Daily Motivation

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Thu, Jul 20 2023 9:23 AM

  Thursday, July 20, 2023

  Comfortable

  Comfort is helpful until it is not. Too little of it wears you down, while too much of it can hollow you out.

  A comfortable situation will give you space to heal, to re-energize, to build strength. Other times, too much comfort for too long engulfs you in thick, smothering complacency.

  Seek to avail yourself of those comforts that enable you to act with confidence, initiative, and effectiveness. Distance yourself from the comforts that entice you into endless repose.

  The comforts that serve you best are the ones you can venture away from, knowing you can rely on being able to return. Whether they are places, ideas, people, or experiences, they encourage and facilitate the exercise of your strengths and capabilities.

  The comforts that can entrap you are those that threaten not to be there when you come back. Such comforts that limit your participation in life are not in your best interest.

  Make yourself comfortable, but not too comfortable. You’ve got a rich, challenging, and fulfilling life to live.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Fri, Jul 21 2023 8:12 AM

  Friday, July 21, 2023

  Ready for opportunities

  Today will offer you opportunities. Are you able to recognize them, and prepared to make something out of them?

  A sense of meaningful purpose illuminates opportunities, letting you see them for what they are. Be clear about what you seek, and opportunities that otherwise would be invisible jump sharply into view.

  When you do see those opportunities, you’ll need a potent place where you can put them, nurture them, and bring them to fruition. That comes from establishing and maintaining structure, organization, and discipline in the way you live.

  If you’re searching for an automatic windfall that just brings vaguely defined goodies into your life, you won’t find opportunity. Yet when you have the clear intention of working to create specific value in the world, you’re sure to encounter numerous opportunities.

  Arrange your life so it can resonate with the kinds of opportunities that are meaningful to you. Invest yourself in being open to opportunities, and you’ll find yourself connecting with them.

  Opportunities are out there, and more are arising all the time. Be the person who can see them, who will do something with them, and the opportunities become yours.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Sat, Jul 22 2023 12:08 PM

  Saturday, July 22, 2023

  What you should do

  It’s what you should do, right? But what if it isn’t?

  You assume you should stack today’s activities in a certain way because, well, that’s the way you’ve always done it. Yet perhaps there’s another approach that would work better, would give you access to more enriching possibilities.

  You say what you should say, react as you should, and feel the way you should. Consider how much of it all is based on well entrenched assumptions and habits.

  Those habits and assumptions can be helpful most of the time. But that doesn’t mean they’re your best choice all the time.

  You can always ask yourself whether the path you’re about to take is merely because you think you should or because it’s actually the best option at the moment. Don’t let an assumption of what you should be doing limit the choices of what you could be doing.

  Sometimes you can discover great new value outside the familiar territory of what you assume you should do. The world is bigger than you previously thought and the possibilities more numerous than you’ve yet considered, so be sure not to box yourself in.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Mon, Jul 24 2023 9:07 AM

  Monday, July 24, 2023

  Acting early

  With a small effort right now you can avoid a much larger effort and expense later. For example, a fresh coat of paint today saves you from having to replace rotten boards a couple of years from now.

  It’s tempting to let things slide when they’re not urgent. But doing so tends to turn simple tasks into complicated, compound problems.

  Plenty of issues arise that you don’t really want to face. Yet as you’ve discovered again and again, avoiding them pretty much always makes them worse.

  Indeed, the fact you don’t want to deal with something right now is a good argument in favor of going ahead and handling it. Acting early is a powerful way to leverage your time.

  It can also reduce the stress and anxiety in your life. The problems you’ve already addressed are no longer hanging over you.

  Act at your earliest opportunity. You’ll get more done with less effort and expense, and have more time to enjoy the beautiful existence in which you’re immersed.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Tue, Jul 25 2023 8:43 AM

  Tuesday, July 25, 2023

  With courage

  In the day ahead you’re likely to encounter problems, dilemmas, challenges of various kinds. You can either complain about them or you can work your way through them.

  If you seek to avoid all difficulties you won’t succeed in doing so. And in the process you’ll miss out on some of life’s most enriching experiences.

  That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to invite trouble. What it means, and what is enormously helpful, is to face each day with courage.

  Courage comes from accepting that there will be difficulties, there will be unknowns, and living your life anyway. Courage grows when you’re following a purpose that’s sufficiently compelling to make the pain and trouble well worth the trouble.

