Category Archives: 21

How You Look At It

February 7, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

What are you sure of in life? What philosophy can you stand behind and not shy away from because you know its validity? We all have some non-negotiable items in this cache. The sun will rise; the sun will set. Life is fleeting. It would help if you worked hard to be successful. The government is looking out for your best interest. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Many points of view are considered by people constant, unshakable, and permanent fixtures in life and creators of our reality. Yet, they are only new points of view that you can choose to believe or discard as you see fit.

Our thoughts on things have power. How we perceive is essential to the reality that we experience every day. But let’s look at the interesting points of view, which are not factual in any way but held onto by people just as if they are. You probably have a few. There are two main areas we all stay strong emotional points of view, love and money. The majority of our time is spent dealing with these two issues. Getting enough money to experience the life we want and finding someone to love us for it.

Money Matters

When it comes to money, we are all carrying points of view developed when we are young. Our

How you look at things determines their reality

parent’s attitude toward money will go a long way in establishing our personal beliefs about money. Some believe it is hard to get; some believe it makes you greedy to have a lot. Some think that money is going to solve all their problems. It doesn’t matter what you think about it; all of these things are simply thoughts in your head and not reality. It is just as easy to believe that money is an energy that can be attracted to me quickly. Or Money comes easily, and I always have more than enough. What you choose to believe is going to determine the reality of your financial situation. Any point of view can be changed, at any time, instantly.

I Love You

Love is a topic that takes up a lot of time in life. We have even more points of view when it comes to experiences love in life. I think that it is because we all have experiences in this area, and the collective pain and pleasure of those experiences have combined to contribute to our feelings of love. Yet, it seems pov-different-exercise that most of us have thought wrong about what love is. We are looking for someone who fits our point of view of love. I don’t deserve love. Love is difficult to find. Love never lasts. Nobody could love me. On and on we go and put our points of view about love out there. A point of view is just a thought, and thoughts can be changed instantly, today, right now.

The actual definition of what it means to love will be different for everyone based on their experiences. When I say I love you, what does that mean? Does it mean a commitment for a lifetime or a week? It depends on the person. This understanding implies that clear explanations of your perspective about that emotion will lead to many fewer problems.

Since Point of View is a Choice, Choose a Good One

There are many different philosophies on beliefs and how to change them. Still, the bottom line is that if you are carrying a negative, limiting knowledge about anything, it affects your life. The first step is to recognize the shortcoming, and the second is to change that belief into an interesting point of view that will be more beneficial to your life and happiness.

Change is constant and continuous in life; we are all changing physically and mentally every day. You can move these changes in any direction that you choose. It all depends on which interesting points of view you decide to entertain. Since it is all a choice, decide to hold onto points of view that will make you happy and pursue those.

Change is Happening

February 6, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

Here Comes the Change

There are many ways change occurs in our lives. Sometimes it is quick and jarring, leaving trauma and drama in its wake. These are the changes that make you consider living a different way. Nothing will ever be the same. But more often, change is like a dripping faucet. As each drop slowly accumulates, you never notice until the thing that once was one way is now totally another. Change is happening to us all day, and Heraclitus was right; it is one of the constants we can always rely on. All we can do is work on our ability to accept change and make choices to roll with it.

Getting Better or Getting Worse

Each of us is changing every day, and it is important to take stock of ourselves and where we are in life. Each day we are either getting better, or we are getting worse. Nobody is staying the same. It is impossible. The movement may be minuscule and hard to see, but you move in one direction or the other each day. That makes it important to know exactly where you are in all areas of your life, physically, spiritually, mentally, or financially so that you can understand your progress.

Each of us makes decisions both large and small, which will dictate your direction. Do I go to the gym or skip today? Do I spend money on that new pair of shoes or not? Do I practice kindness or not? Do I participate in gossip or not? All of these and many more choices are made by you each day, and the only person responsible for them is you. You are in control of your destiny and determine if you are getting better or getting worse.

Accepting Change

Change is so difficult for most of us because we are so attached to our current lives. Even if things are not perfect and things are changing for the better, it is our instinct to resist because deep down, we are afraid that a change may make things worse. It may not be perfect now, and I may not enjoy my circumstances, but at least I can handle them. Don’t fear the changes that are happening in your life. Let life flow, and it will most often take you to a better place.

If you have a goal and it doesn’t involve your current job, relationship, or the area you live in. You can’t be afraid when life starts moving you in a new direction. All of your dreams and goals will be found by trying something new and accepting the changes that come into your life. Each new change will teach you a skill and help you become a better, more well-rounded person. Accepting change will allow us to grow.

