Daily Motivator - November

[bluidkiti]

November 1

Give it a shot

Go ahead, give it a shot. Even if all you do is learn what not to do, that’s progress.

Devise a plan, gather your resources, commit yourself to action, and go. When the obstacles and disruptions arise, keep going as best you can.

Nobody ever did anything perfectly on the first attempt. Yet nobody ever did anything at all without making that first, imperfect attempt.

Some people will call you foolish for setting out to do what you’ve never done before. But what’s really foolish is to do nothing and remain stuck where you are.

Seek advice, listen to the criticism, find morsels of truth in it, then move forward. Feel the doubts, let them prepare you, but don’t let them stop you.

You have good and valuable things to do, things that will challenge and stretch you. Remind yourself what a great opportunity that is, seize it, and run with it.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

Happy November the 1st Family.. Thanking God for watching over us during the month of October one day at a time:85:

[bluidkiti]

November 2

Know courage

Courage does not exist in a vacuum. Where there is true courage, there is true purpose driving it.

Courage is not something you obtain for its own sake. Those times you act with courage are the times you have a powerful enough reason to do so.

Courage arises when you connect your actions to your purpose. Courage is an affirmation of how much you care.

Do you find yourself hobbled by fear? To function well in the face of danger and risk, connect more robustly to what matters and why.

Don’t bother asking yourself how to have more courage. Seek instead to live with genuine purpose, and you’ll discover the courage that’s always been there.

Enable your purpose to be bigger than your fear. Know what you care about and you will know courage.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 3

Never forget

See the beauty that is this day. Feel the miracle that is your life.

Against all probability you are here to experience now. Give to the experience its full due.

Stand in awe of the fact that you can stand in awe. Contemplate the wonder of your ability to wonder.

Listen with care and love to the softest whisper. Gaze intently at the brightest star.

You can choose what to do and then act on your choice. You can question, learn, understand, and explain.

Never let yourself forget how much richness and mystery and possibility there is. Always live to give unique expression and meaning in the best way you know how.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 4, 2021

Potential for greatness

Here, today, as you are, with what you have, lives the potential for greatness. Get out of its way, let it fill you, guide you, inspire you to action.

You cannot know all of which you are capable. Yet you can discover, adjust, refine, improve in every action, every moment, every word.

What do you really, truly want in your heart of hearts? Look in that direction, see the love, see the goodness, kindness, forgiveness, understanding.

Keep looking in that direction because the direction you look is the direction you’ll go. Carry your life, your passion, your energy toward what is good for you, what is good for all.

Stop holding yourself back, stop corrupting your whole world by giving in to the easy allure of temptation, indolence, and deception. Surrender instead to your potential for greatness, for truth and diligence in all things big and small.

You cannot swindle or outthink or hide from your potential, from life’s potential for greatness. You must let love guide you in bringing it more fully every day to life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 5

A life that’s real

Don’t strive to be efficient just for the sake of efficiency. Seek first to be authentic.

Avoid chasing what’s merely easy, for you’ll gain nothing from it. Immerse yourself instead in challenging and meaningful pursuits.

Notice the obvious but don’t dwell on it, don’t waste your time congratulating yourself for seeing it. Do the work, spend the time to discover what’s not so obvious.

Be driven by curiosity. But avoid spreading your attention so thinly that it becomes fleeting and superficial.

Do what must be done, create the value you’re able to create. And care not at all about what it looks like you’re doing or what others think and say about you.

Call forth the strength, do the work, abide in truth, in goodness, in authenticity. Live a life that’s real, with substance, fulfillment and deep, sustaining value, today, tomorrow, and always.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 6

Intentional interactions

How many of your daily interactions are chosen, rich, substantive and thoughtful? How many are annoying, distracting, meaningless and superficial?

The quality interactions add greatly to your life. The junk interactions can collectively waste vast amounts of your time.

Information technology has exponentially expanded the kinds and the quality of your interactions, and the trend keeps accelerating. That makes it more important than ever to exercise intentional control over those interactions.

It’s healthy and helpful to be serendipitous, open to diverse and unexpected experiences. But you must have a strategy to avoid being overwhelmed by all the interactions coming your way.

Become more intentional about your interactions and the result will be a more intentional and purposeful life. Take steps to improve the quality and substance of those interactions, so as to deepen your focus and strengthen your values.

