Last Phone Call

“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?”
Stephen Levine

How would you feel if you were told that you were going to die soon, that you only had a short time left to live. Most of us would feel panicky, because we would realize just how many things that we wanted to do before we die, that have been left undone because we always assumed that there would be plenty of time to do them in the future. Usually, it is only a diagnosis like this that makes people realize what is really important to them, and what has been neglected for too long.

Our lives tend to be filled with trivia. We are constantly bombarded with messages from different people trying to get our attention, and we often react by ignoring all of them, even the ones that would be important to us. We spend our lives reacting to whatever life throws at us without stopping to reflect on whether it is important or not. Many of us long for peace and quiet to just stop and think. Few of us really know what we value most in life until it, or life, is taken away from us.

“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?” The truth is that none of us know how much more time we have to live. We might even drop dead without warning, it does happen. So it’s important to first of all stop and really think about who and what you value, and secondly to let the person know or to celebrate the things. Don’t just think how much you love them, actively show it. Make the world better.

Rest

Make rest a neccesity,not an objective.Only rest long enough to gather strenghth. -- Jim Rohn

We all need rest. To run ourselves into the ground does nobody any good. We can't be so focused on working that we ignore our health and welfare. We all know workoholics and they are not healthy people. We need time to rest and rejeuvenate ourselves. We all know that very often it is when we are quiet and relaxed that we get ideas for how to proceed, and when we come back to the task at hand we can cope with it a lot better.

So rest is a necessity if we are to efficiently cope with the inevitable problems and obstacles we have. We need to make an appointment with ourselves to have a time of rest every day where we can be quiet and will not be disturbed. If we fail to schedule a time of rest, it will be forgotten amongst all the other things we have scheduled.

The next question is how long to rest. Only rest long enough to gather strength. Only rest long enough that you feel ready to tackle your problem or obstacle again with new understanding and new strength. If you rest too long, you are wasting valuable time that could be spend overcoming obstacles, solving problems and moving forward to your goals. You will start to feel lazy and sluggish and unmotivated if you rest too long.

Even with resting, there is a window of opportunity. Make sure you catch it. You must rest every day, but only until you are ready to tackle the next step with enthusiasm, and newfound strength and wisdom. The turtle probably won the race against the hare because he stopped to rest but not for too long.

Helping Hand

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm ... As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
Audrey Hepburn

You have a helping hand at the end of your arm. What this means is that you can't expect other people to help you. They are often busy helping themselves at the time when you need them. And if they did come and help you, they do not necessarily have your best interests at heart. They quite possibly don't even know what you really want. They may also have ideas about what you "should" want. This is why it is best that you help yourself when at all possible. Only you can truly know what the best solution is for you.

On the other hand, sometimes you can't help yourself. You might not have access to the necessary resources right now. You might not have adequate knowledge about the subject you are trying to deal with. In cases like that, you can and should ask for help from others.

"As you get older you will discover that you have two hands. One for helping yourself, the other for helping others". It feels good to help others when they really need it. It makes us feel useful and valuable. We are meant to help others along when they are struggling. But only when they are struggling. If they don't really need your help, they are likely to resent it. And that doesn't do anyone any good. The trick is to know when people really need your help, and what help you can provide. But once you do, don't hesitate to offer a helping hand whenever it is needed. It's good for you, and it is good for them. Everyone wins.

Love, Foregiveness, Faith, and Hope

To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
G. K. Chesterton

It is easy to love something that is loveable. It is easy to forgive minor slights. It is easy to beleive what makes sense to us. And it is easy to hope when life is going your way. But our lives were not meant to be easy. We were meant to learn and grow, and as much as we don't like it, to learn and grow means to encounter obstacles, problems, and difficulties. An easy life is a boring life, and ultimately one full of fear.

Can you love the unlovable, foregive the unforegivable, beleive the unbeleivable, or hope when everything seems hopeless? This is the true test of character, of faith, motivation, and success.

