Daily Motivator - April

[bluidkiti]

April 22

Value in limitation

There is value in limitation. It forces you to appreciate and prioritize.

Often when there’s an abundant supply of something, there can be a tendency to take if for granted. You’re much more likely to fully appreciate resources that are more limited in supply.

It’s not how much you have that matters. It’s what you make of it.

When you’re operating within tight limitations, you can’t do everything. So you figure out what’s most important and focus on that.

In every life, in every endeavor, there are limitations. Those limitations do not have to be a curse.

Rather than letting the limitations impede you, let them challenge you to grow stronger, more purposeful, more resourceful. Within the limitations you’ll find plenty of opportunity for achievement.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

April 23

Give yourself time

Give yourself time to think. Give yourself time to focus on your work.

Give yourself time to recover. Give yourself time to heal.

Give yourself time to be with those who matter most to you. Give yourself time to get lost in doing the things you love.

Give yourself time to explore the wonder of life and existence. Give yourself time for the things that challenge you to become stronger.

Give yourself time to relax. Give yourself time to wonder.

Give yourself time to appreciate and to express that appreciation. Give yourself time to truly live.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

April 24

Good things you can do

You can take on responsibility and you can handle it. You can make a commitment and you can follow through on it.

You can encounter challenge and then rise up to transcend it. You can envision value and then work to make your vision real.

You don’t have to beg for people to make things easy on you. You’re able to meet life where it is and make it the best it can be.

You can hold yourself together through the difficulties that arise. You can grow stronger and even more capable as the result of each experience.

You have integrity, potential, value, creativity, kindness and generosity within you. You are curious, adaptable, energetic, aware, intelligent, and passionate.

Life is not perfect and you are not perfect, yet there are certainly plenty of good things you can do. And right now, today is eager for all you’re able to give it.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

Always give Time, Time.

[bluidkiti]

April 25

Ever young

You cannot go back in time, yet you can be as young as you choose to be. Youth is a matter of how you see yourself and how you live, not how long you’ve been alive.

Live with courage and you are young. Seek adventure in unfamiliar territory and you’re living a life that’s vibrant and young.

Be true to what you value, in word, in deed, in time and commitment, and you’ll be young in temperament. Greet each day with wonder and enthusiasm, and the energy of youth courses through you.

Look forward to whatever comes next. Find a way to put joy into every situation.

These things give you a youthful outlook and experience, no matter what your age. As you live this way year after year, you’ll add wisdom and maturity to your continuing youth.

Give yourself the dual benefits of experience and of youth throughout the whole of your life. Stay ever young as you continue to let time add more and more substance to your life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

April 26

What matters is what you do

To change the quality of your life, you must change what you do. There is no other way.

Improvement does not come neatly wrapped in a package that’s been put together by someone else. It comes from what you do, consistently, persistently, morning, afternoon, and evening.

What habits are you willing to work to get rid of? What habits are you ready to spend time to establish?

Goals, promises, plans, and intentions can all be very impressive and compelling. What matters is what you do, right now, and in an hour, and tomorrow morning, and next week.

You have what it takes to make your life whatever you want it to be. You just have to do the work, and it has to come from you.

Challenge yourself to string together a half dozen days of purposeful, focused, and persistent effort. Feel the momentum, see all the good you can do, keep on going and never stop.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

April 27

Great depth inside

It’s fun and entertaining to be distracted. But life is for more than just fun and entertainment.

You are able to go much deeper than that. And if you go for long periods without any depth and focus, your spirit cries out for it.

When you seek constant trivialities so to escape boredom, you descend into an even deeper and more cynical boredom. At some point the trivial distractions lose all their power, and offer no easy escape.

Eventually you must confront who you are deep inside, and what you feel, and what you value. It’s far better to do that sooner, of your own volition, than later, when you have no choice.

Though you’ll find complexity, contradiction and unsettling substance inside, there’s also great beauty and positive purpose. You owe it to yourself to explore it all, to know it often, to hold it near.

Instead of squandering time and treasure on superficial distractions, seek to grow stronger, more purposeful and focused. You have great depth inside, and with it you can bring much value to all you care about.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

April 28

Treasure every moment

Is the stuff that seems so urgent really so urgent? Are you pressuring yourself to do it quickly rather than to do it well?

You feel like time is always running out. Yet as soon as one moment is over, another one always begins.

You hurry through one task so you can hurry through the next task, and the next. Is all that hurrying merely enabling you to do even more hurrying?

Time is too valuable to waste. Yet your life is too precious and meaningful to always be rushing through it.

Step back, take a breath, remind yourself that time will go, and time will come. Make the choice to use it well, focused on purpose, on excellence, on things that truly matter.

Rather than urgency for the sake of urgency, make sure you’re spending your time moving in the direction you’ve chosen to go. Challenge yourself to treasure every moment and you’ll experience great quantities of life’s treasure as time goes by.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

April 29

Not all about you

Here’s a thought that can give you access to higher levels of freedom and power. It’s not all about you.

When you’re in the habit of taking everything personally, that imposes a heavy burden on your life. The liberating fact is, most of what happens around you is not necessarily directed at you.

People have all sorts of reasons for what they do. Very few of those reasons involve you at all.

There are plenty of times when it’s perfectly reasonable to object to the actions of others. But if you elevate that objection to the level of taking personal offense, you only make it worse for yourself.

By all means disagree, but don’t make that disagreement a defining part of who you are. Other people will live as they live, and there’s no reason to contaminate your own life with obsession over their negative behavior.

It’s not all about you. Keep that always in mind, and free yourself to live with excellence no matter what anyone else does or does not do.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

April 30

Live for you and yours

Did you hear the latest? Are you up to date on everything that happened five minutes ago?

Or, did you instead take a thoughtful and peaceful walk in the woods? Have you reached out and re-connected with a good friend from long ago?

It’s very easy to spend large chunks of each day obsessing over the endless stream of headlines, tweets and videos. Yes, it keeps you constantly in the know, but at the end of the day that doesn’t get you much.

It’s helpful to be aware of what’s going on in the world. Yet what matters much more is the living of your life, in the moment, where you are, with richness and meaning.

The celebrity scandal of the hour might be somewhat interesting. But spending time with a good book written 150 years ago can profoundly improve your life.

Your attention has massive, irreplaceable value, and it makes a great difference where you direct it. Choose to direct it so as to live for you and for all those who truly matter to you.

— Ralph Marston