Notice your interactions, take intentional control of them, expect more quality from them. Make it your choice to gain value and benefit from all the time you spend interacting with life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 7

Think and feel

I feel I have a good answer, and you think you have a better answer. Even though we disagree, both of us are right.

Life is about what you feel. It’s also about what you think.

Your feelings give richness and color and meaning to your thoughts. Your thoughts impose a measure of discipline and reality on your feelings.

A thinking approach often seems at extreme odds with a feeling approach. Yet both approaches seek to make the best of the same situation, so they’re not really so opposed.

Has the conflict between thoughts and feelings pushed you into a disagreement? See if you can adjust your own balance of thoughts and feelings to achieve a better understanding.

Intellect and emotion do not have to exist in opposition. Take a step back, work to get them into harmony, and make the best of the whole person you are.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 8

Better alternative

Are there certain habits or behaviors that lead your life in a negative direction? Come up with positive and compelling alternatives to them.

Whenever you attempt to not do some particular thing, the attempt is likely to fail. That’s because you focus on the undesired action, and your very focus pushes you toward that action.

A more effective strategy is to wholly replace the unwanted action with something completely different. Make it so you don’t even have to think about whatever you’re seeking to avoid.

You are intended for action, built for action, experienced at taking action. So put all that to good use.

Rather than deny yourself action, improve the quality of your actions. Instead of pushing to avoid a bad habit, replace it with a beneficial habit that makes you completely forget about the old one.

Give yourself a better alternative. And you won’t even think to miss the negative behavior you’ve given up.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 9

Move life forward

Life is a continuing series of opportunities to make a difference. Because of that, valuable outcomes are always possible.

There is a way to get from where you are to where you want to be. There are ways to improve your life and the lives of others, no matter the burdens, no matter the challenges.

The path forward is never a straight line, but that path always does exist. The journey is not easy, yet the goal is within your ability to reach.

At every turn you have the chance to provide beneficial, useful input. No matter what happened in the previous minute, you can work to make some sort of improvement in the next minute.

In this way, little by little, you move life forward. In this way, day after day, you continue to inject hope, meaning, purpose, and achievement into your world.

Even in the darkest moments, the opportunity for progress always exists, always renews itself. Seize that opportunity now, and again and again, for doing so is precisely what makes life so very much worth living.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 10

All you’ve lived

Every day has added some unique measure of richness to your life. Every experience represents value that you have accumulated.

Through the joyful moments and through the difficult times you have grown. You’ve gained knowledge, strength, perspective, friendship, wisdom, faith, persistence, and so much more.

You’ve learned what works well and what doesn’t. You’ve felt pleasure, pain, excitement, disappointment, love, dismay, hope, and inspiration.

It has all added greatly to who you are, to what you can do, and to how much you care. With every experience, every thought, every turn of events, your life increases in value.

Though some hours and efforts might have felt wasted, the entirety of your life is available for you to use right now. And right now, more than ever before, you have a good sense of how and why to make use of all you are.

Remind yourself of the great value embodied in all you’ve lived, in all you continue to be. Keep enabling life to benefit greatly from all the goodness you can give.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 11

Precisely

You encounter a problem. What’s the first thing you must do to have any hope of correcting that problem?

You must precisely define the problem. Only when you are clear about who, what, where, and why can you proceed to remedy the issue.

Effective physicians do not treat illness until they have a clear diagnosis. Acting on the basis of a vague complaint can be just as likely to cause more harm as it is to bring healing.

It’s not enough to cry and pontificate about how something is wrong. And it’s certainly not helpful to assign blame before you understand all the details.

Take the time and put forth serious effort to precisely see the situation. Only then can you devise and implement a specific, workable response.

When you’re faced with a problem, do what’s necessary to figure out exactly what it is. Be clear, be precise, and give yourself the deep understanding you need to get the problem behind you.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 12

Life itself

Life itself arrives here, in you, today, all around. Color, texture, motion and aroma fill your senses, energize your spirit, activate your thoughts and feelings.

What does it all mean and how is your role best played? Is now any different than before, and from which direction will come whatever is to be?

What feels so certain can explode with surprise. Concealed within impossible mystery you find a strangely familiar reassurance.

Life itself is not just a concept, is more than a fleeting weightless image, and not merely the pixels onto which it is commonly imposed. Life was itself before you could name it, and extends far beyond anything ever imagined.

