Monthly Archives: December 2022

22

When You Wish For Better Things

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Wish- a desire or hope for something to happen

wish
Jiminy Cricket had it right.

Some of my earliest memories are of the fantastic stories read to me as a child. In these stories, reasonable people would be experiencing a challenging situation and wish for help or a solution to enter their life.

Inevitably these desires would come into existence. It was a magical thought. All of your wishes could come true!! Unfortunately, it seems in life today that no magic lamps are waiting around the corner for us. At least not any that I have found yet. Do you wish for things? Or do you think it’s a waste of time? Desire or hope for something is not a waste of time; I believe that conscious wishes are valuable and creative and provide direction to your true self. The power of a wish begins by being aware of your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions regarding a desire. What is it that you want? We don’t always get what we want, but we almost always get what we wish.

When You wish ………….

Being conscious of what we wish is essential because these thoughts can guide us toward the things that will make us happy. Some people never want anything, and with no action, they get nothing. Others wish for wisheverything, and surprisingly, when follow-through and work are attached to these wishes, they come into reality. The difference is your mindset and the action you take. Either you believe you are worth your dreams, or you don’t.

The mindset of worth and value in ourselves allows you to look past the cynical part of your mind that puts the word wish and fantasy together. Don’t listen to that voice. Use your imagination to wish for the things that you want in life. To be successful, wealthy, famous, or master a particular skill are all attainable, and the wish to experience them is just a gateway to getting them. The act of consciously thinking of something opens a passage to your goals. Your imagination is the key to this. A wish is powerful because once you have one, it can come true. Wish freely and wish often. Then take action to give them a chance to come true.

Leave the Negative

There will always be those who feel the word wish means fantasy. There are several negative sayings about wishes, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”  This sentiment is looking at the thought with no action attached to it. The magic of a wish is that it provides hope, and hope is the best of things. It allows you to move through a tough day because the promise of a better day is ahead of you. Hope lets you find your inner strength and discipline. There are few things as powerful as a wish come true.

Unfortunately, sometimes things don’t work out the way we wish. It could be that there are lessons you need to learn or information to gather to allow you to become the best version of yourself. Whatever the reason, when a person dares to wish, there is a chance it won’t come true, especially if your wish involves other people. They have their wishes. If you let disappointment tamper with your enthusiasm, your power is gone. You stop believing there is value in a desire, and most significantly, you stop wishing and hoping for things. Without magic, what do you have left? Without hope, where do your thoughts go? Keep wishing and know that just because it doesn’t come to you magically in the way you think it should, it can still come to you. Most often, in the best way possible, one that will last and be much more rewarding. Wish and know the Universe rewards action.

I Wish You The Best

Some of our best wishes aren’t for us but for someone else. I have sent wishes of favorable, good fortune to many people from my past. Positive thinking is a practice I have kept up and do today. No matter what adverse events may have happened between us. No matter what anger, pain, and hurt were there once, I wish you well in all you do.

These wishes can be the most potent because the alternative is to hold onto the negative emotion and experience. It is in the past, and it is what it is. Feeling wrong about things today isn’t going to change the past. All you can do is be positive, and that energy will also course through your life. Let go of the anger toward those that let you down. They are only human, after all. I wish them well on their journey, and do the best you can on yours. Moving without the weight of disappointment, fear, anger, or regret holding you back is far easier.

Wish Today

Take a moment today and think of the wishes you would like to make. Some may be realistic, some may not, but all are legitimate if your heart desires them. I wish all people you see today, silent or loud best wishes to find what will make them happy today and in life. It all begins with paying attention to your thoughts and the emotions they elicit from you, which are there to guide you. Thoughts lead to feelings, words, and actions taken for what you wish today.

I wish you the best of days and that happiness will find you in every moment you experience.

“The wish to bring pain to an end, to heal and be present for another person in their anguish are qualities we have all aspired to and embodied.” —Christina Feldman

“It is not what you say, or wish, or hope or intend; it is only what you do that counts.”- Brian Tracy.

