A little boy looked up at his older brother as they walked along the side of the road, skipping rocks as they walked along the way.  

“Danny? What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

The older child kicked half-heartedly at a larger stone with the side of his worn out shoe, watching as it skittered out of the way. “I don’t know, just happy I guess.” 

The younger child, not to be outdone, found an even larger stone and winding his leg backward, with all the gusto he could manage, pushed forward and gave his stone a hard enough smack to send it flying up and sailing into the blue sky until it disappeared into the golden wheat field far up ahead. He peered up at his brother, a proud, happy satisfied look spreading over his cherub cheeks. “Why you want to wait till you grow up for that? You can be that right now!” 

Happiness is here. Right here, right now, this very minute. Like the small boy who could reach out and grab its energy, feel its power and shine, grin and feel the satisfaction that all is right with the world, happiness is there for you to grab on to.

It never leaves. We leave it. We walk away, walk into the shadows, focus on the darkness and negativity and watch and wait while ugliness eats at our soul.

Then wonder why we don’t feel so good.

Happiness is a source. A power to be tapped into, a bright light of gratitude, love and grace that when applied- with faith and enthusiasm-can shatter the darkest night, slay the foulest enemy and turn the most hopeless of situations into amazing hope and miracles.

Don’t believe me? Give it a try.

To sad to be glad?

Fake it till you make it.

What do I mean by that? Maybe not what you think.

What I don’t mean is sitting around a dank dark room of naysayers and doom and gloomers, listening to the end of the world speech and trying to cheer them up while all the while you feel like you are dying inside. If you can’t swim, don’t try to be someone else’s life jacket. Get out of the water. Quick. Get to solid dry land.

What I also don’t mean is plastering a fake smile on your face and lying to everyone. “How are you?”  Fine. you tell them, while all the while you feel shriveled up and empty. Hiding your pain behind a clown’s smile will never make you happy. It will make you disappear.

What I do mean is go get rescued. Immediately, no matter how much you aren’t in the mood, go find some upbeat, positive energy, love-soaking, head on straight folks to warm yourself up in the sun with.

Find happy people.

The good news is they leak. They are contagious. Find really happy people. Find people who surround themselves with laughter and laugh with them. Even if the first handful of times the sound is unfamiliar to your ears and sounds rusty. Even if for awhile, you feel wooden and hollow and as if everything they say and do is like a foreign language. Hang in there. If you’ve been in the dark for a long time, staring into the light takes awhile for your body to adjust. The sun is bright after all.

Find people who form happy networks of other happy people. Don’t know any? Some of them read this blog. We have a happy community here. Check out their links. Happy people like to hang out with other happy people. If you find one, you’ll find another. They aren’t selfish. They will share you with their friends.

Find people who know what the meaning of the word grace is. Happy people live in grace. They don’t judge others. they don’t live in houses made of glass. When you hang out with these people, you feel freer. More relaxed. You can be yourself without fear of ridicule or judgment. You will smile more, sleep better. Maybe even eat less. Really.

Find people who live grateful.

 Happy people are grateful. Happy people are satisfied and don’t always need that one more thing to be content. They take pleasure in the moment and they can take pleasure in you and the delightful things you bring into their lives. You will feel more appreciated when you hang out with grateful people. You will soon feel like opening up, doing more, giving more, being more creative! Life is more joyful when you life more grateful.

Find people who know the meaning of the word love.

I’m not talking about falling in love. However, that does often happen with loving people. I’m talking about people who understand soul love. Friendship love. The kind of love that happens when two people make a connection and want to see each other grow and prosper and reach a synergistic partnership that feeds everyone’s spirit. That kind of love is magic.

That kind of magic is the most powerful magic is the universe. It can’t ever be stopped. That kind of magic creates hope. That kind of magic creates happiness.

Want more happiness? Just take it. It’s already yours.

It’s November. Thanksgiving in America. Here at Life’s Little Inspirations, November is Gratitude month. All month long we will be celebrating with posts and reflections on gratitude, love and grace. If you would like to join in the conversation or write a guest post for our topic just let me know! Please contact me or leave a comment below 

 What are you grateful for?

John and I recently returned from a once in a lifetime vacation with the kids in San Francisco. One full week of being together with two teenagers in a two room suite and a rental car. I realize as I write that sentence that it sounds like a recipe for a lot of bickering and elbow jabbing, a fair amount of self absorbed  tired whining and some intolerable tunes, but  no- it wasn’t like that.  Amazingly, the typical raising two teens behavior wasn’t packed in the suitcase and blessedly was left behind. Instead we enjoyed seven sunshine filled days of laughter, exploration, great interesting conversations and close companionship with each other.

We did the touristy things. The cable cars and museums. The Chocolate factory and the bridges. We walked along the pier. We ate delectable food until our bellies hurt.

And we watched the seagulls and the seals off of Pier 59. The kids say that was the best part.

Because they were funny with their antics and we stood there for an hour and laughed until tears watered their eyes and our cheeks were sore from stretched smiles.

The simplest pleasures turned out to be the best ones after all. Isn’t that the way it is sometimes?

Isn’t that the way it is most of the times?

November has arrived. Snuck in the backdoor while I wasn’t looking. And sometime this weekend I heard my first Christmas song and the Thanksgiving dinner plans were solidified.

It’s the time of the year when the world starts leaning on us to be just a little more complicated again. Pushing and prodding us to buy that one extra thing, to plan that one extra party, to say yes to that one extra promise.

The urge to batten down the hatches and hang on to the simple things is pressing on me. It doesn’t take complicated to mean special. It doesn’t take extra hoops to mean happy.

I feel like gathering up the family and cozying up to a fire in the fireplace with a hot cup of cocoa and maybe a board game. That and a night of good laughs sounds a lot more fun then filling up this house with  more expensive needless things that no one will remember six months from now.

I bet they don’t forget the seagulls and seals though. Not ever. Those kind of memories stay with a child for ever. And they were free. Of all the things we did that day, watching seagulls and seals didn’t cost a dime. These are the moments that keep me inspired.

When this next onslaught of holidays has passed us by, what do you want to carry with you?  More Credit card debt and empty calories? Circles under your eyes from too many committments? Or is this the year to try something different?

What do you want to cherish as your lasting memory? We can be intentional about this if we start now.

If we start by making memories that matter.  Memories of time spent together. Memories of laughter. Of love. Of giving and of gratitude.

Starting now, starting here. Any plans?

Life’s Little Inspirations had often taken a back seat to life’s BIGGER inspirations as month after month one adventure after another has taken top billing in our busy lives.

September ushered in a new family member as our son Jesse married a wonderful girl and brought us the best daughter-in-law we could ever hope for.

October had us bustling and packing and traveling for an amazing family trip to one of our favorite spots in San Franscico where cable cars, chocolate, walks along the pier and wonderful adventures filled with perfect weather graced our days.

We came home to cold wet days and brown leaves strewn about the ground. Welcome to fall in chicagoland.

Ah well.

It’s hard to get upset when my favorite holiday of the year is looming ahead a few short weeks from now.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner with its savory scents and pumkin pie. But the delicious aroma of Mom’s favorite recipes are not what make this the one day I look forward to above the rest.

This is the ime of the year I love to sit back and reflect on everything I’ve done all year and all I’ve had to be greatful for this year.

And while yes, this year has had more then its share of heartache, its also true that in times of greatest tragedy, families pull together and get closer then ever. Its been a year of strong bonds and ties.

Weddings, celebrations, Laughter, parties…good memories. A vacation that will last in our stories forever.

I can honestly say…despite it all its been a good year. And it’s not over. The other thing I love about the beginning of November is there is still time. Still time to get those last few New Year’s resolutions from last January in under the wire. Slide them in so we can start the new year with something new and fresh instead of the same old, same old. Let’s face it…a lot can be done in Sixty focused days.

There’s still time. Time to reflect on gratitude…time to finish out the year with a bang…time to celebrate the holidays with order and good cheer instead of last minute insanity.

The beginning of November. A moment of hope.

What are you going to do with it?

Some choices don’t seem to matter much. Others change your life in the blink of an eye and there is no looking back.

 I’ve made a few of those. A few times. My friend Eliza wanted to hear about it, so she asked me to write a guest post over at her wonderful blog; Silver & Grace, for her Graceful Women series.

Well, I don’t know how graceful I’ve ever been. I walk into a lot of walls. But the post is up. Would you go check it out and say hi to my friend Eliza? And check out her blog. It’s pretty awesome.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wendi

Second Chances

“Whosoever is present are the right people to be there; whenever we start, it’s always the right time, what happens is the only thing that could have happened; when it’s over, it’s over.”

Harrison Owen, author of “Leadership Is” on the immutable laws of the spirit.

But what if???

If only I had…..

I shoulda…woulda…coulda…

Regret.

Backtracking through our minds and days, beating ourselves up over what we could have said, what we should have done, what we wish we could do-over.

Regret.

The tossing and turning in our sleep. The reruns on the turntable of our mind. Rewriting the scripts in our heads. The-if only I had saids…

How  we wish we could learn how to turn it all off. How we wish for the solice that doesn’t come. How we hope for the second chances to do it better.

Save me O God!
The water is up to my neck;
I am sinking in mud and there is no solid ground;
I am out in deep water, and the waves are about to drown me.

I am worn out from calling for help, and my throat is aching.
I have strained my eyes, looking for your help.

Psalm 69 1-3

How can you start over? How can you begin fresh? How can today be the first new day if all the yesterdays are piled so high that you can’t see around them?

Take a deep breath. Shhhhh.  Listen again: Focus on the words…

“Whosoever is present are the right people to be there; whenever we start, its always the right time, what happens is the only thing that could have happened; when its over, its over.