Yet life exists because you know it, live it, uphold it, extend and continue it. In every blast of snow, in each cricket that chirps, in all fibers of the sheets that ease your sleep, life embraces itself, and you.

Never forget to return that embrace. You are life itself, and how wondrous it is to be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 13

Experience meaning

Find meaning not by searching for it. Make meaning in your life by making yourself useful.

That doesn’t mean allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. That doesn’t mean buying into some grand utopian scheme to save the world.

It involves making steady, incremental improvements to whatever situation you’re in. It means enriching the lives of people who are close to you.

Meaning is not contrived by thinking about it or studying it. Discover and experience meaning by living generously and authentically.

Right now, within your reach, someone can benefit from your encouragement, presence, sincere attention, your kindness, your smile. You can offer helpful words, a sympathetic ear, skillful action, an understanding heart.

A rich sense of meaning is as close as your next act of generosity, you’re next moment of usefulness. The more you give your best, the more profoundly you know how much your life means.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 14

Disagreement

Disagreement is not what keeps people apart. What keeps people apart is the refusal to acknowledge, explore and resolve their disagreements.

Indeed, in every disagreement is the potential for agreement and cooperation. The pathway to that cooperation is respectful engagement.

The fact that you disagree on a particular issue means that at some level an agreement already exists. Because you and the other side already agree that the issue is important.

Acknowledge that starting point and work your way forward. Agree that you disagree about something meaningful, and begin to discover other ways in which you can agree.

Disagreement is possible only when there is somehow, somewhere, some common ground. Persist in identifying and respecting that common ground, and then persist in building upon it.

When you are sincerely passionate about your position, make positive use of that passion. Do the difficult work to find and to implement new ways to agree and cooperate.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 15

Who you know you are

You are not who you think you are. You are who you are.

You are not your job, your address, your opinions, the roles you play. You are the child who looked in wonder and amazement at endless possibilities.

Circumstances and possessions come and go, but you cannot ever lose the beauty of who you truly are. Yet it’s all too easy for life’s externalities to obscure the real you.

You can become trapped by seeing yourself in a few oversimplified dimensions, losing sight of your true nature and your best possibilities. But you cannot be fully described in a few words, or even in ten thousand pictures, and neither can anyone else.

What you have, how you appear, what you think and do, those things do matter. Yet what matters more is the authentic you.

Acknowledge, accept, and align with the ineffable truth living in the deepest part of you. Rather than being bound by hollow definitions, live as who you most sincerely know you are.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 16

Cost and benefit

Every choice has a cost and a benefit. When motivating yourself to make the best choice, it’s helpful to remind yourself about both sides of the choice equation.

Choosing something desirable right now could have an undesirable consequence later. Shouldering a difficult burden today could bring you great value tomorrow.

Look at what you’re choosing and ask yourself this as objectively as possible. Does the ultimate cost of your choice outweigh the benefit, or is the benefit well worth the cost?

It might seem attractive to get what you want and never have to pay for it. But you know that’s not realistic.

You must focus not just on what you want but on what it will cost. You must focus not just on the discomfort of the effort at hand but on the good things it will bring you.

In the real world you get what you pay for and you pay for what you get. Your most beneficial choices come from being honest with yourself about the whole equation.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 17

Line up the little things

Do the little things in your life hurt you or help you? Do the particular little things you engage in serve you or wear you down?

The little things matter because there are so many of them. And the little things are easy for you to control once you decide to do so.

Big achievements and big tragedies alike are made up of little things. Exert positive influence over the little things, and many of the much bigger things will go your way.

One little unhealthy indulgence won’t hurt you, but a thousand of them over the years can make you seriously ill. One little white lie is no big deal, but when those lies become a pattern you end up with no one who can trust you.

A little extra effort costs you almost nothing, and over time those extra efforts will put you in a position of great advantage. A little kindness is easy to offer, and when you’re sincere and consistent with it you can earn unshakable loyalty.

Line up the little things in a consistent positive direction. Show yourself what a big favorable difference that will make.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

"Put your mind into gear before you put your mouth into drive Prayer " ??

What you DO, speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

When I am worried, it’s usually because I’m trying to do everything myself. When I’m at Peace, it’s usually because I remember that God’s in Charge.

Before you assume, learn the facts. Before you judge, understand why. Before you hurt someone, feel. Before you speak, Think.

