Keep Your Eyes On The Road

The world is apt and quick to judge you for what you have or have not done.  It is also very easy to focus your own thoughts and energy on what you have or have not done.  Focusing on the past can lead to guilt if you are not proud of your track record.  It can lead to complacency if you are busy patting yourself on the back for things you have accomplished.  You can be left feeling wounded or cheated if you live in remorse about what you could once do that you no longer can.  You could have become bitter if living with resentment about what you lost or what was taken from you.  In any scenario, living in the past can cause weeds to grow on your heart and soul.  Weeds will choke out the sun and air and leave you feeling low on energy and empty. 

Instead, focus on what you can do.  Focus on what you are going to do.  Look to the future and watch the weeds of discontent die away.  Open your mind to the idea that your greatest gifts to the world and/or yourself are still ahead of you.  Your soul and heart will grow strong and fill fuller with this renewed view of your path.

Fear or Curiosity?

Fear or Curiosity?

          Mysteries, unknown circumstances, unfamiliar people and unfamiliar surroundings can often make us uncomfortable.  Sometimes being mystified or experiencing something new can arouse our curiosity.  Curiosity can sometimes motivate us to desire to discover…to learn more about the things before us that we have not seen.  Often times however, the unknown and uncertainty can provoke fear.   We tend to be afraid of things we don’t understand.  Opting for the comfort zone, we usually choose the things and situations we know and are familiar with over what is unfamiliar.  While caution is prudent, fear can be irrational.   Fear can limit discovery.  Discovery of ourselves and the world around us.

             For a child, everything is new.  Everything is a wonder when you see it for the first time, feel it for the first time and experience it for the first time.  That’s why kids ask so many questions.  Children have to make the same decisions.  Do I turn away from something foreign to me?  This makes me uncomfortable…is it good or bad?  Encourage their questions.  Foster their curiosity.  Help them have new experiences and explorations.  Most of all help them develop the habit of being guided by their curiosity and need to discover.  The alternative is to be guided and controlled by fear.  Fear is a habit that can put profound limitations on a person’s life.  Fear builds walls around you and holds you captive.  No one who is supposed to be free should live in a cell.  Especially a child.

Build Yourself Up

Here are some subjects worth thinking about today.

Courage.  Live from the inside out.  Don’t look for blame and responsibility in the people and situations around you.  All your circumstances are created from within and manifested by your decision making.  Trust your intuition and your heart.  Have the courage and strength to follow them.  Some people choose to “go with the flow” in life.  Remember…if you “go with the flow” then you can’t be upset when you end up somewhere you don’t want to be.  You chose it.  Otherwise, you must have the courage to make decisions all day every day.  Big decisions and little decisions…they are all the same.  “Where do I want to live?” is no different than “Where do I want to eat lunch?”  Participate and think through all the decisions in your day and in your life.  The more decisions that you consciously make, the more your life is driven by purpose.  DO…just DO.  Don’t live inside your head.  Don’t let emotions or habits take over your decision making.  Get outside your comfort zone sometimes and get into it!!!!  Comfort zones can protect us and keep us safe…so can cages!  Kick the door open and get out there and start pulling the trigger.  I don’t mean jumping off cliffs…just take charge of your decision making.

Faith.  Believe in yourself.  God put his trust in you and gave you the keys to your life.  If God Himself can trust you to guide your life why can’t you?  Always be positive and optimistic.  It is easy to be positive and optimistic when things are going well.  The true rewards are reserved for those who have the strength to be positive and optimistic when the chips are down.  Believe this:  the more you believe in an outcome, the greater it’s likelihood of occurrence.  If you “assume the worst” then guess what’s going to happen?  If you are “realistic” and temper your expectations then guess what’s going to happen?  ALWAYS believe in the positive outcome.  DO NOT DOUBT YOURSELF!  The world is filled with people who are glad to doubt you, who are glad to see you fall.  Don’t be one of them!  We are magnets in life.  We attract the things we believe in the most.  It’s not enough to just wish and hope.  You have to first BELIEVE and then work hard to make it happen.

