Daily Motivation

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Thu, May 14 2020 7:52 AM

  Thursday, May 14, 2020

  Highest hopes

  Give hope a reason to be. Give life a good and fulfilling place to go.

  Focus your thoughts on the things that make life worth living. Center your actions around nurturing, expanding, and sharing those things.

  Don’t just wish for inspiration to somehow come to you. Decide to be a source of inspiration by being an authentic expression of the unique person you are.

  Give yourself the courage to do more than just pass the time. Transform the passing moments into lasting value, into richness that shines brightly for all to see.

  Carry your most treasured dreams boldly into the future. Harness the energy, put forth the effort, and persist in bringing those dreams fully to life.

  Make your highest hopes more than just empty thoughts. Give them real expression in the way you live each day, and in all the good results your actions bring.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Fri, May 15 2020 11:48 AM

  Thanks Deena,

  I think that's the first nice thing you have ever said to me.  I don't like the picture though. 

  Others in here like the daily motivation so I will continue doing it as long as I can. 

   

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Fri, May 15 2020 11:49 AM

  Friday, May 15, 2020

  Life wants to live

  Life wants to survive, but life wants more than just survival. Life wants to live.

  Life wants to learn, to love, to improve, to connect, to wonder, to overcome, to feel. Life wants to give.

  Explore, ask questions, forgive, experiment, wander, plan, relax, and laugh. Tell stories, and make lots of new ones.

  See the big picture, and attend to the small details. Find excitement in the noise, the confusion, and deepen your wisdom in solitude.

  Speak your mind, hold your tongue, let yourself cry and know when to be firm. Find the beauty, especially where it’s not supposed to be.

  Life wants to live in every way possible, and even in ways that are not. Go ahead, look, listen, imagine, and give life what it wants.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Sat, May 16 2020 11:54 AM

  Saturday, May 16, 2020

  Face the problem

  Facing a serious problem is tough. Yet the long-term consequences of avoiding that problem will be even more difficult.

  There is no easy choice, but it’s easy to see there is an optimal choice. Facing the problem, as burdensome as it may be, is less burdensome than forever running from it.

  Wishing that the problem had never happened, doesn’t improve anything. Pretending the problem isn’t there does not make it go away.

  You have a strong, innate desire to follow the least objectionable path. Put that desire to work for you.

  Remind yourself that the pain of avoidance will be far greater than the pain of facing the problem. Then let your own natural desire to avoid the bigger pain, push you to embrace the lesser pain of taking action.

  Make a difficult path easier to choose by comparing it to an even more difficult option. Face the problem once and for all, long before it can become much worse.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Mon, May 18 2020 6:55 AM

  Monday, May 18, 2020

  Value of your effort

  Don’t let yourself become discouraged when your efforts fail to produce the desired results. Instead, be thankful for the experience, however it turned out, and make good use of it.

  Consider a professional athlete who trains every day for years before entering any competition. Those practice sessions don’t produce immediate wins, yet they are essential to eventually winning.

  Certainly you don’t ever want to think that your efforts have been wasted. So, do what you must do, going forward, to make sure that they’re not wasted.

  At the very least, you’ve had an excellent lesson in what doesn’t work. That’s valuable experience, useful to you and to others.

  Though it can understandably feel like you’ve lost everything, that isn’t the case. You will always have the experience, the wisdom, the skills, and those are not trivial.

  For all sorts of reasons, sometimes things don’t work out, but that doesn’t negate the value of your effort. Look back, see that value, then find an even better way to carry it forward.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Tue, May 19 2020 8:32 AM

  Tuesday, May 19, 2020

  New understanding

  You don’t gain understanding just because you desire it. Understanding requires mental effort, humility, time, patience, commitment.

  Understanding is costly, and it is worth the cost. Understanding opens up valuable options to you.

  When you understand another person’s perspective, you can cooperate with that person to mutual benefit. Understand a concept, a process, the context of a situation, and you can leverage that understanding to produce great value.

  Understanding is necessarily built on what you already know. Yet to achieve true understanding, you must accept that your current understanding could be partially or entirely ill-informed.

  Engage your curiosity, and then follow where it leads. Shed your assumptions, let go of your need to prove anything, and allow understanding to grow out of the truth you experience.

  Seek to understand, work to understand, and humble yourself before the reality of what you learn. Every new understanding enriches what you already understand, and opens the door to understand even more.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Wed, May 20 2020 9:02 AM

  Wednesday, May 20, 2020

  Loan yourself some energy

  If you don’t have much energy, start to use whatever energy you do have. You’re sure to get more.

  When you can’t muster the enthusiasm to take action, go ahead and take action anyway. The enthusiasm will come.

  Whatever you must do, you don’t have to wait to feel like it. Because very quickly, what you do will change the way you feel.

  Loan yourself some enthusiasm, some energy, some hopefulness, some ambition. You’ll soon be paying yourself back, with interest.

  Rise up, literally, physically, stand straight, look forward. Change the quality of your experience and you’ll immediately change the state of your attitude, of your spirit.

  You can feel the way you choose to feel, the way you choose to act. So choose to feel vigorous, energetic, and purposeful by acting that way, and give life all the good things you can give it.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Thu, May 21 2020 7:09 AM

  Thursday, May 21, 2020

  Beyond trying

  To get something done, you have to stop merely trying to do it. If you see yourself as trying, you’re reinforcing doubts about your ability.

  When you’re merely trying, you’re not fully committed. Maybe you’re not even sure what you want, or whether you truly want it.

  Ask yourself, what would it take to get beyond trying? What can you pursue that will leave you with no doubts about its worthiness, no doubts about your ability to make it happen?

  You can adjust your goal, you can modify your strategy, you can let go of certain priorities and embrace others. You can get yourself to the place where you’re far beyond trying, and actually making progress.

  Trying wears you down, and you deserve better. You deserve to be fully engaged in rich, meaningful effort that’s leading to a valued outcome.

  Get beyond trying, beyond doubt, frustration, and empty efforts. Experience the clarity, the honesty, the sheer joy of making good and meaningful things happen.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,071 Posts

  Fri, May 22 2020 10:48 AM

  Friday, May 22, 2020

  Life’s unfairness

  It is unfair that one person is skilled at making bread while another is skilled at growing vegetables. Yet from that unfairness can come a very tasty meal.

  It is unfair that some people have more wealth than other people. However, out of that unfairness arise ambition, innovation, new value, and ongoing progress.

  Some unfairness is intentionally and malevolently maintained. Much of it, though, is a necessary consequence of the fact that every person is unique.

  Just because life is unfair, that’s no reason to reject its abundant, diverse possibilities. Just because many of life’s underpinnings are unfair, is no reason to tear them all down.

  You don’t ever have to see life’s unfairness as an excuse to hide behind. You can choose instead to see it as a challenge to rise above.

  Rather than letting unfairness get you down, let the richness of life’s possibilities push you upward. And fulfill the unique potential, live the special value, that is yours to experience.

   

  — Ralph Marston