Daily Motivator - May
 

May 1

Tend to the little things

A big difficulty is made of hundreds or thousands of small difficulties that were never addressed. A great achievement is built by making one small accomplishment after another, after another.

What will you be doing a hundred days from now? Imagine the power of doing a little preparation for it today, and a little more every day from now until then.

Small things matter because they grow and assemble into big things. Small things matter because you are easily able to influence them.

Look around, right now, and ask yourself. What small problems can you solve, and what small opportunities can you act upon?

Do the difficult things while they are still easy. Allow the passage of time to amplify the power of your positive actions.

Tend to the little things now. And when they pile up, as they will, they’ll do so to your great benefit.

— Ralph Marston

May 2

Strong sense of responsibility

The people who will create success in the future are those who learn from the past and present. What have you learned, and what are you learning?

Enduring progress is never the result of forcing people to act in a certain way. The world is led forward by those who enable, inspire, and encourage everyone to live with responsibility.

A strong sense of responsibility gives birth to innovation, resilience, courage, achievement, and generosity. Those who see themselves as responsible to life, are the ones who contribute most to life.

Plenty of individuals want to take credit for making a difference. The people who truly make a positive difference are not those who seek to take credit, but those who take responsibility.

A few agreed-upon rules can be very helpful for people to get along with each other. But all the rules and regulations and enforcers in the world can never take the place of responsibility.

The difficult, overwhelming problems won’t be solved with quick, easy answers. Those problems will be transformed into opportunities by lots and lots of people who choose to act with responsibility.

— Ralph Marston

May 3

Small improvement

What can you do a little bit better today than yesterday? A small improvement is easy, and it can make a big difference.

A small improvement is much more desirable than no improvement. And a small improvement is always within your reach.

Even if no one else notices your small improvement, you will know. And that will set you up for further improvement tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

When you decide to make just a small improvement every day, those improvements add up on top of each other. Soon, you will have made significant progress.

Once you’ve done the necessary work, do just a little more, make it a little bit better. Take advantage of the momentum you’ve already worked to put in place, and get a little more value from it.

Your effort has earned you the opportunity to add to it, to improve on it. Do your work a little bit better each time, and those small improvements will add up to big results.

— Ralph Marston

May 4

Give today a purpose

Treat today with the respect it deserves. Give it a clear purpose.

If you’re not sure what you intend to do, you’ll waste the most precious resource you have, which is time. When you know exactly what you must do, you’re highly likely to get it done.

Define your goals for this day, and provide all the details. Every specific detail creates a platform upon which you can take action.

Give this day a purpose and give yourself the enthusiasm and energy to live it well. Entice yourself into sustained productive action by being clear about where that action will lead.

You have one opportunity to live this day. Make the most of that opportunity by being clear about what you intend to do with it.

At the conclusion of this day, vast potential rewards await you. Bring those rewards to life by seeing them, clearly and in specific detail, right now.

— Ralph Marston

May 5

Positive influence

There are plenty of negative influences in your life. You don’t have to be one of them.

You’re always making choices. Every one of those choices is an opportunity to send your life, your actions, your outcomes, your world, in a more positive direction.

Many factors are beyond your control. And yet, you have significant control over your thoughts, your attitude, your words, actions, and priorities.

Exercise that control in an intentional, beneficial way. Choose to serve as a counterbalance to the negativity you come across.

Be a positive influence in your own life, and in the lives of those around you. Yes, the pull of negativity can be strong and compelling, yet you can be stronger.

Decide to focus your strength in the direction of all you love and care about. Let your light shine through the darkness, and lift your world to a more positive place.

— Ralph Marston

May 6

Time for gratitude

Give yourself time for gratitude. Think of what you can be thankful for, and linger on those thoughts.

Gratitude leads you to think more clearly, to sleep more peacefully, to act with positive intention and resourcefulness. Give your life the benefit of its good and gentle power.