Remember the times when you needed love and foregiveness the most. It was of course at those times when you were at your most unloveable and unforgivable. Is it fair to deny your love and foregiveness to other people at the time when they need it most? It is likewise when everything seems hopeless that you, and others, need hope the most. It is when good things seem impossible that you need faith the most. The time to give is the time when whatever you have to give is needed the most. But those times are the ones when it is the most difficult for us to give.

Practise loving more and more unloveable things; and forgiving more and more unforgivable acts (this does not mean you have to approve of them, but you need to distance yourself from them emotionally). Practise faith and hope when you are more and more unsure that anything good will come from the situation you find yourself in. In this way, you refine and strengthen your character, and that will increase your success.

Limited

“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets.”
Nido Qubein

How focused are you? We live in a society in which thousands of marketing messages are constantly bombarding us, let alone all the messages from the people around us. Some people can’t get off their cell phones even when they are in the bathroom. We are constantly being encouraged to look at this and do that. It can be completely overwhelming, unless you are able to prioritize which messages are really improtant. You don’t know what’s really important unless you have very clear goals so that you can choose to only pay attention to messages that are relevant to what you intend to acheive.

“A jack of all trades is a master of none”. We only have a limited amount of time and energy and money, so it only makes sense not to waste it on things that aren’t going to produce the results we really want. What results are produced when you watch TV? Does it help you move towards realizing your goals? Unless you’re watching educational TV, the answer is almost certainly no. So why watch it? Why not go out there and do something that does help you acheive the things you want most?

The fewer things you focus on, the faster you will see results. If you work on one goal at a time, and you can give it all your attention and energy, and even money, imagine how much faster you will acheive that goal. If you are thinking about many different things at once, you can’t move forwards very far on any one of them. When you can’t move forwards on any one thing, you will start to feel overwhelmed and frustrated and inclined to quit working on any of them. Start today to only focus on one goal at a time. Concentrate on that until it is acheived. Then move onto your next goal. That’s the way to really get things done so you can acheive what you want.

Simplify

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
Hans Hofmann

Our lives get pretty complicated. We are bombarded with messages that our lives will not be complete unless we buy whatever they are selling. Our society encourages us to have as many things as it takes to keep up with the Jones’s. It has become a status symbol to have the most, biggest, fastest, and most expensive, things. We accumulate as many things as much as we can manage. Our lives get bogged down in the details of finding them, getting them, looking after them, and worrying about them.

Our error is that we have not thought about which of those things are really important to us and which of them we have acquired in order to impress others and which of them we acquired because they seemed appealing at the time. How many things have you bought, and then realized that this was not what you really wanted after all, it just didn’t bring you the sense of satisfaction or even happiness that you had hoped for? Many of the things we have are simply unnecessary. They just take up space, in our minds as well as in the physical world.

We need to be able to tell the difference between what is necessary and what is unnecessary. Then we need to get rid of the unnecessary things, so that we can find and focus on the things we really want and need. If we don’t, finding the good stuff can be like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s pretty difficult. It is only when we rid our lives of everything except those things that we really want and need, that we can find what we want. And when we get rid of all the fluff, there will be room left for even more good things to come into our life. Simplify your life and you will be rewarded.

Shadows

Never fear shadows.... that always means there is a light shining somewhere. -- Jonathan Santos

We are very fearful creatures. We are always afraid that the worst will come to the worst. We are afraid that something will go wrong, that we will make a mistake, that other people will laugh at us. We are afraid of having a problem that we can't fix. We even talk about it being "the end of the world" if something really bad happens to us. But it isn't the end of the world. The trick lies in getting ourselves to really beleive that.

We will never live in a world where bad things never happen. God sends us bad things for several reasons. One is to prove to us that we can cope with whatever happens (life goes on). Another is to show us how strong our integrity, dedication to our goal, and character is. A third motive is to help us realize what we need to know about ourselves in order to improve. God never sends us bad things to punish us or make us miserable.

Never fear shadows.... that always means there is a light shining somewhere. There is always a lesson to be learned from whatever happens to us, and it is up to us to find it. We need to train ourselves to look for the light that is shining somewhere.
Whenever something "bad" happens, no matter what it is, we need to ask ourselves "What is God trying to show me here. What is the lesson I can learn from this, either about myself or about other people or both? How can I use it for my own improvement?". So often, a disaster becomes a blessing in disquise. If we learn to ask the right questions, this will happen all the time.