Trust and Faith.  Standing in the moment and having faith, trusting that God and the universe has a plan. Or at the very least the powers that be can take hold of a bad situation and use it for the good of all. But we have to play our part. We have to trust enough to let go. We have to have faith enough to believe that when we give it up, when we let it be over…for good, then doors and windows open for new opportunities.

It becomes the right time. The right people show up. The thing that happened becomes the only thing that could have happened because it became the road that leads to the moment that becomes right.

Brain teaser isn’t it? But trust me, it works. A heck of a lot better then being up to your neck in regrets and reruns that run circles in your head and take you nowhere.

The mysterious thing to me is that it often starts with the end first. When it’s over, its over.  You have to end before you can begin. You have to stand in the moment empty and be ready to receive what is the right thing for you.

Who knows, maybe it’s different for every one.

That’s what works for me. How does it work for you?

How do you let go and move on?

THANK GOD FOR DIRTY DISHES; THEY HAVE A TALE TO TELL.
WHILE OTHER FOLKS GO HUNGRY, WE’RE EATING PRETTY WELL.
WITH HOME, AND HEALTH, AND HAPPINESS,
WE SHOULDN’T WANT TO FUSS;
FOR BY THIS STACK OF EVIDENCE,
GOD’S VERY GOOD TO US.
Anonymous

 Last year I wrote a post about gratitude and included the above poem.  To this day it is one of my most read posts. Frankly…it amazes me and I find myself shaking my head in wonder. I’m not sure if it is the poem or the post that has people returning to it again and again. However I do know, that a year later, the poem is still as timely for me now as it was then. I figured I could use the reminder. Perhaps you could too?

Look around at the moment at hand. Take note of what you see. Both the tangible…and the not so tangible.

Some of the things right under our noses often seem like the biggest pain in the pahootie instead of the very blessings we forget to be grateful for.

Our homes get messy-
But at least we have them-some don’t

Our children get tired, cranky, unappreciative-
But at least we have them-some don’t

Our spouses are slobs, ungrateful, unromantic
But at least we have them-some don’t

The list could go on, and on and on…

Right now I have a garage to organize, a dishwasher to empty and a list of projects that I would like to close my eyes to. But…they are all attached to the single fact that yes…I am a homeowner. And I shouldn’t be fussing because I am very grateful about that when I stop a moment to remember it. I have a roof over my head, food on my table and a warm bed at the end of the day and a wonderful family and friends I love.

My world is complete. I am going back to my chores with a more grateful heart.

How about you?

That quote  is a  small piece of lyric to a new song  off of Christine Kane’s new CD  Wide Awake that has been running through my mind like a mantra for weeks now. It plays constantly in my mind-while I am awake, when I am talking to others, reading books, writing…even when I am sleeping I can hear it in my dreams, playing like the theme song in the background.

Regular readers of this blog know that this year has been one of many challenges…one of many losses.

I also know that I am not alone in that.  A lot of my friends are unemployed, spending their time worried about job searching, cutting back on their already tight budgets, figuring out new ways to stretch a dollar, changing relationships… finding that they have had to redefine who they thought they were.

That’s OK. Some times in our life we have periods like that. 

We can’t spend every day on the beach, dancing in the sunlight. That’s not reality.We don’t always get to choose when the bad ones are coming. Sadly, bad things do happen to good people sometimes.

What we do get to choose is to embrace life. All of it. The good, the OK, and the bad.

Here is something I have come to understand over the past few months, from my own rough couple of months, and in talking to others. Sometimes, when the going gets rough, when illness strikes, when job loss happens, when relationships sour, when folks start the long drawn out process of messy divorce…any number of things…

They stop living.

They start waiting.

Waiting for life to get better so they can go back to living again. They grind their heels to a halt, they stop having fun, they stop looking around, they stop appreciating  the wonder and beauty and simple joys around them and they wait… for happiness to come back.

They stop seeing. They wait with their eyes closed to the the amazing world around them.

As the World Goes By…All I Know Is I…Want To Live Wide Awake….

 YES.

Life is too short.  I want to live wide awake. I don’t want to miss one vibrant rainbow colored moment of it. I want to celebrate life. I want to run. The best way to beat death? Live  your dreams until your last breath is dragged out of you. The best way to beat depression? Laugh til the tears stream down your face. The best way to beat poverty? Share with the world, be generous, love until your heart overflows and do what you love with unbridled passion. The best way to be happy? Be grateful- and notice everything around you that there is to be grateful for.

The best way to live Wide Awake? All of the above….

and?

How do you live Wide Awake?

And on a more personal note…Christine, if you are listening, thank you. Your CD came out at the exact time it was meant to. It arrived in my mailbox the week my precious friend was ready to let go and move on to the next world and every song spoke words of encouragement and strength and hope. Wide Awake kept me going, Break let me mourn, and I’ll Be Your Angel reminded me that we never really lose anyone. And the others…well…let’s just say they reminded me  of who I am.  Never doubt that what you do is a hell of a lot more than just entertainment.

I’ve been spending time with my friend. We haven’t been doing much. I sit. She lies there sleeping. Or I hold a popsickle up to her lips and let the cool melted liquid quench her parched lips. She opens her eyes occasionally and occasionally I kiss her forehead.

I tell her that I love her.

It isn’t much.

It’s everything to me.

The seventeen years before these  flash through my memories as I sit beside her.

Conversations. Laughter. Tears. Challenges…dreams…some left undone, some came true.

We got pregnant within one week of each other fifteen years ago.

We buried her daughter together eleven years ago, holding each other through blistering tears so painful I thought we would die from them.

Now…Those tears are back again.

But so are the smiles. I wouldn’t trade one precious moment of this friendship.

She is a beautiful, beautiful woman.

Even now. Especially now.

Brave. Fearless. Full of grace and dignity.

She is still living. I am happy to sit beside her while she does.

I am grateful for every precious moment.

Even these final ones we have together.

Family and friendships are the most precious gifts we are ever given.

It’s all that matters.

I wait. For a time, even my pen is frozen in flight while I focus on the sounds of birds. So many of them, and it occurs to me that they are more busy than I am, fluttering in constant motion, flying overhead, back and forth, carrying on their constant dialog…

What ARE they doing up there anyhow?

All of nature has work to do. The squirrels are scattered about, scampering up trees and squealing  out an irritating sound and my eye turns to my daily enemy the chipmunk who lives under my back porch stoop and who- it seems- has made it his life’s mission to remove all of the dirt from under the porch so it will collapse…a second time.

There are butterflies and bunnies, all fluttering and hopping and going about their business. It passes my mind that not one of them is being bullied by a list of chores or guilt or pressure about their day.

I see no creature of nature out here that seems to be thinking “Oh, if there were only more hours in the day to build this nest, hop in this grass or ruin her porch.”

They just ARE. They just DO. And when the day runs out, they get up and do some more tomorrow with the same energy again. Not worn out, not dragging their sorry behinds. Not stressed out.

My great Grandma, who lived to be long into her nineties, used to say “EACH DAY HAS ENOUGH TROUBLE OF IT’S OWN. DON’T GO BORROWING ANYMORE.”

Which was her way of saying why worry? It will happen when it happens and until then Bah…and with a shrug of her shoulders she would walk away and the subject was dismissed from her mind.

I pick up my coffee, cold now. The words written. What will it change, I don’t know. Maybe if I can hold on to glimpses, and let the day unfold as it will, unforced, maybe it will be more peaceful.

Be more present. More here. No yesterday, no tomorrow. Just here, right now.

Like the birds.

Maybe I will get more done.

 Beware the Drift.

That thought  returned to me repeatedly yesterday morning during my quiet time and refused to turn me loose the remainder of the day. It is not an original thought or one I haven’t dealt with before. I first heard it several years ago sitting in a seminar listening to the amazing Jim Rohn share his thoughts on the dangers of the Daily Drift and how it can  destroy our chances for success before we our even aware of it’s existence..

The drift is elusive. It is seductive. It sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking and steals your lunch. Then it takes your dinner. By the time you know it’s there, the cupboard is bare and you are in a full-fledged panic, wondering how in the world you could have let this happen.

The drift occurs in such tiny little increments that it is hard to see its movements. It isn’t particular, it can choose to sneak up into any area of your life that you stop paying attention to. It’s like the preverbal snake, slithering in when you least expect it, tempting you to relax, just this once, what can it hurt? Tomorrow is a brand new day…another chance…after all…everyone deserves a break now and then…don’t they?

And the boat slips softly farther from the shore, gently rocking on a peaceful wave, as you are lulled into blissful compliance. Yes…tomorrow is another day…another day to let goals slip farther and farther from your reach as time goes quickly ticking by.

The drift is always waiting. If it can get an edge in to your routine, …say, oh for example… the second day of a well-meaning plan and the third, or just home from vacation, or just getting over an illness, or remodeling the house, or any number of excuses we all have, then the anchors that held your boat to the shore start to weaken, the currant tugging on the line as The Drift starts to make progress against the shore. Within a few days and then tumbling into few weeks, you are nodding along, comfortably settling in to a new routine, bobbing about the waves, the anchors all but fallen away, resolutions and well meaning habits a fading memory, the path to success growing weeds on its trail from lack of use.

One day you look up and behold, you are adrift in a stormy sea on a boat without sail or paddle, no map to guide you, no earthly idea what treachery landed you in this precarious situation. A situation, no doubt, you likely have vowed never to be in and would have never willing gone.

Except you did. And you can hardly believe it. Stunned and angry with yourself for permitting such an offence, you begin the self-punishing behaviors and self-talk that we are all familiar with when looking in the mirror. Vile things that we would never say to another. Then, self-flagellation completed, we vow to wipe the slate clean and start fresh, armed with new goals, new maps and new enthusiasm to complete the task.

And the cycle begins again. Until the next time the sneaky snake of The Drift begins to whisper in our ear.