Life is full of ups and downs; things will never stay the same, and change is happening every day. Your choices can help dictate the direction of the change that you experience. When the big ones come, a death, the loss of a job, or the ending of a relationship, understand that pain is a part of the process of letting go. It will never be easy because we have attachments to people and situations. Circumstances will come, and they will go, love people as best you can, enjoy each second of all situations because one way or another, it may all be over at any time.

“The only thing that is constant is change.” ~Heraclitus

Gratitude

February 5, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

I have often considered that truly practicing gratitude is an important step into bringing more of what you want in your life into your life. Every day, I am more and more convinced this is true. I had often talked a good game about being grateful, really taking a moment, and appreciating the things in my life, but my process was off. The past year has taught me many valuable lessons. One of the biggest is to be grateful for every day you have to live and every person who brings something positive into your life. You never know when people you count on will be gone, or the positives will be harder to find. List, think about and feel positive about the good things you have. They are always there; it is sometimes hard to notice them because our focus strays so far toward what we don’t have. Be grateful, enjoy those moments, accept your positive things.

What I used to do for Gratitude

I would take a moment and be thankful for things in my life, people I came across, and things that happened to me. I think this might be OK for others, but my problem was that it was inconsistent, and I might not recall something I had real gratitude for. I also spent inconsistent amounts of time thinking of the blessings in my life. I would try thinking of them on the way to work, but I am easily distracted, and one thing would drive out another. I was inconsistent and sloppy with my gratitude, and I met a lot of blocks in my life. Things that stopped me from achieving success or getting things I really wanted in my life.

It is difficult sometimes to maintain your gratitude when you have gone through a big shakeup in your life. Losing someone that matters to you, or having a job change, or just being put out of your “normal” routine, whatever that is. When the negative entered my life, I had little focus for what I was glad to have and a lot of anger about what I did not. That is a path to more frustration in life.

My New Process of Gratitude

It does not take a brain surgeon to figure out what to do differently. I was inconsistent, so I needed to add a complete gratitude practice in my life. To build that consistency and to make the topics of my gratitude consistent. I had to take a moment each day to write it down. I didn’t try to write down a million things, just three to focus on and get my energy of being grateful to flow through me.

I always try to have my gratitude notebook with me, so when I have a moment each morning, I jot down my list of things I am grateful for. I would suggest this for everyone for this reason. Even though it seems a simple thing, there is a contemplation moment that happens when you actually write down your gratitude. The thought has to travel from your mind through your arm to your hand and onto the paper. My lists are not all that elaborate because I am pretty grateful for the little things in life.

I am grateful for good cups of coffee, good conversation, something interesting I read on a blog, a book I read, having money in the bank, a text from a friend who made my day, or a long, verbose Facebook message was awesome to read. The list gets a bit long, but I have tried to keep it to what comes to mind. I can always look back to see what I wrote before.

The Blocks are Disappearing

It may just be a coincidence, and those who are negative will say that is all it is, yet I don’t believe that. After a short time, I mean a matter of days, blocks I was having in life was melting away. I could give specific examples, but they will only mean something to me. Making a gratitude list for me has become something real and powerful. I know how it sounds, but I can feel the difference.

Being grateful is the key to accepting more things into your life. Whatever it is. If you are lonely, look for when you don’t feel too lonely during the day and be thankful for those. If you are poor, be grateful for the things you do have. If you are not feeling well, find the moments you don’t feel as bad and be grateful for them. If you are particularly down, find the little things around you all the time, the weather, a smile from a stranger, flowers, and unexpected fortunate turning. Whatever you come in contact with, be grateful for it. A momentary contemplation of thanks is all it takes.

The worst thing that will happen is you will feel better about life. The best thing that will happen is that you will open yourself up to more of the same experiences. It doesn’t really matter if you believe what I am telling you or not. Just contemplate what will happen if you do nothing different? Nothing different will happen. If you are lonely, sick, poor, or just generally unhappy, what the heck do you have to lose? Give it an honest attempt and see what an increased awareness of gratitude does in your life.

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” —Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” —Zig Ziglar

“Learn to be thankful for what you already have, while you pursue all that you want.” —Jim Rohn

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” —Oprah Winfrey

Think

February 4, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

We think all the time! From the moment you wake up to the second your slip back into sleep at night, our minds are a thought creation machine. Smarter people than me estimate we are producing somewhere around 70,000 thoughts per day. The other shoe that must drop on this amazing statistic is that 95% of those thoughts are repeats and totally unoriginal footprints left from days before. That leaves about 5% of original powerful thoughts to create in your day. And there is more. The tenor of your predominant thought patterns, either positive or negative, will determine how things are playing out in your life for you. It is not what happens to you that matters but how you choose to think about them. Remember this as we delve into the ideas I am thinking about today. Think about it.

