Daily Motivator - June

[bluidkiti]

June 15

What could you imagine?

What you imagine does not exist. What you imagine can in many ways be more real than anything else in your life.

What you imagine influences what you see, what you do about it, who you listen to, how you respond. What you imagine sets the scene for the way you live your life.

Take a deep breath, then think of all you care about, all you wonder about, all you dream, all you love. Then ask yourself a couple of questions.

What do you imagine? What could you imagine?

Imagine the present in a way that energizes you, motivates you, disciplines you, balances you, challenges you. Imagine the future in a way that entices you to make life better for all who live it.

You live in a world of material reality that you cannot successfully deny. Yet with imagination you can rise above that reality and find countless ways of shaping it to everyone’s benefit.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 16

Take good care of yourself

It’s wonderful that you’re so good to others. Always remember to be just as good to yourself as well.

Compromising your own well being does not benefit anyone else. It is when you are satisfied with yourself, confident in yourself, that you can benefit those around you.

When you wish to give, you first must have something of value to offer. If you seek to be of service to anyone else you must take good care of yourself.

Get your work done, indulge some small but important desires. Then you’re able to give your full attention and genuine care to those you love, and to many others.

Yes, it is a challenge to take care of yourself and to balance that with your care for others. It is not a challenge to be ignored or avoided.

If you want your life to matter to others it must matter to you. Take good care of yourself, and give life the best you have to offer.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 17

Make yourself willing

You never would have thought you could do it but you did. Because you really wanted to, or you had no other choice.

What other things might you be able to accomplish, that you never thought you could? What profound challenge, what deep-seated desire can you set before yourself that will energize your spirit and activate your skills?

When you are unwilling, nothing much happens, no matter how well-positioned you are. When you are sufficiently willing, pretty much anything is possible even if you’re burdened by severe disadvantages.

Determine exactly what would make you willing. Fill your mind and your heart with all the details of how much better it will be than any alternative.

Put the whole of yourself into an intimate and continuing relationship with your reason why. Make yourself willing.

Amaze yourself again with all the good things you can get done. Make yourself willing, fill your existence with purpose, and bring to life all the achievements you are meant to achieve.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 18

Live creatively

Creativity is not just for writers and artists. Every endeavor in life, and indeed life itself, can benefit from a creative approach.

There’s the way you’ve always done it, and it works, and that’s fine. Yet very likely there’s an even better way, more effective, more satisfying, more enduring, more fun.

Look at what’s there now, consider what’s happened in the past and how it worked out, then mix it all with what might be. That’s a good starting point for creativity.

Then perhaps you can add in a little randomness, something that catches your eye. Because, who knows, it might just work.

That doesn’t mean you should completely disconnect from reality in order to be creative. What it means is that there are plenty of ways you can creatively improve on reality.

And in a very fundamental sense, isn’t that what life is all about? Live creatively, and continue discovering new ways to be more fully alive.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 19

What life is already

Let go of the need for anything to be different. Allow yourself to be fulfilled by everything that is.

Let go of your obsession with getting. Center your energy and awareness on being.

Let your goals and dreams push you toward a bright and fulfilling future. But don’t let them blind you to the immense abundance that is right now.

Work your plans, honor your obligations, and fulfill your duties. Do it all from a positive and authentic living presence.

Discover again and again that joy is now. Live the reality that true happiness is yours the instant you choose to let it flow from you.

Live not from need, but from love. And see what a magnificent thing life already is.

— 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

Fulfillment in the journey

Push without being pushy. Give everything to the effort while expecting nothing from the result.

Let your fulfillment be in making it happen, not in having made it happen. If the result is fulfilling, as it often will be, that’s a bonus.

You have much more control over your actions than you do over the results of your actions. Keep your focus on what you can control and refuse to be dissuaded by factors you cannot control.

Your results are indications of your success but they are not the substance of your success. That substance is in the value you create along the way.

It’s a form of value that will always exist no matter how any particular result plays out. It’s value that you can expand upon in every area of your life.

Find your success and fulfillment in the journey. And you’ll enable yourself to reach countless amazing destinations.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 22

Know your priorities

What, exactly, are your priorities for this day, this year, this experience of life? What is of importance to you, and in what order?

Want to give yourself a massive advantage in all you do? Be clear, specific, and honest with yourself about your priorities.

A well-developed sense of your priorities will foster confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline. When you’re clear about your priorities, you’re able to make optimum use of your time, energy, and resources.

Priorities inform you without restricting you. They give valuable perspective to every choice you make.