One day off won’t hurt… it’s just one day…there is so much to do and so little time….

If failure is the result of a few poor choices made daily over the course of time, then isn’t it reasonable to conclude that Success is the result of a few good choices made daily over the course of time?

Baby steps forward or lazy drifting backward. You choose.

Because nothing stands still. Ever.

Beware the drift.

I must have blinked and missed it, because now outside that very same window the blistering sun is bearing down on a garden full of weeds and drooping tomatoes wondering how in the world July is hanging on the horizon.

This year is a speeding train thundering down the track, stopping nowhere and waiting for no one. I have a nagging urge to start my Christmas cards now because I have a feeling when I blink again, there will be Salvation Army bells ringing at the grocery store.

It steals my breath away.

There are days that moments after I write my daily plan, it is obsolete and flying out the window. Days when the organization of the past just doesn’t cut it and I am flying by the seat of my pants and thanking God above that someone told me Improve class would really come in handy some day.

There are other days that without my morning and evening routines firmly in place, I would be lost, floundering about like a fish, tossed on the shore in a storm.

It pays to be flexible. I take my guidance from the sea. I try to relax into the larger waves of life, trying hard not to fight them, staying focused and alert and on top of things; then calming, as the waves get smaller, trying to remember to take those  moments of peace before the next set starts up again. Always knowing they will come.  Not being knocked off guard by the next set of waves.

Ebb and flow, the balance of life.

It’s hard to keep that balance. It’s an easy thing to lose and this year especially, it’s been hard to hang on to. Find it in one area, it slips in another. Coaching’s  going great, writing fiction? Sure…great…doing it every day like clock work. Exercise, diet?… yep…finally  back on track. House? Yep..good…family good…

Then one day John asks casually… haven’t seen a post at LLI for awhile… Taking a break or something?

Um…yea, has it really been that long?

Time slipping through my fingers again. Why is it always the important things…and sometimes people… we let slip away?

Weeds in the garden, lack 0f posts at LLI, haven’t touched a paintbrush in months…journal buried under a pile of papers… for me, when life turns up the speed, I lose my meditative edge and forget those stolen moments that were just for me. I keep working on the ones that are geared toward helping others improve their lives or producing some work of art for payment, or church or a project for an interesting cause.  These are my focus while in the mean time my own inner light is spinning precariously closer to burn out.

Been there done that before. Not interested in ever going back there again.  Although I think my  “take on everything I see”  type of personality leaves me a prime target for burn out, I have had to deal with this lesson a few times now. It’s a faster walk around the block. I am quicker to see the warning signs flashing around me.

What I need back are my stolen morning moments. Plucked away from the first drops of morning dew before the sun has time to steal them back again. My morning meditation time and private musings gives me the creative juice to send it out again into the rest of the day.

I picked up my journal today. The pages that stared back at me accusingly had a date on it that I am too ashamed to share. This from a woman who faithfully wrote in it most every morning for years. It felt great to pour the details of my days back into the little book where they belong and get all of that nonsense out of my head. It may seem hard to believe, but I think it even slows that rushing train down a little bit.

It restores balance. The ebb and flow.

And leaves room in my head to go focus on other things. Like coming here.

It feels good to be back.

Late last night after the final chore of the day was wrapped up and done, I found myself with an amazing gift. Free Time! As I had just finished the final page of an almost eight- hundred page book, reading wasn’t as appealing as it typically would be. So, I settled on a favorite but rare pleasure. A game of Sudoku.

For anyone not familiar with the game, it’s both simple and challenging at the same time. The numbers from 1 to 9 need to make up every row AND every block without repeating. In other words- you can’t have two of the number 2 ( Or any other number) in the same box or row.  I find it to be just the right amount of mental challenge that I need when my brain is still going in high gear and the rest of me is done for the day. ( Sometimes my mental body and my physical body just can’t quiet get on the same page.)

As I was working through the puzzle last night, I tuned in for the first time to the unplanned methods I had developed to solve the game. It occurred to me that I followed the same pattern for every single puzzle, working through the steps in a systematic fashion until I had the entire thing figured out. I was almost through my third puzzle when the little voice inside my head spoke up.

It said, “You use the same system to solve your problems in life too. That’s how come it works for you.”

The thought caught me by surprise and I had to consider it for quite some time. But ultimately I had to concede that the little voice was right. I live my life like a game of Sudoku. I grabbed my Inspiration Journal and wrote down the steps as I played them and compared them to the way I live my life. I decided that living life like Sudoku wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

So I share with you:

Sudoku Rules for the Game of Life

1) Start with what you know for sure. Gather the  Black and White facts and determine what is already in front of you. Don’t add to the mix any mental tapes in your head to tell you what you think you know, based on all the other times. Just look at the solid data as objectively as you can.

2) After you have determined all the facts, then look at them one more time. Based on what you know for sure, what can you make a reasonable guess at? If you can make an informed guess, then DO IT. Some folks get hung up on number one and never move forward in the game of life. Fear of being wrong holds them back. They wait for the sure thing and while they are waiting they shake their head in amazement at those around them that have figured out the game.

3) After all reasonable guesses are made, it’s time to really throw caution to the wind. There are times in life when there are no right answers at the moment. We are moving through the situation blind to some of the information we would need to know what to do. We  have to have faith and jump in. Make a decision.  Sometimes we will guess right, sometimes we will guess wrong.  Wrong is OK. It gives us the chance to learn and try something different. Be willing to be wrong.

4) When you get it wrong, erase what you can, retrace your steps and move forward. Begin again if you have to. Keep playing. You will never win if you quit and you will most surely win if you play to the end.

5) Stay positive. It’s just a game. Play, laugh, take time to remember that we are supposed to be having fun.  Sometimes that’s hard. Sometimes it’s grueling. But the fun is there if you take the time to look for it. Sometimes you just have to focus on it and let the fun come to you. Be a good sport.

6) Realize that life is a puzzle and be OK with that. Stop expecting to have all the answers handed to you. Be proactive. Figure out what you can and learn from the mistakes. Accept and embrace the challenge of sorting it out. Enjoy the adventure!

I am sure there are other rules in the game of life that can be found in the games we play. Play mirrors real life in many ways and we learn through play better than we learn through work.

What have you learned from the games that you play?

Guard your speech. Never speak of yourself, your affairs, or of anything else in a discouraged or discouraging way. Never admit the possibility of failure, or speak in a way that infers failure as a possibility.
~ Wallace D. Wattles

 

 

I think the quote above is a great sentiment, but it is one that is very hard to live up to! The words from our tongue, our thoughts and our actions control the majority of our life experiences. Although it is true that things do happen to us outside of our control, we always, alwayscan control how we choose to react to each moment that comes our way. But knowing that fact mentally doesn’t always translate into making great choices. Rather than living proactively, we sometimes can fall into the trap of thinking that the world is just happening to us and that we don’t have any say in it.

 

In our current economy, with a lot of the news being dedicated to being in a recession, it is very easy to focus on money and the loss of it, or the need to get more…heck…for some, they are just focusing on getting ANY! But this can quickly spiral down to living a life of  negative self- fulfilling prophesy where money seems to be constantly out of reach instead of living a positive life filled with abundance.

 

It takes a constant supply of positive inspiration to keep us focused on where we want to be instead of where others will drift us to if we let them.

 

My friend Christine  Kane in her LiveCreative’ E-Zine article today reminds us how to BE RICH instead of  pursuing riches. It was so good I just had to share it with my Life’s Little Inspiration friends and she has graciously allowed me to do so!

Thanks Christine for being a constant source of inspiration in my life!

 

Getting Rich Quick vs. Being Rich Now
by Christine Kane

 

 Here’s a question to ask yourself at random times:

Am I getting? Or am I being?

When it comes to new paradigms and big dreams, think about this:

Getting somewhere is not an option. There is no there to get to.

You gotta just be there. Experience the feelings and the sheer knowingness of that thing you want.

When it comes to wealth, people often struggle because they spend their lives trying to get rich.

When you’re successful, you’re successful now. Artists know this principle well. You don’t wait to get creative before you create. You just create. And that is what makes you creative.

The same is true with prosperity.

Sound like a load of hooey?
I understand. All I can say is that it worked (and works!) for me.

Here are nine simple ways you can BE rich starting right now…

1 – Get on a schedule.

If you have debt, or regular payments of any kind – then automate it, or put it on a schedule. Paying a tiny amount regularly is better than waiting for the big pay-day to arrive.

That’s because waiting for rescue drains your creative energy. It’s a stance of lack. When you schedule things, you eliminate reactivity. This liberates you.

2 – Fill your gas tank.

I was quite poor when I began my career as a songwriter. One of my poor-person habits was to put only five dollars in the tank when I went to the gas station.

One day, I decided to fill up my tank. A seemingly trivial decision, yes. But I felt so rich that I’ve never considered not filling up my tank since then. Try it! It does wonders for your emotional well-being!

3 – Count Leaves.

Whoever created this Universe didn’t fret about abundance. There was no nail-biting and wondering whether all the trees should get leaves. “Maybe I should only put leaves on a few trees. Otherwise we might run out.”

It sounds ridiculous. But that’s how most of us spend our mental energy.

Count leaves. Observe sand on the beach. Watch a river for a few hours. It just keeps coming! You’re a part of this flow. Remember that.

4 – Give.

The world would be quite a wild place if everyone gave constantly. Tithing is the most outrageous act of courage I know. It says, “Thank you. This isn’t mine anyway, so have some of it.”

Giving creates space. And space gets filled up again. If you feel poor, try giving a little away. I’m not talking about your life savings. But try giving a little.

5 – Eliminate nail biting and other nervous habits.

Think dignity. Think Princess Grace or Katharine Hepburn. Would these women of stature and wealth ever stand in the grocery aisle biting their nails because the price of organic oat groats had gone up?

