“Appreciation is a powerful tool to shift perspective. Finding something to appreciate during a difficult situation quickly moves the perspective to the big picture from the little picture.”
— Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, From Chaos to Coherence

What do you have to appreciate in your life right now? During the challenging moments in our life, learning to shift perspective can be the true key to your present and future happiness and success.

In our daily bustle and routine, we may slip into a state of complaint or pity. And it is when we allow our focus to remain on the difficult situations that the pain and challenge seems to amplify.

Allow yourself to find something good in the picture and allow that to grow instead. As you get the benefit of both perspectives you will learn to be consistently thankful and approving, and your life will subsequently grow in value. (more…)

“The truly important things in life — love, beauty, and one’s own uniqueness — are constantly being overlooked.” — Pablo Casals

When we focus on what is important right now, we can become the best we can be even in the most challenging moments. Deciding that the activity or goal in the present moment is the most important thing we can be doing in our lives, we can begin to see things that were previously overlooked due to our distracted minds. Being in the now means that we are not experiencing an urge to be somewhere else, to do something else, or to think about something else.

To achieve this clear state of mind, you must know who you are. Trust that you will do what is right for you at the right time. Mark Twain once said, “I have worried about a great many things in my life. And a few of them actually happened.”

Experience the joy, the self-confidence, and the excellence that comes with living in the now. Let go of what you think should be happening, in order to enjoy and fully experience what is actually happening in your life.

“Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.”
— Bruce Barton

There are different moments during the year or the month or even the week that seem particularly busy to me. Sometimes I would even use the term overwhelming. However, I am doing my best to not use that particular term, because I find myself feeling worse when I allow my mind to “feel overwhelmed”. Next thing you know I am using words like “burnt out”, “exhausted”, too tired” and the snowball effect has happened yet again.

My new tactic during the busier periods of my life is allowing myself to expand my energy to be able to handle all that comes my way. It all goes back to the Law of Attraction — if I panic when things seem to get busier or move faster than I can manage, I will only be attracting more things to get worked up over. On the other side of the coin, when I allow myself to believe I can handle it all, despite the apparent circumstances, I will succeed. Remember, focus on the desired outcome — avoid focusing on what you don’t want.

Imagine being happy and balanced and successful no matter what is going on in your life. Even when things don’t appear well on the outside, or when circumstances outside your control happen to you, feeling well and balanced on the inside will make all the difference in your life.

We are finally back home, and after allowing myself a “comatose” day, I am back in the office and back to writing (even if I still feel comatose!). After my week away, and after listening to some very inspirational speakers at the Rules for Renegades Summit in Irvine, California, I realized it is time for my self check-up.

What’s that, you ask? This year is nearly half over. You may not want to think about it but this is the perfect time to take stock of how far you’ve come and to consider what lays ahead. Yup. I am serious.

If you have made any personal or professional commitments, have you been keeping track of where you are now? How much closer to your goal(s) have you come?

Remember, this is not a time to panic or get down if things are not looking the way you sketched it out in your plan yet. It is a time to realize that you need to take bigger steps, keep your promises to yourself, and respect and love yourself enough to do what you really, really want to do — now!

And if you haven’t made any personal commitments and goals yet, there is no better day than today!

Just a little note to let you know that I will do my best to post the dailies even while I am away. But if I don’t get one in here and there, I will be back on track by June 11th… as long as the jet lag doesn’t catch up to me too much.

I’m actually going to be at an interesting conference in Irvine, California to learn from some of the better-known specialists in the Law of Attraction among other things: Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen!

I’ll report back and let you know what I learned and how it all went!

“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.”
— Thomas Szasz

I’ve been reading and studying the best ways to improve my life, to live to my highest potential. So how have I been doing? Honestly? It’s still a challenge. There are still many things that I am constantly having to reread, remind, rework, and redo. Some days I am flying high and I am certain that nothing can slow me down and then, wham! Someone pushes an old “hot button” on me and I lose the balance and insight that have kept me on track.

However, I know that it is ok. I’m still doing well overall. I know that I am on a path of learning and self-discovery and part of that learning and discovery is finding out what still needs work.

Believe in yourself even when you may slip off the path for a moment. Put all that you have learned into practice again and bring it to life through your days. Every moment, even the off ones, are moments to learn and grow and create your life.

“The power to create quality of life is not in any planner. The power to create quality of life is within us, in our ability to develop and use our own inner-compass so that we can act with integrity in the moment of choice.”
— Stephen Covey

What will happen tomorrow? Or the next day? Or the next week, month, year? Other than some fairly predictable norms in my life, I wouldn’t be able to answer that with much detail or accuracy because I simply cannot know about something that has not yet happened. And what about all the things that are going to happen that I can’t even imagine at this present moment? How will they affect the equation when I didn’t put them into my calculations?

So why do we take up so much of our time thinking, or worse yet, worrying about the future when we have no way to know for certain what it will entail?

No matter how challenging your situation appears to you at this time, you can make it through one day at a time. Focus on the present day and moment and what action steps you can take right now. Understand that each conscious choice you make now will create the quality of life upon which you decide.

“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”
—W.M. Lewis

How many of us spend our days talking about the life we could have, or will have soon, or should have. Unfortunately, talking about it won’t actually make it happen. Each day you have to consciously decide on the actions to take that will keep you moving forward and avoid the decisions and actions that keep you stuck in the past. Having a desire for change but not taking the necessary actions to accomplish change will leave you at a standstill and probably also leave you feeling disheartened and dissatisfied.

Debbie Ford reminds us in The Best Year of Your Life that now is the time to set clear, concise, structured goals to keep you moving forward. Take the time to set your goals on paper with specific deadlines attached for each major milestone that you need to accomplish. Recognize the action steps that you need to take and do them. With each new action you take you will be one step closer to fulfilling your goals and your desires.

“As one thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
— Dr. David Schwartz, Magic of Thinking Big

Live big in your heart and you will live big in life. This could mean big in happiness, big in accomplishment, big in income, big in relationships, big in respect. You name it. When you dream a life to the point that you feel it is true in your heart, these thoughts will create real action in your life.

Take a few steps forward in your dreams and aspirations by allowing moments of opportunity and experience to come your way. Practice being the kind of person people like. Take initiative and introduce yourself to others with a smile at every opportunity.

Encourage others to talk to you about their views, opinions, and accomplishments. It also helps to practice courtesy. This makes others feel better and you will feel better about yourself, too. Accept responsibility when a setback occurs for it is a gift to be able to learn from your actions. Act like a successful person and you are a successful person!

“You lose your balance when you say, ‘I will not accept what is happening to me.’”
— Marilyn Eileen Charlton, Life on the Causal Plain, A Glimpse of Heven

You lose your own intuitive guidance when you don’t accept what is happening to you in your life. The main goal for change is to become balanced again. In the simplest terms we are all striving for balance in our lives. However, this balance actually comes by going with the flow of life and accepting even the times that are not as easy to understand or to accept.

Life is not simply a predetermined destination. It is the journey that we are on every day. There may be unexpected curves and turns in the road we are on. We may encounter low valleys and high mountains. However, with each step we take on this journey, we are shaping who we are and who we will become. And with this adventurous path, every day, we will discover the best in ourselves — if we accept what happens to us along the way.