Even when you have strong, clearly defined priorities, you’re not always forced to follow them. You are, however, always able to give your consideration to them.

Know your priorities, and you can make decisions more quickly, with better quality. Know and pay attention to your priorities, and you’ll have an essential structure to live a life of great fulfillment.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 23

Whatever happens

It is not your job to get upset by whatever happens. Your role is to craft meaning, fulfillment, joy, and goodness from whatever happens.

Life is not the least bit impressed with your pain or inconvenience. Life throws solid challenges at you and expects you to grow stronger, not to sigh and complain.

If you can smile, and you can, do it. If you can get up, get going, and make a difference, do it.

You have right now the immense privilege of being able to choose your next action. Exercise that privilege with positive purpose, with love, gratitude and kindness.

Life is difficult, but not as difficult as you often build it up to be. And anyway, that difficulty confers the very opportunities that give life its great richness.

Accept it all, embrace it all, and go with the best you’ve got, now. Whatever happens is fertile ground for all the good that can be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 24

Your thoughts are your choice

Reality is more than what you think it is. Your thoughts have limitations that you, your existence, reality, and truth do not.

Your thoughts play a powerful role in your life. Yet your thoughts do not constitute the entirety of your life.

You can enable your thoughts to serve you without allowing them to limit you. Indeed, you can specifically direct your thoughts to assist you and not to hinder or distract you.

Notice those thoughts that waste your energy, hold you back, or lead you astray, and just choose to let them go. Take only what’s helpful from each thought that arises and then move on with your experience of life.

Every thought you have is yours to do with as you please. Thoughts influence you only when you let them, and it’s up to you when to let them.

Don’t let your thoughts, or anything else, get in the way of what you know to be true and authentic. Allow the truth of all that is to shine through everything you experience, through all you think and say and do.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 25

Sufficient time

Sometimes it’s necessary to rush through a task or an experience. Most of the time it’s not, and your excessive haste can be counterproductive.

You deserve the experience of savoring whatever you do. Your work benefits when you can focus on it without the constant pressure to get it finished quickly.

No, that’s not always possible. Yet there are often ways for you to make it possible.

Do what you can to give the important things in your life sufficient time. Time is highly valuable and confers its value to those endeavors upon which it is generously bestowed.

Life unfolds at a certain pace. If you race too far ahead of that pace, you miss out on much of life’s richness.

Give your work, your relationships, your dreams, adventures, and advancements the time they require. Let your life benefit from those treasures that only sufficient time can bring forth.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 26

Meet the demands

Avoiding effort is itself an effort and a burden on you. Perhaps you’re better off just going ahead and doing what must be done.

Putting off an unpleasant task until later does not make it any more pleasant. What will make your life more pleasant is to put forth the necessary effort and get the work finished.

You cannot get around the fact that life places certain demands on you. What you can do is meet those demands in ways that create value and fulfillment.

Look from the perspective of opportunity, of possibility. See what the situation offers you alongside what it demands of you.

After all, the necessity of meeting life’s demands is what it is. Your thoughts are what can make it into a burden, yet you’re entirely able to choose different thoughts.

When life’s demands arise, promptly acknowledge them and go about dealing with them. Life demands much of you, so activate your beautiful ability to transform those demands into value.

— 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

Tell yourself

Tell yourself why you must do it, and why you can do it. Tell yourself you will.

Tell yourself you are starting now. And then do as you have told yourself.

In the past, you’ve told yourself about all the excuses you have for not taking action. And indeed those excuses have been effective at preventing your actions.

Going forward, tell yourself why, tell yourself you must, tell yourself you are doing it. You’ll be just as effective at getting yourself into action.

You might pay attention to others and you might not. Yet you always pay attention to yourself.

So give yourself some positive direction and give yourself the confidence, along with a little push, to move in that direction. Tell yourself you’re doing it, and you’ll realize that you are.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

June 29

What you look for

What you look for determines what you find. What you look for has a major influence on what comes into your life.

Look for reasons to connect and cooperate rather than for reasons to argue and accuse. Look for possibilities instead of excuses.

Look for ways to solve the problems. Look for what you can do to improve the situation.

Look for ideas, activities and resources that can be of benefit to yourself and others. Look for opportunities to create new value.

Look for what works, and give your support to those who facilitate it. Look for people who are competent, resourceful, generous and insightful, and emulate what they do.

Look for joy, look for goodness, look for truth and kindness and fulfillment. Look for the best you can imagine, and bring it abundantly to life.

— Ralph Marston