It is only natural to look back and reflect on the events of your life and attempt to give them meaning in your life. Positive and negative things happen in life, and there is always a lesson to learn. I have had many of these over the past year, some big and some small but all significant. This writing is a short attempt to list these lessons hoping someone else will benefit from my experiences.  Each is a wish to you that you will find joy every morning when you wake up and carry that feeling throughout your day.  Life is full of situations that take our happiness. You deserve to be joyful and have a heart that sings in the light of hope, which breaks in every new day.

 Life is too short to be unhappy.

It doesn’t matter if it is in your job, your relationship, or just living life from day today. If you are unhappy with something continually, you need to make changes. Our experience is finite and short and could end at any moment. It is too valuable a time to be spent doing something you don’t enjoy or with people who are toxic or make you feel bad.

Choose the activities and people who build you up that make you feel valued and happy in your daily life. Once you find them, enjoy them while they are there because they may not be there forever.  One day at a time is the only way to live.  Enjoy things at the moment and understand that is all there is. Tomorrow is not guaranteed to anyone. Yesterday is gone, and you can’t get it back.  Enjoy the moments. Life is too short to be unhappy all the time.

Taking Action Will Change Your Life

Taking action is one of the essential igniters of positive change. You can plan all you want, weigh all the options, and compare the pros and cons for weeks and months, but only through action can you find out what will work and what will not. There is a power in this knowledge that empowers you, and it defeats fear because what is fear but a thought, worrying about what might happen?

With action, you know what will happen, which will change your life. Actions don’t always work out the way you envision, but they still bring answers, and in the knowledge, there is power and in power is an inner strength that guides a joyous life. It takes courage to take action, but the alternative to brave decisions is to live a half-life of thought. You will never know, dreaming continually of what might happen or what you could be. Take your action, place your bet, push your chips to the middle of the table, and see what kind of cards you get.  At worst, you will learn. At best, you will become that person of your dreams.

Gratitude should be a part of Life.

I know that gratitude is supposed to be a part of your life. Here are the things I experienced with gratitude this year. First, taking a moment to be grateful for things builds a genuine appreciation. You realize that you have great things in your life and your mindset naturally moves from one of lack to one of abundance. You never know when something will change, turning your life upside down. Some things you love will leave, and it is up to you to carve happiness out of the life left behind you. Be grateful for what you have right now and the joy it brings you.

Begin each day with a mental list of all the people and things you are grateful for today. That mindset will allow you to look more objectively at life. Too often create an automated list of all the problems we are facing and difficulties in life, and we are taking our focus on the issues we have. Where focus goes, energy flows.  Like all people, there were difficulties this year for me, but maintaining my gratitude for what I do has, allowed me to survive. It was not easy at times, but I am still here.

We Must change limiting Beliefs

I have been on the trail of my own limiting beliefs for many years, and this year I have had experience changing them and seeing that change play out in my life. Our limiting beliefs are built as we develop early in life, and they work to create our experience in life and lead to what we expect from that experience. It depends on the message we received and how it was delivered. y We are taking in a lot of

Information and figuring out where we fit in the world. As children, the conclusions we come to are hard-wired into our subconscious and rule our actions for the rest of our lives, unless we change them.

Changing a limiting belief can be a challenge. You can do it through hypnosis, repetition of affirmations, and sometimes direct old willpower. (Having enough)  I have changed my own beliefs to some degree and want to see what I want in life. I have also experienced setbacks and heartbreaks because of the limits I placed in my mind.  You can change.  You can do this new way, and it doesn’t have to take a long time to do it. You have to be willing to change how you think about things and desire a change in your life experience.

People are Doing the Best They Can

Many people have come into my life over the years, some for a short time, and some seemingly for the duration. Each one has brought a lesson of some kind because all people come ready-made with addresses attached. How to live, how not to live, do this, or don’t do that, this is how you treat others, and how never to treat someone else. These lessons have been there throughout my life, but I have never really seen them with the clarity I do now.  Pain is a great teacher, and it has ingrained its lessons in my life.

Even the meanest, least pleasant person you meet has a lesson for you. It might be as simple as don’t ever make others feel the way this person makes people think.  Or it could be more complicated, but look for the lesson in each person you see each day and be conscious of the class that you are teaching others each day. The lessons you teach others are your legacy and the things that will be revisited you in your life. When you have a choice, be kind, understanding, and considerate of the needs of others. But never compromise who you are to please someone else. When you do, you cease being you, which is a crime.

Everyone Sees Life Differently

The reality experienced in life is different for everyone. You and I can share the same thing and have two different interpretations of the event. Our biases, beliefs, understanding, and experiences will color every event that happens. People generally believe what they want about people, events, and things. Two individuals can look at a star-filled sky. And one sees the wonder of the universe, and the other sees darkness. Be understanding of these differences and talk about them with those you share things with.  Through communication, your experience can be broader, and you can, in turn, make someone else see more.

Over the past year, I have seen more of this. I have learned that it doesn’t do any good to proclaim the correctness of your perspective because if others have a different experience, no words you say can change their minds and vice versa. Be open to the views of other people. They may teach you something. Things don’t always have to be labeled as right or wrong, but they all can teach you something. Growth is the purpose of this life, and other people will allow you to grow.

Questions are Our most Powerful Tools

when you ask a question, your mind seeks an answer. It is a natural way to gain information, but items work in moving your thoughts and mind toward places you want to go and things you want to accomplish. How can it get better than this? How can this work out better than I could have imagined? What lesson is in this experience for me? What should I do next? What are the actions I should take now?

These are just some of the questions, and then the secret is to let the answers keep coming to you. The first one might be the best, but it might not, and it might just be easiest. Keep seeking answers because once you have accepted the solution, the possibilities are ended too, and there is nothing else you can create from that.

If you examine your answers but keep seeking them, you will find there are others. I have learned that as learners, we have been conditioned to accept the first answer we come to and file it away. Ask questions in the new year, and never stop looking for the answers for the rest of your life.

Some of My Favorite Books

For me, there is a list of books that have influenced me and my thoughts this year. Each of these added to my life and will add to yours, and I highly recommend them. Reading expands your mind, makes you think, and allows you to change your life.

1. The Alchemist- Paulo Coello
2. The Four Agreements- Don Miguel Ruiz
3. The Biology of Belief- Bruce Lipton
4. The Greatest Miracle in the World- Og Mandino
5. Being You! Changing the World- Dain Heer
6. Awaken the Giant Within- Tony Robbins
7. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success- Carol Dweck
8. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People- Steven Covey

Reading is the best way to take in information and expand your mind. You can learn from the mistakes of others and glean wisdom from their experience. Often you can find your way through troubles and get a positive compass reading to avoid the pitfalls of your journey.

No matter what you have been through, life will continue, and what you learn from your experience is up to you and the story you tell yourself about it. The report will create a belief, and that idea will work in your life.  Whether those stories are positive or negative is up to you.

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.”– C. S. Lewis  Trust God Quotes

“It takes strength to step enthusiastically into each day of our lives. This strength comes more readily on some days than on others, but every day makes demands on us.”— Karen Casey, The Promise of a New Day

“Every day that you open your eyes is a new day and another day to get it right.” Jean Renee Porter, A New Day