Those times when gratitude doesn’t seem warranted, are precisely the times when it will be most beneficial. Look for the gift in the situation, and persist until you uncover it.

Envision your time for gratitude as a pleasant place of refuge and renewal. Go there often, and stay for a while.

You’ll empower yourself with a new measure of positive, purposeful energy. You’ll open your awareness to valuable possibilities you never considered before.

Spend time in a sustained experience of gratitude, and learn to treasure the feeling it brings you. That feeling is real, and will spread its goodness to every part of your life.

— Ralph Marston

May 7

Go all in

This is not the time for half measures. This is your opportunity to take bold action, to make a difference.

You have an extensive list of diverse priorities and options. Make the choice, make the commitment to what truly matters, and go all in.

No matter what you do, or what you neglect, the irreplaceable time in this day will soon be over. Before that happens, you have the chance to make good and meaningful use of it.

Sure, conditions are not perfect. Yet you are perfectly capable of going forward with whatever conditions may exist.

Think of all those you love, of all the aspects of life that mean the most to you. Now is when you can put your love, your caring, your wonder, your values, into action.

Right now, step decisively toward a more positive future. Go all in, and live this day in the most generous, productive, and fulfilling way you can imagine.

— Ralph Marston

May 8

Adapt and thrive

You can change, you can adapt, you can learn, you can adjust. And because of all that, you can thrive in a wide range of situations.

You don’t have to cower in despair and helplessness when the world around you changes. You have the amazing ability to rise up and meet those changes with ingenious changes of your own.

You are never stuck where you are, never confined to doing what you’ve always done. You can choose to improve numerous aspects of your life, and then you can follow through on that choice.

Your prospects for next year are not limited by the circumstances of this year. You can change, and by so doing can transcend your circumstances or, better yet, transform them.

Many things are instinctive to you, but a whole lot of things go far beyond mere instinct. You can look out at the world, recognize possibilities, and configure your knowledge, skills, and actions to exploit those possibilities.

The future arrives quickly, yet you’re able, even more quickly, to improve your relationship to the future. Learn, adjust, adapt, and make the future brighter by the way you choose to meet it.

— Ralph Marston

May 9

Life goes on

Opportunities arise, innovation pushes forward, and life goes on. New dreams are born, and established dreams continue speeding toward fulfillment.

Some days are brighter, others bring darkness, despair grows thick and then hope arises. Through the joys and the challenges, the setbacks and victories, life goes on.

When despite your best efforts no progress comes forth, life goes on. After a windfall gain has you feeling on top of the world, life goes on.

The road turns and twists, climbs and falls, expands to a wide boulevard and then narrows to a faint path. And always ahead, more road, more challenge, more treasure, work to be done, moments to be cherished.

Try not to protest and wail too much about what’s already behind you. For up ahead, that’s where you get to make a difference.

Whatever is, however it happened, life goes on. Go with it, and give it your best love and care.

— Ralph Marston

May 10

Make the problem smaller

How do you make a problem smaller? By going to work on it.

When the problem is just a concept, it can grow in your mind to limitless proportions. But once you start to actually work on it, you see firsthand that it’s not as difficult as you thought it would be.

Simply taking the first step to solve the problem, to meet the challenge, creates a dramatic change. You transform it from a force that is pushing against you to a path upon which you can move forward.

Continue with your effort, and the problem increasingly changes from a negative influence into positive value. As the problem gets smaller, the payoff for your work gets bigger.

Each step you take brings you closer to having the problem completely behind you. All the while, your strength, ability, and confidence continue to grow.

Whatever problem you encounter, don’t let it intimidate you. Quickly get to work on the problem, make it smaller, and keep going until you’ve put it far behind you.

— Ralph Marston

May 11

Go to purpose

Where there is purpose, there is progress. When you have a good enough reason, you find a workable way.

Conditions change, disappointments arise, and troubles swarm abruptly into the best-laid plans. Yet when those plans have solid purpose, the troubles will soon be left behind.

