Daily Motivator - February

[bluidkiti]

February 1

Widen your vision

Focus can be good, valuable, and like every valuable thing it is also costly. While you focus on one thing you necessarily blind yourself to everything else.

For this reason, whether you’ve been focused on positive achievement or on negative despair, there are things you’ve missed. Your vision of the options and resources available to you, is incomplete.

Consider that whatever you’ve been through in the past has hidden some of your best opportunities of the present. It’s time to let go of the conflicts, defeats, and victories that are over, so you can gain access to the possibilities that are now.

Whatever you’ve been focused on, whether a desire, a frustration, a challenge, allow it to fall cleanly away from your awareness for a while. Open your eyes, open your mind, open your willingness to discover a new and better way forward.

You don’t have to abandon your goals and ambitions, and your problems will not magically go away. However, you can benefit greatly from widening your vision for a while, to consider options that your focus and commitment may have hidden from you.

Don’t let your powerful focus lock you into tunnel vision, and don’t let your persistence degrade into stubbornness. Widen your vision every now and then, take a look around, and make sure you’re not ignoring your best possibilities.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 2

Grow stronger

New strength begins with your willingness to be stronger. Once you choose inside to be stronger, you are.

Decide to be more resilient, and you have what it takes to live up to that decision. Commit to be more courageous, more disciplined, more purposeful, more tolerant and generous, and suddenly you are.

No person, no situation, no deficiency is stopping you from growing in strength with every experience. It’s a choice you can make again and again.

It’s easy to hide from your own potential strength, and many people will enable you to do so. But your better choice is to connect with that strength, put it to good use, and make more of it.

What if some of the things that previously filled you with dismay and fear, were suddenly to inspire courage and determination? What if you decided that yes, you can do some good and useful thing you’ve always told yourself you could never do?

The strength you have is the strength you choose to allow and develop in your life. Think strong, act strong, and grow stronger with each passing day.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 3

Embrace the magnificence

All of time and existence has led up to you being here on this day. See the beauty, feel the wonder, and resolve to make good and meaningful use of it all.

Realize the great value of the moment you’re in, taking care not to rush through it. Give to it your intention, guided by true purpose.

Live now as though you’ve been denied the chance up until this moment. Approach even the smallest experience with fresh, new enthusiasm.

Face the world with confidence and a genuine desire to make a difference. Live in awe of the great possibilities, with a commitment to bring the best of them to life.

This is your life, here and now. This is your life, your opportunity to deepen its meaning, and add to its richness.

Draw energy and inspiration from all you encounter. Embrace the magnificence, and find great satisfaction in making even more.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 4

Great opportunity of now

There are no good excuses, and it wouldn’t matter if there were. Your life is the way it is, and now is your opportunity to do something with it.

If there are problems, now is when you can stop dwelling on those problems and start taking action to resolve them. If you have dreams, goals, ambitions, here is where the wishing and fantasizing end, and the action begins.

What counts now is the same for anything you want to be, or plan to accomplish, or need to do. What counts now is actually doing it.

Put your wishes into action, put your plans into motion. Step right up to the challenges and begin to push yourself through them.

If something is standing in your way, move it, change it, get around it, or find another way. Work with what you have, expand upon it, commit to persistent action, and make good things happen.

Whatever the circumstance, whatever the objective, this is your time to act. Give yourself over to the great opportunity of now.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 5

What you appreciate

Want to quickly escape your negative attitude? Find something you can appreciate.

Looking to uncover the hidden value in a difficult situation? Figure out what it is about that situation you can appreciate.

Step into the room, into the job, into the challenge with the intention of discovering what you can appreciate. What you’ll find are powerful ways and reasons that will pull you forward.

At the beginning of each day, mentally pick something you can truly appreciate, and carry it out into the world with you. All day long, let it serve as a shield against any negativity you encounter.

When meeting a new person, don’t fret about making a good impression. Instead, focus on finding what you can appreciate about that person, and get the relationship off to a great start.

What you appreciate about life becomes more valuable, to you and everyone else. See how much you can appreciate, and see how much real treasure you can uncover.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 6

Special occasion

Give yourself the gift of a meaningful moment, every moment. Let your life absorb and experience the rich substance of life, in everything you do.

