nothing changes if nothing changes

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
Albert Einstein

What has changed for you this past year?   What is better?   What is worse?

Imagine yourself in one year, what will have changed?   What do you want to have changed?

I would imagine that if you are reading this you already have a mindset to create change in your life on a regular basis.   You’re driven to do better in multiple areas and you work on making improvements so that you are continually growing.

What are you unsatisfied with in your life?   What is holding you back from addressing that issue or area?   [What would it take for you really focus on that area that you want to change? ]

What will you learn this coming year?  What is that one area that you want to grow in?

Here’s something to latch onto when you are deciding not to make a change in your life.  “Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives, and we obey them without realizing it.” Vincent Van Gogh

Search your emotions if you are struggling to make positive changes in your life.

Make the start of the New Year at great start.

break free from the ego

“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.”
― Eckhart Tolle

It was holding him back from being the person he wanted to be.   He wanted more and knew that he had it within to do more and at the end of the day little got done.   The ego held his hand back from making a call, from finishing the last touches on a piece of work, and from realizing his dreams.

I’ve heard from many people the story of wanting more and doing less.   The ego always stepped in fear filled and delayed action.   Procrastination is a sign of an ego that is not pleased with past results.  Perfectionism always says it isn’t good enough.   The ego fears rejection and would rather see things delayed or not getting done at all seeped in a belief that it wouldn’t be good enough.

Courage is the antidote to inaction.   The courage to take action, to push against the ego and see beyond the fear is what will open the door to freedom.    The “ego” that is pushed beyond its own fear will be able to grow.  With growth there are opportunities that were hidden.   The abundant life is behind the door that is being blocked by the ego.

For most people pushing the ego aside so that they can confront their fears is hard to do, it doesn’t happen easily.   Believing that you don’t have what you need to be successful is to believe in the voice of the ego.  Believing that you have what you need now to do what needs to be done is the first step to living an authentic life.

What is the ego saying to you?

What is preventing you from living life fully?

What is stopping you from living out your dreams?

Listen to yourself.  What are the feelings that show up when you read those questions?   What is the truth about you?

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”   Anais Nin

10 rules to improve performance

Don’t mistake activity with achievement.”
― John Wooden

What rules do you work by or live by?   Are the rules supporting your growth and success or are they pushing you backwards?

Many people are living by rules they aren’t even aware of.  Rules of living that lead to procrastination, poor time management, small expectations, negative self-talk and worse.   What you do each day is dictated by the rules that govern your life.   If you exercise you have a rule for exercising.   If you are overweight you have rules that permit you to eat more than you need.   If you are unhappy you have rules that allow you to stay unhappy.

The rules you live by support the results you get each day.  If you don’t like the rules you are living by then it is time to change them.  Live by a new set of rules.

Robin Sharma shares some rules(in bold) that can improve your daily results.  Here they are:

#1. Generosity beats scarcity in every situation.

– Implement the rule by living by this statement.  “I am generous”

#2. If you’re the most successful person in every room, find a new room.

– Implement a new rule here, “I am growing”

#3. If you’re not up early, you’re sleeping too late.

-Change your rule to, “I get up early.”

#4. Epic performance has more to do with saying no than saying yes.

-Manage your time better by, “I carefully choose what I do.”

#5. Commit to becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of your craft.

-Improve your performance by:  “I am an expert”

#6. Get fit so you can serve more people.

-Master your health with the rule, “I am healthy”

#7. Impact is a better measure of success than income.

-Create a rule to live more significantly, “I am making a significant contribution.”

#8. A failure only becomes a failure if you let it become a failure.

-Switch your thinking, “I am successful”

#9. Your job is to see the greatness in people who have yet to own the greatness within themselves.

-Help others to succeed, “I am help others be their best”,  take the “ego” out.

#10. Don’t wait to be inspired to start your dream. Start your dream to grow inspired.

– Set goals and work on them, “I work on my goals daily.”

