February 16: Focus, Thought Patterns, and Neurons

This physical body is a bio mechanical, chemical, hormonal, and electric machine.  It is an energy-producing, power-generating, vibrating miracle.  The better and faster we learn how to manipulate, use, recalibrate, utilize, program, automate, and operate it, the more quickly we can manifest the life of our dreams!

I was taught about this idea and theory of Neural Grooves in the year, 1991:

“Every thought we think literally creates a neural groove in our brain.  The more we think that thought the deeper that line becomes.”

Science now teaches us that the neurons that fire together, wire together.  Repeated thoughts literally bring neurons together until they truncate into thicker and thicker bundles.  The more repetitious the thought, the thicker the bundle!  It is entirely possible, through repetition and practice, to build a forest of Redwoods within our minds, automating useful habits, and resulting in a life of meaning, purpose, fulfillment, and OUR ideas of success.

Science now teaches that there are no memories stores ANYWHERE in our bodies.  They theorize that all memories are stored in what Albert Einstein described as, THE FIELD.  We access these memories through the neurons, which are now considered to be soft antenna.

Ever heard the term, “If you don’t use it you lose it!” when people are talking about muscles?  Well, just as with muscles, the neurons we don’t use, we also, “lose.”  The neurons we no longer use for old thought patterns are reassigned and recruited to the new thought patterns we are practicing and repeating, and they fire and wire together with the new thoughts, creating a thicker trunk of neurons.

We are literally co-creators with the universe.  We create our lives and we create our destinies, through repeating thoughts.  We can change, alter, improve, grow, and evolve the course and trajectory of ANY part of our lives, THROUGH our repeated thoughts and what we choose to focus on.  Each of our lives is literal proof of the truthfulness of this.  It takes an evolved, conscious, courageous, and committed person to admit this, learn from it, and to practice it.

THIS is the importance of repetition and practice!  The more we think something, listen to something, focus on something, and repeat that thing, the easier it becomes to repeat it with ease.  At first, new things feel uncomfortable, but through repetition and practice, ANYTHING becomes easier.  This idea has been solidified in my mind by the book, MINDSET, by Carol Dweck.  I highly recommend buying the audio version of this book.  It is an empowering book which has helped me to recreate a better life for myself and my loved ones.  To learn more about Carol and her book, go to the YouTube search engine and type, IMPACT THEORY CAROL DWECK.

FOCUS IS EVERYTHING!  What we choose to focus on tends to repeat itself.  What we choose to focus on is attracted into our lives.  What we choose to focus on soon becomes an obsession, and soon becomes all we can see, think about, and create more of.  Our minds are programmed and hardwired to seek out proof and support of what we focus upon.  The neurons that fire together, wire together.  In this way, our lives are literally our responsibility, and the outcomes of our lives are literally our, “fault,” because we chose our thoughts, which dictated our words and actions, which then determined everything else in our lives-including things like habitual patterns we form, speech patterns we chose, and the way people responded and reacted to us, each moment, all along the way.  WHAT WE FOCUS UPON, WE ATTRACT MORE OF.

The RAS, or Reticular Activating System, is a small piece of hardware in our brains that directs our conscious attention ONLY to the information which we WANT and CHOOSE to focus on.  Basically, the RAS ensures that what we consciously and decidedly focus on, with clear purpose and intent, is ALL that we will BE ABLE to focus on AND SEE throughout our day.

The life we are currently living is entirely our responsibility.  This may be difficult to accept, at first.  I know that I rejected this idea for years!  My desire to be successful, while only being able to focus on all of my many perceived failures, made it too painful for me to admit that my train wreck of a life was ALL MY responsibility.  It was so much easier to blame others, come up with excuses, compare my successes to the failures of others, and feed my insatiable ego, while never choosing to change a thing I thought or did.

The belief that our life is entirely our responsibility is excellent news, because our life a year from now is also entirely our responsibility, and we can begin now, to create the life we want a year from now.  One way to start now, creating that life, is outlined in the goodinthehead habit hacking challenge.  Google it now, and check it out!