Don’t sit idle, waiting and hoping for a special occasion. The special occasion is here, now, always, and it is your life.

Adventure is not just found in distant, exotic locales. Adventure is yours to live whenever you choose, wherever you are.

Life is adventurous, special, fulfilling, to the extent you enable and allow and encourage it to be. Live this occasion as the special occasion it truly is.

Go ahead and remind yourself how fortunate you are to be you. Celebrate the special occasion that is right now, and magnify the joy by sharing it with all those around you.

Fill your heart with gratitude for the special occasion of now. And make it even more so.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 7

Try a little patience

Some matters are genuinely urgent. Most other things are not, but there’s often a strong underlying pressure, from yourself and others, to treat them as urgent.

The trouble is, making everything urgent wears you down. Addressing every little issue like it’s a dramatic, life and death matter drains your life of real meaning and joy.

By all means, tend to the really urgent situations with your full speed and attention. With everything else, try a little patience, with a generous amount of understanding thrown in.

Take a moment to take a deep breath. Remind yourself of the distinction between what really matters and what merely stokes everyone’s ego, including yours.

Do you really need to raise your anxiety level just because a delivery takes three days instead of two? Think of all the good, enjoyable, fulfilling activities with which you could replace the worrying and fretting.

Soothe your own life, and the lives of others, with a little patience. Give things some time, and enjoy the time you give.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

DEEP.....

[bluidkiti]

February 8

Pick your possibilities

The possibilities are endless, and that’s great. Just don’t let yourself get overwhelmed or sidetracked by all those possibilities.

Pick certain meaningful possibilities and go with them, focus on them, commit to them. Persist with them until you see them through.

Yes, it’s tempting and useful to explore new possibilities. But even the best possibility is useless if you don’t make a firm commitment to sticking with it.

Channel your excitement about what’s possible into actually bringing specific possibilities to life. Be as eager to get the work completed as you are to get the project started.

Follow through on the enticing promises by keeping those promises with disciplined effort. Translate what’s possible into specific goals and then do the work to achieve those goals.

Position yourself to do great things by acknowledging you can’t do everything. Pick your possibilities, stick with them, and bring their value to life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 9

Fresh start

Today is a fresh start. Make something good with it.

You’ve learned a lot about how life unfolds, what works, what doesn’t, what holds you back, what moves you forward. Now is your chance to put all that knowledge to good use.

You’ve seen the mistakes that others have made, and your own mistakes as well. Today you can benefit from those observations, avoiding the pitfalls as you work to make good progress.

You’ve felt the sting of regret and the joy of purposeful achievement. Beginning right now, you can choose to create much more joy and much less regret.

Here is where your future begins. Be honest with yourself about what you really want to do, to experience, to become, for every choice leads you in a specific direction.

Go ahead, feel the miracle of life as it glows within you, and fill your world with purpose, with meaning. Take the fresh start that begins right now, and live, and love, and give, and grow.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 10

Up to the challenge

You are up to the challenge. You can do the work and reach the value that’s yours to claim on the other side of that challenge.

You can take hold of impossible tasks, break them down into manageable chunks, and get them done. You can gather the information, find the resources, and develop the skills necessary for the job.

You can make decisions and then implement them. You can build on what works and make adjustments to what doesn’t.

You can stay connected to your driving purpose, motivated and enthusiastic through every difficulty. You can express that purpose in a way that inspires others to share your enthusiasm.

You can draw positive energy even from negative situations. You can identify weakness and transform it into strength.

You can do whatever it takes, and now is your time to act. Your next achievement is ready for you to bring it to life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 11

Intentional energy

What’s the difference between the energy of destruction and the energy of achievement? The difference is in your intention.

Negative energy does not force you to take negative actions. Rather, negative energy is what happens when you focus your energy in a negative direction.

The same physical energy used in warfare can instead be used to grow food, build homes, provide medical care, and countless other good things. Energy, regardless of its original source, can be put to positive use.

The energy generated within you by frustration can be applied toward focused, disciplined achievement. The energy arising from anger can be redirected toward care and nurturing.

You can draw energy from anything that happens and then use that energy precisely as you choose. Rather than being a slave to the circumstances, you can be the master of your own response, of your own intentions.

