Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s fine. It’s not their journey to make sense of. It’s yours.
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Excerpt from: A single act of kindness
A single act of kindness may seem like such a small thing, but so is the ember that starts a wildfire.
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Life is hard. And it isn’t fair. And it really hurts like hell sometimes. But if you focus on what is within your power to change for the better, you can. And you will.
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From truly listening to people to going out of your way to making someone feel appreciated, kindness comes in all shapes and forms.
Not only is your kindness often returned to you by those you share it with, people who feel good tend to make other people feel good simply by association.
Whether it’s simply making someone laugh or smile, never underestimate your ability to start a chain reaction of positivity.
A single act of kindness may seem like such a small thing, but so is the ember that starts a wildfire.
Be someone’s reason to smile today and you may just find yourself encountering more of the types of people who make you smile in return.
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From acquaintances to best friends to married couples, all great friendships involve teamwork.
Teamwork sits alongside trust, communication, and tolerance as a building block of the best relationships.
Teamwork is not “What can I get out of this relationship?”, it’s “What can I bring to this relationship to make it better?”
Teamwork is the combined commitment to overcome obstacles. It’s support. It’s encouragement. It’s working together.
It’s rising to the challenge of bettering yourself for the benefit of the whole. It’s providing the support & encouragement necessary to help others better themselves and succeed in their endeavors.
Whether it’s providing a kind word, sincere appreciation, a listening ear, or something else entirely, never stop trying to add value to your relationships.
Never underestimate the power of teamwork.
Never stop asking, “What can I do to make this relationship better?”
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It is far more effective to be a person who encourages others than it is to spend one’s time finding faults, criticizing, or judging people.
Not only will you feel better about yourself as a result of being a force for good, you’ll be making a positive difference in people’s lives.
Refuse to put people down. Refuse to judge those who aren’t exactly like you. Refuse to do to others what you wouldn’t like done to you.
Remember that everyone lives their lives in a way that reflects what they’ve learned from life experience.
Not everyone thinks the same. Not everyone knows what you know. Not everyone has the same level of awareness.
Help people live their lives in a positive way by encouraging more of what you’d like to see in the world.
Lift people up. Raise people’s spirits. Make friends, not enemies.
Help educate people by being a good example.
Be kind. Be encouraging. Be honest. Be tolerant.
Inspire others to live with integrity.
Lead by example.
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Consistently being on time is the product of proper planning, personal discipline, and a respect for other people’s time.
Making a habit of being late demonstrates none of these things and is often a sign of patchy priorities and selfishness. Habitual lateness says, “My time is more valuable than yours.”
Learn to be reliable and a person of integrity by adopting the discipline necessary be on time.
“Your ability to listen to and take action based on your inner voice — regardless of how you feel, other influences, or temptations you face — is the key to self-mastery.
When you increase (or decrease) your discipline in one area, it increases (or decreases) your discipline in all areas that require self-control.”
The excuses that often accompany one’s tardiness often demonstrate priorities issues and not unavoidable problems leading to inevitable lateness.
Learning to be on time will not only reduce unnecessary stress in your life, it will earn you respect from those who know they can count on you to be reliable.
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Seen in a meme:
“Happiness is a choice.”
No. Happiness is not a choice. Attitude is a choice.
Happiness is not just putting on a fake smile, acting cheerful, and pretending everything is OK.
Sometimes things are not OK. And that’s OK.
That’s life.
Stop for a moment and imagine you’re grieving over having just lost a loved one.
Now imagine someone comes up to you and says, “Happiness is a choice.”
Would you believe it? Would you be able to let go of your grief, shrug your shoulders and say, “Ok, I’ll be happy now” and actually be happy?
Unlikely.
What about depressed people or people who have suffered psychological trauma?
Would you tell a suicidal person that “happiness is a choice” and expect this superficial catchy catchphrase to solve the problem?
Of course not.
Even if attaining a state of happiness was as simple as making a choice, telling someone who isn’t happy that “happiness is a choice” is as about as helpful as teaching someone how to fish by telling them that “there are fish in the sea”.
It isn’t helpful.
Happiness is a byproduct of enjoying the journey of life.
You teach people to achieve happiness by providing them with the tools necessary to deal with life’s challenges in a positive and productive way.
You teach people to achieve happiness by showing them ways to navigate their mental & physical world in such a way that they can enjoy their journey.
And one of the most effective ways to enjoy one’s journey is to adopt a healthy attitude that allows one to appreciate life experiences regardless of one’s circumstances.
Suggesting that being anything but happy all the time isn’t a healthy way to view life.
Making people feel bad about feeling bad isn’t terribly effective at making people happy either.
The fact is, there is nothing inherently wrong with being unhappy.
“The ability to feel a full range of emotions and different states of being is an important part of the human experience.
It’s ok not to be happy. And in many cases, a large part of personal growth is dependent on recognizing when one is not happy and then actively working through it.”
Sometimes that journey will be difficult and life won’t be fair.
Again, that’s life.
“It’s ok to have negative emotions. It’s ok to make mistakes. These are an essential part of life and how we learn. But it’s important to not let these things hold us back or lock us into a cycle of self-pity.
Instead, we can use negative emotions and feelings of discontent as the motivation to initiate positive changes in our lives.”