Be careful what you wish and pray for.  All prayers are answered.  If you pray for strength then you will be given an opportunity to be strong.  If you pray for wisdom then you will be given a test to learn from.  More specifically, if you pray for a relationship then you will have one.  If you pray for family or children then you will have them.  What you should pray for is love.  Pray to be loved by someone and pray to love someone.  Just be patient and hold out for someone who brings out the best in you and inspires you to bring out the best in them.  All the things you want will bloom from this.  But if you live in fear and live to avoid being alone…you will always have company.  And unfortunately bad company is ten times worse than being lonely.  If you want love…than have the courage to be alone and the strength to be patient enough for it to find you.

Self esteem.  Think of self esteem as the most important muscle in your body.  Only self esteem can carry you when pressure becomes too much to bear.  Only self esteem can lift you up over the hurdles in your path.  Like any muscle you must exercise to develop it.  Assess your self esteem daily and do specific things to make it stronger.  Don’t be negative.  Don’t beat yourself up.  Leave that to the rest of the world.  Think of only your positives.  Think only of the good things you do in life.  If there aren’t enough of those things to think about…then start creating them.  Even diet decisions can affect your self esteem.   Do SOMETHING today you can be proud of.  And then repeat that and similar things as often as possible.  Forgive yourself for the things you are not proud of and move forward.  If you drive through life looking backwards then you’re going to run into something.

“There is no need for a Plan B…it will only distract you from Plan A.”  Will Smith

Do The Math

            While math may not be a lot of people’s favorite subject, the following are a few examples of how understanding some simple math can have a huge positive impact on your life.  There are experts on the subject of the human brain that suggest we make anywhere from 2000 to 35000 decisions per day.  Decisions as simple as whether to turn right or left in the store, what outfit to wear all the way up to buying a house or getting married.  

            A great number of our decisions are made simply in reaction to something that has happened.  Being asked a question, getting hungry, financial crisis, etc. are a few examples of “events” that trigger a need for us to make a decision.  These decisions are very often driven by habit and/or emotion.  If you get hungry, you may have a habit of craving whatever tastes the best whether it is good for you or not.  If someone hurts your feelings, then your emotional response may be to “return fire” or beat yourself up.  Click here for more detailed examples of events and reaction.

            Let us pick an arbitrary number and assume that a human being makes only 2000 decisions per day.  Let us further assume that a few of these decisions are well thought out…what to include in a work proposal, the answer to an important question from a loved one, etc.   Most likely less than 20 of our daily decisions would fit this description, but rather, most of these decisions are made out of habit or emotion.  If this example were anywhere close to the truth, then well over 99% of our decision making would be done in a nearly unconscious or thoughtless manner.  If 99% of our decision making were done without conscious thought and without being driven by purpose wouldn’t it explain why we are often caught off guard and set back by undesired results and circumstances?

            Consider this:  Think back over the last two or three days of your life.  How many of the things you said and did were driven out of emotion or habit?  Did you say something because someone “pushed your buttons”?  Did you do something out of peer pressure?  Not do something because of fear?  Taking action or not taking action because you were just “going with the flow”? 

            What if as often as possible, each time an event occurred, that you were able to pause, think about the reaction that served you best, then acted or spoke?

            In other words, when you get hungry, as often as you can choose a meal that will make you healthier and feel good as opposed to giving into craving and just what tastes good.  (Click here for more specifics on good diet decision making)  When confronted, instead of saying whatever comes out of your mouth, you pause and say something that is in your best interest.  When deciding  how to spend some spare time you decide to spend the time in a way that helps you grow or makes you feel good about yourself as opposed to just doing whatever is easiest or “feels good”.

            What if you were able to raise the percentage of your decisions that were driven by purpose to a much higher one?

            If 25% of your decision making were driven by purpose would your life be better or worse?  What would 50% do for you?

If you are wanting change in your life but feel as though you don’t know where to start…consider this:
            Life is changed in the most profound manner one decision at a time.  Increase the odds in your favor!  As the percentage of purpose driven decisions rises the more favorable your results and circumstances will be.  Do the math!!!