Thoughts Lead to Happiness or Not

We think so much that you would be more aware of the thoughts we create and how they affect our lives, but we don’t, and those thoughts control the enjoyment and even success in life we experience. Thoughts that are positive in nature lead to how much you choose to enjoy life. Those who are of a negative nature lead to the opposite of enjoyment. If you let your thoughts move unchecked through your existence, then your mood will change at the whim of random thoughts, which can easily be manipulated by someone else.

We live in a society that constantly bombards you with negative messages, so it is no wonder that the mind will produce a virtually nonstop stream of negativity left to its default state. About other people, situations, and of course yourself and how you don’t measure up. The greatest hope is that in all of our thoughts, we have a choice if we allow them to hook into our consciousness or not. We can even create our own positive thoughts to buy into if we choose to. Conscious creation of positive thoughts is the difference between the happy and the sad, and even the successful and unsuccessful in life.

All Things are Twice Created

Everything ever in existence was created twice. The first creation is in one’s mind as a thought. The second is when forces combine to make that imagined thing a reality. It is true for every building, car, road, or stick of furniture around you. All of them were once just a thought in the mind of someone, and only through action and pursuit of that dream were created in reality before you. Can it be that much of a stretch to think the same is true about your health? Your financial well being? Or any other aspect of your existence.

Look at your reality today, and then follow your thoughts about that area of your life. If you are not happy with your current financial situation or relationship situation, then it is time to examine and consider changing the way you think. Choosing the thoughts about the way you want things to be like is the first creation. The second will come as you pursue those things in your life. Of course, you have the choice to stay with the thoughts you have carried your whole life, but you can’t be surprised when those thoughts deposit you right back where you are now, in the same situations not making you happy. Choose to create the things that will make you happy with your thoughts.

It Can Change in an Instant

The great thing about refocusing your thoughts is it doesn’t require a long, drawn-out process to accomplish. You have to start to create a focus around the things you are thinking. What are the negative thoughts you believe about yourself? Money? Success? Love? Whatever? We predominantly think the thoughts are based on the programming we received when we were very young children, trying to figure out how to survive and thrive in this world. The things which were true for us then clearly, at the very least, are no longer applicable today. At the most, they are inaccurate and faulty programming we accept as true without question.

Look at the thoughts you believe in and challenge them. The worst thing that will happen is you will know some beliefs you want to hang on to. But the best thing will be that you will edit or remove faulty thinking from your reality. Success, money, love, or anything else are available for everyone, and our thoughts are the place we need to start to take control of our own reality. The alternative is to believe you are operating at the will of every other force in the world. You are not. Each of us has the ability to be a unique and powerful creator in this world.

“If you realized just how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.” Anonymous

“Change your thoughts, and you change your world.” Norman Vincent Peale

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” Willie Nelson

“Every thought we think is creating our future.” Louise Hay

“Begin to believe in the power of your thoughts.” Anonymous

“Thoughts have energy. Make sure your thoughts are positive and powerful.” Anonymous

Life Learning

February 3, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

Make The Most of Your Failure

Learn from failure try again — Samuel Beckett

Sometimes it feels like we can never do anything right, that everything we do is inherently wrong, and we have no clue what we are doing. Most thinking people will feel this way at some point in their lives. It is just human nature. Often as we try out new thoughts to see which ones are “keepers” and which ones need to be thrown back, we will experience failure characterized as a mistake. However, it is important to understand that mistakes in life are not only inevitable. They are vital to our growth as people and professionals. You will never experience genius in any field without first experiencing a few missteps along the way.

Learning from the cruel hand of experience has been occurring throughout history. It would help if you didn’t allow your mistakes to define you because you have been presented with a powerful growth opportunity when you approach it from the right frame of mind. If you analyze the failure, why did this happen? Why didn’t it work out? What can I do better? How can I fix it? You will start to build on the misfortune, using the knowledge you were able to compile by failing to move you toward a solid construction of a success.

Learning More From Failure

Make the most of your mistakes — New shirt!