Our food and drink choices for the past year have dictated and decided our current health conditions.  The food and drink choices we chose over the past year determined and decided the chemicals and hormones our thyroid and brain released all day and all night into our blood streams.  Our food and drink choices helped us heal or made us weak and sick.  Nobody forced us to eat and drink the way we did.  We CHOSE that.  Every bite we take and every thought we think helps us heal on a cellular level and empowers our cells to regenerate and replicate in a healthy way, or slowly destroys us.  Every bite we choose and every thought we think determines our physical, mental, emotional, chemical health, and eventually even our spiritual health.  These choices certainly dictate how effectively we are capable of living our lives, moment to moment.

The amount of exercise we chose this past year, each and every day of that last year, determined and decided which hormones and chemicals were released into the body, how our bodies adapted to the environment, and how our bodies learned to heal,  or how our bodies forgot to heal.  Remember the phrase, “If we don’t use it, we lose it?”

Our habituated, automated thought patterns we allowed for the past decade dictated and decided the current emotional and mental state our minds are now in.  Our habituated, automated thought patterns also now dictate and decide the physical makeup of the neural jungles and forests in our brains, and which chemicals and hormones are continuously being pumped into our blood streams, all day long, and at night while we sleep.

Our thought patterns and what we choose to focus on, become what we continue to think about, what we say, what we do, and who we become.  It is so important we choose what we think about and how often we think about it.

In a world filled with distractions, it is up to US to choose the positive, helpful, empowering thoughts to focus on that will help us accomplish our goals and hit the targets we are aiming at.  We must think our thoughts on purposeThese thoughts we think, over and over, will thicken the neural trees in the forest of our brains which we WANT to develop, and will become the habitual actions by which we accomplish our own, personal growth and success.

Reminder to self:  Remember those goals you wrote down and thought about so much at the beginning of the year?  What are you doing as part of your daily routine to accomplish these goals and hit the targets you are aiming at?  Do you need to recommit to anything?  Do you need to re-think your purpose?  Do you need more clarity?  Do you need to readjust your focus in any way?  Is there something in your daily routine that needs to be changed or tweaked in some way?  Which neurons in your brain do you want to fire together, in order to wire together?

REMINDER TO SELF:  Your personal success is yours and yours alone.  It must be CONSISTENTLY thought about, spoken of, and worked on, on purpose.  Your personal success must be a priority.  As you work towards accomplishing the goals to make you more of who you want to be in a year, create your own daily checklist that will make you who and what you want to become by the end of that year.  Remember what Les Brown says:  “SHOOT FOR THE MOON!!!  Even if you fail, you will land among the stars.”  Dream big!  Accomplishing those daily tasks and working towards your goals, each day, will make you a more valuable version of you.  

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will review my goals and make sure they are EXACTLY what I WANT.  I will adjust my daily routine as needed, and continue to think about and do what will help me the most, in order to accomplish my goals and hit my targets.  I will repeat these thought patterns and actions and deliberately, habitually, and automatically alter my future every day by choosing the neurons which I want to fire and wire together, that go along with these thought patterns and actions.

Here are a few videos about the RAS:

goodinthehead also on Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

February 15: Empathy

Look around at all of the other people nearby.  Each one of them has an incredible story filled with pain, sorrow, happiness, joy, love, hate, ugliness, and beauty.  These feelings come from our own perspectives and individual and unique experiences of life, and THE MEANINGS WE ATTACH to each of those experiences.

Imagine what it would be like to step into their life for just a day and live as they live, to feel the pain they feel, to be able to fully experience their life experience in the moment, and to realize and know who they REALLY are, and TRULY understand why they are the way they are in their human existence.