Be clear with yourself about all you value, all you love, all you’re thankful for and care about. Make use of the energy in your life to advance and support those good things.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 12

Eaten alive

Are you being eaten alive by a monster that does not even exist? Have your highest thoughts and best moments been sucked away by a demon with no actual form or substance?

You are wise to be concerned, and to do something about those concerns. But it is foolish to contaminate your awareness and paralyze your life with useless worry.

What perfectly good thing have you started and then stopped, worried what others would think? What goal, what dream have you declined to achieve, worried about problems you could easily have solved?

Worry waters down your enthusiasm, cancels your best plans, and hands you nothing but regret in return. Let this be the day you walk away from all that.

Let this be the moment you face your fears, challenges, limitations, and act to do something about them. Rather than being hobbled with worry, choose now to put the power of your imagination to purposeful use, spurring you into action.

Be smart, be realistic, be wary, but don’t be worried. Feel your strength, express that strength with action, and rise above every useless worry.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 13

Lingering complications

Maybe the question or problem you’re faced with doesn’t have a good answer, or at least not one you can find right away. And maybe you can be okay with that.

Perhaps, despite all your best efforts, not everything gets resolved before the end of the day or end of the week. And maybe you can get a great night’s sleep, and have a delightful weekend, nonetheless.

Sure, it’s fine to get all the issues resolved, tied up in a nice, neat conclusion. But it’s not essential, and it rarely happens like that anyway.

You can live a great life for a long time, even with lingering complications and unanswered questions. Don’t put your life on hold waiting for all the problems to be solved.

Living a rich and joyous life does not prevent you from resolving the difficult issues. On the contrary, it helps you prioritize things and discover effective ways to deal with them.

Work diligently to solve the problems, to get the answers. While you do, live well, gently refusing to let anything keep you down.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 14

Worth the effort

Your whole life has led to this day, today. Remind yourself to spend today in a way that’s worthy of the investment.

Every moment you’ve been through has brought you to this moment. Every effort you’ve ever made has laid the groundwork for what you’re about to do now.

And now, you can live in a way that makes it all worth the effort. You can seize this opportunity you’ve built for yourself, and experience its richness in full.

You are here, witness to the dawning of this day, and that’s an amazing accomplishment. Feel the vast extent of that accomplishment, and be inspired to add much more on top of it.

Take a deep, slow breath, filled with the energy of possibility. You can thrive in the face of whatever may come, for you’ve already done so again and again.

You’re here, now, when you can live, where you can act, ready to gain new ground. Let your love for the best that you’ve known, continue to pull you toward the best that can be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 15

Take the first action

When you attempt something ambitious and make a mistake, you can fix that mistake. But if you never make the attempt, you can’t go back and reclaim the wasted opportunity.

Act, create, speak, build, write, sing, dance, explore, even if you do it badly at first. You’ll get better and better as you go along.

Be willing to be a fool and you’ll be able to be a genius. The greatest achievements are those that have never been done before.

What have you never done before? What purpose have you avoided fulfilling because you didn’t know how or where to start?

The place to start is precisely where you are. The way to start is to do whatever you’re able to do, without any further delay.

Write the first draft, and then you’ll have something to edit. Take the first action, and suddenly you’ll be on the path to achievement.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 16

Dive into the richness

What will awaken your sense of adventure? What will energize your desire to make a difference?

What will re-ignite in you the feeling of wonder regarding all that is possible? Whatever it is, wherever you must go, whomever you must talk with, whatever challenge you must tackle, do it.

If you’re not thrilled with life’s possibilities, you’re not paying enough attention. If you’re not acting on the best of those possibilities, you’re letting opportunity and value and fulfillment slip through your fingers.

Wake up to what you already know is there. Make plenty of room in your life for the wonder that is your life.

You have much more power and ability than you’ve been using lately. Set your sights on a purpose that will entice your best efforts out of you, consistently and persistently.

Life is your immense treasure and the challenge to live it well is your great ally. Now, dive into the richness.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 17

Fresh new world

No matter how many times you have failed in the past, you can go positively forward now. No matter how often you’ve wandered from the path, you can now choose to move straight ahead.

Do not be dismayed by anything that has come to pass. For this is a new day, with new possibilities, and you’re here to live them, now.

Whether you’ve let yourself down for a few minutes, or for decades, that time is now over. This is your time to fill your life with purpose, action, joy and fulfillment.

