Improvement and growth are what life is about.  I try to be a little bit better today than I was yesterday. The great thing about this is there are literally thousands of ways improvement came come. I focus on the big categories of life, spiritual, mental, and physical. Still, there are specific things each day you can focus on to improve your energy, productivity, and enjoyment of life.  Today there are three that I am focusing on just because I came across them in my notebook.

Enjoying Life

There are days when everything flows perfectly, just as you want it to. But other days are not so fluid. Often we blame the weather, other people, or life in general for the problems.  The enjoyment you get out of life is never from how smooth things go but how you react to them.  Each moment has good things in it, and if you can avoid attachment to a certain outcome, then all results become something you can enjoy.  We are not all-powerful gods, and occasionally things out of our element are going to happen.  Learn to roll with it.

This means I am focusing on enjoying the rain and the sun, the cool and the heat, the love, and the anger. It is all there, so it must be there for a reason. Those who judge me are there to remind me not to be judgmental. Those who love me are there to remind me to love others. There are just too many good things and experiences in life to focus on the bad ones.  I am working on enjoying life and all of its experiences. It is a short ride, after all.

Improve Relationships

Relationships with others are the way we get our bearings about ourselves. I am fortunate to have great relationships with special people, but there is always room for improvement in all of them. I want to get better at making sure that those I love know it and understand how much they mean to me.  In a relationship, there are two parts, yours and theirs. Allowing them to grow and for you to grow as well is a good thing. I am looking for new ways of appreciation and love. 

I am fortunate to have been in relationships where we embraced new things all the time and tried fun things together. It is fun and allows us to experience life on a level of adventure, which is fun and exciting.  I want to make sure that I never take that for granted and continue to enjoy all the things we do which are new and interesting. I have a suitcase of memories, but I want to fill a large storage building with them.  So I want to continue to improve in enjoying all relationships and all the things that are unique about others. People enter your life for a reason, and most often, it is to teach you something. There are a rare few that stay for the duration, and those are the ones that teach, allow us to teach them, and learn together with you. Improving yourself and your life.

Move Away From Worry and Fear

This is a broad range of topics for how I look at others and life in general. It can be difficult to keep an even keel and see the good in all people when they do such a good job of hiding it. But look, and you will find it and see it.  Much of my mindset is positive, but I am not perfect and have moments of poor quality thinking.  Sometimes fear creeps in and makes you look at people harshly.  Worry and fear are a combination we all face daily. We are afraid people won’t meet our needs in some way. What is anger but a loud alert to the world we are afraid of not having our needs recognized or met?  Worry is the same, and we create grand scenarios in our minds that will never happen and give them our attention. Even though it is only misplaced imagination, the stress you feel is real, and that releases hormones into your system, which are detrimental to your health.

To lessen the effects of fear or worry, it takes an active consciousness.  I am endeavoring to be aware of my thoughts and their resulting feelings.  Determining if they are something I should really be afraid of or if it is just a figment of my imagination created by misguided thought? Most people never look at their thoughts in any real constructive way. That makes you a slave to any thought that pops into your head.  We think we react to, and thoughts of fear and worry are prevalent in our lives because we are inundated with messages of fear through the media and society in general. My goal is to remember that love is greater than fear, and it is always a choice. I can’t control how others live their lives, but I can improve how I experience mine.

So that is it, I will endeavor to become a better person today than I was yesterday!! I will enjoy life more, value my relationships and improve them, and move away from worry and fear towards love.  How about you?

“The health of your brain is much more about your actions than your age.” —Dr. Daniel Amen

“You’re either green and growing, or you’re ripe and rotting.” —John Addison

“Growth is actually contagious, so if you want to reach your goals, you’ve got to get around people who are going in the same direction you want to be going, and you will catch the success.” —Dr. Henry Cloud

“Beginning today, set an intention and a relentless focus on living your life as the greatest person you can be, in all situations.” —Brendon Burchard

“When you are at that intersection in the road, and you’ve got two paths to go down, because of the impact of certain people in your life, you’re able to choose the right path.” —Jason Witten