Purpose gives rise to commitment, persistence, innovation, resourcefulness, and courage. Those are powerful qualities to have on your side.

Ask yourself why, and don’t stop asking until the answer leaves you trembling in awe. Connect with purpose, and tap into a constantly replenished source of energy.

Under all the distractions, diversions, preferences, joys, and worries, lives purpose. It is you, it is strong, it is there to be lived every day.

When you’re not sure where to go, or how to go, go to purpose. And let its unyielding power push your world forward.

— Ralph Marston

May 12

Go forward

You cannot be certain of what you’ll encounter, yet you can be sure of this. You must either find a way to make it work, or navigate your way beyond it.

Every new day comes with its share of unknowns. You’ve successfully made your way through many of those days, and you’ll get through many more.

Let go of your need to categorize each effort as easy or hard. Instead, put your energy into doing what must be done to achieve the best outcome.

You’ll find your best possibilities when you step away from your most comfortable certainties. Proceed with care and confidence into the unknown future, and discover new strength, expand your skills, enrich your experience.

No one knows all the details of what tomorrow will include. And that gives you the opportunity to influence those details in positive and meaningful ways.

Gather your well-known values, dreams, priorities, preferences, and go forward. Though you don’t know what the future holds, you do know how to make the best of it.

— Ralph Marston

May 13

Opportunities for kindness

Here’s a quick, reliable, accessible way to genuinely feel good. Offer kindness to someone.

Here’s a surefire way to know you matter, to know without a doubt that you’re making a difference. Give kindness to another person.

Although your kindness may not even be noticed by anyone else, it has great value. Because you notice, and you observe the goodness within you being put into action.

Kindness heals, forgives, forgets past wrongs, and enables future progress. Kindness leaves, in the hearts of those who receive it, the urge to pass it along, to expand it and improve upon it.

Kindness is authentic, not complicated, within the reach of anyone. Those who practice kindness grow stronger, more confident, more creative, connected, and fulfilled.

Today you’ll encounter numerous opportunities for kindness. To the extent you sieze upon them, everybody wins.

— Ralph Marston

May 14

Highest hopes

Give hope a reason to be. Give life a good and fulfilling place to go.

Focus your thoughts on the things that make life worth living. Center your actions around nurturing, expanding, and sharing those things.

Don’t just wish for inspiration to somehow come to you. Decide to be a source of inspiration by being an authentic expression of the unique person you are.

Give yourself the courage to do more than just pass the time. Transform the passing moments into lasting value, into richness that shines brightly for all to see.

Carry your most treasured dreams boldly into the future. Harness the energy, put forth the effort, and persist in bringing those dreams fully to life.

Make your highest hopes more than just empty thoughts. Give them real expression in the way you live each day, and in all the good results your actions bring.

— Ralph Marston

May 15

Life wants to live

Life wants to survive, but life wants more than just survival. Life wants to live.

Life wants to learn, to love, to improve, to connect, to wonder, to overcome, to feel. Life wants to give.

Explore, ask questions, forgive, experiment, wander, plan, relax, and laugh. Tell stories, and make lots of new ones.

See the big picture, and attend to the small details. Find excitement in the noise, the confusion, and deepen your wisdom in solitude.

Speak your mind, hold your tongue, let yourself cry and know when to be firm. Find the beauty, especially where it’s not supposed to be.

Life wants to live in every way possible, and even in ways that are not. Go ahead, look, listen, imagine, and give life what it wants.

— Ralph Marston

May 16

Face the problem

Facing a serious problem is tough. Yet the long-term consequences of avoiding that problem will be even more difficult.

There is no easy choice, but it’s easy to see there is an optimal choice. Facing the problem, as burdensome as it may be, is less burdensome than forever running from it.

Wishing that the problem had never happened, doesn’t improve anything. Pretending the problem isn’t there does not make it go away.

You have a strong, innate desire to follow the least objectionable path. Put that desire to work for you.

