Daily Motivator - August

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August 16

Currency of life

Time is the currency of life. Spend it wisely.

You wouldn’t waste your money, dollar after dollar after dollar, on useless, meaningless purchases. Take care not to waste your time in a similar fashion.

Demand, from yourself, a meaningful and valuable return on the investment of your time. Choose to make every moment accrue to the benefit of what matters most.

You are surrounded by a world that’s eager to steal your time, and that’s very skilled at doing so. Make the decision not to let it, and support that decision with your passion, your discipline, your love.

With the intentional, focused use of your time, you can create an amazing and beautiful day, year, life. Do what it takes, inside, outside, with your thoughts, your actions, your choices, to do that.

Fall so deeply in love with your highest possibilities that nothing can steal your time away from them. Make time work for you by working to fill it all with what really matters.

— Ralph Marston

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August 17

Mutual understanding

Your opinion is not worth much if you don’t clearly understand and respect opposing opinions. Progress is made by understanding, not by shouting, arguing, vilifying.

If the other side is being unreasonable, that’s no reason for you to be even more aggressively unreasonable. Instead, be aggressive in your efforts to create understanding.

Someone has to introduce understanding into the mix, then guide that understanding to cooperation and progress. Otherwise, nothing good will come of it.

Even the winner of an argument doesn’t really win if the disagreement remains unchanged. There’s no point in proving a point if it fails to result in agreement.

Mutual understanding is difficult. Yet with work, patience, genuine care, it is almost always possible.

By far, for everyone concerned, the best way forward is mutual understanding. Let go of your desire to win the argument, and seek instead the much bigger win of mutual understanding.

— Ralph Marston

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August 18

Smile at the disruptions

Something will interrupt your concentration today. Decide right now that you’ll take it in stride.

Some situation won’t turn out the way you planned. Whatever it may be, make the commitment to take it in stride.

You have every right to be upset, flustered, frustrated when life doesn’t go the way you want. Yet you never have to exercise that right.

You can choose instead to take it in stride. Rather than wasting your time and energy, you can quickly adjust to the new development and keep going.

Feeling upset and sorry for yourself never gained you anything in the past, and it won’t help you now. What will help is your determination to smile at the disruptions while you stick firmly with your original purpose.

Smile at the disruptions, take them in stride. And you’ll quickly put them behind you.

— Ralph Marston

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August 19

Productive day

You know for a fact that you feel better when you get a lot accomplished. So give yourself the gift of feeling great today by getting to work and staying productive.

At the end of this day you can know you have made a difference. You can have the satisfaction, energy, and positive attitude that come from focused, sustained effort.

Set some ambitious, achievable, meaningful goals. As the day moves forward, hold yourself firmly to the achievement of what you’ve chosen to achieve.

Feel the goodness of working to change the world in positive ways, one step at a time. Explore your skills, challenge them, improve them, and put them to meaningful use.

Start strong, continue strong, and finish strong. Benefit from how much stronger the effort makes you, and how well it positions you to live life on your own best terms.

You can do this, you want to do this, and now is when. Today is ready for you to make it the most productive day yet.

— Ralph Marston

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August 20

First minute

The way to get ahead is to work ahead. Rather than waiting until the last minute, begin your effort at the first possible minute.

Do what must be done long before it must be done. That frees your time and inspires you to do even more.

Create a virtuous cycle in which achievement begets more achievement. Jump quickly into action and let each small result inspire you to continue.

Work ahead, far past what you must do, and into the rich, rewarding realm of what you really want to do. Take pleasure even in the unpleasant tasks, knowing you’ll soon be free to do what you love to do.

Begin immediately, work ahead, and give yourself a whole lot of great options. Instead of wishing you had more choices, you can be acting on the best choices.

It all begins when you begin, when you summon the discipline that’s within you, and do the work long before it must be done. Get going at the first minute, and soon you’ll be far ahead.

— Ralph Marston

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August 21

Next time

This time, you didn’t get it perfect. And that’s just fine, because next time you can remember.

