Pick your goals and resolutions wisely. The decisions you make today, tomorrow, and the next day will define who you are next year.
“All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.”
Orison Swett Marden
Celebrate what you want to see more of.
Tom Peters
If you want more joy in your life, create it.
I personally love how Brendon Burchard talks about this. He calls it bringing the joy. Love his energy. Check out his video.
He even gives four ways to create joy in your life and self.
You only need to watch the first 10:45 of the video for our purposes, as the last bit is talking about his services. Which I totally don’t have the money to buy, but if you do, totally keep watching! 😉
I don’t really understand how I can be really low, totally depressed or suffering AND really optimistic and hopeful, feeling kinda pretty good.
But I can. Doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Humans are a lot more complicated than I think we give ourselves credit for.
If we feel more than one thing – we *must* be crazy, with multiple personality disorder or something. Did you know they changed the name of that disorder quite a while ago, to “dissociative identity disorder” or DID? I wonder why they change the names of things so freaking often and no one seems to know.
Anywho, we can feel a huge range of emotions at once. We can be more than one thing at a time. I don’t know about anyone else, but that’s been a foreign ideal to me before now.
I get so tired of people telling me that if I were emotionally unstable, I wouldn’t be able to hide it.
Don’t tell me that.
I am a walking act.
All my painful secrets stay inside.
I haven’t known how I could be anything but ‘happy’ and still feel what I feel, hiding it all the while.
I’m optimistic, I’m hopeful.
But that is not all that I am.
Don’t tell me that if I’m bubbly, smiling, or kind, that I can’t possibly be in pain, physically and emotionally. Don’t tell me, when I open up to you, that this isn’t possible.
Why are people so willing to take everyone at face value and so unwilling to believe that there’s ANYTHING, something, beneath the surface???
I thought I was working on all of this stuff but I found I haven’t even made a dent. I guess getting really sick is good. Health failing obviously equals that something is wrong. It just takes a lot of pain to wake me up.
Then again, I am human. I guess human beings have to realize something over and over again until something pings in just the right way that we’ll believe, too.
The holidays ran me over and have been dragging me down lollipop infested roads. So perhaps I’ll have something more to say next month. 😉
On that note, HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Try not to eat yourself to death. Or children. Don’t eat children either.
You guys already know I’m grateful for my family, the food, clothing, and hotel room we have. So what to post about?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately on what we focus on and it boils down to two words.
Not.
Enough.
I feel like that’s all we focus on. We don’t have enough this, we aren’t enough that. We haven’t done enough of this, we haven’t fixed all of that, or upgraded our new this.
What’s wrong with that you may ask? Well, it’s a snowball. This way of thinking is a spider web. A crack in the glass doors, spiraling out and deeper until the entire door shatters. Leaving us with a mess and a lot to fix.
If only fixing people was as easy as fixing a glass door. But we’re not. We’re much more complicated and there are many more details and sticky strings involved in a single human being than in a million glass doors.
So we should probably try not to brake ourselves too badly if we can at all avoid it.
Humans are hard to fix.
COINCIDENTALLY
Instead of complaining, being upset over what we don’t have, don’t have enough of, or haven’t accomplished, fixed, or finished, why don’t we focus on what we do have. On what we have accomplished, what we have fixed, what we have finished.
Even issues can be a blessing. Every problem can bring something positive. Every issue can stem from a blessing. Everything can be taken multiple ways. It’s all how you look at it.
I’m not saying to take a look at the corpse you left lying around in your basement and decide that because it’s given you soil workable for a high end garden, that it’s a good thing you murdered someone.
I’ve been thinking about this for the past couple of months but I haven’t written anything up on or it even talked about it with anyone. Yesterday I clicked into wordpress and (miracle of all miracles) it loaded! The first blog that popped up on my reader was one by Kristen Lamb. And guess what it was on? Being thankful instead of complaining. I think she sums up pretty well what I’m trying to say here. For example, she says:
“I am thankful for the dishes that need washing, because it means I didn’t go hungry.”
“I am thankful that I sometimes have doubts and confusion about my future and my purpose when I think of the lives cut short before they ever had a future.”
Exactly what I mean. Take your complaints and find the blessing in them.
I’m not saying there aren’t things to complain about. I am living in a hotel and wearing the same clothes over and over again, here. I’m not saying suck it up and get on with your moping self. I’m just saying that focusing on the negative, on all the failings and shortcomings will do nothing positive for us.
Focusing on the good in your life, the blessings, the small things in your life that make it better can only make you happier.
CRISIS = DANGER + OPPORTUNITY
I listened to a few authors talk and answer questions on writing and publishing for free a few months ago, and something the last author touched on really stuck with me. Being the avid note taker I am, I found my notes, as it was on a Chinese character. And I definitely don’t know Chinese. Hence, needed to find the notes.
The Chinese character for “crisis” is made up of two words. “Danger” and “Opportunity”.
Every crisis can be dangerous. But every crisis has the opportunity to bless you, to give you something beneficial to your specific self and circumstance. If you let it help you, if you seize that opportunity. Pretty big “IF”, don’t ya think?
So there it is. That’s what my Thanksgiving post is on. Focusing on the blessings. On the positive. On what makes you happy. Trust me, it will help you to be happier overall. I’m not saying ignore whatever is wrong in your life. No, of course you should work on it. But be happy about whatever is going right in your life. Focus on the good. It could always be worse. And once it does get worse, most of the time we’re stuck wishing we wouldn’t have taken our past circumstances for granted.
Smile for a good reason. It’s there. You just have to allow it in.
What little things are you thankful for? Are there things you complain about that you could probably count as a blessing?
