Daily Motivator - January

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January 13

Love and courage

Lead with love. Follow through with courage.

In each new situation, before saying anything, before doing anything, ask yourself. How can you live this from a perspective of love and courage?

Such a perspective won’t necessarily make things easier. You’re likely to take on more challenges, to put forth more effort.

Yet you’ll be attending to precisely those things that make life rich and meaningful. You’ll be focused on all you love and care about, with the courage to make a positive difference.

In a world that often seems to be awash in fear and complacency, choose to live at a higher level. Allow life’s goodness to shine through all you do.

Think, act, and feel from a place of love. And live out that love with the courage it deserves.

— Ralph Marston

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January 14

Quality time

Give quality time to yourself. Give quality time to others.

Spend time doing what helps you feel good about yourself, about the people around you, about the world you live in. Do what improves your health, your relationships, your understanding, your sense of well being.

Seek out areas of your daily life where you can add your own unique flavor of excellence. Devote time, thought, and effort to increase the amount of joy in your world.

The moments you focus on quality will continue to bring benefits long after those moments have passed. The joys you add to the experience of life can never be taken away.

Each day you have a finite amount of time available. Make it your mission to spend that time enhancing, enjoying, and sharing life’s best qualities.

Enable life to more fully experience its own richness. With your attitude, your outlook and your actions, make as much of your time as you can into quality time.

— Ralph Marston

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January 15

Exaggeration

You wasted thirty minutes this morning so now the whole day is ruined. No, actually it’s not.

You gave in to temptation and ate a cinnamon roll so now you decide you’ll never be able to lose weight. But that thought is nothing but an extreme exaggeration.

It’s helpful to recognize problems and mistakes so you can correct them and avoid them in the future. Yet exaggeration is not really helpful at all.

Yes, perhaps you wasted some time early in the day. However, you have the rest of the day to make up for it.

Instead of punishing yourself endlessly for a small slip, take the opportunity to let it motivate you. Instead of exaggerating problems so far out of proportion that you give up, do what’s necessary to solve them, to get beyond them.

Make sure your thought process is working for you rather than against you. See the problems and challenges realistically, for what they are, and enable yourself to successfully deal with them.

— Ralph Marston

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January 16

Choose your best thoughts

It’s a thought that gets you going. It’s a thought that holds you back.

Confidence, doubt, curiosity, ambition, all are directly connected to what you think. So what do you think?

Are your thoughts scattered and wandering or focused and purposeful? That makes a big difference in where your life goes.

Your thoughts are yours to choose, to use, to build upon, or to discard if necessary. Take responsibility for them, work to make them beneficial and empowering, and the better your life will be.

A whole lot of people want to influence what you think because they think it gives them great advantage. Yet the person best positioned to choose your thoughts is you.

So use that power in the best way you can. Choose your thoughts as if the quality of your life depends on them, because it does.

— Ralph Marston

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January 17

Go ahead with it

Yes it will take time, yes it will require effort. Go ahead and get it done.

You can think of a hundred excuses but none of them will solve the problem or achieve the goal. What will work is you, doing the work.

You may have to struggle for a while, pushing uphill against a bitter cold wind. Yet you will survive, you’ll gain strength and raise your level of confidence.

You’ll have something to show for the time that has passed. And you’ll have established a little bit of positive momentum.

In the short run the easiest choice is to delay, procrastinate, give in to doubt and hesitation. Look at the big picture, though, and see clearly that your best choice is to go ahead and get it done.

Now, while your inspiration is strong, take the first step. Then continue to follow through until you can look back and be thankful that you went ahead and got it done.

— Ralph Marston

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January 18

Life’s demands

Your job demands much of you. And the people around you routinely hit you with their demands.

Your health, your finances, your household and community impose demands upon you as well. The experience of life is often a demanding experience.

You cannot magically make life less demanding. What you can do is make the demands less burdensome by cheerfully accepting and dealing with them.

Remind yourself that a big reason life is so demanding is because you are so capable. Indeed, one way to gauge your competence and capability is by the number of demands on your time and efforts.

Life is demanding because what you do makes a difference. Life is demanding because you are able to meet those demands.

Every demand is a confirmation of the good work you can do. That’s a reason to be thankful, not resentful.

— Ralph Marston

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January 19

Quiet celebration

You can celebrate life without making a big show of it. You can enjoy the moment without turning it into some kind of big extravaganza.

The loud celebrations can be fun and exciting. Yet the quiet celebrations are perfectly good celebrations too.

A quiet celebration doesn’t need a lot of space or planning or cooperation. You can initiate and enjoy one as often as you wish.

At whatever scale you celebrate life, you remind yourself of what makes life good. You reconnect with and refocus on the things that matter.

By bringing those good things to prominence, you encourage and enable more of them. By taking the time to celebrate life, you set the stage for having even more to celebrate.

As often as you can, spend a little time in quiet celebration of the goodness in your world. Then step forward with renewed inspiration to expand that goodness.

— Ralph Marston

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January 20

Blind acceptance

It’s important to acknowledge and accept reality. But reality can change and so can you.

Furthermore, reality is not always accurately represented to you by others. So you can end up resigning yourself to realities that don’t even exist.

Are there situations you’ve blindly accepted that were never real in the first place? Or have they become a whole lot different than they were?

Are there values you’ve compromised, sacrifices you’re making that are not even necessary? Don’t be too quick to accept what can crush your dreams and mute your purpose.