Nervous habits are acts of lack. Lack of trust. Lack of abundance. Notice these habits and begin letting them go by taking a deep breath and remembering trust.

6 – Start a Gratitude Journal.

If you have the “not enoughs,” then every night, write down 5 things for which you are grateful.

Remember this: Energy flows where attention goes. Put your attention on joy, beauty, wealth. Celebrate even the smallest shifts. I remember counting every dollar in my tip jar when I first performed in coffeehouses. I’d think: “That’s one more dollar I made while not sitting in a cubicle! Yay me!” Gratitude works!

7 – Get a million-dollar bill.

If you purchased my Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program, then you’re all set! (Hint: It’s one of the bonus gifts!)

I got my first million-dollar bill from a gumball machine. I put it in my wallet. It’s so much fun to see whenever I pay for something. I can’t give you proof-positive about any subsequent million-dollar-deal I made, but I like seeing it. That’s all. It reminds me to be aware of abundance.

8 – Happily pay for services.

One night, after a performance of mine, the promoter handed me a substantial check for my fee. With a smile he said, “This is not nearly enough to pay you for this night.”

Ah, to be paid like that all the time!

I try to have his attitude every time I write a check. I make sure to acknowledge the value of that service or product. The attitude with which you pay for things (the outflow) creates the manner of the in-flow. It’s one big cycle.

9 – Uplevel your language.

Stop announcing: “I can’t afford that.”

Tell yourself instead: “I’m choosing not to do that right now.”

Stop saying: “I’m broke.”
Start saying: “My bank account hasn’t caught up with my seven-figure business yet!”

Remember this: Your language is your creativity. It is one of the simplest places to start being rich.

 
Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.

 Daffodils by k4chii

This is the kind of day that poets write about.

The sun is bright and clear, the sky has been painted a periwinkle blue, soft cotton clouds are drifting in the sky and the birds are chirping out a happy tune.

The grass, which had faded to it’s winter brown is re-surging with touches of green- a sign of hopefullness that fills the heart with joy. Spring has arrived in all of it’s glory. The daffodils are coming up in the garden along with other early bulbs and soon will be in full flower. Tomorrow is Good Friday and for a lot of us, the start of a longer holiday weekend.

The freshness of the day doesn’t lend itself to an attitude of buckled down hard work. Eyes stray to the open window, excuses for stepping outside pop to my mind frequently and it is difficult to keep my mind on my tasks. I have my Flylady timer set next to me and I set it for the magical fifteen minutes, promising myself that if I can just focus for fifteen minutes more on a project that I can take a little break outside. It has helped all morning.

But…I’m giving up. At 2:30 in the afternoon, I am calling my work day done and am going to spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying the gift of this day. It’s been too long of a cold harsh winter to just take a day like this for granted. A glass of ice tea is waiting for me. I have a baseball game to go and watch. I have daffodils to enjoy in the garden. 

This is one of my favorite spring poems. I shared it with you last year but I am sharing it again,

just in case you don’t get to make it out to the garden today. Have a daffodil from me!

Daffodils – a poem by William Wordsworth

 I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
 

Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.
~Jim Rohn

Spring is in the air, the birds are singing and the last final bits of snow are fading from view.  The third month of the year is poised to become just a memory in only a handful of days and the first official day of spring is on the horizon.

How was your first quarter of the New Year? Did you reach the goals that you so courageously promised yourself on January one? Or are they already forgotten along side the winter weather? Were you disciplined or sidetracked? Are you ready for a Do-over?

The majority of the business world divides their year into four quarters, providing an opportunity for evaluations and measurement four times a year instead of only the start of the new year. Since I have been a business owner for decades, I tend to think in the four quarter mode myself and use it as a tool when assisting my clients with their goals.

I think it is a wonderful habit to adopt for everyone who wants to set goals and work toward continual improvement. Measuring one month against another is one thing, but when you measure quarters it is easy to start finding trends of behavior, profit or loss, and improvements or set backs. In our fast-moving society, a month can whisk by like a hummingbird, barely landing in one place long enough to know it was there. But…a Quarter, that’s enough time to get a handle on and make some very real assessments about how you are doing. It’s also short enough to make some changes before you loose the entire year.

So- January, February, March- our first quarter is ending. We can take a solid look back and see how we did.

April, May, June- our second quarter is beginning. We have a wonderful opportunity to begin again, re-assess our goals and challenges and map out a new strategy to get them taken care of.

My first quarter was a mixed bag. Some difficult family situations took precedence over business and friends for awhile and created a rocky start to the New Year. Slowly as those situation dissipated, I’ve been able to turn my attention full force back to creating growth and momentum in my business and have had very good success at that.

I achieved some specific goals and have more work to do in others. I would have to confess that if any one area had taken the back seat, it would be in the area of health and fitness. Time to re-evaluate that slice of the pie! The good thing about quarterly measurement is that it’s not too late to make a much needed correction. I can assess the short term damage and take  action.

Some of the types of questions I use to make this evaluation are:

What area of my goals did I have the most success with and why? ( don’t forget to take the time to celebrate your victories!)

What have I been doing right and how do I know it is working?

What area of my life and/or goals got the short end of the stick? What happened to cause that shift away from the plan?

What can I do to cause a correction to take place?

Moving forward, what would I like to accomplish these next three months?

How will I measure my success?

What monthly, weekly and daily goals do I need to incorporate to reach my next quarter of success?

It doesn’t have to take a lot of time, and I find that the last two weeks of the quarter are a great time to begin thinking about the quarterly review. At the very least, you have a few more weeks to hustle up some improvement before the quarter ends, and at the most, you will have a plan of action in place and can hit the ground running like a fool on April first.

With a smile on your face.

What about you? How was your first quarter? What will you choose for your second one to be like?

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
–Mark Twain

Last year on February 29, Leap Day, I woke up to my journal and coffee feeling like I had been given a brand new start. An extra start if you will, above and beyond the typical and expected Beginnings of  New Year’s Day, which frankly- for most of us- has long worn off by the time that February is ready to turn over it’s reins to spring.

And so there I sat, pen in hand, scribbling away at my wildest dreams when low and behold, from out of my pen came this sentence: I want to write. I want to use the medium of writing, which I love,  to inspire others and to spread a message of hope and to teach the tools for others to live a blessed life utilizing the lessons I have learned.

 And then this sentence: I think the best way that I could do this would be to use the medium of blogging to communicate with the largest audience in the shortest amount of time.

And then another thought, a little farther down: It’s Leap Day! What better day to leap into a new adventure! I will do it! I will leap into blogging this very day!

 This is the story of how Life’s Little Inspirations came to be. I jumped…two feet first into a brand new world and never looked back.

 The not-so-well thought out portion of this thought process was the sad fact that I had set myself up to only be able to celebrate our actual anniversary here every four years.   So…I am picking March first as my celebration day.  So…Happy Anniversary to my little Blog that grew and thank you to all of you who read, comment, email and supported me through this first year, especially those who have been with me from the beginning!

 It has been an amazing growth opportunity that has challenged me, enlightened me and exposed me to a whole new world of friendships, ideas and new skills. It has also led to another wonderful opportunity that has been happening now behind the scenes for the past several months. One by one, I have been blessed to be able to work with some wonderful people who contacted me about coaching them in their business and personal endeavors. It didn’t start out to be the beginning of a new business at first, but it has grown into one, one person at a time as we have developed strategies and accountability guidelines to to help clients achieve their goals and dreams.

 So this year, on March 1, 2009, I officially launched and jumped in full force to my new company,  Inspired Coaching and Consulting, to take care of the clients who were gathering in my informal coaching business.  In the first two official weeks, I have been very busy growing the business behind the scenes and putting together the documents and materials needed to launch a new company. Being a Business owner of  Small businesses for the last twenty years has been very beneficial to the process, but still, every company needs its own well thought out business plan and mission and this is not something I take lightly! So we are moving step by step through the formal process while still taking care of the clients already on board.

What does that mean for Life’s Little Inspirations? Well, for the short term, it may mean a less prolific posting schedule while I work behind the scenes. However, within the next few months you will begin to see the beginning of the business merging with this website and more posts that will relate to running, managing and creating an inspired business or career. Of course there will still be plenty of posts in the other categories that you have come to expect as well.

To say I am excited about the success of this new adventure would be an understatement. I am flying high from the joy of being able to help people to live the lives they want to create. I am thrilled with the success that has already happened and I am looking forward to this new adventure just as much as I did starting this website a year ago.

A second area of growth that has been happening behind the scenes has been clients who have been hiring me to create writing projects over the last year. This year is already shaping up with wonderful opportunities to write  dramatic scripts ( short or full -length) for non-profit groups, schools and business corporations. These scripts are custom created for each client’s specific needs, whether they be training purposes, teaching, or entertainment or a combination of them all. I am also available to hire actors, direct and produce the presentation of the drama for any organization if needed. These projects have been gaining momentum by word of mouth and have become a very pleasurable business outlet for my creative bug!

If you are interested in learning more about either of these opportunities, feel free to e-mail me and we can discuss how I can help you with your needs. Look for more information to follow as I blend the business and website together.

Thank you to all who have been here, supporting this new enterprise as this website has grown over this first year and who continue to support LLI as we move into our second year. One thing I believe with all my heart is that change is good. I am embracing these new horizons and can’t wait to share them in more detail as time goes on!

Update!

I have gone back to our first home at LLI and updated the blog. It now has a new name and new look. Go check it out and let me know what you think!

The Inspired Artist!

In her latest ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine  that landed in my in-box this morning, she shares these tips on beating procrastination that were just so darn good that I felt the need to shout them from the roof top. Well…it’s cold out and I didn’t want to go stand on the roof so…here you are.

