Gratitude can change my perspective about things and I find myself being connected to this more and more lately. Ever since this pandemic started in early 2020, I have found myself trying to focus on gratitude & perspective every day. (thanks Gary Vee) and for the most part, it's working. Now, that doesn't mean I don't have problems or troubles - but it is helping me to deal with those things a bit better than before. The key for me is to try and make this Gratitude & Perspective more of a habit so that it becomes an everyday thing that I don't have to think about - it's just happening. This simple picture is something that is a powerful reminder for me. Maybe for you too?
In the first of two blog assignments about gratitude I shared with my students to get their perspectives on, this one was a simple but powerful one for them & for me. First of all, I simply wanted them to find a picture or a quote to put into their blog along with their thoughts about it. This picture is a simple reminder for me that having an attitude of gratitude. It does indeed change everything! My outlook about things being connected to gratitude - I need that reminder a lot ... almost every day!
Gratitude can change my perspective about things and I find myself being connected to this more and more lately. Ever since this pandemic started in early 2020, I have found myself trying to focus on gratitude & perspective every day. (thanks Gary Vee) and for the most part, it's working. Now, that doesn't mean I don't have problems or troubles - but it is helping me to deal with those things a bit better than before. The key for me is to try and make this Gratitude & Perspective more of a habit so that it becomes an everyday thing that I don't have to think about - it's just happening. This simple picture is something that is a powerful reminder for me. Maybe for you too?
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Coach John Wooden will always be a teacher to me. A fantastic educator who's messages and methods are needed today in our world more than ever. In this video that Coach did for a TED Talk, he brings up so many valuable lessons. One of which is his definition of success and how it is more about us doing our best instead of comparing ourselves to others. That is something that all of us can remember and take with us wherever we go. His dad was one of the biggest difference makers in his life and the lessons that he took with him througout his whole life - and his life lasted just about 100 years!! Now we can take those lessons from his entire life and get them from a video or read them in one of his many books.
The other part to this is from Coach Wooden's "Pyramid of Success"! Again, so many valuable lessons from this document - for 2019 I am looking to gain CONFIDENCE in myself and apply that to things that I need to do - things that I have had to do for years!! I know it's inside of me and I've had glimpes of it before, but there is no time like the present to get this going in my life. SELF-CONTROL is something that I also need to work on. I need to develope better habits, those things that will take me closer to my dreams and goals and not further away. On the flip side there are bad habits that I need to replace. It's been said that the quickest way to success is to replace a bad habit with a good one. That needs to be something I look to do every day! Again - so many valuable reminders from a timeless document that Coach Wooden gave to us. "A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there." - unknown
This is something that came across my desk the other day and I knew I had to get some thoughts out there on it. It made an impact on my from the very first second I saw it and I knew others could check it out too. So, I had it as my quote of the week for my students at school. I figured out that if I'm asking them to write some thoughts down about things like this, the lease I can do is to try and do it too. Getting out of my comfort zone is something that is loooonnnngggg overdue for me. Funny thing, just the simple fact of doing my blog on at least a weekly basis is something getting me out of my comfort zone. So this is helping me tremendously. I know that this will lead me to get out of my comfort zone for my podcasts, getting some interviews going, getting some things written for my book, an email promotion I need to work on, etc. From an article that I found: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251594 one of the points that this article points out is to focus on the why. Why am I thinking of getting out of my comfort zone in the first place? What is the driving reason for me to get uncomfortable? If that reason why is powerful enough it will help push me through those moments of fear and apprehension so that I can move past it and get the thing done. The Power Of Why is so important. If I can work on having that, than any "how" that I have to go through will be easier :-) What a powerful and true statement! We can always look ahead to doing good things, but it always helps that we do good things today, since that is all we really have control over anyway. The good habits we do today, carry over to tomorrow - but the same is true for bad habits too. I have learned that one first hand. The longer a habit is going on for, the more difficult it is to break it.