We may not like everything that happens to us in life and we may not always be happy as a result of what happens, but we can always choose our attitude when dealing with it.
A bad attitude inhibits happiness. And when we are happy, a positive attitude accentuates it.
It’s not happiness that’s a choice, it’s attitude.
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“We actually have as little choice about wanting to become happy as the heart does about pumping blood. We’re incapable of wanting not to become happy. The pursuit of happiness isn’t merely an inalienable right with which we’re endowed or an activity we’re capable of choosing; it’s psychological law we must obey. Even people who appear to want nothing to do with happiness, like those so immersed in self-hatred that their principle aim becomes self-sabotage, will say they haven’t lost their desire for happiness so much as ceased to believe they deserve it” — Alex Lickerman, MD (From: The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self)
It has been said that discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most. But knowing what you truly want and why you want it can be as important as the discipline necessary to attain it.
Without a genuine internal desire to accomplish a very specific “something”, it can not only be difficult to do what is necessary meet a goal, it can be difficult to simply find the motivation to get started.
While motivation from external sources such as inspirational quotes, self-help books, or motivational speakers may temporarily set fire to our desire to achieve, these fires are often quick to burn out.
Zig Ziglar said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.”
This is a clever saying, but it’s more of a crutch for motivation than an elegant long-lasting solution.
As I’ve said before…
“You can read a million motivational sayings to pump yourself up — or echo them to others until you’re blue in the face — but that won’t change anything unless you take action and consistently change your behavior.”
This isn’t to say there is anything wrong with using external motivation as a tool. It works. But the size of the self-help industry is an indication that external motivation doesn’t last.
When one’s motivation is dependent on external sources, the moment those sources are absent is the moment one’s motivation begins to fade. This is because motivation is a state of mind.
And if a particular state of one’s mind is dependent on the availability of things it doesn’t always have control over, it can be difficult to attain the state of mind associated with those things when they’re unavailable.
This is why it’s important to learn how to develop the mental discipline necessary to be one’s own source of motivation.
“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.” — Stephen R. Covey
When one is able to motivate themselves, they light a kind of fire that can burn indefinitely. And for these kinds of fires to be set alight, one must know what they want and why they want it — even if what one wants is to simply to seek pleasure from something or the satisfaction of accomplishment.
It has been said that 90 percent of success is showing up. I disagree.
I’d say, the largest contributor to success is knowing exactly what you want. The next largest is having the proper motivation to achieve it. And the remaining amount, roughly 20 percent, is doing what is necessary to get results.
(This also complements The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule) which states that, in most endeavors, roughly 20% of the work produces 80% of the results.)
Along the way to achieving whatever it is you desire, make sure your mindset is conducive to creating positive thought processes that reinforce your efforts.
Because until one changes the way they think, they will continue to follow familiar patterns in life. An example of this is when people start new endeavors with enthusiasm (or make New Year’s resolutions), but then fail to find the motivation necessary to follow through after obstacles arise.
The fire you light within yourself must not only burn hot enough to stay alight during turbulent times, it mustn’t be dependent on things you have no control over.
“Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.” — Les Brown
Create and maintain your own motivation by having a clear understanding of what you want and why you want it and then reinforce your positive thought process to achieve it until it becomes not just a habit, but a way of life.
“Everything you want should be yours: the type of work you want; the relationships you need; the social, mental, and aesthetic stimulation that will make you happy and fulfilled; the money you require for the lifestyle that is appropriate to you; and any requirement that you may (or may not) have for achievement or service to others. If you don’t aim for it all, you’ll never get it all. To aim for it requires that you know what you want.” — Richard Koch
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“Greater in battle than the man who would conquer a thousand-thousand men, is he who would conquer just one — himself. Better to conquer yourself than others.When you’ve trained yourself, living in constant self-control, neither a deva nor gandhabba, nor a Mara banded with Brahmas, could turn that triumph back into defeat.” — Buddha
Your ability to listen to and take action based on your inner voice — regardless of how you feel, other influences, or temptations you face — is the key to self-mastery.
When you increase (or decrease) your discipline in one area, it increases (or decreases) your discipline in all areas that require self-control.
Like a muscle, the more you exercise self-control on a consistent basis, the stronger you get. As your self-control increases, the more you gain the ability to direct your life in a manner that is congruent with the true you. The more congruent your actions are with your thoughts and feelings, the better you feel about yourself and the decisions you make. Every time you feel good about a decision you make, it raises your self-esteem and your self-confidence. You also reinforce in your mind what you are capable of and it makes it less difficult to make similar decisions in life.
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There are some memes making their way across social networks these days claiming that, “People don’t change.”
Obviously, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Every experience we have provides us with information that either reaffirms something we already believe, alters a belief we already have, or creates a completely new belief.
Whenever a person’s belief changes or they acquire a new belief, the person the new or altered belief changes.
If you’ve ever thought “Well, I’m not going to do that again!” or “Well, that didn’t work. I guess I’ll try it a different way next time”, it’s proof that you’ve grown. And growth is change.
If you want to expedite the process of personal growth, then give yourself and others the freedom to change.
Be a person who believes in the possibility of positive change because it is often the belief in something that creates the possibility.
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