Daily Motivator - June

[bluidkiti]

June 1

Push past despair

You are not perfect, yet you can move your world in a positive direction. Whatever happens, you can offer new positive energy to life.

You get angry, frustrated, disappointed, but you don’t have to perpetuate those negative emotions. You can transform their power into beneficial action, into determination and commitment.

As difficult and frightening as life can sometimes be, you are fully able to push past the despair. Reach deep inside, connect with what you know to be good and right, true and helpful.

Many circumstances are beyond your influence. Even so, you can be a positive force for the people and situations around you, and that’s not nothing.

Indeed, improvement in the world never comes from grand schemes or forceful decrees. It comes from people who choose, again and again, to follow their best possibilities.

You are always able to make that choice. Push past anger, past judgment, past despair, and push life in a more positive direction.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 2

Build on what works

The way to change what’s wrong is not by destroying what’s right. The way to lift up those who suffer is not by cutting down those who prosper.

To change what doesn’t work, build on what does work. To create new, more widespread success, expand on existing success.

If you dwell solely on the problems, you’ll end up making those problems bigger. Look instead at what has been proven by experience to add richness to life.

Whatever you focus on, expands. Identify what improves life, what you treasure, value, appreciate, and focus on making more of that.

In your own life, in your community, in the world, there is vast potential for improvement, innovation, fulfillment. Harness that potential by building on what’s good, on what works.

Choose now to benefit from your own experience, and the hard-won experience of all who have come before you. With hope, with enthusiasm, with generosity and compassion, build on what works.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 3

Put care into action

Giving your care, your attention, your respect, your love, makes life richer. Giving your time, your consideration, your effort, your presence, makes the world brighter.

The things you accumulate are sometimes necessary, often times not. The connections you make are what you will come to cherish most deeply.

You have the opportunity to go beyond merely saying or signaling that you care. Put your care into action, into commitment, where the passing of time transforms it into great value.

You are not going to save the whole world. Yet you can make a big difference in an important part of it, someone’s life, again and again.

Resist the urge to be drawn into trendy, sanctimonious, empty expressions. Invest your time and energy instead in authentic connection and care.

You can quietly, gracefully make a difference when you put your care into helpful action. Each time you do, life gets a little better for you and all those around you.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 4

Beyond limitations

Don’t ignore your limitations. Understand them, learn from them, and you’ll find ways to get around them.

The force of gravity is a serious limitation when attempting to launch a rocket into orbit. Yet by precisely understanding how gravity works, scientists and engineers can build a rocket that will successfully reach outer space.

It’s tempting to just complain about your limitations, or see them as excuses for lowering your expectations. But you always have a better choice.

That choice is to learn, to understand, to innovate, to adapt. Within whatever is holding you back are very specific truths and strategies for moving forward.

Limitations abound with useful facts, some already known, others waiting to be discovered. As you learn and apply those facts, the limitations lose their power to limit you.

Look to your limitations for knowledge, strategies, and inspiration. And engage your miraculous ingenuity to get beyond whatever holds you back.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 5

Into the future

You are on a journey into the future. Although you bring your past experiences and values along, you cannot bring the past itself.

You are alive in an ever-changing world. The changes make it impossible to stay where you are, or to go back where you were.

Ahead is unknown territory, and that can be a frightening prospect. Yet everything you’re now comfortable with was once unknown to you, and you’ve handled it well so far.

Tomorrow will call you to awaken in a world that’s different than today. In that world you can grow stronger, expand your skills and understanding, and discover new possibilities.

What you think, what you feel, what you do, can all be better than they were. Yes, it’s inconvenient, challenging, arduous, and yet you’ll thank yourself for rising to the opportunity.

Life moves relentlessly forward into the future. Willingly go with it, and make that future a bright and fulfilling place.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 6

Imagine beyond

Imagine being able to celebrate the things you now criticize. Imagine being able to praise the things you now complain about.

Imagine letting go of your anger, and then opening your eyes to what the anger has prevented you from seeing. Imagine listening to someone you disagree with, and finding common ground.

What if your negative perceptions could transform into valuable, practical, positive insights? What if you could move past assumptions that too often have held you back?

Much, much more is possible than you now realize. Help yourself to explore and fulfill the best of those possibilities.

Expand your concept of who you are, of what you can do, of what is good and beautiful. Deepen your understanding of truth and your connection to all that is.