Whatever has been, has been, and is done. What is to be, is yours now to choose.

Every disappointment you’ve ever felt can now fuel your determination. Every opportunity you’ve missed can remind you to fully seize the opportunities you now have.

Open your eyes, your heart, your everything to the fresh new world of possibilities. There is so much you can do, and now, right now, is when you choose.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 18

Think positively forward

Over the course of a normal day, thousands of thoughts track through your awareness. With every thought is opportunity.

Each thought changes you in some way. Each thought influences your actions, your perceptions, your subsequent thoughts.

Your thoughts lead your life in a specific direction. Change your thoughts, and notice how quickly you’ve changed the way you feel.

All day long, everywhere you go, you bring the power of thought with you. In every situation, with every encounter, you can apply that power with great benefit.

Choose thoughts that energize you, that position you to be highly effective, creative, generous, prosperous, peaceful. Set your intentions high, and fill your awareness with good thoughts that support those intentions.

What you are thinking, moment to moment, plays a large part in making your life what it is. Your opportunity is here, now, and always, to think your way positively forward.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 19

Negative emotions

Step back from your frustration and ask yourself this. What good, useful thing can you do right now?

Set aside your annoyance and think about this. What can you be thankful for?

Let go of your anger and let yourself focus on this. What would make the situation better for everyone involved?

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with negative emotions. Yet it’s always possible to work yourself back to a more peaceful, positive state.

Make the commitment to let your best intentions guide you away from your worst reactions. Forgive yourself, forgive others, accept the moment, and move forward.

You’re living in a world that’s filled with abundance, on a day that offers countless possibilities. Make the choice to be a positive presence, a positive force, and bring the best possibilities to life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 20

Active role

Your life has great value. To know that value, to experience it, you must put it to use.

You have brilliant thoughts, powerful abilities, useful skills. Put them into action, and live up to the immense potential that is within you.

You’re able to recognize opportunities for making a difference. Seize those opportunities, act on them, faithful to your highest values and best intentions.

Life is made better in the active and authentic living of it. There is much good you can do, and it’s always in your best interest to do it.

Say yes to the opportunities that arrive with each new moment. Take an active role, always thankful for being able to do so.

Give your unconditional best to life, every chance you have. The more you give, the better life gets.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 21

Put your wish into action

To make anything happen, you must do more than just wish for it. And that is a very good thing.

If your wishes instantly became reality, life would be sadly empty and disorderly. Nothing would have any substance or lasting value, for anything could be quickly wished away.

As it is, the goals you actually attain are the ones that really matter. That’s because they’re the ones important enough for you to invest yourself in.

For a wish to come true, you must go beyond the wish, giving the substance of your time, effort, imagination, and commitment. In so doing, you imbue the fulfillment of that wish with real meaning and value that cannot be attained in any other way.

You don’t have to stop with mere wishing, for you can do, you can build, you can work, you can grow. You can create for yourself the joyous and satisfying experience of making good things happen.

Put your wish into action, and do what’s necessary to bring it to life. That’s how you get what you’re truly wishing for.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 22

Procrastination happens

Even when a choice is a passive choice, requiring no effort, it’s still very much a choice. When you choose to procrastinate, that’s a choice, and not a beneficial one.

Putting off any task is an intentional choice to be less effective, to be burdened with that task longer than you have to be. Is that really the choice you want to make?

You’re choosing to rush around at the last minute getting the work done. You’re choosing to make excuses, to create regret, perhaps to compromise your reputation.

It seems easy to procrastinate. After all, procrastination happens by simply doing nothing.

Yet the consequences are not so easy. By a long shot, the easiest choice is to go ahead and get the work done.

Choose not to put off the effort, to start on it long before it must be finished. And make the active choice that is best for the quality of your life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 23

Seasons

The cool of autumn is a welcome respite from summer’s heat. The warmth of spring is a promise that winter has gone away.

Spring would not be so glorious without the winter that precedes it. Autumn would not be so welcome if the heat of summer had not grown so wearisome.

A new season is always on the way, and with it, changes, opportunities, risks, promises, mystery. In every season you’ll find new joys to live, work to be done, progress to be made, greetings as well as goodbyes.

Life changes, for that is its very nature. Nothing you can do will stop the changes that come with each season, and you wouldn’t want to anyway.