Next time, you can remember what went right and what went wrong. And you can be prepared to more effectively deal with both.

Next time, you can recall the successes you had and the mistakes you made. You’ll have the opportunity to avoid those mistakes and expand on the successes.

Next time, you’ll have the valuable benefit of experience. Next time you’ll have greater familiarity, more confidence, much less doubt and hesitation.

Next time you’ll do better, and the time after that, even better. Experience quickly adds up, and quickly adds value, power, effectiveness.

If at first you don’t succeed, if at first you don’t get it quite right, proceed to next time. Next time, you’ll have the opportunity to improve, and you will.

— Ralph Marston

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August 22

Genuine connection

People everywhere are eager for genuine human connection. Give it generously, without condition, or expectation, or hidden agenda.

Do you seek to help the world? Then help the person right next to you by connecting, interacting, caring.

Sure, you have to be careful, a bit wary, with a healthy measure of skepticism. Yet you can be all those things and still be genuine, kind, courteous and friendly.

Yes, there are some people out to hustle you, take advantage of you, or worse. Mostly, though, the people you encounter simply want to live their lives, solve their problems, and follow their dreams.

Make life a little less lonely, a little more meaningful, for those around you, and for yourself. Each time you have the chance, make an honest, attentive connection, even if it’s just for a moment or two.

Add brightness to life by giving your care and consideration to those who are living it along with you. Extend yourself, your empathy, your understanding to others, and live in a more personable world.

— Ralph Marston

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August 23

Make a start

Even if it’s not much, make a start. Make a start, and you’ll be inspired to build on it.

Get on your way, and suddenly you’ll have something valuable, something you didn’t have before. You’ll have the power of momentum on your side.

Take the first step, cross the first item off your list. You’ll find yourself motivated to get right to work on the second item.

Get the impetus of your life working in your favor, moving you forward. Get the ball rolling, and make yourself more likely to keep going, less likely to stop.

Whatever you wish to do, the starting place is here, the starting time is now. Signal the importance of your goal, to yourself and to the world, by making the initial effort, now.

Make a start, and make it real. Make a start, and you’re making it happen.

— Ralph Marston

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August 24

You can get it done

Cast away your doubts. You can do this.

Let go of the excuses, the hesitation, the second guessing. Put yourself out there and get the job done.

You won’t get it all to go perfectly and you won’t get it all done in an instant. Yet you have what it takes to deal with every challenge and to persevere until the work is done.

When you’re tempted to abandon the effort, that’s when you can make the biggest difference by pushing forward. If the doubts rise back up, remind yourself how far you’ve come and know with utmost confidence that you can keep going.

Quietly celebrate each small victory and let it intensify your hunger for more. Notice how quickly your confidence grows, and let that realization make you even more confident.

Learn to find genuine pleasure and fulfillment in the process of achievement. With assurance and competence born of honest, persistent effort, you can get it done.

— Ralph Marston

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August 25

Every experience

Don’t get caught up in judging whether one experience is more interesting, beneficial, worthwhile than another. Every experience is part of the adventure.

From every experience you gain insight, wisdom, and the strength to bring new goodness to life. Every experience gives you the opportunity to make a positive contribution to your own life and to others.

You cannot possibly know all the ways that whatever you’re experiencing right now will benefit you and add value to your life in years to come. So live this moment with the full faith and confidence that it is worth all the attention, effort, and love you can give it.

Look back, and you’ll understand that some of your most difficult times have resulted in your most useful strengths. Those past challenges, frustrations, and setbacks provided you with valuable raw material from which to build a full, rich life.

How utterly boring a story would be if only good things ever happened in it. How shallow and empty your relationships would be if they had not been tested and deepened by difficult experiences.

Get out there and immerse yourself completely in the experience that is right now. Know that you will find the good in it, and know that you will grow stronger from it.

— Ralph Marston

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August 26

Intentional choices

Every good aspect of your life has value because you have time to experience it, enjoy it, make use of it. But is that precious, irreplaceable time being contaminated?