[bluidkiti]

November 18

Open to the wonder

The universe is bigger than you can imagine. Yet the beautiful thing is, you can imagine.

The details are far more numerous than you can comprehend. The amazing thing is, you can comprehend.

You cannot ever know it all. And what’s great about that is, you can always know more.

Each morning the sun rises on new vistas to explore. With every question, every thought, every feeling, come countless new things to discover and experience.

More goodness is possible than just an hour ago. Wherever you’ve come from, however long you’ve taken to get here, some of those possibilities are especially for you.

Life gets better when you let it, and help it, and embrace it. Open yourself again and again to the wonder, and do your part to live it well.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 19

What you wish you had done

Don’t let what you wish you had done stop you from what you can now do. Don’t let what you’ve failed to do become an excuse to give up and do nothing.

Momentum is powerful but it’s not insurmountable. If some habit or behavior in the past has not served you well, now is a great time to change it.

Just because you may have regrets is not a good reason to continue creating those regrets. Choose instead to transform past regrets into motivation for positive action in the present.

What do you wish you had done differently? Now is your opportunity to do it.

Sure, the world has moved along and you’ve missed some opportunities. But that doesn’t mean you have to miss the new opportunities to live with purpose, richness, and fulfillment.

Learn from the mistakes you’ve made and work to transform those lessons into real value. Stop wishing for a better past and get busy creating a great future.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 20

Maybe today

Maybe today you could be a little less fearful of the problems. Maybe today you could be a little more eager to meet the challenges.

Maybe today you could spend a bit more time in focused effort. Maybe today you could find new ways to be purposeful in your actions.

Maybe today you’ll be willing to endure some discomfort in order to achieve something meaningful. Maybe today you can spend more time creating value and less time on empty pleasures.

Maybe today you can benefit yourself and others by offering your forgiveness. Maybe today you’ll take the opportunity to give kindness, patience, and understanding, just because you can.

Maybe today you’ll pause to be thankful. Maybe today you’ll feel like being extra helpful.

A day is coming when you’ll give yourself to living life at its best. Maybe today is the day.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 21

Live today

Live today as if you will never have it again. Because you won’t.

Live today as if it is filled with unique opportunities. Because it is.

Live today with a generous spirit. And you’ll resonate fully with its endless abundance.

Live today far removed from the doubts and angers that would bring you down. Fill your thoughts instead with curiosity, forgiveness, kindness, and joy.

Live today with gratitude for its possibilities. Live today with patience for yourself and others as you move forward through the challenges.

This is a moment like no other, and you’ve arrived at it with more wisdom and experience than you’ve ever had. Live today, and live it very well.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 22

The good that can be

This is a day when you can think about what you choose to think about. This is a day when you can feel the way you wish to feel.

This is a day when you can be your authentic self. This is a day when you can live the highest values you hold.

You are alive, aware, and able to achieve whatever you take it upon yourself to achieve. You have time, resources, wisdom, experience, and the ability to make use of them.

You can take positive and purposeful action, well informed by your own life and the lives of countless others who have gone before you. You can care deeply and put forth effort in the service of all you care about.

You’re capable of courage, discipline, commitment, persistence, focus, and more. You’re able to acknowledge, honor, and support those things that matter most with the way you choose to live.

This day and this world are filled with possibilities and you are an integral part of it all. Live it well, for all the good that it is, and all the good that can be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 23

Good memories

Make good memories. Then be inspired by those memories to make more.

A positive experience is nice while it is happening. And that experience can continue to add value to life by giving you the confidence and encouragement to build on it.

When you recall a good memory, that doesn’t have to mean all the good days are behind you. There is some way you can transform the energy of that past positive experience into present-day goodness.

Certainly over time the nature of your enjoyable experiences will evolve. Yet you always have plenty of ways to create unique enjoyment and fulfillment in life.

Circumstances change, people come and go, some periods are filled with difficulty and others are bursting with joy. Through it all, good memories continue to be made.

Good memories never have to be confined to the past. Go ahead and discover how many more of them you can make right now.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 24

All your options

This is a new day. Explore some new options.

It would be easy and comforting to make today into a copy of yesterday. But you can experience a whole lot more fulfillment by adding some freshness to your life today, and every day.

What are you able to do that you’ve never done? Where would you like to go that you’ve never been?