That's why setting up routines that are good for ourselves, good for others around us, healthy, financial, mental, etc., those are great things to keep going with. I know I have bad habits that I need to break. I also know that it's not all going to happen at once. I need to make some changes. I heard Tom Ziglar say "The best way to find success is to replace a bad habit with a good one." Then we just have to keep repeating that sequence with all of our habits. That is the journey that I am currently on. How about you? "You need to be brutally honest with yourself." -- Mark Cuban
When it comes down to it, I think most of us are the least honest with ourselves compared to trying to be honest with other people. There are things about ourselves that only we know about, but yet we have a difficult time sometimes being honest with ourselves about fixing or improving things in our lives. Maybe it’s just me, but I find myself having difficulty sometimes being honest with myself. This is something that I’ve been working on little by little over the years. I think the sooner we can become honest with ourselves, our whole world can change. If we are honest with ourselves then that will hopefully lead to doing things better which hopefully lead to better habits. Better habits will lead to better results, but it really starts with us being honest with ourselves. Look around today at the lack of honesty. Companies have issues with this. Politicians have issues with this. There are all walks of life and professions that have trouble being honest. It’s one of the biggest things in our life that needs to be looked at being fixed. But remember, the government can‘t do it for us, that’s for sure. I think too many people are looking at the government or others to fix this issue. We need to be the ones and it starts by one, ourselves. Everyday actions, everyday thoughts, everyday in the way we treat others – that’s one way to lead by example to set a new example on how things should be done. It’s amazing to see so many of the world’s problems caused by character type issues. It can be fixed. It has to be fixed as the direction and path that we are on as a society is not a good one at all. It’s up to us plain and simple. Is it easy work? Heck no. Is it worth doing? You better believe it is. Just remember, it’s not one of us trying to do it all on our own. It’s all of us doing what we can do, and the first step is to be honest with ourselves. That first step will help us to do what we have to do to help others for sure. Now be honest – what can you do? “Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.” – Jim Rohn
It’s no surprise that I found this from the Success Magazine Facebook page. Jim Rohn has helped many, many people with Leadership & Success ideas over the years and this thought should be at the top of the list when it comes to advice to follow. I’ve been a personal fan of Jim Rohn’s work for a long time. His quotes and books are pure gold. Watching him over the years through his videos, he is so down to earth and relatable, which are two key elements I think to help connect with people. This whole quote is built off the very first sentence. Don’t wish for things to be easier is such a powerful and easy sentence. We have heard many times from different lessons and different leaders about this fact. They key to this where Jim says wish you were better is to first think about wishing or wanting to be better, and then doing something about it. Create a plan so that wish of yours to be better actually starts coming true. We all have problems in life and it’s hard to not dwell on them sometimes. By dwelling on them it gets in the way of us being able to solve them. Most of the time, the worry that we put on those problems will cause them to grow in size and become even bigger and more troublesome for ourselves and those around us too. If grow and learn more skills to help solve those problems then we will become stronger, wiser, and better able to solve future problems too and you know there will be more problems in the future. The key to this quote is for us to do things to get better, to learn new skills and to become wiser with life’s lessons. Creating the habits necessary to help make these things happen involves more reading, hanging out with some different people that will help push us out of our comfort zone, and beginning to change our regular routines that have lead to our current state of where we are today. I think anytime is good to re-think some of these things in our lives, but especially in springtime. It’s a time of new growth, colors come back into view along with new life happening all around us. A perfect time for us to make these things happen. What are you going to do today, this week, this month and this year to help follow Jim’s advice? I know I need to start working on many things to make this happen and as I’m finishing this up, I’m about to head out the gym to get a workout in. I’ve been going for the last couple of weeks, more faithfully and it’s making a big difference in helping me to change the things for me to get going in the direction that I have to go in. "Don't borrow someone else's plan. Develop your own philosophy and it will lead you to unique places." -- Jim Rohn
Jim brings up a great idea when I saw this quote from him. We all should take a course in the Philosophy of ourselves. The great thing about it is that it won't cost us hundreds of dollars per credit hour that we have to pay to a university. It will cost us some time and maybe a little money in trying to create the course for ourselves, but in the end it will be worth it. No matter what stage you are at in your life, this development of your own philosophy is important enough to get started on as soon as you can. Of course like many of my postings, it does hold true for this one too: the sooner you get going on this, the better your life could be. There is another point here too, and that is we cannot follow someone else's plan. We have to come up with our own blueprint of our own lives. Now that's not to say that we should not take others' thoughts and opinions into developing our own plan, but for the final decisions, it does come down to ourselves creating our own plan for our life. As I constantly try and get my students to realize they have to follow their own goals and dreams instead of doing things to please others. I not only find myself needing that advice still at my age but now I also am trying to pass that advice onto my two kids as well. My son will be 21 later this year and my daughter just turned 18 and graduated from high school. I am always looking for suggestions as possible careers for them to look into - with what I think connects to them as the person each of them are starting to become. I am for sure promoting to both of them to explore, ask questions, meet people and look deep inside of themselves to find out what drives them. What do they get fired up about? What excites them? What do they stay up late working on? Along with, what gets them out of bed in the morning so they can get going on things right away? The key for all of us, is to look at these questions for ourselves. Remember, it's never too late to get going chasing after our own dreams, goals and passions. What do we need to find some of these things out for ourselves? For one thing, we need to spend some time to actually think about some of these things that make up our plan. We need to write them down too, so we can read, plan, make goals, think some more on them and let the ideas come flowing out to help us get going. We need to also change our thinking. The most valuable tool we have is our own brains. The 5 or 6 inches between our ears should be guarded very tightly with what we allow into it. Look to make some changes in our thinking, what we read, watch and listen to. Another point is watching out who we hang out with. Those people that we let affect us are vitally important as to who we become and what plan we are working from too. Finally, our habits are key. This involves how we spend our valuable time and what are we accomplishing with it. Spending our time involves action - we are doing something with our time, but we need to look at how that is actually getting us closer or farther away from our drams and goals. This one is a biggie for me as I struggle with it often. Something once again that I find myself dealing with this summer. I look forward to making some serious strides to improving my habits and how I spend my time. What about you? Anything here ring true for you too? Always look to reflect on these and other things that can bring you closer to going after your dreams and goals. Find some time this week to do just that. Let me know how it's coming and maybe even get in touch and let me know how I can help you out along with you probably being able to help me out too. "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." -Henry Ford