It is often difficult to learn from success because if you feel everything went right, you are not going to be looking as hard for the weaknesses. When you experience failure, it is not desirable, so you are motivated to find out what is wrong or what you can do better and fix it. This was the case for me as a coach. When we won, it was easy to pat yourself on the back and feel good about yourself. You won, how bad could you be? But when you lose, you know that changes have to be made, both mentally and physically, to experience success the next time. The weaknesses jump out at you, and you always feel like you should have seen it coming. Or even if you were able to recognize the problem, it is difficult to motivate change in people experiencing success. Only after the group touches the cold hand of failure will they be willing to accept change. We are like this as individuals, and if we are experiencing nothing but perceived success, there is no motivation for change. That is why we all learn more from failure than we can learn from success.

Our Society Fears Failure

success-and-failure-sign — One can lead to the other.

Today, failure is looked at as something to be avoided today, even more so than in the past. Parents look at their kids today and want to control every aspect of their lives so that they can protect them from failure. In doing this, they rob their kids of one of the most powerful learning experiences they can have. Why are we afraid to let kids make mistakes? I think it is for several reasons. First of all, mistakes can be painful. In many ways, some poor decisions can affect someone for their entire life, or in some cases, end a life. This is tragic but doesn’t change the fact that an individual needs the freedom to make mistakes to reach the potential that they have inside. Lessons learned in this manner are lifelong and provide a solid base for development. You can’t make mistakes for your kids, and you can only guide them, love them, pick them up when they fall, and urge them to keep moving forward, trying again.

When you look at your life from an outside perspective and analyze events you would characterize as mistakes, honestly, make a list of the positives that have come from it. You will be surprised at how your perspective will change. We all want to avoid mistakes, and the wisdom of time allows us to do this more often. You cannot live your life in fear of a mistake, or you are not living your life at all.

Learning from Failure Quotes:

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
– Albert Einstein –

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.
– Og Mandino –
Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
– Abraham Lincoln –
The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.
– Dr. Joyce Brothers –
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
– Elbert Hubbard –
If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative
– Woody Allen –
Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure.
– William Saroyan –
To succeed, you must fail so that you know what not to do the next time.
– Anthony D’Angelo –
Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.
– Al Bernstein –
Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.
– Malcolm Forbes –
You learn as much from those who have failed as from those who have succeeded.
– Michael Johnson –
From success to failure is one step; from failure to success is a long road.
– Yiddish Proverb –
Success does not consist in never making blunders but in never making the same one a second time.
– Josh Billings –
Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
– Al Franken –
Instruction does not prevent wasted time or mistakes, and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.
– James Anthony Froude –
Our life business is not to succeed but to continue to fail in good spirits.
– Robert Louis Stevenson –
The things that hurt us teach us.
– Author Unknown –
Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
– Marilyn Vos Savant –
My great concern is not whether you have failed but whether you are content with your failure.
– Abraham Lincoln
You’re on the road to success when you realize that failure is only a detour.
– Author is unknown –
Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.
– Zig Ziglar –
It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.
– David Feherty –

Look Up

February 2, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

This is a phone. It used to be in your home and if you weren't there, nobody could get in touch with you. Scary to most people today. — This is a phone. It used to be in your home, and if you weren’t there, nobody could get in touch with you. Scary to most people today.

Few things are more invasive in all of our lives today than the electronic tethers and ties that are continually connecting us to the world. Are we really in need of connection?

Notice all the time that you are spending checking social media, keeping your phone handy, just in case………….someone calls, texts, or sends you a social media message on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. It seems to me that this type of focus is not doing anyone any good. The world’s electronic tentacles attach strongly and make us dependent on a small world contained within our phones. There is a giant world in front of you that might be missed if you are focused only on the action in the palm of your hand.

I am old enough to remember what life was like before we had this technology. Your phone was at home, and when you left, people didn’t have to talk with you until you got to work or wherever you were going. You could play a round of golf or go for a walk without any way to communicate with the outside world. We all survived just fine, and so did the world. Now, if you can’t answer a text message fast enough, people feel slighted and upset with you. There is a viral video about breaking the electronic.

How often do we see this happening? People are way more worried about who they are not with than who they are with.

connection and the opportunities for real socialization that we are all missing because of our inability to stop staring at our phone and start looking to interact with other people. (see video here) I have personally made it my mission to be more aware of what is going on in my reality and my experiences. I have even enforced this rule on people I have conversations with. Nobody can check a text or send a message through the conversation, and answering your phone is definitely not tolerated. I do this by simply pointing out that I value the conversation and the experience of talking more than a text message from someone else.