Remind yourself that the pain of avoidance will be far greater than the pain of facing the problem. Then let your own natural desire to avoid the bigger pain, push you to embrace the lesser pain of taking action.

Make a difficult path easier to choose by comparing it to an even more difficult option. Face the problem once and for all, long before it can become much worse.

— Ralph Marston

May 17

Valuable experience

Look back on yesterday, or last week, or the past six months, and ask yourself this. What could you have done differently to improve your outcomes?

Could you have been more ambitious, more open to opportunities? Could you have been more patient and understanding, more authentic, more generous with your time and attention?

Whether the results you’ve been getting are spectacular or not so great, there are specific ways to improve on them. And you know, more than anyone else, what they are.

Perhaps you could have spent more time on certain efforts and less time on other activities. Maybe you could have been more receptive to the advice of certain people and less influenced by pressure from other people.

You know what helped you and what hurt you, what energized you and what held you back. If you were doing it all over again, in what specific ways would you do it better?

Ask yourself that question, and then let your answer inform and improve your choices going forward. Consider what you would have done differently, and make positive use of all the valuable experience you’ve earned.

— Ralph Marston

May 18

Value of your effort

Don’t let yourself become discouraged when your efforts fail to produce the desired results. Instead, be thankful for the experience, however it turned out, and make good use of it.

Consider a professional athlete who trains every day for years before entering any competition. Those practice sessions don’t produce immediate wins, yet they are essential to eventually winning.

Certainly you don’t ever want to think that your efforts have been wasted. So, do what you must do, going forward, to make sure that they’re not wasted.

At the very least, you’ve had an excellent lesson in what doesn’t work. That’s valuable experience, useful to you and to others.

Though it can understandably feel like you’ve lost everything, that isn’t the case. You will always have the experience, the wisdom, the skills, and those are not trivial.

For all sorts of reasons, sometimes things don’t work out, but that doesn’t negate the value of your effort. Look back, see that value, then find an even better way to carry it forward.

— Ralph Marston

May 19

New understanding

You don’t gain understanding just because you desire it. Understanding requires mental effort, humility, time, patience, commitment.

Understanding is costly, and it is worth the cost. Understanding opens up valuable options to you.

When you understand another person’s perspective, you can cooperate with that person to mutual benefit. Understand a concept, a process, the context of a situation, and you can leverage that understanding to produce great value.

Understanding is necessarily built on what you already know. Yet to achieve true understanding, you must accept that your current understanding could be partially or entirely ill-informed.

Engage your curiosity, and then follow where it leads. Shed your assumptions, let go of your need to prove anything, and allow understanding to grow out of the truth you experience.

Seek to understand, work to understand, and humble yourself before the reality of what you learn. Every new understanding enriches what you already understand, and opens the door to understand even more.

— Ralph Marston

May 20

Loan yourself some energy

If you don’t have much energy, start to use whatever energy you do have. You’re sure to get more.

When you can’t muster the enthusiasm to take action, go ahead and take action anyway. The enthusiasm will come.

Whatever you must do, you don’t have to wait to feel like it. Because very quickly, what you do will change the way you feel.

Loan yourself some enthusiasm, some energy, some hopefulness, some ambition. You’ll soon be paying yourself back, with interest.

Rise up, literally, physically, stand straight, look forward. Change the quality of your experience and you’ll immediately change the state of your attitude, of your spirit.

You can feel the way you choose to feel, the way you choose to act. So choose to feel vigorous, energetic, and purposeful by acting that way, and give life all the good things you can give it.

— Ralph Marston

May 21

Beyond trying

To get something done, you have to stop merely trying to do it. If you see yourself as trying, you’re reinforcing doubts about your ability.

When you’re merely trying, you’re not fully committed. Maybe you’re not even sure what you want, or whether you truly want it.

Ask yourself, what would it take to get beyond trying? What can you pursue that will leave you with no doubts about its worthiness, no doubts about your ability to make it happen?