Who would you enjoy talking to that you haven’t heard from in a long time? What could you learn, what could you experience, how could you feel that would make today stand out?

Think about all the options available to you. Think about opportunities to bring new richness to your life and to the lives of those you love.

Today is your opportunity to bring new value to life. Consider what that could mean, and then do something wonderful with it.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 25

Thankful for you

Because you appreciate the value of what you have, it grows in value. Because you are thankful for all there is, you continue discovering new ways to make good use of it.

Because you care, you find yourself making a positive contribution to life. Because you give, abundance multiplies in your world.

Because you listen and understand, hope arises where it never had been. Because you take action, stubborn challenges are transformed into lasting value.

When you forgive, healing begins. When you open yourself to truth and authentic living, suffering diminishes.

Certainly life is not all about you. Yet there is so much you do that makes the world a more beautiful place.

In ways you do not even realize, life is thankful for you. And as you continue to return that gratitude, goodness expands in every direction.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

Thanking God always for His Mercy and his love for all of us.
I'm thankful for being apart of this great friendship that help me
find myself. Happy Thanksgiving Tammy and Kracker.
Thank you for being apart of my recovery family, and I love you.

[bluidkiti]

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

[bluidkiti]

November 26

From it all

Life is often painful. You cannot escape all the pain, yet what you can do is give it positive purpose.

The world imposes demands on your time, your skills, your resources, your patience, the way you feel. You can choose to see those demands not as burdens but as opportunities.

Sometimes you’ll find yourself constrained by limitations. What’s powerful and amazing is that through those limitations you can grow stronger, more focused and purposeful.

Life’s challenges increasingly reveal to you who you are and what you’re capable of. Those are very good things to know and to utilize.

In the good times, in the difficult times, and in between, you find out what matters. You devise ways to support and expand what matters.

Today might be the best day yet and tomorrow could be a disaster. Yet you keep going no matter what, making something good and meaningful from it all.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 27

Push through

You will meet with outer and inner resistance from many different directions. Be ready, be willing to push through it.

You can come to feel weary, disenchanted, doubtful, and distracted. You can also turn away from those feelings and commit yourself to push forward anyway.

Much of the resistance you encounter depends on you to support it with your misgivings, to play along with it. But you never have to do that.

Turn your attention instead to your purpose. That purpose offers you the strength to push through, to push beyond whatever resists it.

The resistance can be persistent. Yet your intentional self can be even more persistent.

Feel your purpose, feel your power, remind yourself why, and know how good it will be to achieve what you’ve set out to achieve. Push through the weariness, the doubt, the challenges, the efforts, and make the achievement happen.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 28

Love this life

Love this amazing life. Love every bit of it, every minute of it.

Love the difficulties, love the joys. Love the contradictions and the dilemmas.

Love the memories and the hopes. Love the frustrations, love the satisfactions.

Love being able to make things happen. Love standing in awe of things you cannot possibly change and would never even want to.

Love all you have and the things you cannot ever have. Love moments of relaxation and love the times of effort.

Love the dawn, the dusk, the dark of night, the thunder and the sunshine. Love until you have no more to love, and then find more.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 29

What you get used to

It’s amazing what you can get used to. It’s frightening what you can get used to.

Whatever you get used to doing, thinking, expecting, will have a major impact on your life. What you would never accept or participate in initially, you can get used to eventually.

You can get used to some powerful, positive behaviors and you can get used to some very destructive patterns. The more you do anything, the more likely you are to do it again and again.

Keep that in mind as you make each individual choice. Those choices build your expectations, your image of yourself, and then those expectations build your life.

That can work in your favor or it can work against you. So make sure each choice is one that would benefit your life and your world if it were to be repeated and amplified many times over.

How do you want your life to unfold from this point forward? Get there by being diligent about what you enable yourself to get used to.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

November 30

Time to act

Every one of your accomplishments has come from action on your part. Today is a target-rich environment for more actions of all sorts.

Even the most enticing dream will not fulfill itself. That’s your job, your obligation, your opportunity.

It is through your actions that what you desire becomes what you experience. There is no getting around that.

You imagine, you envision, you intend, you hope. Then you must act, or it is all an empty exercise.

You are clever, resourceful, and probably a little bit lucky. Even so, you cannot escape the necessity of action.

So go ahead, today act on your best intentions, your highest visions, your treasured dreams. Now is when you are able, and here is where you can.

— Ralph Marston