Daily Motivation

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Wed, Aug 2 2023 12:55 PM

  Wednesday, August 2, 2023

  Challenge your thoughts

  Your first thoughts about a particular situation are likely not your best thoughts on it. When you can, give those thoughts time to be challenged and improved by other thoughts.

  Distance yourself from the circumstances and mindset you were in when you first had the thoughts. Alter your perspective and enable your thoughts to run in a different direction.

  It’s great to jump quickly into action when you think of what must be done. But it can also be wise not to jump too quickly.

  That’s especially true when you’re operating in unfamiliar territory. If you have a brilliant idea for what to do, and you’ve never done it before, seriously scrutinize that idea, and run it by others if you can.

  An important part of being creative and resourceful is having the humility to recognize your initial plans could be way off base. It’s entirely appropriate to have confidence that you can get it right while also acknowledging that’s not likely to happen instantly.

  Think innovative, creative thoughts, then expand your creativity by questioning those thoughts. Do what it takes to get yourself from the first idea all the way to the best idea.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Thu, Aug 3 2023 8:32 AM

  Thursday, August 3, 2023

  Easy is not worth it

  Easy is overrated. The best option is not usually the easiest option.

  It’s easy to complain but much better to solve the problem you’re complaining about. It’s easy to wish for the outcome you desire but better to take action and make it happen.

  Doing only what’s easy won’t improve your skills or leave you with any lasting sense of accomplishment. The easy path is not the most interesting or fulfilling one.

  The most meaningful times are not the easiest times. Much of what makes life good comes to the forefront when life is difficult.

  Easy is a promise that rarely lives up to expectations. What’s easy in the moment often leads to regret over time.

  Be wary of giving up time, opportunity, meaning and value in exchange for ease. Usually, easy is not worth the cost, and you have a lot of better options.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Fri, Aug 4 2023 9:13 AM

  Friday, August 4, 2023

  What you complain about

  You draw into your life what you focus on. One powerful, negative way to direct your focus is by complaining.

  As a result, the people and circumstances that exert influence over your life can be the ones you complain most loudly about. Your complaints have the effect of perpetuating themselves.

  Your focus, in and of itself, does not cause things to happen in the external world. However, your focus does have a significant impact on the way you perceive and react to what happens in your world.

  So by complaining about something, you expand its presence in your life. Fortunately, you have much better alternatives for directing your focus.

  You can focus less on what you despise and more on what you love. You can focus on solutions to problems rather than on who is to blame and the harm they cause.

  Let your thoughts be occupied by positive possibilities, not by repeated complaints. Instead of complaining, you can always choose to focus on thoughts that lead your life in satisfying and beneficial directions.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Mon, Aug 7 2023 11:46 AM

  Monday, August 7, 2023

  Make beauty

  Make beauty, make excellence. Create sincere expressions of truth.

  Carry yourself forward with honor, with dignity, with a reverence for all the goodness that is possible. Live up to the potential of the moment, every moment.

  Act as though you understand and appreciate how good you have it. Be the embodiment of life that life so earnestly seeks to know.

  Have the courage to live the adventure that begins right where you are. Let the past continue to guide you in experiencing a future that never ceases to excite you.

  Love in such an authentic way that no love is ever lost. Forge connections with reality that transcend all time and space.

  Remember all you have always known you can be. Now is when.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Tue, Aug 8 2023 11:34 AM

  Tuesday, August 8, 2023

  Balance that stays in balance

  Effective balance is not a matter of countering one extreme with an opposite extreme. You cannot eat everything in sight one day and then nothing the next day and expect to achieve nutritional balance.

  To address any imbalance, seek to rein in that specific imbalance. Adding a similar amount of imbalance in another direction just gets you more out of balance.

  When you suffer because of an imbalance in your life, taking drastic measures might seem an appealing way to fix it quickly. But a situation that took a long time to build will take time to fix, and calls for an approach you can sustain over the long haul.

  It’s useful to know and understand the extremes, and to occasionally experience them. Yet you’ll wear yourself out if you spend all your time negotiating between them.

  Balance must be maintained for it to have value. Move toward the sort of balance that facilitates momentum.