To love, accept, understand, and allow others the space to BE THEMSELVES, with NO judgement, and NO criticism, is one of the greatest gifts we can give to another human being.  To realize and remember that each of us is currently striving to operate at our very best in this life, in THIS VERY MOMENT, and to simply love and accept others as they are, is TRUE EMPATHY.  I never perceived myself to experience this generosity from ANYONE, on a consistent basis, until my wife, Carla.  She taught me it is possible.  She showed me a higher vision of myself and others, by example.  Oh, sure, she calls me on my shit, and holds herself, me, and others to high standards, but she is wise and fair.  She loves and accepts me no matter what, and for the first time in my life I am practicing doing that for myself, because she showed me how, and because she showed me it is possible and available as an option to us ALL.

It is so easy to judge and criticize people based on what they look like or what they say in a small conversation, but to really know them and understand them, and accept them as they are, that is empathy.  It is empathy to have every reason in the world to hate or despise someone but then to choose to understand them, instead, knowing that in this current moment, and in their present state of personal experiences and learning, this is the very best they can do.

There is ALWAYS a good, solid reason that people are who they are.  Many of them chose to be the way they are to protect themselves from being hurt again.  Some of us have amassed and accumulated YEARS of stress, coping mechanisms, and destructive behaviors and practices, in order to survive trauma, without having acquired useful tools, practices, or habits, to consistently rid ourselves, daily, of this damaging energy.

It is usually only HURT people that hurt other people, and SO MANY of us are hurting, without even being aware of WHY, and then habitually and automatically lashing out at others.  We are all at different places in our learning experiences in this life.  I think it is important to remember this when we look at others and see them struggling to do their very best.

I think it is also important to remember this when we look at ourselves.  Acceptance of, kindness towards, understanding for, and love and appreciation of SELF is the key!  Allowing ourselves to be ENOUGH, simply being and doing our BEST, will allow us to give the same gift to others.

Reminder to self:  Choose to see the best in others and treat them as if that is all you can see, and watch them rise to the occasion when they are around you.  Most people work hard not to disappoint others high ideals of them.  See the greatness within, and allow for mistakes in yourself and others.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will choose empathy.  I believe that by doing so it will allow me to see others in a different light and help me along my path to becoming a better, more expansive version of myself every single day.

THIS interview, with Dr. Bruce Lipton and Dr. Tom Campbell, made me go home and treat my dog differently, with more compassion, love, kindness, and understanding, than I ever before had learned about:

This interview helped me be more empathetic towards others, and practice acceptance:

This interview featuring, Bruce Lipton, empowered me to realize that most of us live according to a subconscious program, and helped me to more easily and readily accept myself and others as we are:

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

February 14: LOVE

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

Love is everything.  To be loved, treasured, and adored is something we all want.  I think it is possible that our TRUE identity IS love.

How we feel about our self and what we tell ourselves is so important.  Our Self Image literally dictates the quality of LOVE we are able to receive and transmit.  The quality of our experiences with LOVE in this life is determined by the level of LOVE we are able to consistently practice WITHIN.

We all have that inner voice.  I think it is important that we remember to choose what to allow that inner voice tell us, and make good choices about what we will permit it to say!  It’s great to be loved by others, but unless we learn to love and accept ourselves for who and what we are, our perception will be that nobody else ever will.  WE dictate the way we deserve to be loved, all in accordance to the level of skill and ability we achieve in fully loving, respecting, accepting, and appreciating OURSELVES.

In order for others to love us, we must first learn to love OURSELVES.  In order for us to love and accept others more deeply, we must first learn to love and accept OURSELVES more deeply.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will focus on choosing what to tell myself, and I will constantly design how I  feel about myself.  I will PROVE how I feel about myself BY WHAT I CHOOSE TO DO, each and every moment.  I will love myself for who and what I am and continually strive to be a better version of myself than I was yesterday.  I will only choose to DO that which will fill ME up with LOVE, which constantly spills over into the lives of those around me.

These words by Ram Dass empowered me to love, respect, appreciate, and accept myself, more and more, each and every day.

The first interview Lewis Howes gave featuring Marisa Peer has helped me to love and accept myself as I am.  I hope it does the same for you.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

February 13: Bad Days

Bad days.