“Many people go through their lives wishing that they were more successful. This is a good starting point because ‘Wishing’ for something will not get you it.” —Simon Banner

“Be strong as you fight your way to success; the difficulty you face is nothing compared to the joy of success.”

“It isn’t hard at all to make a wish, and the difficulty lies in how to make what you wish for a reality.” –Catherine Pulsifer.

Wish Articles

How to turn your Wishes into Reality

About Wishes

Achieving your Wishes 

What Your Wishes Say About You

Blog Articles about Wishes 

 

 

22

Building Some Greatness

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All people have greatness within them. Don’t believe me? Then I challenge you to do the following five things and see what you can learn about yourself.

With the powerful messages from the media, we get inundated with each day of perfect-looking people always happy. It sends the Message that you won’t be satisfied unless you look like them.

This Message is ridiculous because every person has weaknesses, shortcomings, unique likes, and thoughts, and the ideal of perfection is unattainable. The media tells you what you should think is attractive and what beauty you should aspire to reach, and no person on the face of the Earth can live up to that expectation of perfection.

When you look at yourself with complete objectivity and recognize that you have unique physical characteristics, thoughts, and talents that make you unique, how could you possibly exist any better than that? You are you, and beauty in being imperfect should be celebrated and not chastised or ignored because it is not what the media perceives to be perfect. The truth is that there is no such thing as usual. It is time to recognize your greatness!

Don’t Judge Others

This means YOU!

Every person evaluates and judges things every day. That is how we keep ourselves safe and moving in directions that we feel are good for us. Judgments are a  part of being a human being, and the skill is to help you determine safe situations from harmful ones. However, when your judgments start to label people’s values, they tend to force you into isolation and make your life experience less fulfilling. This negativity is because if you begin to judge someone else’s behavior or beliefs. We tend to look at the world through a tainted lens through which we evaluate others. Unfortunately, we tend to see a part of ourselves that we don’t like and are unwilling to come to terms with. For example, if you judge poor people as bad, perhaps it is not the people who are “bad,” “lazy,” or “freeloaders.” Maybe your fear of poverty creates these judgments and forces them to be expressed through your decisions.

When you look at someone who dresses differently than you, it is easy to criticize them as strange, but really inside of yourself, you may feel exactly like they look and don’t dare to do anything about it. We all fear that people will “find out “what we are like and therefore reveal ourselves as the “strange” dudes and dudettes we are.

The secret is that everyone is strange. This uniqueness results from the fact that we are all individuals with unique experiences that are ours alone. That is why we all have unique ideas, thoughts, and feelings about everything. When you start accepting others who have different views and lifestyles from you, that is a significant step towards making yourself and all that you think and feel. People are strange, unique, and unusual, and so are you. Accept it and enjoy life. When you judge someone else, you are judging yourself and your fears.

Look for the Gold

look for beauty
This Starts Inside of You

In these differences we all possess,  you may focus on how strange someone else seems to you. They may have different religious views, cultural influences, or lifestyles, and it is up to you to learn what you can from them and find the attractiveness of their situation. That doesn’t mean that you have to accept their beliefs as accurate; it merely means that you understand why the thoughts and behaviors are what they are. Who is to say what is right?

Too often, I have kept people who are different at arm’s length or dismissed their thoughts without consideration because it is much less scary to reject something than to investigate it and consider its validity. There might be some nuggets of information that you can use in your life.

Like digging for gold, there might be thoughts a person different than you can teach you. Your mind may expand and learn to accept the good in others more readily. There is a chance for good in all people. It lives pretty deep in some, but the capacity for good is hiding like the future.

Be Kind To Yourself

Of all the judgments we make, the harshest are saved for ourselves. Why is it that people are so hard on themselves? How many people go through a day, a week, or a month without thinking about how great they are?