There was a little bit of a connection to this being a Monday and this wonderful quote from Henry Ford. When I saw it this morning I thought about the fact that I needed to reset and begin a few things again today, being the start of another week. This week is crucial leading up to the new school year and there are plenty of things I need to work on in a more intelligent way than I've done before. This holds true with work things that we have to do, but more importantly it also has to do with life things too. The sooner we look at the difficulties in our lives, how did we arrive there, what things can we learn from those experiences, how can I make changes so it doesn't happen again; are just some of the things we need to think about. This of course is all wieved arround the fact that we can't let our own negative thinking get in the way of learning from our failures. One thought I had when I read this over a few times this morning, was that all the things I've failed at throughout my life, I must not have learned much since some of the things I'm still struggling with. From there it might be a thought like, 'what makes you think this time will be any different?' Another one; 'who are you kidding, you know you'll end up right where you started as you have tried this so many times.' A funny thing though. As I started running the usual negative thoughts in my head there was a little response, just a little voice that said - hey, this time can be different. It also said that 'you know you can do this', along with little pictures in my mind about me being successful and actually doing these things that I'm working on doing. The key is that over time (and for me it's been a long journey) I have learned little bits and pieces even if I wasn't successful at accomplishing things that I wanted to do, I still got just a tiny bit better than I was before. There is the key! As long as you come coming back, struggle, try and do more, try and get better, keep trying to accomplish things in your life; this quote from Henry Ford will continue to hold truth for you. This is why it's important to continue to read and listen to things more than once. In fact it should be many times - some experts even say almost 20 times we need to read or listen to something for it really to become a habit, or it gets placed inside of us that we can draw on it any time we need it. What is it for you? What does Mr. Ford's quote mean to you? How do you connect to it? As always I invite you to share with me and others your thoughts and ideas about this quote, for there will be many other ideas and thoughts that can help me and others. It's always great to see someone's thoughts and opinions that can get us thinking differently. Seeing things from different points of view are always helpful. "Do you ever doubt or worry that the sun may not rise tomorrow? Sunrise must come, it's an immutable law of the universe. And so must your dreams if you simply plant good seeds and continue to nurture them." ~ Russ Whitney
Interesting points Russ brings up here. Not sure I doubt that the sun won't come up tomorrow. In fact, that is one thing my dad always would say - "don't worry John, the sun will come up tomorrow." Sometimes I would get worked up about something, worry about it, and my dad would always help bring me back down to earth a little bit. I think what Russ is talking about here is that we need to have the faith that our dreams are the same way. We need to work at them everyday, just like the sun comes up every day. It goes back to a very simple idea that Mike Litman (best selling author of "Conversations with Millionaires") would always talk about - yet it's more difficult to do than people think. Mike would mention the idea about working on your goals and dreams just 1% everyday. Do little things here and there, everyday that would get you closer to your goals and dreams. He would say that after a month, look as to how far you got toward them. After half a year - wow! Especially after a year would go by... great progress for sure. This quote struck me right in the nose. It got me thinking about the changes I have to make to start getting the believe and expectation about my dreams and goals. I need to get out there and not only expect that everyday something will get accomplished or started towards them, but also that 1% factor really connects to this point too. Where are you at with this thought? Is this concept something you have thought about before like I have? Is it something that you need to get back to doing everyday, like I do? I always welcome your thoughts, ideas and discussion as I really get something from anyone that takes the time to share. Writing this has helped me remember a 1% choice I can make right now in getting something done. How about you? "People do not decide their future; they decide their habits and their habits decide their future." - Coach Juan Langford
As soon as I saw this quote, I knew that I had to share it. Not only did I get it out right away on my Facebook and Twitter accounts, but then I also knew it would be my quote of the week this week for me and my students. What a true statement for sure. Our habits - how we spend our time, day in and day out; that is what really dictates our future. If there are certain habits that we know are not getting us where we want to go, then we have to make a change for sure. I heard a great thought the other day on one of the podcasts I listen to. This idea was that we can't stop bad habits by themselves without finding a good habit to replace it with. So instead of focusing simply trying to stop a bad habit or bad time waster, we need to find a better habit or a more productive way to spend our time - something to replace it with. Another part of this quote should get us thinking about where do we want to go? Where do we see ourselves in the next year, 5 years, 10 years? Without having an idea as to where we want to be, we will find great difficulty in knowing what habits we should focus on to get us there. I look at a bracelet that I am wearing now from a friend and mentor, and it has on it D.I.N.O. This stands for Dreaming Is Not Optional. We always should have new ideas to keep getting better at, always looking to improve ourselves. We need to constantly look ahead to see where we are going. Just like in basketball, we have to keep our heads up. What are you thinking about this quote and how it connects with you? Any thoughts to share? Any questions that this brings up for you? Let me know - I'd be glad to try and help. |
AuthorI have been an educator for more than 32 years. It's about time I start sharing lessons that I have learned so that I can help others. I'm into Leadership, Teaching, Coaching Basketball, and being a Difference Maker. Coffee helps me do that :-) Archives
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