We all have them.  They are a part of life.  Bad days are a part of the Human Experience.

Have you ever heard the quote, “The darkest nights produce the brightest stars?”

It’s true.  The greater the struggle, THE MORE GLORIOUS THE TRIUMPH!

Behind every great feat there is struggle.  Behind greatness there is work.  Behind a truly genuine smile, immeasurable pain and suffering can be found.  Behind each gesture of real kindness, understanding, and empathy, is the experience and understanding of extreme unkindness.  Behind the incredible greatness, light, and beauty in each human being lies the experience of suffering, darkness, and ugliness also experienced.  IT IS THE CONTRASTING EXPERIENCES OF LIFE THAT MAKE LIFE SO BEAUTIFUL.

EVERYTHING IS INFORMATION.

We all do bad things.  We all act disgracefully.  We all experience difficulty and disappointment.  These ugly times and bad days are a normal part of the human learning process, and we don’t need to beat ourselves up needlessly when we experience or do them.  We are ALL doing the very best we can with what we have, who we identify as, the subconscious programming instilled within us as small children, and the self identity we continuously perpetuate, internally, as a part of that programming we received.

EVERY MOMENT IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN FROM THE FEEDBACK AND INFORMATION OF EACH OUTCOME.  LEVEL-UP, PIVOT, ADAPT, READJUST, RECALIBRATE, AND RE-ENGAGE.  

ALL WE NEED TO DO IS OUR BEST.  THAT WILL ALWAYS BE ENOUGH.

BAD TIMES DON’T LAST.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.  HANG IN THERE, AND KEEP PRESSING FORWARD.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today, I will remember that the bad days, including the bad things that happen to me, the destructive things I do, and the frustrating experiences I have, will in some way help me to understand more, and grow and expand into someone better, wiser, and stronger.  I will remember that it is THEN that I will be more able to help, empower, strengthen, and be there more for others.  I will remember that it is through and because of the contrasting experiences of my life that I will know what I DO want more of.

I will remember that the Universe was designed from the beginning to conspire on my behalf, that everything that happens TO me is actually happening FOR me, and that a plan I may never understand is working towards my greater good AT ALL TIMES, giving me all that I NEED, and not necessarily all that I WANT.  In this way, the Universe, and ALL that is in it, is constantly striving for BALANCE, and the greater good of the collective whole.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

February 12: Needs

As humans, we all have needs.  I believe that some of the most important of these needs are to be understood, valued, and respected.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is interesting.  If we choose to meet the needs he teaches about FOR OURSELVES, and practice extreme and radical ownership of our lives, we will be filled with all we need to the point that all we have and all we are naturally spills over into the lives of others, blessing, energizing, empowering, and inspiring everyone around us on a consistent basis.  The results of this are staggering.

What are the best ways we can meet our OWN needs in all of these areas?

The more we strive to understand, value, and respect others, the more others will strive to understand, value, and respect us.  It’s just the way it works.  The more we give, the more we get back-ESPECIALLY if we don’t expect anything in return.

It is 100% OUR RESPONSIBILITY to meet our own needs.  To expect ANYONE else to meet our needs in ANY way is a trap that can usually leads to anger, fear, frustration, bitterness, resentment, and contempt.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will take advantage of each and every situation to understand, value, and respect others by the way I treat them, talk to them, and look at them.

Dr. Gabor Mate teaches how we can practice BEING love, empathy, kindness, and understanding, for those struggling through the addiction process, by giving others what they need most to heal.  Learning to love, appreciate, and fully accept ourselves as PERFECT, exactly where and as we are in life, RIGHT NOW, is the beginning of this healing process…

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

February 11: Comparisons

Reminder to self:

We all compare ourselves with others at one time or another.  Sometimes we compare ourselves to others to try to measure our progress in some way.  Other times, we compare ourselves to someone who we judge to be not as advanced in life or work or love as we consider ourselves to be, thinking it will make us feel better about ourselves.  That is one reason some of us may judge others, or speak of them at all, in an either negative or positive light.  We use comparing, judgement, and criticism, to cause the result of a feeling within us.