The thing is, she is very generous this way and gives her fans and subscribers permission to share her words. So for those of you who don’t get her e-zine…here are some very good tips.

But seriously…I only re-print them here once in a great while so you should subscribe to her e-zine. You don’t want to miss out on a word she says.

 9 Simple Solutions for Procrastinators

by Christine Kane

Irony: As I started to write this article, I thought, “I’ll just go play one Sudoku game first.” I caught myself in the act and marched to my laptop.
 

People who say that procrastination is about laziness are probably the same people who think that anorexia is about not eating enough.

Procrastination isn’t about laziness. It’s about fear. It’s about perfectionism. It’s about overwhelm. We all experience it, and there are some tricks to help you get moving again.

Here are 9 ways to break the procrastination habit

 
1 – When you get an idea, do some little thing to begin.

When I read Stephen King’s book On Writing,  I noticed something. I noticed that when Stephen King gets an idea,  he writes it.  Immediately and imperfectly. Most people get an idea.  Then they sit there.  They wonder if it’s a good idea. Then, they wonder if it’s a good idea some more. Got an idea? Begin it now!

2 – All hail small chunks of time!

Lots of us complain about having no time.  My guess is that we all have lots of time.  It just doesn’t happen to be all at once.  Are you waiting for many hours of spare time to begin your idea, your project, or your taxes?  Stop waiting!  Learn to use the spare half hour that comes up here and there. (I gave myself 45 minutes to write this article just to take my own advice.)

3 – Agree to do it badly.

Set a goal to do it badly. Set a goal to show up. Let go of doing it ALL, or doing it WELL. Some of my coaching clients’ biggest victories have a lot more to do with getting over perfectionism and fear, than they do about getting it all done perfectly.

4 – Commit aloud.

Call a friend and say something like this: “I’m going to spend the next half hour working on my Law School Essay.” Then go do it.  Call the friend after the half hour and make her congratulate you. Repeat daily.

5 – Define quantities.

Nebulous goals make for nebulous results. “I’m gonna get my office organized” is a lot like saying, “We oughtta do something about Global Warming.” Most procrastinators have a hard time defining quantities.  We think everything needs to be done NOW.  When are you going to do it? For how long?  Which part of your office? The file cabinet? Or your desk? Define the goal and acknowledge its completion.

Note: The Clutter Removal Action Process (or, “C.R.A.P.”) is one of the many bonus elements of my new “Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program” – and it makes this step a BREEZE!

6 – Install this System Upgrade into your Mental Hard Drive: Less is More.

Have fewer goals. Have no more than three priorities for a week. Why? Because you’re not lazy. You’re just trying to do too much. Find out what it feels like to accomplish one thing instead of not quite getting to everything. Wow – what a difference this makes!

7 – Do it first.

My first coach made me write songs first thing in the morning.  He told me to schedule the 2-hour chunk as my first activity upon waking. Why? “Because you’re telling the universe that this is your priority. And then the universe lines up everything to align with your priority.”

Action grounds your priorities. It makes them real. It also makes your day easier because you’re not wasting energy thinking about this thing you’re supposed to be doing.

8 – Avoid nose-bleed activities.

Email, voicemail, web stats – any activity that bleeds itself into your whole day becomes a non-activity. It becomes a nose-bleed. When you do it all the time, you never complete it. You just let it slowly drain the very life force from you. Define times for these activities. Then, turn off your email, your cell phone, your web stats, until that time comes.

9 – Don’t ask how you “feel” about doing the activity.

Have you ever committed to getting fit? And then when the alarm goes off, you lie in bed thinking, “Do I really feel like going to the gym?” (Like you even have to ask!)

Change this pattern. Make your decision the night before. Commit to getting up and going right to the gym, the computer, the blank canvas. Don’t have coffee and sigh and think, “I’ll probably feel more like it at lunch time.” You won’t!

If it’s a priority, don’t waste time asking yourself how you feel about doing it. Feelings are an easy out.

—————————-
There. I did it. I wrote this article. And now, I don’t even want to play Sudoku! How about that?

 
Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.
WANT TO SEE HUNDREDS MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Christine’s blog – Be Creative. Be Conscious. Be Courageous – at ChristineKane.com/blog.

It took less than a second to capture this tiny hummingbird last summer sipping a delightful taste of nector from that flower. However, what you don’t see, are the several shots over and over again for well over thirty minutes that have lots of flowers and not a single  bit of hummingbird feather anywhere to be seen. Before I could move my finger on the button, the little fellow had flittered away, again and again, out of my range, teasing my camera and my patience.

It would have been VERY easy to quit. In fact, I was SO close to walking away. I knew I was keeping John waiting, there was so much more to be seen at the gardens where we were, celebrating our anniversary. He was being so kind and patient, and I shouldn’t have been taking advantage of that.  I kept saying, “Just ONE more try…just ONE more time…If I don’t get it THIS time I’ll QUIT…” But then I would try again. I couldn’t seem to help myself.

Over and over.

And then there he was. Captured on film.

 I won’t pretend it’s a great shot.  It’s just a lesson on persistence. I keep finding myself looking at it over and over again when I get discouraged. When I feel like giving up. It’s a reminder.

Sometimes you CAN catch a hummingbird.

Thanks in advance and I’ll see you at Someday Syndrome!

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of Intention, Christine Kane does a wonderful job of explaining it over at her place and I highly recommend that you go there for a better explanation than I am going to give you now. 

The idea is that you pick a word that symbolizes a theme  you are going to focus your goals and concentration on throughout the year and that through the process, your energies will move in that direction. “As a Man Thinketh, So is He” said the great thinker James Allen, and the concept of Intention works on that same principle.

I think the reason I was struggling with what it was I wanted to focus on is because I have been journeying down a long path for the last handful of years toward authenticity. Each year, I have been peeling off  layer after layer of this shrinking onion, trying to find the core, only to discover another thinly veiled peel that needed to come away.

While on one hand, I can say that I honestly endeavour to be myself at all times, I can also honestly say, I don’t always know exactly who that self currently is. I think it has caused over the last few years a sense of growing confusion and a disorientation, a lack of balance in my being. I am an ever evolving being, caught in a tide of change, between parenthood and middle age, between being someones wife and someones daughter, someone else’s friend and someone else’s mother. And then the grandchildren come over and I have these moments of looking in the mirror and wondering when the clock ran away.

And always, always, I am a child of God, in my quiet times alone, it is easy to remember that I was put here to serve and to help and to grow and to learn and to….what?

To be REAL.

To feel. To live in the moment and be all of those things at the moment that each of them come along.

But hanging on to that realness is a challenge.

SO….my challenge for this year is to embrace the raging tide with grace and dignity. To acknowledge all of the different forces and roles and needs that are all REAL parts of who I currently am and find the boundaries and balance and structure that can make my life REAL and at the same time manageable.

 Maybe this only makes sense to me. Maybe this is a light that has only gone off in a small corner of my mind. But it is having a huge impact.

I was listening to Christine Kane’s song and it hit me like a brick.

I deserve to live REAL.

Listen for yourself and you might see what I mean.  Click on the link and scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the song.

Thank you Christine. “Here’s To How it Feel’s To Be Real”

How To Be Real

It’s based on a true story. If you haven’t seen it, or if you haven’t seen it in years-like me- then I very much reccomend watching it again.

Rudy doesn’t quit.
He doesn’t take no for an answer.
He doesn’t sit around, waiting for the Law of Attraction to bring him what he wants. He asks for what he wants. He takes the risk of people telling him no and if he doesn’t get the answer he wants- he asks again and again until the answer changes.

Rudy is persistent. He hangs on to his dream like a dog with a great bone. And he doesn’t let anyone take it away from him either. When they try, he just walks away. As persistent and devoted as ever.

He asks himself one question over and over throughout the entire movie, every time things are going his way. “Have I done everything I possibly can? Is there something more I can do?” And he always finds one more thing he can try.

If you want to watch a winner in action, take a few tips from him.

MAKE your life happen. The one in your vision. You can if you want to bad enough. You just have to decide that failing at it isn’t an option and find a way to get around the obstacles.

“I am where I am today because I believe in possibilities.”
~Whoopi Goldberg

Rudy isn’t any different then you and me. He just belived that anything was possible. There are always obstacles for everyone and everything. There are always ways around them.  Watch the movie and see what I mean. Believe in the possibilities and not the problems. and watch your life change. 

What movies inspire you? What movies that you love inspire you to reach out and grab the golden ring of life? I’d love to know! Maybe we can start an inspired movie list!

We are reaching the end of our first week of the New Year.  The shimmer and shine of the voices in our head that dream and hope for new opportunities is struggling to survive against the negative and discouraged voices that tell us nothing has really changed, that this year will be no different and that resolutions are dumb anyway.

Which voice is winning?  Are you encouraged or discouraged? Still plodding along? Still running  full speed into the new future? Or maybe grinding to an early halt?

The category you find yourself in may be a direct result of how much you feel you are in control of the choices you are making.

When we feel in control of our world, feel like things are going according to plan, it is easy to find the momentum to continue the journey. We can check off the accomplishments, see the progress and celebrate the victories.

When we feel out of control, it’s just the opposite. We feel hopeless and powerless to create change. We feel blown apart by the winds and strife of life, or maybe even worn down by the monotony of everyday tasks. It is easy to quit, give in, and procrastinate because a small but powerful voice inside our heads is telling us that is doesn’t matter- nothing ever really changes anyway.

NEGATIVE VOICES ARE LIES

You DO have choices. You are making them every minute of every day. Nobody and nothing has control over your destiny and future but you. You have the power to seize back your future at anytime, any moment.

I KNOW that sometimes it doesn’t feel like that statement is true but it is.

Can you have what you want this very minute? Maybe not. Somethings take time. But you can set a goal, make a plan and take baby steps to work on it. You can change your attitude, your self-talk and your habits that are leading you down the wrong path.

