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Daily Motivation

Thu, Mar 28 2024 9:00 AM (1,939 replies)
  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Sat, Aug 21 2021 8:58 AM

    Saturday, August 21, 2021

    Bestow a little goodness

    Every aspect of your life is connected to every other aspect. Negativity, indolence, or negligence in one area can weigh down your whole world.

    Fortunately, a little goodness in one corner of your experience can begin to lift up all the other parts of your life. When you value and nurture and support that goodness, it will grow.

    Find a new place where you can inject a little positivity. Once you do, you’ll discover other opportunities for doing so in your own life and in the lives of others.

    Often you cannot do anything directly about the troubles that descend on your world. Yet you can balance those troubles, and even overwhelm them, with goodness in other places.

    You won’t be able to solve every problem. However, you can always do something real and genuine and beneficial.

    Bestow a little goodness in your world when you can, where you can. Push life in an upward direction, and keep up the good effort.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Mon, Aug 23 2021 8:36 AM

    Monday, August 23, 2021

    Hope this puts some joy into your day and every day!

    Put joy into it

    What would the next hour look like if you made the decision, right now, to put joy into it? How would the next few days unfold if you were to focus on adding joy and gratitude to every activity?

    It’s easy to assume that your circumstances and surroundings have complete control over the way you feel. But what if you made the choice to flip that around?

    What if you brought your own irrepressible joy to the people, places, and circumstances you encounter? It’s perfectly reasonable, entirely attainable, and has the power to make a dramatic positive difference.

    You don’t have to always be mentally scrolling through a list of problems and complaints. Instead, you can direct your attention to the blessings and opportunities of each moment you’re in.

    There’s no reason to let every random occurrence dictate the way you feel. You have the option to choose joy, gratitude, positive intention, effective action, and love.

    Whatever you’re doing, whoever you’re with, wherever you are, put joy into it. See what a positive difference that can make.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Tue, Aug 24 2021 11:51 AM

    Tuesday, August 24, 2021

    Waiting for a sure thing

    Pretty much no course of action is guaranteed to produce the exact results you seek. Yet there are countless actions that will significantly increase your odds.

    Factors completely beyond your control may very well block you from reaching your goal. Your best strategy is to make the most of the many other factors you are indeed able to influence.

    If you’re expecting a sure thing you’ll wait a very long time, and even then you’re not at all likely to get it. Instead of holding out for a guarantee, go forward with whatever you have.

    Yes, there’s the risk you’ll be wasting your efforts when there’s no assurance of success. However, that’s infinitely preferable to the certainty of wasting your time while you wait in vain for a sure thing.

    Assess your risks, minimize them as much as you can, and then take action. Though the experience won’t be perfect, it’s a whole lot better than doing nothing.

    Though you cannot precisely control the future, there’s much you can do to positively influence it. Now is your time not to wait but to act.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Wed, Aug 25 2021 11:46 AM

    Wednesday, August 25, 2021

    Dance among the possibilities

    You are here, you are now, you are you. Let it be, with no judgment, no thought, no worry, no fear.

    Look with peaceful eyes and see the goodness, the truth that supports all existence. Sink into the experience of simply being with the experience.

    Feel the value of your ability to know, to watch, to act, to be. Notice how easily and naturally you dance among the possibilities.

    You already have all of now. Its beauty, wonder, and potential continue to flood you with new energy.

    Relax everything about you, let down your defenses. Become so accepting of your vulnerability that it fades away to nothing.

    Here you are now in the stillness. Embrace the peaceful power of all that is.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Thu, Aug 26 2021 8:32 AM

    Thursday, August 26, 2021

    Serve what matters

    Don’t take the path of least resistance. Take the path of highest purpose.

    Getting somewhere easily and quickly is not the point. Getting somewhere meaningful and valuable is the point.

    If you just let yourself go with the tide you’ll get swept out to sea. Summon the courage, put forth the effort, persist in going against the tide when you must.

    Your life has unique, worthwhile and beautiful potential. Your obligation to yourself and to those you care about is to fulfill that potential on a daily basis.

    In your heart you know what matters. With your time, your actions, your words and thoughts, be true to all those things.