Closed Doors

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
Alexander Graham Bell

Frustration is not a pleasant feeling. We don’t like to be thwarted in our actions. Anything that keeps us from doing what we think we need to do is resented and feared. We get angry. We regret that we could not finish our plans and thus achieve what we wanted to. We are stuck spinning our wheels because we don’t know what to do next. Often it seems like there isn’t anything that we can do to acheive our goal. We made our plans and pinned our hopes of success onto them, and without them we are lost.

When something unexpected happens that prevents us from following our plans, we get upset because it shows us that we are not in control of our world. We want everything to go the way we want it to, the way we planned it to. But the world doesn’t work like that, and that’s a good thing because we often have very limited vision and understanding of the best way to acheive something.

God knows better than we do. It tries to nudge us in the right direction. Unfortunately we are so attached to our plans that we don’t even notice God’s nudges. We are staring so regretfully at our failed plans that we don’t notice the new and better opportunity to get what we want. Don’t let that happen to you. Focus on your goals; and if your first plan doesn’t work out, watch and wait for a better plan to come to you. It will.

Closed Doors

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
Alexander Graham Bell

Frustration is not a pleasant feeling. We don’t like to be thwarted in our actions. Anything that keeps us from doing what we think we need to do is resented and feared. We get angry. We regret that we could not finish our plans and thus achieve what we wanted to. We are stuck spinning our wheels because we don’t know what to do next. Often it seems like there isn’t anything that we can do to acheive our goal. We made our plans and pinned our hopes of success onto them, and without them we are lost.

When something unexpected happens that prevents us from following our plans, we get upset because it shows us that we are not in control of our world. We want everything to go the way we want it to, the way we planned it to. But the world doesn’t work like that, and that’s a good thing because we often have very limited vision and understanding of the best way to acheive something.

God knows better than we do. It tries to nudge us in the right direction. Unfortunately we are so attached to our plans that we don’t even notice God’s nudges. We are staring so regretfully at our failed plans that we don’t notice the new and better opportunity to get what we want. Don’t let that happen to you. Focus on your goals; and if your first plan doesn’t work out, watch and wait for a better plan to come to you. It will.

Comparison

“Nothing is good or bad but by comparison.”
Thomas Fuller

We are always comparing, even if we don’t realize that we are doing it. Sometimes we compare what we have with what our neighbor has. Sometimes we compare what we have with what we used to have. Sometimes we compare what we have with what we have seen in a store or book or an advertisement. Sometimes we compare what we have with something we have created in our imagination. But we are always comparing what we have right now with something else. And most of the time, what we have right now seems less desirable than the other thing that we are comparing it with.

Our egos are always dissatisfied with what we have. We always feel incomplete, as though there were something lacking in our lives. And we are continually searching for it. But whatever we find is soon inadequate again, because the truth is that there is no thing outside ourselves that will make us complete. We are already complete. We don’t need anything else. All we really need to be happy and satisfied and peaceful is to be able to appreciate and enjoy the things that we have in our life right now, without any comparison and negative judgement.

When was the last time you were perfectly content with the things you have right now? Probably never. Imagine how much happier you would be if you were. Wouldn’t it be wonderful not to be always pressured to get something better, to need something you don’t have? Wouldn’t it be wonderful never to have to worry about whether you deserved whatever it is that you don’t have right now, or whether you have the ability and resources to get it? If you stopped judging whatever you have right now as being inferior to something else, then you could finally relax and enjoy the things you have. You could finally find true happiness.

Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and endless plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too.
-Goethe

Some people hate to commit themselves to anything. They like to keep their options open. They are afraid that if they commit themselves to doing something, it may not work out for them. They don’t commit themselves to marriage, for example, because they are afraid that if the relationship turns sour they will be stuck with it because it will be difficult to get a divorce. They just don’t want to take that risk. So they drift from one person to another, searching for a relationship that is foolproof. Unfortunately the only things that are guaranteed are death and taxes.