The answer is many, many people. A critical voice in our heads works to help us survive, and if you listen to those thoughts exclusively, you will never be satisfied or happy with who you are. (Ego)  How often do you look at yourself in the mirror and see a unique talent that is you? Or do you only know the weakness, the age, your physical self’s imperfect physical self? e many years when these thoughts never even entered my mind. I never saw my strengths, weaknesses, or talents as a part of me. I only saw them as I thought others observed them, good or bad.

I have unique talents, as you have particular expertise o see this because then what do you do? You will have to develop it somehow, and being kind to yourself is a great place to start. If you don’t treat yours lf with some understanding and love for the things you bring to the table of life, who will?

Be Better Than You Were Yesterday

Don’t waste time comparing yourself to others in behavior, actions, talents, or weaknesses.  Comparison is a slippery slope that will only detract from your abilities and stop you from reaching your potential.

You can always find someone who can write better, think sharper, jump higher, run faster, is more robust, or whatever than yourself. That is not the point of having talent.  It would help if you ap excited about what you could do.  Your talent is yours and is meant to be precisely what it is, and your only responsibility is to use it.  Comparing what you do t someone else will only lead to you judging your talent, better or worse.   Look at others and appreciate their skills, but don’t compare them to your own; it wastes time.

You can evaluate something objectively and learn from it without comparing yourself.  There is no reason to d this other than to either make yourself feel bad because you don’t perceive that you measure up or build yourself up by trashing someone else.  Be the best, most origi l you can be; that will have to be enough. Focus on being a better person than you were yesterday.

Embrace Your Uniqueness!!

There is only one you in this world, regardless of what has happened in the past. Or, what anyone else thins s, you should be proud of who you are.  It would help if you were glad that you are you and have all of the tremendous physical and mental talents you possess. Your gifts will offer so ething to the world that can’t come from anywhere else.

You always have the choice to explore these talents or to let them lie dormant and waste away.  That doesn’t mean that you will still be perfect or always make the best choices; it merely means that you will share your talent with your talented you and let the chips fall where they may.

There is beauty in this imperfection that makes you perfect. Being “Normal” is overrated and dull; being you is an exciting adventure that will last you the rest of your life. Be the best you that you can imagine!

“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in t is the notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” —Wilma Rudolph.

“People do not decide to become extraordinary, and they decide to accomplish extraordinary things.” —Edmund Hillary.

“Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of some ing better.” —Gordon B. Hinckley.

Related articles across the web

22

How to Find Your Optimism

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Optimistic- hopeful and confident about the future.

optimisticEach day we all make a choice. Either we will be positive, or we will be harmful in the way they view our lives and the situations we experience. I hope we will follow an optimistic mindset and look at the positive side of events. I wish this for us because life is a much more enjoyable experience when you look for the good, and it is always there. Sometimes you have to look hard to see it, but the positive is still there. I would like you to always be hopeful and confident in the future that you face in your thoughts, words, and actions. (See Video)

What Does it Mean to be Optimistic?

In every moment, situation, and interaction, we are faced with a choice to be positive or negative. Life sometimes makes it impossible to be optimistic because you are experiencing something negative. We all experience loss, and in that loss, there is pain, and nobody likes pain. We try to avoid pain. It is easy to slip into a world where you expect there to be pain all the time. Then when the pain doesn’t come or is not as bad as you imagined, you aren’t disappointed. Unfortunately, that attitude harms your life, all those you deal with, and your life. Your negative thoughts of a dark and painful future of not getting your hopes up and expecting the worst will diminish your experience and the experience of all those people you deal with daily.

The optimistic choice is always available to you right there with the negative. It takes work, and it is hard to be consciously hopeful about your future when the now seems to be painful and full of things you can’t count on. The present is what it is, and the end will be what you make it. Your ability to maintain optimism can create something fantastic for you, and a negative mindset can only destroy it. That is your choice, and it will remain a choice until the end of your human experience.

Ways to be Optimistic

So when you look at today, and you are dealing with the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the disappointment that life brings when things don’t work optimisticout as we wish. Recognize what is happening. Deal with it appropriately and do what you have to do to survive. We maintain hope and positivity about the future. Change is going to happen, and some of them are painful. That is life. Don’t let fear run your existence; you will accomplish very little and enjoy even less.