What is going to happen if the message isn’t returned instantly? Most times, the answer is absolutely nothing, and the conversations I have had have become more interesting and in the moment. By doing this, I have been able to know people better and stay in the moment of the conversation. There is no need to multitask and not give each person in your life your attention when you have the opportunity to do so. Try focusing on what is real in your life, the people who you are spending time with rather than worrying about what is happening somewhere else, with someone else, and life will be more enjoyable.

I do this by simply pointing out that I value the conversation and the experience of talking more than a text message from someone else. What is going to happen if the message isn’t returned instantly? Most times, the answer is absolutely nothing, and the conversations I have had have become more interesting and in the moment. By doing this, I have been able to know people better and stay in the moment of the conversation. There is no need to multitask and not give each person in your life your attention when you have the opportunity to do so. Try focusing on what is real in your life, the people who you are spending time with rather than worrying about what is happening somewhere else, with someone else, and life will be more enjoyable.

There is no need to multitask and not give each person in your life your attention when you have the opportunity to do so. Try focusing on what is real in your life, the people who you are spending time with rather than worrying about what is happening somewhere else, with someone else, and life will be more enjoyable.

It is easy to remember to treat the people that you are speaking to with simple respect. Listen, respond and socialize.

Many people today have a hard time relating to people directly that they stand or sit in a group together and text to other people or, worse yet, to each other. Putting the phones down, getting your head out of the electronic world, and looking into other people’s reality might be the best thing that you can do to improve your experience of life. Give yourself a chance actually to have a conversation with your friend. Listen, respond, and react to real.

Give yourself a chance actually to have a conversation with your friend. Listen, respond, and react to real-life social cues that are right in front of you. Please leave your phone in your pocket and interact with life and the situations that it presents. You might find something that has been missing, and you will most likely find enjoyment in life that you have never known.

I know that in my case, I have definitely benefited from breaking the electronic tether as often as possible. Give it a shot and see what type of communication comes into your life and how much more significant it is. This is an old school song about what it was like to call someone you wanted to talk to. It is an old experience but a good one.

Enemy

February 1, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

Today I fought my greatest enemy. They seemed to be following me throughout my day and gleefully took each opportunity to point out my apparent shortcomings. My enemy spoke against me of decisions made in the past. Then I was inundated with their worry about the future. It was a non-stop assault that had its desired effect on me, I felt let down, angry, upset, and wanted to fight back. So I engaged my greatest enemy with the truth, which always seems to be the best weapon. My thoughts are the enemy. My mind continually provides negative ones if I let it. But pushed in the right direction, a positive reward can be found. Here are some truths which build the positive. Look at your life.

The Past Doesn’t Matter.

I calmly explained that the past is an illusion that we all choose to remember our way. All people tend to have selective and prejudice memories about the events of their lives. Sometimes making them more prominent and more terrifying than they were to justify our behavior today or use them as motivation. Sometimes we tend to wax nostalgic about the past and make people and moments more significant than they were. Our attachment is due to our emotional behavior at the time or a wish to experience it again today. Our memories are not entirely true. The past is a game of the mind, and you remember most of it exactly how you want to.

As I explained this to the enemy, there was a quick recap of the events he perceived as mistakes in my life. All brought one thought of truth.
“Accurate or not, there is no way a thing can be changed today.” It is all history, and it is done and over. The best any of us can do with our past is to learn the lessons it teaches, then put it away and move forward with an optimistic outlook on the potential that each new day brings to us.

The Future is Never Known

Then almost immediately defeated in bringing up the past, the enemy moved to worry about the future. Throwing all catastrophic scenarios that may occur if I didn’t start to take some specific action that the enemy condescendingly called “Common Sense.” Yet, I was able to fight this battle with thoughts about the future. Nothing has been written in stone. All things are continuously changing, and no matter how much detail you plan something with, the results may be different from what you ever expected. Worrying about the future is taking away the capability for happiness today. It robs you of the ability to enjoy the moment. My enemy revels in this type of victory, but today was not his day. I was resolute in my convictions. Plan for tomorrow as best you can, and let tomorrow take care of itself because, in the end, it always will.

The Victory is In Today

So as my enemy, frustrated and angry at not being able to raise my anger, I silently questioned himself. I started to think about the only thing left, and that is this moment right now. Sitting here, typing this, right here and right now. Not even my greatest enemy can disturb the truth and wonder that this moment contains. As I breathe in and out and contemplate the moment, I realize that the enemy is gone.

You won the game for the day, but there will be more struggles in the future because the most significant enemy lives, smugly, arrogantly, and entirely within me. Waiting to remind me to: Accept the past, don’t worry about the future, and live in the moment. To do anything else seems like a losing battle.

Jonathan Hilton Mind Connections