Imagine beyond all you’ve dared to imagine. And live in a place that exceeds your highest expectations.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 7

Your current situation

Consider that maybe, just maybe, where you are is a pretty good place to be. Maybe what you have to work with, right now, is exactly what you need.

You can get where you want to go from wherever you start. And the only place to start is where you are right now.

If you want to travel to Miami, there’s no point in getting upset about currently being in Dallas instead of in Chicago. Just get on a plane, or on the road, headed to Miami, from wherever you are.

Don’t wish for a different place of origin. Focus on getting to your chosen destination.

There’s nothing to be gained by complaining about what you lack. Instead, put that energy to work making use of what you have.

Embrace the reality of your current situation, right here, right now. Then get busy working your way, step by step, to where you want to be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 8

Simply be thankful

It doesn’t take any special training, or equipment, or skill. You can simply be thankful.

You can look at the world from a more empowered, enlightened perspective. Simply be thankful.

By yourself, with others, in a brief moment, for an entire lifetime, simply be thankful. And quickly add new richness to where you are, to what you’re doing, to those you’re with.

When you’re not sure what to do, simply be thankful. You’ll soon uncover a positive path forward.

It’s not complicated, it won’t get you into any trouble. It raises your awareness, it fills you with fresh energy.

You can turn your life around, and shine a bright light on the immense abundance in which you’re always immersed. Make the simple choice, make the powerful choice, make the smart and liberating choice, to simply be thankful.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 9

Grow in understanding

Understanding will never be perfect. Yet you can always move it in that direction.

Just because someone doesn’t understand you, is no reason to reject that person’s perspective. Take it upon yourself to work toward genuine improvement of understanding on both sides.

Seek to meet people where they are rather than insisting that they be where you want them to be. You have much more to gain from understanding than from alienation.

What prevents understanding is not history or status or identity or experience. What prevents understanding is the failure to communicate in a sincere and respectful way.

True, enduring, beneficial understanding can never be forced. You earn the understanding of others by working to give your understanding to them.

At a deep enough level, all people are more alike than different. Move past the differences that you’ll eventually realize are minor, and enable a rich understanding that continues to grow.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 10

Respect yourself

There is much good you can do in this world. But if you don’t respect yourself, it won’t get done.

Respecting yourself does not mean being arrogant, greedy, or self-righteous. On the contrary, it means living with generosity, compassion, humility, and understanding.

You are more than a collection of automatic emotional responses. You are more than just a self-serving sluggard.

You have the capacity for intricate, complex thought, careful, measured action, deep and fruitful relationships. Value and respect all you can accomplish, by working to accomplish it.

Genuinely respect yourself, and then your respect for others will have real value. Respect the contribution you can make, enough that you actually do the work to bring it about.

Respect yourself enough to push yourself forward, and extend your respect to all others. Respect yourself, respect the opportunities you have, and lift life higher than it’s ever been.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 11

Give goodness

If you focus on anger and retribution, you create more reasons for anger and retribution. Focus instead on giving goodness, and you make even more goodness possible.

If your aim is to cause harm, that will harm you too. Seek instead to give goodness, because the world you improve is the same world you live in.

You have the strength to choose what is good, what is right, what is helpful. You have the commitment, the fortitude, to follow through on those positive choices.

Give goodness, in ways that are unique, insightful, based on your experience, driven by your love. Give goodness because you know you can, because you’re able to envision life at its best.

Give goodness for the sake of goodness. Even when it’s inconvenient, especially when it’s inconvenient, give goodness.

Remind yourself often of the best of who you are. From deep within, for those with whom you share the miracle of life, give goodness.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 12

Choose serenity

Let go of the tension. Allow serenity to fill your experience.

What will happen, will happen. Do not let your uncertainty about the future drain value from the present.

What you have is now, and you can live it well. What you have is now, and now you have the opportunity to make a difference.

Your frustration is a creature of your own making. You can decide that it does not have to trouble you any longer.

There is much that doesn’t make sense, that seems foolish, that feels wrong. Yet there is a whole lot more that you can love, and find peace and wholeness in experiencing.

Choose serenity, and think, feel, act from a place of peaceful confidence, a place of positive power. Choose serenity now, and give life the highest and best you have.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 13

Once you are certain

Once you are certain, you stop thinking, stop questioning, stop wondering, stop exploring, stop listening. Is that a good thing?