  To get up and get going each morning is not the easiest thing. Yet it is certainly preferable to the alternatives.

  With courage you can make the choice to move forward through life with its inevitable pitfalls. With courage, you create the value and fulfillment you are meant to create.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Wed, Jul 26 2023 11:26 AM

  Wednesday, July 26, 2023

  Articulate your vision

  What specifically could you do to improve and sustain the quality of life for you and for others? Envision it, then give depth and substance to that vision.

  You know from experience that you regularly find yourself wishing for this or for that. But mere wishes have negligible power, particularly if they’re for outcomes over which you have limited influence.

  A compelling vision that you have the ability to enact is a whole different matter. With such a vision directing your efforts, you can change life for the better.

  Perhaps the vision is something as simple as a desktop free of clutter. Or maybe it’s a much more ambitious vision that will take years to fulfill.

  Whatever the scope of your vision, when it’s meaningful, realistic, and achievable it pushes you in a positive direction. It constantly reminds you of what matters and urges you to act on what matters.

  What good things do you envision yourself doing today, or this month, or over the next couple of years? Give yourself the power of vision, and give your best to all the moments you pass through.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Thu, Jul 27 2023 8:41 AM

  Thursday, July 27, 2023

  Possible things

  When you take risks you won’t always get positive results. But when you avoid taking risks you’ll never get any results at all.

  You can’t be certain about what will happen tomorrow until it happens, tomorrow. Yet the only time you can act is right now, today.

  Pretty much never will you get access to a sure thing that has any significant value. However, every moment of every day is filled with possible things.

  Life’s most consequential advances are built not on what’s guaranteed, but on what’s possible. What’s possible has been good enough for everyone who has ever lived, and it’s certainly good enough for you.

  Get yourself well informed, mix in some diligence and common sense. Then take a chance on what’s possible.

  Not every possible thing you attempt will come to fruition. Yet when you persist, enough of them will.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Fri, Jul 28 2023 12:35 PM

  Friday, July 28, 2023

  Work on it

  How do you transform a pile of rocks into a magnificent castle? You work on it.

  How do you transform a rough idea for a story into a blockbuster motion picture? You work on it.

  Your life and your world are filled with untapped potential. Turning that potential into value is a matter of time, intention, focus, and effort.

  Achievement is relatively rare. Yet the raw materials for it are so abundant you cannot avoid encountering them.

  The path from what’s commonly available to what’s highly desirable goes through you and others like you. There’s a whole world of physical reality, ideas, needs, concepts, energy, techniques, and much more to work with.

  Value is created by effort. Think of all you can do right here, right now, to make some.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Mon, Jul 31 2023 8:49 AM

  Monday, July 31, 2023

  Fail your way forward

  The first attempt yields nothing usable. The second, the fifth, the fifteenth attempt, they all fall flat.

  Keep going, continue learning, refining, figuring out what went wrong before and adjusting your strategy. As you do, you’ll zero in on what works best.

  No effort ever has to be wasted. Because every effort results in valuable experience.

  Getting it right is often a matter of getting it wrong enough times. Every step is a step forward when you resolve to keep going.

  Rather than getting yourself mired in discouragement, acknowledge what went wrong. Use what you’ve learned to fine tune your next effort and to boost your enthusiasm for going ahead with that effort.

  Failure is a common experience, and one you can use to great advantage. When it happens, fail your way forward and you’ll be working your way to success.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Tue, Aug 1 2023 8:55 AM

  Tuesday, August 1, 2023

  Confronting fear

  There are times when you must run from what frightens you. It’s a natural reaction and one that protects you from harm.

  But it can also be important to approach, investigate, and seek to become familiar with what you’re afraid of. For your fears point toward opportunities for strengthening your courage.

  By confronting a particular fear you experience your own ability to do so. That can help you to avoid or escape the grip of other fears.

  Life certainly has its dangers, and you’re wise to maintain a level of fear toward them. Yet sometimes you must act in the face of fear, and it’s good to give yourself experience at doing that.

  Small children understand this, and often become highly curious about life’s frightening aspects. That’s not a desire to hide from fear, but an attempt at learning how to navigate a perilous world.

  Such skills are valuable to know, to practice, and to strengthen. Identify fears that you can reasonably confront, and grow your courage by doing so.

   

  — Ralph Marston