Acceptance is essential for dealing with reality. Just be sure you’re not using it to avoid reality.

Accept what is true, make the best of it. And for the sake of life’s goodness, find the courage to prevail against what is not.

— Ralph Marston

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January 21

Do what you can do

How do you move forward when you’re gripped by fear? Focus on doing what you can do.

What’s your best response when you’re overwhelmed by events beyond your control? Focus on doing what you can do.

Direct your attention and your efforts where they will actually accomplish something. Although whatever you can do may seem small, it is not nothing.

Do what you can do, for it is a start, and that start can provide positive momentum. Take the actions you’re in position to take, make the difference you’re able to make.

Don’t waste your energy wishing for powers you don’t have. Use the significant skills you do have.

Do what you can do, and you can work yourself toward being able to do even more. Do what you can do, and step by step you’ll get yourself moving ahead.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

January 22

Internal encouragement

You deserve encouragement, you benefit from encouragement, but encouragement doesn’t always come your way. When it doesn’t, or even when it does, you can also encourage yourself.

The other people in your life may not often be forthcoming with their encouragement. Yet you can always offer real and effective encouragement to yourself.

You know yourself better than anyone else knows you. So you’re well versed in which thoughts and expressions encourage you and which ones don’t.

It’s not selfish to encourage yourself. Because doing so prompts you to become more useful and to offer more value to all the people around you.

Think of all you’ve accomplished and remind yourself of how much more you can do. Recall how good it feels to make a difference, and offer yourself that good feeling again and again.

Though it’s great to receive external encouragement, internal encouragement can be just as powerful. Encourage yourself today to do all the good things you know you can do.

— Ralph Marston

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January 23

The good that is now

Do not be afraid of time. Be eager to put it to use.

Do not become frustrated by time. Allow yourself to be inspired by every day that’s been, motivated by every moment to come.

Time does not ever have to disappoint you. For you’re always able to give your best thoughts, efforts, gratitude and respect to the time you are in.

Relax into the time that is now. Embrace time as it arrives and eagerly put it to use.

There’s no need for you to linger behind or to rush ahead. Simply move forward just as steadily and relentlessly as time always does.

Put time on your side by celebrating and utilizing each new moment as it arrives. Honor and cherish all the good that is now, and time will be good to you.

— Ralph Marston

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January 24

Time and effort

Every achievement is built with time and effort. Be willing to make the effort, be willing to put in the time.

Getting something in an instant is getting something that has negligible value. Instead of expecting to get anything instantly, choose to put every instant to work.

No matter how far you wish to go, the way to start is always the same. Take the first step in the direction of your desired destination.

No single step will get you all the way there, yet every step moves you further along. Get good at taking steps, reliably, repeatedly, with enthusiasm and the highest of expectations.

The more you do to benefit your life, the better your life will be for you. The more you do to benefit the lives of others, the better others will be to you.

Choose your direction and go, then keep going. Every effort counts, every moment makes a difference, and here is one right now.

— Ralph Marston

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January 25

Take another look

Look at the world and see what’s actually there. Then take another look and see what could be there.

Look at a problem and see all its difficulties. Then take another look and see its many opportunities.

Look at the people in your life and see their obvious traits and preferences. Then continue looking and interacting, and learn deep truths about who they really are.

Your first impression is necessary, useful, important. But don’t let that first impression be your only impression.

Don’t be so impressed with what you’ve already observed that you fail to see any more. Keep your mind open and take another look.

Take another look, and another. Even when you see clearly and understand well, there’s always more to know.

— Ralph Marston

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January 26

Attention and intention

You go about your life each day immersed in an attention economy. Wherever you are, physically and virtually, marketers, advertisers, and self-styled influencers use every trick they have to grab your attention.

Their goal is to alter your behavior, compelling you to do what you otherwise would not have done. Once they get your click, your like, your view, your comment, your purchase, your recommendation, your data, that transaction is over and another begins.

Over and over again, as long as you choose to continue, you give away your precious time and attention to all sorts of people doing all kinds of things. In exchange you receive disjointed moments of empty amusement, heated outrage, eye candy, and various cheap thrills that add negligible value to your life.

How do you avoid being sucked into such an enticing and life-wasting vortex? You moderate and control the valuable asset of your attention with the power of your intention.

You focus on a meaningful purpose for your life, for the day, for the hour and moment you’re in, and you stick with that purpose. You remain aware enough to notice your surroundings while intentional enough to avoid being deterred from the task you have chosen to do.

This is your life, your attention, your action, your effort. Remind yourself constantly to invest it all in what is truly meaningful and valuable to you.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

January 27

Push through

Pushing through a physical challenge strengthens your body. Pushing through a mental challenge sharpens your mind.

It’s often preferable to choose your own challenges. Yet no matter where a challenge comes from, treat it as an opportunity to increase your competence.

Your attitude is what transforms obstacle into opportunity. Make the commitment to push through, and reap the rewards that await you on the other side.

You are specifically designed and equipped to push through life’s most meaningful challenges. In the past you’ve found great fulfillment in doing so, and an even more promising future beckons.

Push through, because it’s what you’re good at and it’s what makes you better. Push through, because it benefits and advances all you care about.

You can keep going, you can continue achieving, you can make a difference again and again. Push through, and discover how very much more you’re able to do.

— Ralph Marston