If you keep your options open, you are saying to “God” (or spirit or the Universe or whatever you would like to call the higher power) that you don’t think any one of them is very important and/or you don’t beleive that any of them will work out for you. You essentially don’t know what you really want. “God”, then, doesn’t know how to help you. It is only when you choose an option that is so important to you that you are determined to make it work, that “God” can know what you need.

Once you commit yourself to one particular option, then “God” will provide you with whatever you need to make that thing happen. When you are commited to acheiving something, then your heart and mind will be focused on it. You will be much more motivated to make it work, because you have effectively cut off your escape routes. There’s no going back. You have taken a big risk, and so you expect that risk to pay off for you. And with “God’s” help, it will.

Barriers

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

We’ve all heard about “looking for love in all the wrong places”. It’s such a commonplace experience that it’s become a cliche. Why do we look for love in all the wrong places? Where is the right place to look for love? Why can’t we ever find enough love in our lives? It’s because all we know is conditional love. We have all had a broken heart at some time or another. We have all encountered people who didn’t love us enough.

Because we all know what it feels like to be rejected, to be hurt, we have put up barriers inside ourselves to try and protect us against being hurt in the future. Deep down, we expect to be hurt by the people we love. Sometimes we are so afraid of being hurt that we simply stay away from other people; which, of course, guarantees us that we won’t find the love we need and deserve.

Sometimes we are shy. Sometimes we are cocky, perhaps boastful and arrogant, in an attempt to convince ourselves and others that we beleive other people will like us, which has the effect of making other people not like us. Sometimes we just plain resent everyone for not loving us before they have had a chance to figure out for themselves what they think of us. There are all kinds of different barriers we erect within ourselves to try and prevent being hurt. And they all backfire on us, making us more hurt than ever.

Love is all around us, if we are brave enough to cast aside our doubts and fears. It is our barriers against hurt that are preventing us from finding the love we crave. Once again, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. It is when we take down our barriers and become most vulnerable, that we find the love we thought we never could.

Less Difficult

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other”
George Eliot

What do you live for? I think most of us struggle between our own selfish needs and a real urge to help others. It is a struggle because we can’t be really happy unless we look after our own needs and desires, which frequently conflict with what other people want, or expect, of us. We want what we want, not what other people want. We know how unsatisfying it feels to do what someone else wants that goes against what we want. That’s the thing. We end up feeling resentful of others who “make” us do things we don’t want to do. And chances are, we’re not going to do a very good job of it anyway. They aren’t going to be happy with it.

Yet we do want to help other people. Perhaps what we need is to find a way to do that without sacrificing our own needs and desires in the process. It turns out that the only time you can help other people is when you can think about the person and feel good at the same time. It is when you can expect the other person to succeed at whatever it is that they want to acheive because you beleive that they can do it. The truth is that helping other people helps ourselves too. We live to make life less difficult for each other. Helping others makes us feel good about ourself. But only when we aren’t sacrificing what we want in order to give them what they want

Success

“Success is merely the process of fulfilling your own hopes and dreams–not the standards set by society, but by the standards set by you.”
George Pataki

If success is the process of fulfilling your own hopes and dreams, clearly the first step is to have your own hopes and dreams. Other people are very happy to tell us what we should be doing. Some of them are great at manipulating us into thinking that their wishes are what we want too. Often parents try to persuade their child to follow in the same career footsteps as they did. Or perhaps they encourage him to take a more prestigious career path even though it isn’t the right thing for him. He might well go on to have a prestigious job, but if he isn’t thriving and happy in it, he isn’t really successful.

Society has it’s own set of standards too. Some jobs are considered as more desirable than others. It is not just parents that encourage us to go for a more high-paying and prestigious job. There is a general understanding that it is better to get a university education than one from a community college. But society ignores the fact that some people would be more successful graduating from a community college and getting a job that is not prestigious.

It is time for you to set your own standards. Don’t let your parents, or society, or anyone else tell you what is best for you. Only you can know that. Only you can know what it is that you really want and value. Only you can define what success means to you. Once you have established what your own individual hopes and dreams are, then all you need to do is to fulfill them. Start taking action towards acheiving your dreams as soon as you have defined them. There is no time to lose.

