helps. Let us face it a tropical vacation is not always in the cards. That is where The Domes, as they are locally known, fit into the picture. As you can see in the picture above, they have living plants all year! They must also have some kind of light that allows them to grow in the gloomy Wisconsin winter. Spending time in these places are like a mini vacation. We also have an amazing museum that has displays of places like Bali, Fiji and other tropical locations I would like to visit. I can at least escape mentally for the time I am inside the building.
Add to this things like coconut scented oils, shirts with the Jamaican flag, pictures of past vacations and many other ways to at least take me away mentally. I also was given a ‘Happy light’ that mimics the sun by Margie. I often use that when I write. Even a little time in front of it, helps my spirits stay up. Plus, I read and research on other things that might help. Taking Vitamin D, listening to ocean waves. There are many options to employ and more I am learning every day.
I encourage you to take the same approach to whatever life challenge you are facing. I realize that I am not able to change the weather and make the sunshine at will. What I can do is some of the things that I mentioned in the paragraphs above. I also use this ‘winter dread’ to motivate me to save for a vacation. Having things to look forward to makes challenges a lot more bearable. I would love to hear how you approach and prepare for the challenges you are facing. Oh, and if you happen to have more suggestions to make winter bearable for me, I am all ears!
Here is the latest addition of See Beyond magazine. I invite you to not only check out my article on page 32, but do read through the rest of the magazine as there is plenty of good information you can use. My article is about my personal struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) and the ways in which I do my best to counteract it. Just click on the link below to read the whole article. Again, it is on page 32.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 