I think that many of us think others should be just like us.  It’s the reason we argue or discuss things.  We want to win other people over to our way of thinking, behaving, and living.  Many times, when people are different in some way that we cannot accept, we don’t allow them into our tribe, or we kick them out of our tribe entirely and disown them, just for being different, or even simply wanting to be different, when in THEIR mind, they are beginning to change, improve, evolve, expand, and grow.  We are all just doing our best.

The fact is, I think we are all incredibly and beautifully unique as individuals.  We are meant to be different.  We were never created to be the same.

 There will never be anyone in this world, ever, exactly like you.  You are an original.  You are beautiful and perfect just the way you are, for today, and you can do and be even better.

I think that the best thing any of us can do is compare ourselves to the person we were yesterday.  Are we a better person, or better at a skill in some way, than we were yesterday?  Yes?  Then we are headed in the right direction.  We can consistently keep doing what we are doing and keep improving.

 Improvement equals progress.  Progress equals happiness.

Are we a better person than we were yesterday?  No?  Then we can change something we are doing in order to start moving us in another direction.

I love this quote:

“You are responsible for your happiness.  In fact, you create it.  You attract it.  You manifest it.  You are the architect of your reality.  You choose your thoughts, your perceptions, and your reaction to external forces.  You possess all of the tools needed to expand your awareness, to orchestrate the evolution of your consciousness, to choose happiness, to choose love.  You are that powerful.  Create the life you deserve.  Vibrate love.”

Comparing ourselves to others can create a situation in which we focus on the success and wealth of others, shedding a light on our lack.  This may contribute to the fear-based belief that we reside in a Universe full of lack, rather than a much more useful and empowering belief of light and love, which is that

WE RESIDE IN A UNIVERSE OF LIMITLESS ABUNDANCE.

Comparing ourselves to OURSELVES  can motivate us with the desire to want to acquire more, and may create within us the drive to do more and to be better.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will compare myself to who I was yesterday.  If I’m a better person than I was yesterday I will keep doing what I am doing.  If not, I will make a change.  Instead of focusing on comparing myself and my “successes” to others and their “failures” for a source of my self esteem, I will focus on comparing myself to me, every day.

One of the most useful tools I have come across in creating a life of extreme abundance in ALL area of life is a book by Jim Rohn, entitled, SEVEN STRATEGIES FOR WEALTH AND HAPPINESS.  In it are contained some of the best suggestions I have ever come across.  I highly recommend listening to this book, or reading it, and making a study of it.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share any message which may empower someone you love or may care about.  Through adding value to others, we become more valuable.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is everything!

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Lori Harder wrote a book called, “A Tribe Called Bliss.”  Here is the interview in which I learned more about her and this book:

https://elixinol.com/?affiliates=ejones1972&campaign=goodintheheadElixinol

February 10: Loyalty

I think that loyalty is important to give to the important people in our lives.  In thought, word, and deed, we can choose to do this for anyone.  Sticking up for people when they are not present will send a message to others as to what kind of person we are, just like talking trash about someone when they are not present will send a message telling others what kind of person we are.

The thing about gossip, is that when we participate in it, and talk negatively about someone when that other person isn’t present, it tells people we are sharing gossip with that when they are no longer present we will probably do the same to them.  This doesn’t engender trust or loyalty between us and that person.  It does the opposite.

When we stick up for someone when they aren’t present simply by saying something like, “Let’s not talk about them when they aren’t even around to verify the facts or defend themselves,” it leads others to believe we will do the same for them, and if we habituate this practice, we will.  They will quickly realize we are a loyal, respectful, transparent, up front type of person, and most people will immediately appreciate this consistent practice that quickly becomes a habit.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will choose to strengthen the bonds of trust between myself and others by choosing not to talk about them in a negative manner when they aren’t present.  I will focus on being loyal, respectful, and up front.  If I have something to say about someone, I will have the courage to say it to their face.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

February 9: The Basics

Reminder to self:  Stick with the basics.  KISS (Keep It Super Simple).  FOCUS ON THE FUNDAMENTALS.  MASTER THE BASICS.