Strength in Daily Living

The time in your day can flow like a river. You can easily let the current carry you along. This may be what people mean when they say just “go with the flow”. This strategy of handling interactions and events can be easy and less stressful than other methods. One potential risk however is that when “going with the flow”, you are subject to end up where ever the current carries you whenever it carries you there. One possible alternative is to swim. Swimming is more demanding than floating. You may sometimes feel as though you are swimming against strong current. No strategy of decision making and interacting is perfect. However, swimming may land you in a more desired place more often. Ask yourself this question. Do you often pass the time in your day or large portions of it by simply reacting, sleep walking or otherwise conducting your actions and interactions with very little conscious decision making?

For example, when someone asks us a question or makes a statement to us we often react by saying the first thing that comes to mind without thinking. When we hear things or see things we often simply react with sounds and expressions of our own without a single thought. Often times our actions and responses just come from habits, conditioning or emotion instead of purpose. We have a certain reaction to an event because that’s the reaction we were taught or we’ve always done it that way. If someone says a derogatory remark to me my habit may be to get down on myself or to get mad or to get even. I may not choose that path because it’s best for me I may choose it because I learned it or formed a habit of it and no longer even think about it.

A child asks a dad a question while the dad is watching a ball game. The dad will answer without thinking in order to quickly eliminate the distraction. The dad in this example does not realize that every question from a child is an attempt on the child’s part to reach out. A parent should see every such event as an opportunity. An opportunity to teach, guide or set an example. Likewise, in general, when we are in the presence of others there are opportunities happening every second. Opportunities to create or change the perception people have of us. These events are opportunities we could use to encourage others or be a positive influence on them.

What if we chose our words, chose our steps and even chose the expressions on our faces more often? It is possible that if more of our actions, reactions and interactions were driven by purpose that we then would have greater influence over the direction our life takes. We could have greater influence over others and how they see us. We could have greater influence over how we feel about ourselves. How much would the quality of our relationships of all types improve if we were much more purposeful in our interactions with others? How much would our health improve if more conscious decision making were involved in what we put in our bodies and what we do to them? Without deeper thought, the events in our lives and our reactions to them could just be lost opportunities that pass without us even noticing. Driven by purpose, our reactions to the events in our lives could sum up over time to greatly increase the influence we have over our own lives and everything in them.

The biggest challenge among many with this strategy is the strength required. Floating can be effortless but swimming requires strength and stamina. Like anything else requiring such attributes practice is required. But what muscles need to be strengthened? How do I strengthen mental and spiritual muscles? How and where do I practice?

Click any one of the following links for some simple examples of where and how to address these questions in areas that may be of particular interest to you.

Click here for more examples of events and reactions and further simplification of the idea of purpose driven reactions.

Executive Profile

                                                      Executive Profile

         The way to present the best possible executive profile to the business community is to build it as a series of interlocking components. The right suit and a degree do not make you an executive. As a man or woman in the working world you are offering a product. The product you are offering is you. You are comprised of your energy, skill-set, attitude, motivation, charisma, strength, composure etc. At the end of every year you will be presented a W-2, 1099 or some other tax form for filing your state and federal taxes. What these tax forms really represent are receipts. The form YOU receive is a receipt for what your product was worth for that year.
        You may think, “I am on base pay and that base was decided before the year even began. How can that represent my products’ worth?” The answer is this: You accepted the arrangement and worked at your place of employment voluntarily. Therefore you, as much as anyone determined, if not actually pre-determined, what your product was worth. If, when receiving your receipt at the end of the year, you feel as though your product is “selling” or “trading” for less than it is worth then you must decide how to change it.
        The only ways to change what the receipt says the next time is to hope for the best and someone decides to pay more for the same product or YOU decide to change or add to the product to increase its worth. Why does any company change its product or add features to their products? So they can sell more of them and charge more for them. You must do the same. Please stay tuned to this site for suggestions on how you may add to and strengthen the components of your product so you can increase its value to the open market.