The situations we face are what we face. Whether they are ultimately positive or negative is a value we assign them. Sometimes people are faced with hardships to provide the tools and skills they will need on the path to greatness. Once you lose everything, you have nothing to lose. Sometimes that is the path a person needs to face. There are many terrible things in the world that we shouldn’t have to face, but life doesn’t give us the option of what we face. It gives us the choice of how we deal with what we face. I wish people the courage to face adversity with optimism that tomorrow will be better and they can recover. Because you can, the choice to quit because of fear or keep trying with optimism is always there, and I hope you will always choose to be optimistic.

How to Remain Optimistic

The media perpetuate enough negative messages out there. These messages of fear are all around you and are designed to control you and your behavior. I doubt that you are not good enough. Fear that you don’t fit in. Fear that you are not rich enough. Fear that you are not enough, period. Look at the messages you are getting in every advertisement you see. They optimisticare designed to manipulate you in some way. Don’t believe that hype. To me, there is something extraordinary, beautiful, and hopeful in the person who can maintain their optimism in the face of a cynical world.

Look at the stories of disaster and tragedy that the national media presents you with as often as possible. These stories are tragic and terrible, but what good does it do to be cynical about all people and situations because of one unfortunate incident? They perpetuate fear to control you, be afraid, and you are easily manipulated. Be optimistic and hopeful; you are a wildcard that might change the world. Be a wildcard and change the world, please! That is my most significant optimism, which lies in the hands and hearts of others and their ability to do great things and be optimistic about the world. Also, in my hands, I want to be the best I can be despite challenging situations of loss and pain.

Be Optimistic

It will not always be easy to maintain an optimistic outlook on life as new dramatic situations enter it. But there is power in being happy and maintaining positivity that will propel you through tough times. It will allow you to armor against tragedy and will enable you to hold up those you love when all would like to turn to the negative. It starts with a consistent and straightforward consciousness about your thoughts, words, and actions. To look to the good and be grateful for what you have in situations that seem contrary.

More Optimistic Quotes

Being optimistic, anything is possible, and being negative little is. Choose to enjoy the unlimited possibilities of being joyful. 

“Optimism doesn’t wait on facts, and it deals with prospects.” ―Norman Cousin.

“Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.” ―Rick Steves.

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” ―Helen Keller.

 

22

How To Be Yourself

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I-AM-who-I-AMToday, I am grateful that I have little regard for what anyone else thinks about my beliefs and actions. As we develop through childhood, it becomes more and more challenging to be who we are. We are programmed from our earliest days to fit into a particular form. Anything that doesn’t work exactly like that isn’t acceptable. Making people feel inadequate about who they are. It can become a lifelong affliction if you aren’t careful. Today, I am grateful that I don’t care what anyone else thinks about who I am and what I do.

Building Your Cage

l_32a839e0-91bc-11e1-99e7-f9ed17800001You are worrying about what other people think is a full-time job. When you are younger, you worry about everything. How your hair looks, what you say, how you walk, the clothes you wear, and any other aspect of your existence can be judged. You begin building your cage when you start to construct those things to be the least offensive or give the least amount of fodder for others to pick on.

This cage doesn’t seem too harmful at first. The bars are constructed with every compromise you make with yourself about what you let the world see. An opinion you keep to yourself to avoid a conflict up goes a bar. Actions you take which go along i_don't_care_what-99410with the crowd, even though you don’t believe it right, up goes another bar. Bars start to be constructed so quickly that you don’t have time to notice the cage you have placed yourself inside. One of the expectations of others is the worry you won’t fit in. The fear that your true self will be seen and then rejected. Over time living like that is who you think you are, but that isn’t true. You are not in a cage. You are free.

Breaking Free

Me, I lived in that cage for a lot of years, pretending not to notice the limitations of life. The worst part is that you forget the parts of yourself that you were hiding from the world in the first place.