I once read a book called, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”

It was the basics of life on how to live well and be a good person. The premise of the book was how it was all taught to the author in kindergarten and how life and all the distractions of life made him forget about all of those important things.  For a while he forgot who he was.

Don’t we all forget who, and WHAT,  we TRULY are sometimes?  Don’t we all forget what is truly valuable and important to us?  There are so many distractions available to us in our human lives!

What are some things that distract you and occupy your time?  What are the things which are truly valuable and important to you?  How much time do you spend on the distractions every day and how much time do you spend on what is important to you every day?  Be honest!  I calculated it out, kept a time journal for a week, and saw that I needed to make a few adjustments in what I focus on, and where I spend my time and energy.

I think it is useful to get back to the basics and do what we learned to be the good, decent human beings most of us were taught to be when we were younger:

1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don’t hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
7. Say you’re SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you-just not every meal.
11. Live a balanced life – learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.”
― Robert FulghumAll I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will be mindful of, and remember, the basics in my life, and do my very best to ALWAYS be the best version of myself.  I will not only make my own life more beautiful, but the lives of those around me. 

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

February 8: Respect and Gratitude

We have all been blessed to have parents, a guardian, a mentor, or someone in our lives, that has taught us, helped us, and has in some way empowered us to be a better person along the way, and to create a better life for ourselves and the ones we love.

These people may know more than us because of the difficulties and challenges they have lived through and the rough times they faced.  If we choose, they may be very valuable to us because of the things they learned and experienced, and then have chosen to pass along to us.

No matter the state of our relationship with these people or that person in our lives now, I think they deserve our gratitude.

That person may have died, moved away, or we may have moved on and that person is no longer in our lives.  Maybe you are one of the lucky, blessed people who still has that person, or those people, in your life.  Think of that person or those people now.  Send them good energy.  Wish them well.  Give them your love and appreciation in your mind’s eye.  Send it to them from your heart.

Now, if you are able to, actually do it.  Reach out to them through text, email, a phone call, or in person.  You may not get another chance to.

When we give credit where credit is due, and express thanks and gratitude to others, something magical happens.  Somehow, the Universe blesses us with even more to be grateful for.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will express gratitude and appreciation, and show respect for the  people in my life who care enough for me to have helped me out in some way.  A simple acknowledgement, thank you note, email, text, IM, high five, or ANY act will suffice, but if I am able to, I will do this in person.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

February 7: Adventures

I once read a quote that said, “Bad decisions make great stories.”

The RESULTS of “bad” decisions can be PRICELESS teachers, offering us information, data, and feedback on how to do things differently next time.

Well, we can also choose good decisions.  Doing something new is adventurous.  It’s scary, exciting, difficult, and sometimes ALSO makes for a great story.  Going a new route home after work, doing something or going somewhere we have never done or gone before, or even speaking to or saying hello to a stranger, can be just the adventure we need, to get us started down the road of adventures!

Reminder to self:  Be smart, and be safe, but make sure to have an adventure today!  The key is to make a decision and take action.  Just do it!  When something scares us a little, we can face it, lean into it, experience it, and become more adventurous, or we can shrink in fear, retract from possibilities, and choose the same results we have always gotten-but I think it is important to remember Einstein’s definition of insanity:

INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THINGS OVER AND OVER WHILE EXPECTING A DIFFERENT RESULT.

I often like to remind myself and others that HOME IS NOT WHERE LIFE IS LIVED.  Home is the safe place we return to after our adventures OUTSIDE the home, a place where we go to lick our wounds and recover after kicking ass all day, or maybe after life has kicked OUR ass all day.  Life isn’t lived in the safety and comfort of the home.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will do something adventurous.

DO SOMETHING HARD TODAY!  DO SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU TODAY, OR CAUSES YOU TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE.  

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.