In those changes, as inconvenient, difficult, and painful as they can often be, is the glorious substance of living. In every change is your chance to make a change for the better.

Let the relentless progression of the seasons inspire your own unrelenting progress, your own rewarding changes. Live with more purpose, love, kindness and generosity, filled with a joy that no passing season can take away.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 24

Good things in life

You are much more valuable for what you are than for what you have, or consume. As you let go of superficial desires, you free yourself to be yourself.

Lusting for momentary pleasure will interrupt and delay your progress toward deeper fulfillment. Learn to step beyond those cravings that always lead to disappointment and regret.

You receive from life what you are willing to invest in it. The problem with instant gratification is that it disappears in the next instant.

Just because you’re able to get your hands on some particular shiny object, doesn’t mean it’s your best choice. Seek to choose based on purpose more than impulse.

It’s great to possess good, beautiful, useful things. Yet life becomes increasingly empty when you cling to the expectation they will fulfill you.

Let your outer possessions and experiences be expressions of your inner beauty, not the other way around. When you’re not enslaved by the good things in life, you can truly enjoy them, and everything else.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

BIG TIME AMEN TO THAT..

[bluidkiti]

February 25

Where to go

It is only through the challenge of moving forward that you can fully understand exactly where you want to go. To figure out where you’re going, you must get going.

You say you don’t know what to do with your life? That’s never a good reason to do nothing.

On the contrary, the way to know for sure what you want to do, is by doing it. The way to be fully committed to a course of action is to get yourself into action.

Crafting dreams, making plans, setting goals, are all a good start, but only a start. Dreams and goals gain their value when they are rigorously challenged by the reality of life.

Stop waiting for the perfect plan, the ultimate vision, the ideal purpose. Begin to zestfully make a positive difference where you now are, and with each little step you’ll work your way to a more defined and compelling purpose.

In order to have direction, you must have motion. Get yourself in motion, and let the challenge of the effort help to make your purpose clear.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 26

Great potential

Right now you face a great challenge. It is also a profound opportunity.

You must choose, in this moment, from an endless menu of possibilities, what to do. Though it may seem trivial, of little consequence, what you choose will change your life, will change the whole world, forever.

How do you narrow the possibilities, how can you know you’re making the best choice? Choose with love for your own potential, love for your family and community, love for beauty, for truth, for a positive and beneficial future.

It is not an easy choice, and once you make it you must make another, and another. Yet with those continuing choices, made with love and with respect for their power, you can reach higher than you could possibly now imagine.

Life is dangerous, complicated, frustrating, all too often arbitrary and unreasonable. Yet right now, with even the smallest positive, purposeful choice, you can transcend all that, pushing back the darkness, creating new and hopeful light.

Make the choice now to embrace your great potential, to give your love and effort to the best that can be. Take up the challenge, answer the call of this moment, and live the great life you are capable of living.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 27

Know you can do better

Know you can do better, and let it fill you with encouragement. Know you can do better, and let it challenge you to get to work.

As effective and productive and purposeful as you’ve been, you can do better now. As mistaken and inattentive and complacent as you’ve been, now you can do better.

Past experience has taught you, frustrated you, inspired you, disappointed you. Now you can gather all that energy, step forward, and do better.

Now you can make one little improvement, and then another, and another. Now you can be driven by your commitment to a more positive and fulfilling future.

Do something good for the person you will be tomorrow, and all the days after that. Recognize your opportunity, recognize your obligation to yourself and others, and do better.

Put this day to great and meaningful use. Put yourself in motion, inspired and encouraged, and do better.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

February 28

Beyond your comforts

Venture out beyond where your comforts dwell. Go to the places where your fears live.

Climb outside the walls that enclose your certainties. Explore those territories where you’ll encounter realities you’ve never known before.

Some of your best possibilities are those you don’t even know about yet. Get yourself out where you can discover what they are.

Go where your skills can be tested to their limits. Go where your assumptions can be toppled, where your strengths can be honed.

You’ve learned your way so well around this community, this job, this ideology, it’s no longer a challenge. Give yourself the exhilaration of exploring something completely new.

Introduce yourself to the people, circumstances, and ideas beyond those you know so well. They will benefit greatly from the new connection, and so will you.

— Ralph Marston