EXCUSES ARE LIES 

Every day, in every way, the *world* is going to conspire against you to thwart your plans. Telling yourself that tomorrow you will have more time, more energy, more ability is a form of procrastination and denial. The fact is that EVERY DAY has enough trouble of its own and piling today’s trouble on to tomorrow is creating a Mountain of Trouble you don’t need. It’s a lie. The ONLY time, energy and ability you have is what you have this very moment and you need to squeeze every drop out of it that you can.

TODAY IS THE TRUTH

New Year’s Day is over and gone.  But that doesn’t mean your ability to start over is gone as well. The truth is that  EVERY DAY can be your New Year’s Day because you have the power to choose to start over every day. In fact, you have the power to start over every hour, and every minute of every day.

 ACTION IS THE TRUTH

Writing out your long term and short term goals and creating action steps to put them in place is a great start but it won’t create the new life you want for yourself. A Plan is only a dream until you put action into it. GET UP AND START MOVING! What is the one thing you can do today, this hour, this minute to make your plan happen? One Baby Step. Then another. That’s all you need to get the ball rolling.

FAITH IS THE TRUTH

When our hope is lost we are lost. When we stop believing that change is possible and choices do exist, depression is on it’s way over to claim control over our lives and future. We begin to sink into a dark, empty hole. Give yourself positive affirmations. Get out a pen and write down all the times in your life that HAVE gone well. The big successes and the little ones too. YOU made those happen. And you can do it again, and again and again. We all have the power to be successful. There is no such thing as a looser except for someone who has given up. BELIEVE in the future that YOU want to have!

I believe that 2009 is going to be a year of  new opportunity, fun, good health and love. Why? Because that is what I am going to focus on. That is what I am going to take action on. That is what I am going to make happen. And I won’t settle for anything less.

How about you? What are you going to make happen in 2009?

I have to admit, I was sceptical. In general, I am not a big Charles Dickens fan. I can hear some of you more literary readers groaning at me from here, but the truth is I find him to be wordy and long on description and narration and short on actual dialogue. So…I hemmed and hawed and tried to come up with a different idea but in the end…Dickens won out.

And I couldn’t be happier that it did.

While adapting the book to a script that would suit our audience, I had the opportunity to read the book over and over, and over and over again. I became enthralled with the messages behind the story,and knew that they were the exact inspirational messages we wanted to share for the holiday season.

The story of the transformation of a lonely, bitter, self-serving man who hadn’t a friend to call his own is a remarkable story of hope for us all. Scrooge isolated himself from his family, his community and any hope of love in his life just to follow his dream of creating wealth. In doing so, he lost the quality of his life. The lessons learned by the visits of Marley and the three Christmas ghosts showed him the error of his ways and gave him a new desire to become close with his family and help his employee and community. He opened himself up to the amazing power of love and is re-created a new man, one of hope, compassion and kindness. We are reminded that our actions DO affect others and that the choices we make create a destiny for us that can’t be avoided. In our choices we can choose love or loneliness.

Scrooge was able to transform the destiny of his life by making a new choice. A choice to live on purpose with love in his heart for his fellowman. And he was able to do so in the blink of a decision.

The holidays are a difficult time for many people. A lack of good quality relationships create a deep well of loneliness and despair for isolated people. Depression is rampant this time of the year. The lesson of Scrooge reminds us to reach out to others and live a life of charity, kindness and love for all. It’s a message that can’t be mentioned enough. In this day of financial worry and tension, these companionships mean all the more. It doesn’t take money to reach out and care. A simple word of encouragement, a smile, a word of comfort can make such a difference in someone’s life. And it only takes a second.

There have been other lessons learned and highlighted in putting on this play. I have been constantly amazed at the pouring out of generosity, hard work and sacrifice from the cast and crew and the congregation. Everyone has pitched in and helped in so many ways that my gratitude for all of them is overflowing. The teamwork has been incredible.

A year ago, this play was just the seed of a dream, a lofty someday goal. But with everyone working together, sharing resources, time and energy, it has become a reality. It isn’t the success of just one person but rather the accumalation of many different miracles, faith and hard work.

When a group of people gather with a united vision, anything is possible.

I am so proud to be a part of that vision. I am so inspired by working alongside some truly amazing people of faith and generosity. I am so honored that they put their faith in us and helped to make this dream come true.

It’s all been too amazing to put in words.

Except maybe these words…

Thank You.

And God bless us, everyone!

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
`Denis Waitley

In the midst of great despair, at a time when I could find no light at the end of the dark tunnel that had become my complicated life, I discovered an amazing truth. No matter how dark, no matter how hopeless the world seemed, I could revive my state of happiness by focusing on gratitude and the people and things that I feel privileged and honored to have in my life.

I can be happy when I am grateful. No matter what circumstances befall me.

This morning as I sit alone in my silent home, coffee beside me as the sun peaks in the sky, I take the time to reflect on the joys of my life. Within the hour, I will rise from my meditations and I will start to prepare the stuffing for the Thanksgiving Turkey, and then the great bird itself and the rest of the meal. The table will be set with decorations and flowers and the family will come and this now silent home will be filled with the sounds of cheery conversation and children’s laughter.

I am grateful for this moment of peace as I begin this most precious of days. I am grateful for the family that will fill these walls soon. I hold family and friends to be among the most important gifts there could ever be, and in this area of life I have been abundantly blessed. When I think upon this one thing…my heart begins to overflow and I am welled up with more gratitude than my being can even hold.

I am grateful for the friends I have met here as I have made this pilgrimage into the on-line world of writing. A place I wasn’t even a part of at this time last year. I feel honored by so many helpful and kind friends who have lit the path for me and joined hands with me along the way. This community here and the others I have been a part of. Thank you for sharing this road with me.

I am grateful that in the midst of darkness in our world, I can still feel the hope. I can still look to the daily inspirations that come from everywhere if only we will seek them. They make themselves apparent and I can see, I can know, that somehow…somehow…life will turn out right.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It is a day to express what we should be feeling and paying attention to EVERY DAY. I celebrate this day of gratitude by renewing my pledge to live a life more grateful.

A life that celebrates the daily gifts I am given. A life that gives back- in word and deed- with a grateful heart for all that had been done for me and those I love.

I can never repay all the beauty and love that has graced my life, it’s impossible. The more I try, the more it rains down around me. I have come to understand that it is one of the secrets of living a grateful life.

The more you are grateful, the more you will have to be grateful for.

I am grateful for my life. For all the love in it, for all of the people in it, all of the beauty and art in it and the amazing power of God to show up in everything-if only we are looking.

Happy Thanksgiving.

What are you grateful for today?

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
~Martin Luther King Jr.

We are living in times where very few are feeling as if they are standing in very many “moments of comfort and convenience.” I’m sure if we took a poll, most would raise their hand to agree that there are many more “times of challenge and controversy” to deal with in their daily lives.

I have friends at this moment holding their breath, hoping and praying to hang on to their job. To say that it is taking courage just to face every day is an understatement for a lot of people walking in our midst. Maybe you? Somedays I know I can raise my hand.

Can you imagine how wealthy I would be if I could find a way to bottle up courage and sell it right here for $9.99 to everyone who wanted it?

I’m willing to bet it would sell for a whole lot more then that.

Sometimes it takes courage just to get out of bed and face another day. It takes courage to look in the mirror. Courage to look at the checkbook balance, the Visa bill, and the unpaid stack of medical bills piling up in the corner.

Courage to have that dreaded conversation. The one you have had SO many times in your mind, several different ways, with many imagined outcomes, but have never had the guts to have…face to face…for real.”

How do you get yourselves to continue on when all you want to do is hide under the bed?

What’s It All About?

When obstacles start to become the standard rather than the exception, it helps to know what you are fighting FOR. The first step in collecting courage is in having a clear, unwavering vision of what is most important to you to keep you on track.

You need to know WHAT you are fighting for.  Then you need to remember the WHY. Is it the need to put food on the table? Is it that big hairy audacious dream that just won’t let you go?  Given a strong enough, compelling enough reason to get out of bed, open the bills, or face that dreaded conversation, you will make it happen. You will find a way. You will SUMMON the courage from a place inside of you that you might not even know is there.

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
~Oriah Mountian Dreamer

 

Once you have summoned it, you have to find a way to sustain it. It’s one thing to summon up a moment of courage to achieve a great thing, or to rescue someone or something from an impending disaster. But what about those times when you need sustainable courage, ongoing power, faith and determination?

Where is it going to come from then?

From the very same place. From the vision. From the WHY that got you going in the first place. This is where many of us falter. We find our purpose, we pump up our courage, our strength, we sound the battle cry of “We shall overcome…” and then-

our courage dwindles away. We don’t have it anymore and we don’t know where it went.

It’s right where it always was.

In the WHY.

Keep your purpose clear and your path will be bright, your courage will guide you both day and night…

Sound simple?

It’s not. It takes daily discipline. Perhaps the one thing harder for most of us to find than courage. Committing to finding the time for a daily focus and renewal of looking at our goals, values and purposes. 

John and I went away this weekend for a mini retreat. Just an overnight in a different location, a time to get alone together, listen to some good music and have time to talk uninterrupted and let our visions and dreams get some breathing room. It’s too easy to get caught up in the daily TO DO list and the drumbeat of  EVERYDAY SYNDROME that keeps us moving along but not really “living”  when you are in the thick of it all the time. Getting away from that daily pace helps to get you back to the WHY and the purpose behind what all the motion is about. I came back feeling more creative, more centered and feeling like with faith, we can do anything. I found my courage out there on the open road.