Something started to happen in life, and events began to occur, reminding me of something I couldn’t remember. Who was I? Why didn’t I seem to have the correct answer to those questions? That is the beginning of breaking out of that cage.

i-dont-try-to-get-other-people-to-approve-of-meRemembering who you are shouldn’t be as hard as it is, but you begin to see the cage disappear when you start to remember so quickly that you wonder why you let the cell encompass you in the first place.

Today I am Free

To be free is when what you think and how you behave is your true self, and I am living with that thought. I believe what I know in my heart is right, and I do what I know is right, and I don’t let the idea of what someone else might think to stop me.

The fear that my authentic self will be rejected is almost totally removed because I realize it isn’t my job to be liked and understood by everyone else. The thoughts and issues others have with me are none of my business.

The type of person I am in my heart is my business, and I take my business very seriously.

So hate me, love me, ignore me; it is your choice. I do give a flying fig, newton, what you think. And I mean that in the right way. I am grateful that I don’t care what others think of me. It’s time to break free. 

 

 

22

Are You Embracing Life?

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Where there is breathe, there is hope!!

The human experience is known for bringing a broad mix of experiences to your table. Some are difficult and change you and your perspective from the core. When someone else’s actions hurt you, it can be the most challenging thing to accept and keep moving forward. When you feel someone violated your trust, lied to you, or the way you saw things turned out to be untrue. Pain is the result, and these painful things lead us to question everything about our existence and self-worth.

There are dark days in every life, and it is reasonable to spend some time in self-contemplation about how we live and where we fit into the larger scheme of things. It is in these moments some people lose themselves. Recently finding myself in such a situation makes me remember times when I was lost before and managed to find a way through life’s challenges. We all have choices, and embracing who we are on the inside and looking to express that to the world is the most dramatic and worthwhile direction you can go. I am alive and still kicking and searching for the best expression of myself. Regardless of the value, anyone else sees in me. That is the last year’s lesson, and I am sharing ie with you.

Life Smacks You

I am not telling any of you anything new. We learn young; not everything works out as we hope. We build attachments to how we wish things would go, and circumstances combine to make events something else. Other people make choices and take actions we would rather avoid. We have no control over what other people do. The only thing we can control is our reactions. We can change what we are experiencing, accept them, or leave them. Life has presented a lot of unpleasant into

life smacks you
How you react is always your choice

my life over the past year. It is an easy way to blame someone else. My pain and loss are my faults because I believed the wrong person and accepted someone at face value when they were something other than what they portrayed.

My loss was devastating in a way I hadn’t felt in years, and it served as a reminder to understand other people better. Listen to what others are saying or not saying about who they are and life. People who say selfish things and live selfish lives are probably selfish. People who treat you like they don’t care about you don’t. That should be a notice to get as far away from those people as possible. Life is hard enough when your circle is cheering for you each step of the way, let alone when they have no belief in your value. That is a hard slap of reality because it makes you question your judgment about every aspect of your life. But if you never wonder what you are doing, you will never make the needed changes to become a better person and contribute to the world.

Remember, Life is a Short Game

Once you start to work through the pain of having a dream shattered or the loss of someone valuable to you, there is a tunnel you will emerge out of to find life is still moving along, and the harsh reality is this journey is a relatively short one. You only have a finite amount of time to play your dreams out, so time is not something you want to waste contemplating past regrets. It is what it is, and ruminating over it won’t change it. The people who hurt you have hurt you, and nothing will replace it. Time to move forward and take control of your own life and the things you experience for the rest of your time.

If you let your routines run your life and accept where you are, pretty soon, ten years are going to be gone, and you are going to be left wondering what you might have been able to accomplish if you had taken that chance, tried that thing, sang that song, published that book or just plain old followed that dream. You realize you are still alive and kicking. Where there is life, there is possibility. Exactly what opportunity means depends on your courage to overcome your past pains and attempt to find the best version of yourself. It is there waiting patiently inside of us all.