Rage

“Even raw and messy emotions are a form of light, crackling, bursting with energy. We can use that light of rage in a positive way, in order to see into places we cannot usually see.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

You can learn a lot from your anger. Most people just use it to think of a way to get back at someone who has hurt them. It fuels their thinking that something is wrong with the other person. It tells them that they don’t like the other person at the moment, and that they want to hurt them in the same way that they have hurt us. But anger can be used more constructively that that.

Anger can be used to show you something about yourself that you had chosen not to see before. It could show you how quick you are to judge a situation in which another person is not doing what you want them to do not because they are purposely being mean to you but are simply thinking about something else, or even because they misunderstood what you wanted.

A favorite story illustrating this is the one about two people who agreed to meet at the statue in the park. Each one sat for hours waiting for the other and growing angrier all the time. The next day they talked to each other and realized that there were actually two statues in the park and each person waited at a different statue. There was just a misunderstanding about where to wait. How often does this kind of situation happen in your life?

Your anger can also be used to show you what you really value and what your goals in life really are. Most people don’t stop to think about WHY they are angry; they just figure the important thing is that they are angry and that it is the other person’s fault. The truth is that it is not about the other person at all, your emotions come from your own interpretation of what the other person has done. Once you realize what this interpretation is, then you can change it to something more closer to the truth. Use the light of rage in this positive way.

Thankful

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
Oprah Winfrey

You get what you are thinking about. This is because you see what you expect to see, and what you see (how you perceive the situation) determines your actions. You get what you expect to get. Most of us are focused on needing to acquire something we don’t yet have. We think we need it in order to be happy so consequently we expect to be not happy until we get it. Since we see that what we already have is inadequate, since we are missing this one special thing, we end up beleiving that we can’t be happy right now. We effectively put our lives on hold until we can get the thing that we beleive will finally make us happy.

If we concentrate on what we don’t have, we will never have enough. We will be perpetually dissatisfied with our lives. because something will always be missing. We are so distracted by focusing on the one (or few) things that we don’t have yet, that we are blinded to all the things that we already have. We can’t see the blessings all around us. And if we can’t see them, we can’t be thankful for them.

The only way to gain true happiness is to be thankful for what you already have. It is important to recognize the distinction between needing more and wanting more. The truth is that you don’t need anything in order to make you happy, although there are many things that would be welcomed. You already have enough, and when you realize that, you will be grateful for it. You will be aware of all the multitude of blessings all around you, and be filled with joy, love, and gratitude.

Criticism

Make your burning desire stronger than the fault-finding and criticisms of others. When your desire burns brighter than the sting of criticism, then criticism has no sting, and nothing can or will stop you.”
Matt Furey

It is so much easier to do something when we have the support of the people around us. But often they don’t approve of what we are trying to do, and they’re not shy about telling us so. We all too often give up on our dream in an effort to please the people around us, or at least because we don’t like to hear their critisism. It hurts.

We tend to listen to our friends and family because we think that perhaps they know something that we don’t know. Maybe they are right. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea after all. We end up trying to second-guess ourselves. We pay attention to their words. We beleive them more than we beleive ourselves. It is only when we beleive ourselves more than we beleive them that we can ignore what they say, and plough ahead on the strength of our convictions. We must beleive in ourselves, in our choices, and in our ability to fulfill them, before we can not listen to the critisism around us.

When we are so sure about our choices and we desire our goals so much that we can ignore what other people are saying about how we shouldn’t or can’t do it, then nothing can stop us. The critisism of others is the last barrier between you and your success. When you want something so much that you don’t care what anyone thinks about you or your goals, it is only a matter of time before you will get it. Your desire will be burning so bright that you won’t even see any obstacles. Success is yours.

Shine

“People are like stained glass windows; they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.”
Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Stained glass windows are truly beautiful when the light is shining on them. Their colors come alive. They sparkle and shine. But when there is no light, a stained glass window looks depressing. It looks even worse than a regular window would because we know of its potential. We know it can look much better than this. If only there was a light to shine on it and reveal it for what it was meant to be.