Maybe you can’t get in the car and drive away right now. Maybe it feels too hard to squeeze out even a few minutes of alone time to get focused. The holidays are among us and every moment feels priceless. It feels like any moments we take away from the task are counter-productive.  However, it’s when time is at its busiest that we need to step back the most. Take those moments to get refocused on the “What are we doing all of this for?” “What is the big picture?” and “Why am I willing to put up with this struggle in the first place?”

Take a few moments to get renewed. Find your courage. It’s been there waiting for you all along.

The war against clutter is one I am battling constantly. It seems the moment I turn my back on it there is something else doing its darndest to start a pile somewhere, be it paper, clothes, toys, or simply that other catagory known as “what is this?”

“I don’t know”

“Where does it go?”

“I don’t know…”

I guess for the sake of conversation we’ll call it *STUFF*. I am constantly on the look- out for ideas and inspiration in fighting the clutter war.

My friend Christine Kane just wrote a very inspiring article in her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine. She gave me permission to re-publish it here for you to enjoy. Thanks Christine, I need all the help I can get in this war and I KNOW I’m not alone!

The Year I Discovered How Clutter Blocks Success

~By Christine Kane

 
I looked at my phone in horror.

“You want me to what?” I said into it.

“It’s time, Christine. You’ve been talking about that basement for weeks now. It’s time to deal with it.”

I had been working with my coach for months at this point. And even though I had reached certain levels of success in my career, I kept getting stuck in the same old ruts. I was about to record my fourth CD, and I was ready to move to a higher level.

Thom was doing what good coaches do: listening carefully, seeing clearly – and of course, pushing me to take conscious action.

So, he encouraged me to start small and completely clear out the junk in my basement. Thirty minutes a day.
One section at a time. Building momentum as I went.

Each week, during our call, I’d report back on my progress.

Each week, I had a new reason why I simply could not let go of some clutter-y item.

“But I spent so much on it!” “I might need it someday!” “I could gain weight and need this again.” “I paid such a good price for it!”

To my credit, I did pretty well at letting go once Thom talked me through these old mindsets.

Then came the week I had to face one particularly significant section of the basement.

It was where I stored various pieces of furniture I had gotten at the Salvation Army and at local flea markets when I first began my songwriting career. A bookcase, a kitchen table, a dresser, and a few shelves. I no longer liked or used this furniture because my tastes totally changed. I had begun to cherish beauty and opulence in my surroundings. I wanted to fill my home only with items that I loved.

“So, Christine,” Thom asked. “Why don’t you want to let these things go?”

I was embarrassed. But I told him the truth. “Well, here’s the thing. If my music career doesn’t work out, I might need them one day. If I fail, and I don’t have any money, I might wish I had kept these things.”

Long pause.

“So, you’ll be on the street – but at least you’ll have that bookcase?”

I laughed.

Thom sighed. And what he said next has been a core lesson of creating my success and happiness.

He said that everything in our lives has energy. Everything has our thoughts and emotions embedded into it. Old furniture is no exception. In essence, what I was saying to the universe and to my subconscious, creative self was this:

I believe so deeply in my own failure that I’m holding onto physical things that represent that possibility. Every time I walk by these items in my basement, I will be reminded of my inevitable failure. Every moment I’m in my house, my subconscious will know that in the very foundation of my life (my basement), there are items that prove I don’t believe in my own success.

That week, I called Goodwill, and scheduled an appointment to have the old furniture taken away.

I’d love to report that I smiled and waved as the old clunky furniture was carried away. But the truth is I was terrified. I was letting go of my Plan B. I was saying to the Universe: “I thoroughly believe in my own success.”

I had never done that before in such a concrete way!

As I wrote earlier, I began recording my fourth CD “Rain & Mud & Wild & Green” as I was clearing out the basement. That CD went on to sell five times more than any of my other CD’s. It received rave reviews. Border’s Books featured it on a listening post that year, and named it the top CD of the year in my category.

Now, even though I know this success wasn’t ONLY about letting go of my old flea market furniture, I have become a firm believer that we each need to pay attention to the energy of the stuff that surrounds us. We need to pay attention to what we are telling our subconscious minds when we hold on.

Now you.

What are you holding onto? What thoughts and beliefs are you putting out into the Universe by clinging to it? Are you telling yourself you don’t believe in the inevitability of your own success and prosperity? Or that you don’t believe you can expand and create better things in your life?

Pick one thing – just one small thing – and let it go. Today!

 
Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.

WANT TO SEE HUNDREDS MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?
See Christine’s blog – Be Creative. Be Conscious. Be Courageous – at ChristineKane.com/blog.

The Longing

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare
to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
 ~From THE INVITATION, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The words above jumped off the page of the book, THE INVITATION, that I am currently reading. Yes, I thought, I could have written this myself! This is exactly how I feel, all the time, when I go to parties, when I meet someone new, when I ask “How are you?”

What I really mean is, “What is your deepest desire?” “What do you yearn for in the darkest hours of the night when the clock is ticking and you think that no one is listening?

I get so weary of small talk. So weary of yammering on about this thing and that thing, and who got this and who made the latest ranking in the newest version of “Who’s the Best at Everything?”

But I never get tired of listening about what matters to your heart. What you care about, what you long for, what inspires you, what you are passionate about…so passionate in fact that you are willing to march forth and become more than your fear ever would allowed you to be before.

I’ll never tire of listening to your honest struggles or about how you wrestle the obstacles to the ground that stand between you and your passion, nor tire of helping and encouraging you to overcome your fears, nor will I shy away from supporting you when you become fragile and frightened and think that life has handed you more than you could possibly bear. I will listen, support, do my best to inspire, encourage and love.

I want passionate friendships. I want honest, heartfelt, supportive friends that can talk to each other about the deepest parts of their hearts and know that they will not face judgement, not incite ridicule, not endure rejection, but can rest in faith, knowing they are safe and sound in the arms of love.

When I say I am shy, I guess I mean that I am not really very good at small talk. I want deep talk. When there is just chatter, I don’t often know what to say. I melt into the wall and observe the motions, the little signals and I wonder…

What’s going on in there? How are you? What do you ache for? And do you dare to dream?

IF you knew you had the information they needed to help them on their way-would you share it?

IF you knew that the education they were looking for was available for half-price for only a brief moment in time-would you tell them?

OR…would you quietly slip away and say, “It’s not my place, it’s not what I do here, probably everyone who wanted it, has it anyway, so its OK…

and then walk away…and maybe not help that ONE person who needs it, who has been trying so hard to make money in this crazy world of on-line writing, blogging, freelancing, in copywriting…or whatever dream they have been holding on to with all of their might.

Maybe that person IS making money. Maybe that person is working their fingers to the bone, careening toward physical illness and burn-out. Maybe they signed on to the dream and found out-too late-that all they did was walk away from a 9 to 5 job and sign on to a 24-hour nightmare that has no end. Maybe they find themselves drooling over their keyboard muttering “There has to be an easier way. There has to be a better way.”

There is.

Naomi Dunford’s ONLINE BUSINESS SCHOOL   goes on sale today at noon pst. She can help you. I believe that with all my heart or I wouldn’t put my name to it. Or my checkbook-and I already did that. I believe in her so much that I jumped on this bandwagon during her pre-sale. She is worth it. But you don’t have to take my word for it, you can check her out yourself and if you don’t like it, she offers a full money back guarentee no questions asked.

The reason I am shouting from the rooftops today

Because the first 2000 people to buy ONLINE BUSINESS SCHOOL get it for half price. She is awesome like that. But she also e-mailed me late last night to let me in on the fact that three high-profile people are promoting it on their websites today.  What that means is that after the first lucky 2000 get theirs for the discounted price of $197.00 the price will go up to $397.00. and I want my readers to have just as much of a chance as the high profile bloggers readers do.

After all..it’s only fair.

I would like you to understand what kind of woman I would choose to promote here at LLI. I don’t do so lightly. I do so because she fits in with the values and beliefs and the core of what we are all about here. With all of her heart, she wants to make a difference in the lives of the people she serves. Will she make money if they buy her product? Yes. And so will LLI as a sponsor if you use our link up above to go there. But it isn’t her primary goal. And it isn’t ours. Her first and foremost value is helping people and making a difference and that’s what makes her so special.

Listen to her in her own words and see for yourself:

If you don’t have the money to buy my course, I’ve been there. To all of you who have emailed me privately telling me how much you wish you could afford it, how you’re going to try to find the money from somewhere, I am so, so, so grateful for your loyalty, but PLEASE DON’T BUY IT.

Take the two hundred bucks and put a few extra presents under the tree instead. Then go to Problogger and read the archives. (The 31 Days To Better Blogging Series’ are particularly good.) Take the 30 Day Challenge. Read Entrepreneur’s Journey. That’s how I learned it.

If you don’t have any money, watch my free stuff to get a little bit of income coming in before you start buying anybody’s info products or home study courses or ebooks. (As of today, the link for the free stuff is just the free stuff. By tomorrow it will be a sales page but all the content will be in there. You can go back as often as you want and I’m never going to take it down.)
~Naomi Dunford

This is the type of person I choose to promote. At the very, very least, do yourself a favor and read all the free stuff. She has a lot of it and it will help you.

However, if you can afford it, if you have a goal, and a vision of the kind of life you want to live and are in need of someone you can trust who has the business course already built that can take you step by step to the future you have been dreaming of, Online Business School  is what you need. Naomi went from a struggling mother to a successful business owner making $200.000 a year.  Sound good to you? I’ll let her tell you how she did that. It’s a great story. Don’t miss it.

This is a rewrite of an article written back at the first LLI, Planning for the Fog,  re-posted here today for all of our NaNoWriMo writers and everyone else needing a little extra encouragement as we prepare to enter the long stretch called the holidays.

Stand Up to Your Obstacles and Do Something About Them, You Will Find that They Haven’t Half the Strength You Thought They Have.
~Norman Vincent Peale

Obstacles.