#11. What the victim calls luck, the hero calls relentlessness.

-And, “I create my results.”

What rules do you live by?   What rules do you want to change?   What results do you want this year?

do more great work

“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.”
― William Shakespeare

Are you held back by your own doubts?   Doubt cripples the ability to do great work.   What great work do you want to do?

For some people they are driven to do something great with their life and push on those thoughts everyday, taking action to make things happen.  Others, sit in a cubicle and wish they were doing something else, something that was exciting and used their skills and talents fully.   Are you using your talents fully?

There are those that do have great jobs, great pay and are admired by others but some of those people are plagued with doubt, “Am I good enough to do this work?” or “Is the work I am doing appreciated by anyone.”    I’ve heard stories of people wondering if the work they are doing really matters.    Are you one of those people who is wondering if their work matters?   When I ask them if they have talked to their manager about their work they say, “No, my manager doesn’t have time” or “I’m not sure I should talk to my manager.”   If your manager doesn’t have time to talk to you how would you know how you are doing.   If you feel unsure about talking with your manager then what type of relationship do you have with your manager.   A manager should be serving you and helping you to be your best so that you can do “great work”.

If you aren’t doing great work what is stopping you?

Think gratitude

“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done.
We will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.”
― Mother Teresa

Herbert lives thousands of miles away from his home town to earn enough money to build a school to educate young children.  He doesn’t have to sacrifice so much to make a difference, but to make a difference he has chosen to sacrifice his time, his work, his money, his family and his career.    He doesn’t make excuses for what he does not have, he looks for ways to bridge the gap between what he does have and what he doesn’t have.

Herbert has a vision to transform the lives of young children in Uganda so that they will have the education and resources to contribute to the success of their community and country when they grow up.

Imagine doing your work and being far, far from your home and family so that you could provide the financial resources to help children who aren’t you own.    How many people do you know that give up their lives to support the lives of others?  Probably not many.   Herbert has a dream to help children have a future and not live in poverty.

He would like to see the school rooms and buildings filled with children learning how to learn.  He would like to see parents see a new hope for the future and not like the future they have now.   He would like to see hundreds of children having access to an early childhood education.   Right now, only the rich can afford to send their children to school.  Herbert wants to see all children have the ability to learn and grow.

Herbert would like to have a well drilled so the children could get access to clean running water.   Right now they have to pay for the water and wait in long lines.   I imagine that when you need water it is easy to get and very inexpensive.    A water project can cost as much as $3000, a project that is rarely affordable in the rural areas of Uganda.

We can be grateful that we don’t have haul our own water in containers to our homes as schools.  We can be grateful that we have running water that is available and cheap.   We can be grateful that we have the ability to get young children educated.  We can be grateful that we have schools that are free.   We can be grateful that we don’t have to live and work far away from our homes to support the causes we believe in.

Herbert would be grateful if he could get some regular contributions to help children in Uganda get an education, provide running water for the school and to be able to supply the children with the books and resources that they need.

You can make a donation here:

You can let others know that a small donation can make a huge difference and know that Herbert and his wife would be truly grateful.

New rules, new behavior

“I have a subconscious list of rules for how reality should work. I did not develop these rules on purpose, and most of them don’t make sense – which is disturbing when you consider that they are an attempt to govern the behavior of reality – but they exist, and they play a large role in determining how I react to the things that happen to me. Large enough that a majority of the feelings I feel are simply a reaction to reality not complying with my arbitrary set of rules. ”
― Allie Brosh

Think about the rules you have in your life.  You have rules for everything.  Your life is about rules, like stopping at a train crossing or stopping at a stop sign.

If you are thinking I don’t live by rules then just look at your habits.  You do have habits, things you do, things you say,  the way you approach a problem or the way you tackle each day.  You do have habits and some work for you and some don’t.

