Mikes Blog

Image of yourself
+++++++++++++++++++

How do you imagine yourself to be? Imagination alone won’t make it happen, yet it does guide your expectations and actions.

See yourself as struggling, and you’ll continue to struggle. See yourself as achieving, and you’ll continue to achieve.

Decide to have respect for yourself, and you’ll find yourself doing what is respectable. Choose to feel confident, and your efforts all benefit from that confidence.

Talk positively to yourself, and discover how encouraging and empowering it can be. Step forward with faith in your abilities, and you’ll find yourself working to earn that faith.

Your image of yourself plays a major role in your goals, your plans, your levels of determination and success. Make that image the best you can imagine.

Think highly of yourself. With how you live, with how you act, continually give yourself plenty of good reasons to think that way.

— Ralph Marston

THE DAILY MOTIVATOR
Friday, March 6, 2020

Willing to change
+++++++++++++++++++

You won’t solve a problem by continuing the same behavior that caused it. That seems like an obvious truth, yet it is ignored every day.

It’s tempting to think that some magic factor can create the results you want without any disruption in your routine. Yet reality is not so convenient.

If you seek a different destination, you must follow a different path. Hope is a powerful motivator, but hope alone is a poor strategy.

The first step in successfully solving a problem is to take full responsibility for it. The next step is to immediately stop doing whatever caused the problem in the first place.

Then, once you’re no longer sliding backwards, figure out a workable way forward. Transformation is available to you when you choose to invest yourself in it, when you’re willing to change.

Rather than cursing your fate, instead of empty wishes, act to make a difference. Be willing to change, and go in a direction that leaves the problem far behind.

— Ralph Marston

THE DAILY MOTIVATOR
Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Deep beauty
+++++++++++++++++++

Every life, at any time, in whatever situation, carries within it a deep beauty. Far removed from the outer turmoil and drama, lives pure, miraculous beauty.

Even when ignored for years, it waits, watches, learns, grows more beautiful. Any moment you surrender what doesn’t really matter, that beauty draws closer to the surface.

Intertwined with deep beauty is your truth, your ideal vision of life. Every sadness, disappointment, pain, you feel because of its distance from that ideal.

As you bridge that distance, you experience peace, sublime joy, gratitude for all you have and all that is. Your capacity to love grows stronger, more generous and confident.

Your deep beauty makes no logical sense, and you’ll never fully understand it. Yet you cannot ever deny it.

And if you allow it, your deep beauty can increasingly fill life with its value. Moment by moment, know it, appreciate it, and allow it.

— Ralph Marston

Tough times
+++++++++++++++++++

Every setback is also an opportunity to recover. Every challenge is also a chance to become stronger.

You’ve been successfully dealing with difficult, unexpected developments your whole life. It’s a skill you’ll continue to improve upon, and one that always serves you well.

The path forward is never perfectly straight and unhindered. Its twists and turns give life richness, novelty, and unique character.

Your life has value precisely because it comes at a cost. Each day, each new situation, enables you to bear the cost and add to the value.

You’ve encountered doubts, fears, and challenges before, and successfully worked your way through them. When you come upon them again, remember how effectively you can do what you do.

In the tough times of life are the seeds of its great beauty, joy and fulfillment. Nourish those seeds well, and reap the rewards that surely will come.

— Ralph Marston