Once you are locked into certainty, you are no longer able to engage in rich, meaningful exchange. All you’re left with is to express your certainty, which can quickly become tedious and predictable.

Once you are certain, imagination dries up, crumbles, falls away, is prevented from coming back. Is the smug satisfaction you gain from your certainty, worth all that you lose?

It’s good to be certain that there are no cars coming before you cross the highway. Yet once you’re across, it’s best to let go of that certainty, because the situation you’re so certain about, will change.

If your certainty is accurate, truthful, it can be quite helpful. But if it is mistaken, it can lead you headlong into awful places.

Question your certainties, question your assumptions, especially when they’re handed to you by someone else. Make sure that your certainty does not wall you off from the truth.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 14

Adjust your tactics

Be honest with yourself. Are your thoughts, actions, perceptions, assumptions, and priorities bringing the results you desire?

If so, expand on them. If not, make some changes.

You’re absolutely capable of attaining whatever goal you choose to follow. Yet to achieve the desired output, you must provide the appropriate input.

Conditions change, and what once worked very well may no longer be effective. Be willing to recognize reality and to adjust your approach.

There’s no cause to be dismayed when you realize your current approach is not working well. Because what you have is the opportunity to find a more effective way to operate.

Today is a great time to objectively evaluate your results. Today, if necessary, you can adjust your tactics so they bring you exactly where you wish to be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 15

Good to now and later

This moment is important, and so is the rest of your life. Be good to now, and be good to later.

Don’t let your obsession with the particulars of this moment diminish your future possibilities. And don’t let your focus on the future take away from the treasures of this moment.

Instead, make those choices that are positive for now and also positive for later. It’s a valuable kind of balance that’s well worth your effort to maintain.

Yes, often you must prioritize your time, resources, thoughts, and activities. Yet you can find ways to do so without compromising your current or future possibilities.

If you live only for the moment, there’s nothing to sustain you when the moment is over. If you live only for the future, you miss out on all the beautiful moments along the way.

You’re fortunate enough to realize that now is where you are and the future is where you’ll be. And you’re skillful enough to give value and fulfillment to both.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 16

Difficulties

The truth you will benefit most from knowing, is inconvenient. The work you will benefit most from doing, is difficult.

The easy stuff is largely meaningless. It’s the hard stuff that brings real value to life.

Choosing the easy way out, again and again, stunts growth, physically, intellectually, financially, socially. Your strength is built and maintained through repeated challenge, doing hard work and recognizing uncomfortable truths.

Avoiding life’s difficulties, time after time, ends up making life more and more difficult. Exercising the muscles of your competence, your intelligence, your creativity and compassion, makes those muscles ever stronger.

The good life you seek is not a life of pure leisure, not a life free of effort or challenge. Rather, it is a life of making real, ongoing contributions toward meaningful purposes.

Be thankful for what’s difficult, for what makes you uncomfortable. Those things will powerfully prepare you, equip you, and inspire you to make life good.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 17

Good moment

Give yourself a good moment. Give yourself a whole day filled with them.

Enjoy your surroundings, the people you’re with, what you can do, who you are. Allow life to inspire you just because you’re able to experience it.

You’re not being selfish when you’re being good to yourself. You’re adding strength, richness, and meaning to what you can offer everyone else.

Give yourself a good moment, and let it sink in. Then look with a refreshed perspective at all the possibilities.

Feel what you feel, think what you think, with no expectation, no agenda, no misgivings. Let your most beautiful, authentic self come peacefully into the daylight.

Give yourself a good moment. And give yourself new strength, new desire, to do all that you do best.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 18

Play time

Young children make massive developmental progress in amazingly short periods of time. And they do it by playing.

Children don’t try to develop their minds, they don’t worry, don’t strive or plot or struggle. They simply ride along on whim and curiosity, and play.

How long has it been since you let yourself play? Maybe today you could find some new insight and inspiration in doing so.

Take a thought, or a task, or a situation, or a problem, and just play with it. Instead of resolving to end up someplace in particular, go where whimsy leads.

Let go of any notion that anything has to be this way or that. Ignore what should be, while you discover all that can be.