You can adjust your goal, you can modify your strategy, you can let go of certain priorities and embrace others. You can get yourself to the place where you’re far beyond trying, and actually making progress.

Trying wears you down, and you deserve better. You deserve to be fully engaged in rich, meaningful effort that’s leading to a valued outcome.

Get beyond trying, beyond doubt, frustration, and empty efforts. Experience the clarity, the honesty, the sheer joy of making good and meaningful things happen.

— Ralph Marston

May 22

Life’s unfairness

It is unfair that one person is skilled at making bread while another is skilled at growing vegetables. Yet from that unfairness can come a very tasty meal.

It is unfair that some people have more wealth than other people. However, out of that unfairness arise ambition, innovation, new value, and ongoing progress.

Some unfairness is intentionally and malevolently maintained. Much of it, though, is a necessary consequence of the fact that every person is unique.

Just because life is unfair, that’s no reason to reject its abundant, diverse possibilities. Just because many of life’s underpinnings are unfair, is no reason to tear them all down.

You don’t ever have to see life’s unfairness as an excuse to hide behind. You can choose instead to see it as a challenge to rise above.

Rather than letting unfairness get you down, let the richness of life’s possibilities push you upward. And fulfill the unique potential, live the special value, that is yours to experience.

— Ralph Marston

May 23

Today’s joys

Later is too late. Live today’s joys today.

Honor your commitments, do your work. But don’t let it become an excuse to put off the joys you can create and experience right now.

Joy refreshes you, inspires you, energizes you. And there’s a lot of good you can do with that energy.

Joy connects you with purpose, with love, with all you value. Joy reminds you why you do what you do, why you seek what you seek.

Joy is yours to choose here, now. Joy asks only that you allow it, express it, share it, and when you do, the moment is filled with its energy.

Offer the value of joy to those you’re with, to where you are, to what you’re doing. Live today’s joys, for the only time to do so is now.

— Ralph Marston


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May 24

Active participation

Grab your life today and inject some meaningful intention into it. Then act on that intention.

If you have no intention to do anything useful, you won’t get anything useful done. Give yourself a clear objective for this day, and imbue its moments with meaningful experience.

Enjoy the feeling of knowing you’re doing what you set out to do. Be inspired by the satisfaction of making real progress.

Within a few hours, the opportunities of this day will be gone, forever irretrievable. Decide, early on, precisely how you will make use of those opportunities before they vanish.

Then forge ahead with purposeful activity. With your efforts, harvest today’s opportunities and transform them into lasting value.

Don’t waste this precious day of your life wondering, worrying, complaining, or speculating. Decide what you will do, then do it, and give life new richness as the result of your active participation.

— Ralph Marston

May 25

Live with optimism

You can offer hope when others trade in nothing but despair. You can live with optimism when others are mired in pessimism.

Lots of people gain short-term profit by constantly spreading doom and gloom. But that doesn’t mean they’re particularly insightful.

If you expect life to get better you’ll be seen as naive. Yet if history is any indication, you’ll also be right.

Yes, very awful things happen from time to time. But on each and every occasion, the vast majority of people find their way beyond the difficulties, and end up even better off than before.

Life constantly produces great challenges. Yet life also offers great meaning and fulfillment in overcoming those challenges, and most people are happy to embrace that offer.

At this moment, billions of unique, creative, resourceful people are working, each in their own way, to make life better. There’s an exceedingly good chance they’ll succeed.

— Ralph Marston

May 26

Choose your courage

You’re not sure what will happen today, or tomorrow. Even so, you can step forward and live with courage.

You can make the best plans and preparations, and work with persistent effort. Yet you know there are rarely any guarantees.

Challenges are great, risks are many, and uncertainties abound. Nonetheless, you can move ahead with courage.

Courage is not a matter of being certain about what will happen. Courage is not the absence of fear.