Just when you thought you were getting somewhere…along comes some blip on the screen, some change in the plan, some unforeseen disaster that veers you off the course.

“Oh well…better luck next time…”

Many Monday morning diets have been blown a Tuesday goodbye kiss due to obstacles in the road. Many other well intended plans, started with enthusiasm and desire, lay dead in the path of these dreaded roadblocks.

What’s a person to do? You can’t plan for obstacles. Right? They just happen… They’re a random event. Luck of the draw….It’s not like it’s our fault or anything.

“Oh well…better luck next time…”

I’ll let you in on a secret that I have in my little bag of life’s lessons. You won’t have better luck next time. There is another obstacle coming. And another one after that. It’s this little thing they call LIFE…and…

The only thing that is going to make a difference next time is how prepared you are to deal with it.

The remarkable Florence Chadwick had already made a place for herself in history by being the first woman to swim the English Channel, when she made her decision to swim from Catalina Island to the California coast. This was a woman of proven persistence, goal-setting ability and driven excellence. There was every reason to believe in her ability to meet her next challenge.

On the 4th of July in 1952, as millions watched at home on national television and with family and crew by her side, Florence began her swim. The water was icy cold.  Sharks hovered around her, being kept at bay by rifle shots fired from the crew supporting her. A deep, murky fog enveloped the water, rendering Florence unable to see anything in front of her.

Cheers and cries of support rang out from her family and the crew in the boats above, urging her to carry on, but all Florence could focus on was the fog that blinded her path. Defeated, she asked to be taken out of the water. It was the first time she had ever given in. The first time she had ever quit. 

Later, from the comfort of the boat, Florence was dismayed to learn that she had given up only 1/2 mile from the shore of victory. When interviewed by a reporter, she told him that it wasn’t fatigue or cold water that had stopped her, but simply that she had lost sight of the vision in her mind, and had been blinded by the fog.

A short two months later, Florence Chadwick returned to try again. She was not lucky enough to have clear skies and visibility. The same obstacle of blinding fog also returned to challenge her once more. This time, Florence was prepared. She had rehearsed over and over in her mind what the end result would look like. She imagined the fog and how she would swim through it and keep her mind firmly focused on the goal.  As she swam, she was able to remind herself that the fog did not change the end result; the shoreline was there whether she could see it or not. She just had to remain faithful to continue swimming and she would reach it.

This time Florence did reach the shore. Despite the fog, she swam there in a straight path and broke the all time speed record set before her by the men by two full hours!

Obstacles come. Always. Wearing one disguise or another, they step in our path to block the goal that we had set before us. Without a clear and carefully defined vision, it is hard to defeat them. Like a child’s monster in the closet, they appear to be overwhelming, frightening  and larger than life.

More often than not, they don’t really exist the way we thought they did in our mind anyway. With rehearsed planning and focused vision, they can be reduced to a minor inconvenience, a lesson to be learned or sometimes even an opportunity that turns out to help us on our way.

The largest obstacle that we truly face is our own defeated attitudes.

When she was in kindergarten, my sister wrote a story.

I went into a cave and there was a bear! I tried to get out of the window but there wasn’t any. I tried to get out the door but the bear was blocking it. So, I sat down.

the end

The teacher wrote with her red pen, “And then what???”

This story was one of my first collections to be placed in the life’s lesson bag. And then what? What comes Next? How many times do we see an obstacle and then just sit down?

When you start to approach life from the angle that an obstacle is coming, so plan ahead…it isn’t the same as negative thinking. It’s being prepared. It’s making sure you have what you need in your suitcase to complete your journey. Thinking through in your mind, what types of things and experiences could possibly occur along the way and what you might need to do to stay focused and on plan.

It’s the constructive use of “What if?” instead of using it to worry and defeat us before we start.

It looks like this:

Finish these sentences for your goals and plans:

1. The end result of my goal looks like…..

2. The steps I need to take are…..

3. Possible obstacles that could stop me from reaching my goals are…

4. My plan for diffusing those obstacles is…..

5. The language I will use and the way it will look when I overcome the obstacles is…

Then, the more time you spend visualizing and seeing yourself succeeding in your mind, and overcoming those obstacles, actually rehearsing in your mind the language you would use, and actions that you would take to overcome those obstacles, the smaller and smaller those obstacles will be when they arrive. Your subconscious will already be engaged and know what to do.

Life happens. You won’t be able to predict and plan for everything. Some things are just learning experiences. Even an accomplished swimmer like Florence hadn’t planned for the fog the first time through. But she didn’t let it keep her out of the game either. She was back within a few months, mentally stronger, armed with knowledge and a better plan.

She won. So can you.

Obstacles are coming, are you planning ahead?

I had glady made that choice, stubbornly fighting off the other options that life had presented to me, believing with a faith that only youth can provide that I was fully capable of providing all things necessary for the health, welfare and love of my child as a single mother.

A sickly child with asthma and immune problems made that even more challenging. I spent many of those first nights watching her breath with concave lungs struggling for air inside a huge tented crib filled with pumped in air in the children’s ward at the hospital.

I had been a good student before I made the choice to be a mother instead. Still, a sophmore education and the label of high school drop out isn’t a winning combination on most high paying job applications. And should there be any school age kids reading this-let me take a moment out right now to say- Stay in School. The road I chose wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t easy, there weren’t any parties, very little time for fun, and even less time for sleep.

Although I love my daughter with all my heart, there are easier ways to get to where I am today.

However, when I sift back through my life and review the life lessons that I learned along the way, there is no doubt, that the biggest bag of lessons were gathered together in those early days. Lessons about survival, lessons about delayed gratification, lessons about compassion, forgiveness, budgeting, the value of a dollar, the importance of family and friends and the amazing gift of unconditional love.

There isn’t a single day of my life that I’m not pulling one or more of those early lessons out of the bag and applying them to my life still today. They are as important now, creeping up to age fifty as they were in the pea-green days of my youth. They are timeless and the basis for everything I believe in.

In the last several months, one of those lessons keeps drifting to my mind on a daily basis more than ever.  The world’s constant obsession, fear and chatter about world recession, world depression, cut-backs, banckrupcies and daily crisis has many people ducking for cover. “Woe is the world so, therefore, woe is me” is the daily whine that everyone seems to be drinking.

Well, I don’t want to be a party-pooper but no thank you, I don’t want any.

Perhaps our newly- elected visionary will bring about the answers everyone is looking for. I hope so. But I haven’t been waiting for my Knight in Shining Armour to come and make my life all better and frankly neither should you.

ObamaVision or not, the road to success is still going to be paved with the sweat of our own hands. It always has been, and it always will be.

Why do I think this? Well, my daughter was born in 1977. Any of you who might remember the late seventies may remember long gas lines, embarrasing politics, interest rates that soared into double digit territory, stagnation ( a lovely word isn’t it?) and a host of other lovely things designed to scare the productivity right out of us.

And I was perfectly positioned to fall to the bottom of the barrel.

But I didn’t. I succeded. I beat the odds.

I went to beauty school during the mornings and I worked on getting a hairdresser’s license. When I got back home, I would spend some time with my daughter. In the evenings, I went to work at a hot dog shop, selling hot dogs. On the weekends, I worked at our family’s beauty shop, better learning the trade so I would be ready when I got out to hit the ground running. Soon, as my hours were piling up at school, my hot dog “career” was taking off. Yes, I could have settled for slinging the dogs in a bun and getting back home, but I took the time to learn how the business worked behind the scenes. I asked lots of questions. I read books on small business manegement. I figured things out. I came up with ideas. Within three months I was an assistant manager. Three months more, when the manager quit,  I was promoted to manager and tripled my pay. On the weekends at our family’s shop, I asked more questions, I learned how to run the books, how all the products worked, what went with this…what went with that…How to do color, how to do specialized perms that most hairdressers didn’t know how to do. I read books and I didn’t settle for the information that beauty school had to teach me.

I didn’t have time to grow my business at a leisurely pace. I had a child depending on me.

Fast forward nine months. I graduated from beauty school, had my license, had developed relationships already at both the hot dog shop and the beauty shop and on the first week as a licensed hairdresser, I had a healthy clientele ready and waiting and a good income coming in as well as the manager’s job at the hot dog shop.

I had kept my budget to the same exact amount as it had been when I first moved in, so the extra money could go into savings and paying the medical bills, which I had worked out a monthly payment plan on. Fast forward another year and I took my GED and went to college. Quit the hot dog job, got a job tuturing other college kids in the school library which paid my tuition, became the manager at the salon and with a few years tripled the employees and the value of the company. Graduated from college, grew my management and sales skills into other positions  that further increased my experiences and marketablity.

Oh, and I saved enough to buy a house at age 20, with interest rates at the cheap old rate of 18%.

Why am I sharing this story? Two reasons. One, to tell you that hard work and determination CAN pay off, even during times that look a lot more daunting than these.

The second is to mention that if the route I took sounds a little exhausting ( and trust me, it was) there is a MUCH EASIER WAY to get where you want to go in this day and age.

Keep in mind that I didn’t even own a car. I walked or finagled a ride to everywhere I went. There was no such thing as getting up in the morning and firing up your lap top to see what options were available.

Now there is. These days, I don’t have to work quite that hard at success. I turn on my computer, I read, I pay attention and I listen to the right people.

IF you were paying close attention to my story, maybe some of you caught that the common thread of reading, paying attention and listening to the right people was woven in to everything I did back then too, but then, I had to walk to get there. Now…I click on to Naomi Dunford’s free classes and thank my lucky stars I don’t have to “Walk Uphill without Shoes” like in the olden’ days to Canada to get the best advice there is for making a lot of money right from the comfort of my computer.

I’m heading over there now. Will you join me? It’s a heck of a lot easier on the feet! Click on her post and let her help you get where you want to go!

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