No Regrets

Take some time today, contemplate what you want to accomplish, and take the chance to make it a part of today. Learn what you need to know, try what you need to try, but most importantly, live your life without fear. Fear will limit your potential and stop you from doing what you want and learning to understand yourself. What makes you feel whole may be something you have never done. The place you feel most at home, maybe somewhere you have never been to.

Each day we have a chance to reset our goals and take the most minor, minute steps toward finding our best selves.   The most significant limit we face is the imaginary line of fear we have drawn around ourselves, which we dare not cross because of what might happen. We know what will happen if you fail to cross the line, nothing. That is the thing that will leave you with a blanket of regret. Years from now, do you want to look back and see all the changes you didn’t take and wonder what you might have accomplished if you just dared to try? Those are the biggest regrets I see in life and the ones I want to avoid. We have great possibilities in our lives. As long as we remember, we are still alive and kicking. Anything can indeed happen.

“Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” —Babe Ruth

“Being brave isn’t the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it.” —Bear Grylls

“Nothing is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” —Marie Curie

 

22

Building a Mindset

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I heard once it is possible that of the more than 7 billion people on this planet, most will live out the entirety of their life and never contemplate anything deep or thoughtful about their existence before they die. It makes me think everyone should spend a little time each day considering their cosmic presence.

But maybe life is more comfortable, not considering the meaning of things. Thoughts about how you look at life and why we are here develop around our mindset. Recently I read the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck. She discusses the two significant attitudes that exist, the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. Excellent thought for how you approach life, learning, and success presents here, and it would be worth your while to take the time to read through this one.

Know Your Fixed Mind

The bottom line is most people pull from both sides of this spectrum, having characteristics of each mindset, depending on the situation. First is the fixed mindset. The belief that you have the talent to do something or you don’t. Much of your self-esteem builds by results, rankings, and the ease with which something is accomplished. Challenges are avoided, and change is not welcome. In a fixed mindset, people focus on limiting you and often feel helpless when needing to change a situation. Criticism is seen as a personal attack, and they rarely leave their comfort zone. Most important, though, is the fixed mindset that thinks putting effort into something is a waste, and they rarely seek to learn new things.

I would be harder on this mindset, but I have practiced it for large parts of my life in many areas. We worry more about appearances than what would make us happier, better, or contribute significantly to the world. Beginning to recognize the fixed mindset in me has allowed me to step beyond it and look for ways to become better. Fear is behind the fixed mindset of not being accepted as who we are. Fear of not being perfect. Fear of experiencing failure. That is what happens when we let the results define our lives and provide our value. The narrow, limiting view of the fixed mindset, driven by fear, is how many live their lives. I hope to leave doubt far behind me.

Step Into Your Growth Mindset

If you look at your life, the moments when you felt the best about yourself and your accomplishments probably came from practicing the growth mindset. We welcome challenges in this frame of mind because we see their ability to help us become better and wiser and contribute more. We embrace change as an inevitable part of life. Continually seek opportunities to build. The thought is that anything is possible with the right plan, consistent practice, and maximum effort. Growth mindset, people, see learning and constructive criticism as something to be desired and sought out. New things are pleasant, and they love exploring them.

There is a lesson that will lead to your ultimate success in every failure if you take the time to learn about it. Rather than being afraid of not knowing, these people see challenges as an excellent opportunity to become better at whatever they are diving into. In a typical school, the growth mindset is not encouraged or recognized. Becoming better or growing should be life’s number one goal because growth brings purpose, fun, and interest and allows the best version of yourself to rise to the surface.

Building the Growth Mindset

Look at yourself and how you approach new things. Are you afraid to fail? Do you worry so much about what others think you limit yourself, give a half-hearted effort, or see failing as the worst thing possible? If you do, you are operating from a fixed mindset. We all tend to have a limited and growth-oriented mindset, depending on what area of life we live in. In some ways, we might be fearless and growth-oriented, and in others, we can be fearful and operating c

“Amid winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says, no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within, there’s something stronger- something better, pushing right back.”

“Every mistake you make is progress toward accomplishment.”