Play for a while, just for the delight it brings you. And you’ll discover once again that it brings you a lot more than mere delight.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 19

Light of your love

You’re able to recognize the imperfections of others, because those imperfections exist in you as well. Your desire for others to change, is largely a longing for your own growth and improvement.

When you’re dismayed by the actions of others, let it inspire you first to change your own behavior. After all, the person you can most effectively and immediately improve, is you.

The most powerful way to transform your experience of being, is to transform yourself, with love. And when you seek to transform the world, that is without question the best way to start.

You could vanquish every enemy, eliminate every external injustice, and your own imperfection would still exist. So wouldn’t it be smarter to work on that before you set off to fix everyone else?

If you fear, pity, or despise every person who falls short of perfection, you’ll end up with no one left to love. Instead, forgive yourself, improve yourself, love yourself for who you are, and generously extend that love far, wide, deep.

You cannot fight the darkness away. Yet it will always recede wherever you sincerely shine the light of your love.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 20

Quiet improvement

Announcing that you are going to improve your behavior is a poor substitute for actual improvement. Skip that needless step, and go straight to the work of improving the way you act.

Quiet improvement is powerful, authentic improvement. It is focused not merely on the image of how you look but on the substance of how you are.

Making a promise to improve might get you off the hook for a moment. But then that moment is over, and you’ve made no real progress.

When you’re truly committed to making an improvement, just go ahead and do it. Get your ego out of the way, and you can get real work done.

Let your actions do the talking. Let your results do the talking.

Stop proclaiming how you’re going to be. And start quietly being the best of how you intend to be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 21

Savor the effort

When you hurry through a task, you’re signaling to yourself that you don’t want to be doing it. By slowing down a little, you can become much more engaged.

Fast and furious is not sustainable. You’re in danger of burning yourself out before the job is finished.

No, you don’t want to dawdle and procrastinate. But neither do you want to rush so fast as to build up a disdain for the work.

Allow yourself to settle in to the task. Give to it the entirety of your focus, your care, your enthusiasm.

You’ve chosen to do the work, and your best option is to do it well. You’re spending the time, so do yourself a big favor and become fully engaged with the effort.

Often you can finish sooner, and better, by going a little slower. Step back from the frenzy, savor the effort, and enjoy the experience of a job well done.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

That was a very powerful reading today.

[bluidkiti]

June 22

Goal of understanding

The point of any discussion is not to amplify disagreement. The point of a discussion is to move in the direction of understanding.

The goal of communication is not to get every person to adopt one particular view or another. The goal is to arrive at an outcome that takes all views into account.

You do not win by shouting the loudest. You win by building mutual respect, civility, and cooperation.

You do not win by making someone else look foolish or hypocritical. You win by reducing the incentive for anyone to act with foolishness or hypocrisy.

Every person is a bundle of assumptions, and no one’s assumptions are all completely accurate. The most fruitful, value-creating interactions occur when there is genuine acknowledgement, on all sides, of that reality.

Understanding improves the quality of life for those who seek it and engage in it. With humility, with empathy, with respect, let that be your goal.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 23

Do what you can

What can you do? You can do what you can.

If what you can do doesn’t seem like enough, do it anyway. The more you do what you can, the more you can do.

If you’re feeling like it will take forever, that’s an excellent reason to start right now. Do what you can, as soon as you can, and you’re on your way to making a difference.

What will people say, or think, or do? That’s all beyond your control, and all the more reason to do what you can.

Your time, knowledge, skills and resources are limited. So by all means put them to good use, and do what you can.

Take every opportunity to move life a little bit in the direction you want it to go. Do what you can, again and again, and you’ll find yourself doing a lot more good than you ever could have imagined.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 24

Choose your life

Make the choice to love each moment that arrives, and you’ll find much in each moment to love. Make the choice to persist no matter what, and you’ll gain the strength for that persistence.

What you find is whatever you choose to look for. The life you experience is the life you decide to experience.

This is your life. No matter what is happening around you, the critical factor is how you handle it within you.

Will this day, this situation, lead to success or to despair? That depends entirely on what you do with it.

Everything that happens has the potential to be a turning point. So you must decide what you will choose to turn toward, again and again.

Turn toward goodness, toward love, achievement, fulfillment, understanding. Choose in every moment a life filled with meaning and joy, and that is the life you will lead.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 25

Purposeful life

If you don’t have a well-defined purpose, you’re likely to follow anyone in any direction. If you’re not clear about where you intend to go, you’re not going to like where you end up.