We are like a stained glass window. It is easy for us to sparkle when a light is shining on us. For us, the light that is shining on us, our sunlight, is usually praise and admiration from other people. This is what makes us happy and motivates us to show the beauty of who we are. We feel sometimes that we have to have someone else to show it to in order for it to be real. But if they’re not watching, does the beauty fade?

Whether we still have that beauty when we are by ourselves, or more importantly, when other people don’t approve of us, depends on our character. It depends on whether there is a light turned on inside ourselves. Some people have forgotten what beauty really is. Some resent it and try to destroy it in others because they don’t see it in themselves. These people are completely dependant on the approval of others for them to shine. Their inside light has been turned off. But truly happy and successful people have an inside light. Their true beauty is always visible because they value it enough to shine their own light on it regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Handicap

A true handicap is what we don’t do with what we have, not what we can’t do with what we don’t have.
Christopher Brewer

We tend to be always focused on what we don’t have. We tend to define ourselves by what we don’t have. “I am poor because I don’t have the mansion that the guy down the street does.” “I am unsuccessful because I don’t have the glamorous job that the woman on TV does”. “I am stupid because I don’t have the graduate degree that my neighbor has.” It’s always about keeping up with the Jone’s when the Jone’s have something that you don’t have. We measure ourselves by what other people have instead of by what we have.

Of course, if we don’t have something, we can’t do anything with it. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t do anything at all. We can do something with what we do have. We can define ourselves by what we have and not by what other people have. Although we can’t change what other people do and have, we can change what we do with what we have. In that respect, we do have control over the way we see ourselves and consequently the person we are becoming.

A true handicap is what we don’t do with what we have. When we don’t use our god-given skills and talents to improve our lives and the lives of the people around us, we are just wasting them, wasting who we are. It is the most important task of our life to come to understand what our own skills and talents are and how we can use them in the most effective ways. That is what ultimately gives meaning to our lives, and gives us a reason to be here. Instead of wishing that we could have whatever someone else has, we need to make the most of what we ourselves have so that we can be just as successful in our own unique and valuable ways.

Upset

“Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year’s time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings.”
Andre Maurois

I have found myself getting into this kind of situation a lot lately. I think a lot of it is unforgiveness. We resent the fact that somebody did something that we didn’t want them to do. Perhaps we feel that they didn’t pay enough attention to us, or praise us enough, or give us what we feel we deserve. Our ego loves to remind us that we are not getting enough from other people. So we complain about it; and typically blame everyone involved except the people who could do anything about it anyway. And all the time we just feel worse.

We literally waste our time brooding about things that can’t be changed because they are in the past. The ego has a powerful influence over us. Instead of focusing on what should have happened, or on what shouldn’t have happened, we would do much better to start thinking about how we could solve that problem situation, or get to work on something that we enjoy. We can change the present to make a brighter future, but the past is over and done with.

With hindsight, we will be able to see how trivial this situation we have allowed ourselves to get so upset about really was. Our life is too short to waste it worrying over things that can’t be changed and ultimately aren’t important anyway. Eventually everyone will have forgotten them, even ourselves. “Let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings”. Let us focus on creating a brighter future and a better world for everyone. Let us focus on the things that really matter, so that we can be really successful.

Brick Walls

“Brick walls are not there to keep us out; brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”
Randy Pausch

For most of us obstacles are very frustrating. We don’t like to see them. We are sure that they are keeping us from obtaining our goals so we resent them for being there. How dare anything make it difficult to get what I want. We want it to be easy to acheive our goals. The quicker and the less work we have to do the better. But if it was quick and easy to acheive our goals, they would not be satisfying to us and we would not value our acheivements much.

Obstacles don’t have to stop us from acheiving what we want. Generally when they do it is because we don’t beleive in our abilities or because we don’t beleive in our goal. Many of us lack self-confidence. We are secretly looking for reasons why we can’t accomplish something, in order to prove to ourselves that we aren’t good enough, and any obstacle makes a convenient excuse. We expect to fail so we do fail, because we let our obstacles stop us from succeeding.