    Make use of the strength you have to serve the purpose you know is yours. That strength will grow, and so will you, and so will all of life.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Fri, Aug 27 2021 7:56 AM

    Friday, August 27, 2021

    Do the hard stuff

    Seek out what’s difficult, do what’s difficult, what challenges you. Learn to do more than what you’re already able to do.

    You won’t get it perfect the first time. You may not even get it done at all on the initial attempt.

    But the point is not to waltz through the task with no effort or trouble. The point is to build your knowledge and hone your skills.

    Let yourself be humbled by the challenge and the complexity of a worthwhile pursuit. Be inspired by the opportunity for excellence that exists within life’s difficulties.

    Discover again and again the value you can create by embracing and mastering those difficulties. Feel the irreplaceable satisfaction of acquiring, applying, and deepening your skills.

    Do the hard stuff, the complicated stuff, the stuff that demands the best from you. A life of excellence is well worth the effort.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Sat, Aug 28 2021 10:39 AM

    Saturday, August 28, 2021

    Choose well

    What are you choosing right now? What will it add to or take away from your life?

    The circumstances of your world do not just appear out of thin air. Many of them come from intentional or habitual choices, and a large portion of those choices are yours.

    Some choices provide quick, trivial, pleasurable benefits at the expense of significant costs that come later. The problem with those choices is that later does eventually come.

    Other choices impose burdens on you initially. Yet as you continue to willingly shoulder the burdens, those choices result in great, enduring value.

    Any given moment offers countless options, with each one leading to even more options. Your ability to choose among those options provides immense opportunity.

    Take that opportunity seriously, thoughtfully, and choose well. The quality of your life depends on your choices.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Mon, Aug 30 2021 9:23 AM

    Monday, August 30, 2021

    Advising yourself

    If you were someone else, what would you advise yourself to do? Consider that advice and follow it.

    Imagine you’re an objective observer, genuinely looking out for the best interests of someone who happens to be you. What suggestions would you make to yourself?

    How would you advise yourself to deal with your own unique challenges? How would you encourage yourself to work toward the fulfillment of your best possibilities?

    Step back, visualize those things, then step forward and take decisive action. With kindness, with firmness, give yourself a reality check, some gentle nudging, a bit of tough love, a lot of enthusiastic support.

    Respect yourself, challenge yourself, be honest and persistent with yourself as if you were someone determined to make you the best you can be. Realize, in fact, that’s exactly what you are, exactly what you can do, exactly how you can be.

    Get outside the confines of your emotional attachment to your own experience. Tell yourself soberly and even-handedly what you must do, then implement that good advice.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Tue, Aug 31 2021 8:18 AM

    Tuesday, August 31, 2021

    Change your mind

    You are allowed to change your mind. When you learn something new, when you experience something different, you can alter your opinion accordingly.

    You can change your mind and still be you. That’s true even if you’re heavily invested in a particular perspective.

    There’s much value when you can be steadfast in your thinking. But there’s no value in being stubborn when quality, credible evidence contradicts your thinking.

    When any opinion ceases to have a solid basis in fact, doubling down on it is not an effective response. Instead, open yourself to other possibilities, to informed and tested perspectives.

    An important part of being right is admitting when you’re wrong. Anyone who refuses to do so cannot maintain credibility.

    Give yourself a powerful, yet adaptable grip on reality. Be resolute in your perspective while at the same time willing to change your mind.

     

    — Ralph Marston

  • Ladychipper
    22,630 Posts
    Wed, Sep 1 2021 11:49 AM

    Wednesday, September 1, 2021

    Act on your care

    Saying you care is cheap, easy, and worthless. When you care, then act on your care, live your care.

    Give your caring value, give it consequence. Give specific time, commitment, resources, actions and persistence to your caring.

    Spend your energy doing what you can do rather than wasting your breath announcing it. If it matters to you, put your effort behind it.

    Don’t bother with perfecting your image. Focus on optimizing your positive impact.

    Begin each day in gratitude for all you care about. Then turn your attention to the steps you can take to support and to earn all that continuing goodness in your world.

    Allow yourself to care deeply and push yourself to live accordingly. Put your caring into action and make all that’s good and meaningful even better.

     

    — Ralph Marston

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