Habits are rules that we use to reduce the amount of thinking we have to do.  Habits are programs that run in the background of your consciousness and some work well and some don’t.  If you find yourself doing things that don’t produce great results for you then you might want to change some of the rules you operate by.

Sometimes the issue is trying to find the rules that you want to change so that you can change them.  Some habits/rules are so embedded in our daily life that we aren’t even aware of them.   Becoming aware of those “hidden” rules is the first step to creating positive change.    What rules are running your life the way you don’t want them to?   What would you like to change?

life as a car wreck

“All of us are in the manufacturing industry – manufacturing either our own happiness or unhappiness.”
― Ogwo David Emenike

Does your life feel like it is spinning out of control?   Does it seem more like a demolition derby than the life you were hoping to live?    Does it feel like others are charging into you to stop all movement in your life?

For many people life is out of control.   Time is going by to swiftly.   The sound of disappointment only screams louder.   The cries,”When will things get better?”, echo in your mind.    Other people tug at your for attention.  Friends and family aren’t doing things that please you and you just want them to stop ruining your life.

The carousel spins out of control and all you can do is hold on tighter and think this isn’t how life should be.   When things appear to be out of control or before they get that far, stop and ask yourself “What is it that you really want?”   Take some time to evaluate what it is that you really want.   Many people are getting off the carousel and designing a lifestyle that works for them.  That may mean giving up some of the material items in their life and living in a simpler way.  High paying jobs often come with a lot of stress.   Living from paycheck to paycheck often creates a lot of stress.  In the end it boils down to the choices that are being made.   What choices are you making and are they leading you to the life you want to live?

overcoming resistance

“Be of good cheer. Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.”
― Helen Keller

What are you resisting doing?   It may be as simple as getting out of bed in the morning and resisting starting the day.   You can tell you are resisting taking action on something when you do something else instead of the “one” thing you have on your “I should do list”.   You’ll think about starting doing something and then you’ll do something else, something that is more pleasing.  You’ve been there haven’t you?

Write down a list of things you resist doing.    For each item on that list write down what your feelings about those tasks.   What do you feel (anger, depressed, tired, anxious, …)?

Now, for each item you expressed a feeling for, probably a negative feeling, then ask yourself,

Step a.    “Could I accept this feeling of ____________”.
Step b.   “Could I release this feeling of ____________”.   (Release is to let it go)
Step c.  “Would I release this feeling of ____________”.
Step d.  “When will I release the feeling”.

Ask yourself those questions and go through them.   If you can’t let it go the first time go back and repeat those questions again.

Basically you are giving yourself permission to release the resistance.  Once you have let it go the resistance to completing the task will start lowering.  Tackle the task and get the result you want to get.

Practice those steps and see if you can reduce your reluctance to start and complete things you don’t like to do.

Here’s another approach to overcoming resistance.   Try one.

go beyond your comfort zone …

“Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades bumps and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested And have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK.”
― Katie Couric

Are you ready to break the chains of complacency?   Are you ready to start a new year in a new way to get new results that will lift your life higher than it has been in the past?   Are you ready to make this new year a better year for you?

Get ready to think about ways to change your life.  Take a look at this video.

Make this the day you start your life over with a focus on what you want.

I will change

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
― Apple Inc.

It starts when …

 

Maybe you need to look at yourself in a new way this coming year.   Change is about seeing yourself as you want to be not as you are.

Perhaps you are getting tired of the way things are and have been and you’re ready to look at yourself in a new way and the only problem is taking that first step.   For some taking that first necessary step is scary, take it anyway.   Step across the boundary of fear and start seeing yourself in a new way.

You’ll smile on the inside when you make that step.   When you commit to losing those extra pounds.  When you commit to taking responsibility for your life.   When you commit to doing work you love to do.  When you commit to being authentic.   When you make  a choice to live fully.   When you make a commitment and honor it change will come.

Start today.   Look at the mirror and look deeply into the eyes looking back at you.   What do you want those eyes to say?   What do you want your life to mean?   Honor the truth you have within.