Courage is knowing that you can enact a positive response to whatever happens. Courage is being realistic about your prospects, listening to your fears, and taking well-informed action.

Courage is already within you, and always yours to choose. Feel your purpose, choose your courage, and transform the challenges into achievements.

— Ralph Marston

May 27

Meaningful positive difference

Set a small goal, and achieve it. Then immediately set another small goal, and achieve that.

Occasionally you’ll have the opportunity to make big, sudden improvements. Yet always, in every moment, you are able to make small improvements.

There’s great power in doing so. Because those small improvements add to each other, and build on one another.

The long and inexorable march of progress is not, by and large, a history of quick advances. It is a story of small improvements, and improvements on the improvements, made again and again.

Today you can continue that beneficial story. Right now, several small improvements await your attention, your action.

You don’t have to wait one more moment for the chance to make a meaningful positive difference. Where you are, with what you have, make a small improvement, and set the process in motion.

— Ralph Marston

May 28

Steady diet of challenge

If your skills are not being challenged, they are not being maintained. Just as muscles atrophy from non-use, so do your abilities recede when they are not regularly exercised.

You’ve put much effort into developing those abilities. Make sure they remain strong, vibrant, and relevant by challenging yourself to put them to good use.

It’s tempting to coast for a while, and live with minimal effort off the success you’ve already achieved. Yet the day will come when you’ll need your full strength, and you’ll encounter great regret if you let that strength grow soft.

At some point you’re sure to meet up with a challenge you cannot avoid. The more experience you have at handling challenges, the better your outcome will be.

Plus, a steady diet of challenge keeps your life interesting and your purpose clear. And when you proactively choose your troubles, you distance yourself from those more troubling troubles that might otherwise choose you.

Provide yourself with a continuing supply of meaningful challenges to embrace. Stay strong while making a positive difference in your own life and in the lives of others.

— Ralph Marston

May 29

Tangible results

Don’t merely collect knowledge and skills. Put them to practical use.

Don’t just spend all your time and energy amassing a large set of tools. Do meaningful, beneficial work with those tools.

It’s great to have skills, capabilities, resources, and connections. But it would be a terrible shame not to deploy them in the service of a worthwhile goal.

Yes, prepare yourself well, align yourself to achieve. Then follow through with the achievement.

Admit to yourself, and to the world, what you care about, what matters to you. Put your love and caring into action, and transform it all into tangible results.

Utilize the potential of all your other skills with the skill of being purposeful. Discover what a great difference you can make, and make it.

— Ralph Marston

May 30

Do more

Do more of what gets you to think. Do more of what motivates you to act.

Do less of what leaves you sluggish. Do less of what wastes your time.

Find people and places that inspire you to imagine. Seek circumstances that fill you with energy and enthusiasm.

Life’s richness is here and now, ready for you to live it in your own unique way. Let the possibilities fill you with excitement, and push you into action.

Do more of what you know is right, and good, helpful, truthful, and fulfilling. Do more of the things that make you thrilled to wake up every morning.

No matter what you’ve done, or what you’ve neglected, now things are different. This is your chance to do more.

— Ralph Marston

May 31

Time of transformation

The current moment is special, different in an important way from every other moment. The current moment, right now, is a time of transformation.

You may have been frustrated for hours, or weeks. Yet right now, you can choose to get past that frustration, to take a more positive approach.

Perhaps for the last few days you’ve been a little sluggish and unmotivated. You can transform, right now, into being energetic and productive.

What’s so great about right now is this. The negative choices, feelings, and attitude can stop, and the positive elements of your life can expand.

Right now, you can make a clean break from the past. You can leave behind what has not worked, and double down on what does work well for you.

As difficult, limiting, disappointing as the past may have been, now it’s over. Now, in this time of transformation, is your great chance to do a whole lot better.

— Ralph Marston

Thank God for his Love and mercy, may we continue to walk by faith and not by sight
For it is by faith that gets us through the day. Amen. That you Tammy for all you do. God bless you.