  Use your time and energy to move forward rather than swinging back and forth between extremes. Enjoy the benefits of a balance that stays in balance.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Wed, Aug 9 2023 12:07 PM

  Wednesday, August 9, 2023

  Go where purpose leads

  Zero in on a purpose for today. Enumerate the ways you intend to make a difference.

  Bring the adventure to life. Feel exhilaration as you live out the mission you have assigned yourself.

  Then decide on what you’ll do to extend the experience tomorrow. Keep on living with purpose, producing benefits for your world and yourself.

  Give in fully to those aspects of life you care most about. Let meaningful purpose get you going and keep you going.

  As the minutes fly by, sieze upon their fleeting opportunities and transform them into enduring value. Make time your friend by making it your workplace.

  Purpose takes you to good fulfilling places. Make the choice to go where it leads.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Thu, Aug 10 2023 8:48 AM

  Thursday, August 10, 2023

  What you’re able to do

  Many factors in your life are beyond your control, and will always be. But that doesn’t mean you’re helpless.

  You cannot control the weather or the progression of the seasons. Yet you can control your own actions to prepare and equip yourself for the weather you’re likely to encounter.

  You cannot rid the world of all the viruses and bacterial pathogens that cause serious disease. What you can do is practice good hygiene and make the healthy choices that enable your miraculous immune system to fight off those germs.

  The thoughts, opinions, words, and actions of other people are not under your control. However, by carefully controlling your own behavior, you can shield yourself from most of the damaging behaviors of others.

  It is futile to seek control over many of life’s most pervasive influences. Instead, put your thoughts, your time, your energy into making and carrying out the most effective choices within what you do control.

  Although some options will always be beyond your reach, many good ones are still available to you. Live so that what you’re able to do more than makes up for what you’re unable to do.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Fri, Aug 11 2023 11:52 AM

  Friday, August 11, 2023

  All the good you do

  Your ego will never be satisfied. Whenever you manage to obtain what it desires, it reacts by wanting more.

  That’s an empty, frustrating road you don’t have to go down. At any point you can choose another path.

  There’s no need for constantly seeking ways to exhibit how great you are. It’s tiring for you and tiresome to others.

  Instead, set about to discover how genuinely good, useful, kind, and encouraging you can be. Seek authentic experiences, connections, relationships that uphold truth at their center.

  Ego tempts you with promises of thrills and adulations that it never fully delivers upon. Yet you can resist that temptation with a life of goodness and sustainable quality.

  To truly experience satisfaction, stop endlessly chasing it. Instead, allow lasting satisfaction and fulfillment to flow from all the good, kind, and helpful things you do.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Mon, Aug 14 2023 8:20 AM

  Monday, August 14, 2023

  Ability to achieve

  Make your goal simple. Make it specific and unambiguous.

  Then set about to get it done. Keep going until you have achieved what you intend to achieve.

  You have it in you to make that happen. Over the course of your life, you’ve done it again and again.

  Now, get back to the basics that have been proven by your experience. Specify your intention with absolute clarity and then persist with your focus on that intention until it is done.

  What would be of value, what would improve the lives of those around you, what would make a positive difference? Imagine it, define it, and do it.

  You have more power than the doubts, the distractions, the complacency and the obstructions. You have within you the ability to achieve, and now you can make it happen.

   

  — Ralph Marston

• Ladychipper 23,050 Posts

  Tue, Aug 15 2023 9:17 AM

  Tuesday, August 15, 2023

  Take a break

  With extended focus you create powerful results. But you can’t maintain focus indefinitely.

  At some point your focus will begin to lose its effectiveness. That’s when an interruption, whether you choose it or not, is not such a bad thing.

  Go ahead and take a break. Give yourself and your thoughts a valuable change of perspective.

  Don’t see it as a failure or as an excuse to permanently abandon the work you’ve been doing. Don’t feel guilty or angry or annoyed about it.

  Just remind yourself it’s a temporary break. Allow yourself to enjoy the refreshing change.

  Then, with renewed energy you can get back to what you were doing. And your focus will be more effective, more creative than ever.

   

  — Ralph Marston