Like everything else in our life, our obstacles are sent to us in order to teach us a lesson about ourselves. They are not sent to us in order to annoy and frustrate us. They are sent to us to demonstrate to ourselves just how serious we are about obtaining our goal. The truth is that if we are really determined to succeed, and are completely focused on our goal, we won’t even notice those obstacles. They won’t be a problem. We’ll just ignore them and brush them aside. Instead of complaining about the problem, we’ll be working on the solution. We’ll be strategizing and planning the answers to any challenges and creating systems to make sure the problem doesn’t come up again. We’ll successfully acheive our goal.

Keep on Going

“Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.”
Charles Kettering

This is one of the biggest reasons why it is so important to be taking action towards your goal, and to keep taking action until you finally acheive your goal. If you wait until you know the perfect action to take, then you will never get started. That’s called procrastination.

It is unrealistic to expect that we will know exactly what to do before we actually do anything. Nobody does. As we know, the most important thing is just to get started, as soon as we have a clear enough understanding of the situation to think of a way that we just might be able to move towards our goal.

The first step of a journey is always the hardest. The truth is that once you are out there doing things, making mistakes and learning from them, then you will be stumbling upon things that will help clarify the next step you should take, or even that make clear what the pathway ahead will be like. You will be noticing things that you didn’t notice before. You will feel more and more confident that you are moving towards your goal. You just can’t get all of this from just sitting there and visualizing success. There’s no substitute for action. Keep going and watch out for the things you’ll be stumbling upon.

Concentrating

“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets.”
Nido Qubein

How focused are you? We live in a society in which thousands of marketing messages are constantly bombarding us, let alone all the messages from the people around us. Some people can’t get off their cell phones even when they are in the bathroom. We are constantly being encouraged to look at this and do that. It can be completely overwhelming, unless you are able to prioritize which messages are really improtant. You don’t know what’s really important unless you have very clear goals so that you can choose to only pay attention to messages that are relevant to what you intend to acheive.

“A jack of all trades is a master of none”. We only have a limited amount of time and energy and money, so it only makes sense not to waste it on things that aren’t going to produce the results we really want. What results are produced when you watch TV? Does it help you move towards realizing your goals? Unless you’re watching educational TV, the answer is almost certainly no. So why watch it? Why not go out there and do something that does help you acheive the things you want most?

The fewer things you focus on, the faster you will see results. If you work on one goal at a time, and you can give it all your attention and energy, and even money, imagine how much faster you will acheive that goal. If you are thinking about many different things at once, you can’t move forwards very far on any one of them. When you can’t move forwards on any one thing, you will start to feel overwhelmed and frustrated and inclined to quit working on any of them. Start today to only focus on one goal at a time. Concentrate on that until it is acheived. Then move onto your next goal. That’s the way to really get things done so you can acheive what you want.

Miracles

Miracles: You do not have to look for them. They are there, 24-7, beaming like radio waves all around you. Put up the antenna, turn up the volume - snap… crackle… this just in, every person you talk to is a chance to change the world…”
Hugh Elliott

Do you believe in miracles? They sound too good to be true. Or maybe they could happen to someone else but not to you. Pigs might fly. You may have read about a miracle that happened to someone and thought “There must be some scientific explanation for that somewhere”. We aren’t willling to accept the existance of something we don’t understand. We don’t understand that life itself is a miracle. We just take it for granted.

Miracles are going on all around us but we don’t see them because we are not looking for them. We are not even acknowledging their existance. Have you thought about how miraculous your life is lately; to say nothing of the sheer diversity of life forms? We are unaware of the miracles around us because we are focusing on the practical and urgent matters of our life. We don’t have time for anything that we can’t take action to fix. If it is not being a problem, it seems not worth our time. We fail to see what is going right in the world.

More importantly, we fail to see how we ourselves participate in the miracles around us. We figure that we are too insignificant, or perhaps too incompetant, to have much of an effect on anything. But even the smallest things we do can work miracles. By saying a few kind words to someone, we might have saved his life. By making an idle comment, we might inspire someone to do something really significant. Every person we talk to, everything we do, is a chance to change the world. Our awareness of that fact is what allows us to change the world for the better.