If you don’t make the specific, intentional choice of how to spend your time, it will be filled in ways that do not serve you well. You’ll leave yourself open to countless sources of interruption, distraction, anxiety, angst, and frustration.

You live in a physical structure that protects you from cold, rain, wind, and unwanted intruders. Your time would benefit from a similarly protective structure.

It’s a structure you can impose upon yourself by choosing to do so. Simply decide, in advance, how you’re going to spend your time, and then stick with that decision.

Give yourself a solid, compelling alternative to the frivolous, meaningless nonsense. And you won’t be tempted to waste one moment of your rich and beautiful life.

Within your time, build a special, powerful space to live, to love, to learn and experience and achieve. Fill your time with intentional choices, and fill your life with goodness, meaning, and substance.

— Ralph Marston

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August 27

Gift of discipline

Discipline is good for you. Reward yourself with some.

Discipline demonstrates to you how much you’re capable of accomplishing. Practice discipline, and it strengthens itself along with all your other skills.

You cannot choose whether or not to be disciplined. You can only choose whether that discipline will be imposed by you, or by some force outside your control.

Life improves dramatically when the discipline you are subject to is the discipline you choose. That choice transforms discipline from punishment to empowerment.

Every action, or neglect of action, has consequences. Discipline guides you to perform the actions that produce the most desirable consequences.

If you’re disappointed with your results, find a way to add more discipline to your efforts. Give yourself the powerful gift of discipline, and give your world the benefit of all the great things you can achieve.

— Ralph Marston

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August 28

The path to possible

Imagine the impossible, and suddenly it moves closer to being possible. Imagine the impossible, and give yourself the chance to fully explore what you imagine.

Often when something is considered impossible, it’s the method that’s deemed impossible, not the result. And quite often, there’s another, completely workable method that no one has thought of yet.

That’s why so very many things that were once dismissed as impossible are now commonplace. For each one, someone figured out a way to make it happen.

Imagine something impossible, and think of exactly what its benefit would be, if it were in fact possible. Then ask yourself, is there another way to produce that same benefit?

The path to possible begins with the acknowledgment that there’s more than just one path. Imagine the impossible, but don’t let your imagination get stuck on just one version of it.

Maybe your impossible dream is not as impossible as you think. Immerse your thoughts in the meaningful goodness it can bring, and you’re much more likely to find your way there.

— Ralph Marston

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August 29

Opportunity of the unknown

What can you embrace about each difficulty you encounter? What can you make use of in the challenges that appear in your life?

Unpleasant, undesirable things will happen, many times beyond your ability to expect, prevent, or avoid. Yet you always have the ability to respond in a positive way.

Indeed, difficulties will often push you to become stronger, more capable, more highly experienced and effective. Difficulties will force abilities to the surface that you never before realized you had.

You won’t do yourself much good by fearing circumstances beyond your control. Instead, welcome the opportunity of the unknown, even when it encompasses challenge and difficulty.

Look for some aspect of each situation that you can put to positive use. Find a path to follow that brings you out of the situation ahead of where you were when you encountered it.

You can be much stronger, much more capable than you’ve yet discovered. Seek opportunity in the unknown, and give your best qualities a way to emerge.

— Ralph Marston

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August 30

Working to improve

Take pride in the good work you’ve done. But rather than repeatedly congratulating yourself, challenge yourself to do even better.

Consider your latest achievement to be a stepping stone rather than the ultimate destination. Look for new and helpful ways to put it to further use.

Be thankful for the skills you’ve built and the knowledge you’ve accumulated. Demonstrate that gratitude by constantly seeking to improve your skills and add to your knowledge.

If you see yourself as the best at anything, that severely limits your ability to get better. Instead, adopt the perspective of a humble student, always learning from others, always working to improve.

If you consider yourself to already know it all, you shut down the possibility of learning more. Choose instead to find something new you can learn from every person you encounter.

Life still has much to teach you. So always be ready and willing to learn.

— Ralph Marston