When you’re purposeful, distractions are an annoyance, yet your purpose will pull you back on track. When you have no purpose, even the smallest distraction can lead you off into a vast expanse of wasted living.

It is not easy to live a purposeful life. But what’s far worse is a meaningless life.

Ask yourself what exactly you want, what you care about, what you love. Keep asking until you get an answer that you cannot deny.

Then take that purpose and lodge it firmly in the forefront of your awareness. Keep it there, to serve as a guide, a shield, and a powerful lens through which you focus your energy.

Life overflows with abundance, possibilities, opportunities. Align yourself in a specific direction, and enable yourself to make good use of it all.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 26

Lessons of experience

Consider all the things you’ve done in the past day, the past week, the past year. Can you identify anything you wish you had done differently?

If so, that’s great. Because now is your chance to put that wish into action.

Now is your opportunity to improve on the shortcomings in your past. Now is when you can apply all the good and valuable lessons of your experience.

Rather than simmering in your regrets, you can move completely beyond them. Out of past mistakes you’ve made, you can now make progress.

Those mistakes, as well as your achievements, can now inform you, empower you, and inspire you. Not only can you do better, you can do it from a more enlightened and determined perspective.

From your past frustrations and disappointments, now you can generate new energy and action. Jump at the opportunity, and transform all that you have been into the best that you can be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 27

Familiar harbor

Are you holding tightly to something that’s not moving forward? Then you’re not moving forward either.

Is there a habit, assumption, concept, perspective, that you’ve been hesitant to let go of? Could it be keeping you stuck, preventing you from making progress?

It’s comfortable to stick firmly with what’s familiar, expected, and predictable. Yet at some point that comfort will harden into stagnation.

A big part of improvement is letting go of whatever may be blocking that improvement. Yes it takes courage, yes it takes strength, and yes it will make a major positive difference.

What you’re able to accomplish is a function of what you’re willing to relinquish. By letting go of what is, you expand the possibilities of what can be.

You must leave the familiar harbor if you wish to cross the stormy sea. Yet oh, what a magnificent world awaits your discovery when you do.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 28

Peak of experience

Today you are more experienced than you’ve ever been in your entire life. Today you stand at the very peak of the mountain that is your own experience.

Over the years, you’ve pushed forward toward this moment. Each day you’ve added to the height of your mountain of experience, gaining yet another higher perspective.

At certain times along the way, you’ve found moments of peace and beauty in the green valleys and still forests. At other times, you’ve been challenged by the fierce storms and rocky ground as you climbed your way higher.

Right now is the moment all the other moments have been leading up to. Right now you stand at the summit on your mountain of experience.

Take a moment to take in the view, and remind yourself of something. Never before has your experience been as comprehensive or as valuable as it is today.

Now is your opportunity to climb even higher, to put all you know to good and purposeful use. With gratitude and determination, get going, and make your mountain of life experience ever higher.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 29

Some little something

How much of your anger could you transform into love? How would that feel inside, if you were to do it?

What portion of your frustration could you change into patience? How much more peaceful would it make this moment?

What are the things you might be willing to forgive? What benefits would you experience by being free of those things?

Can you think of someone, right now, who would be helped by your kindness? Can you imagine how it would feel to do something good, helpful, useful, when no one is watching?

Do you know how much goodness you’re capable of? Would you like to find out?

Does life on this day seem too empty, negative, hopeless? Do you think, perhaps, there might be some little something you could do about that?

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 30

Vast goodness

The time to be thankful for what you have, is while you still have it. If you wait until after it’s gone, what would have been gratitude instead becomes remorse.

Are there good things in your life right now, that you’ll desperately miss when you no longer have them? Now is the time to appreciate them, make good use of them, protect them from harm.

It’s natural to focus on what’s wrong, on what doesn’t work, out of a desire to make improvements. Yet the whole reason you’re able to improve whatever doesn’t work, is because of all the other things that do work.

Yes, problems command your attention, as well they should. But don’t let them blind you to the vast goodness that continues to support your life.

The most important time to nourish your body, is when you are ill. The most important time to be appreciative of your blessings, is when you’re faced with difficult problems.

You are living proof that, for the most part, life works very well. You can make it work even better by building on the goodness that’s already there.

— Ralph Marston