Daily Motivator - September

[bluidkiti]

September 1

One little change

One healthy, positive habit leads to other healthy, positive habits. And those additional habits, in turn, reinforce the original habit.

A small improvement in your trajectory enables you to notice, appreciate, and implement other improvements. In this way, minor changes put you on the path to major gains.

The experience of making a real and positive difference, no matter its size, activates in you the desire to do it again. Accomplishment feels good, and that makes you eager for more.

Big, ambitious goals are admirable, yet they can also be intimidating. Before setting off to change the whole world, it’s a good idea to accumulate experience improving your own little corner of it.

Ask yourself, what’s the smallest improvement you can make in your life that you’ll actually stick with? What positive habit can you add right now that you’ll continue to practice day after day, month after month?

Identify a small but deeply meaningful change you can make in your trajectory, and make it. Over time, that small change has the power to lead you toward greatly improved outcomes.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

Happy new month my dear friends.
Thank God for getting though the month of the August clean and sober one day at a time.
Have a great day on purpose.

[bluidkiti]

September 2

Create meaning

Act as if what you’re doing has meaning. And it will.

Speak as if your words have meaning. And they will.

It is the very living of your life that gives it meaning. Rather than seeking to uncover meaning, work to create it.

In small, sincere actions, meaning is generated. In persistence, commitment, devotion, love, meaning continually accumulates, over years, over centuries.

Give today meaning with your time, passion, your curiosity and effort. That meaning can never be taken from you.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, offer your care, your attention, your authentic presence. And continue to create meaning in this amazing experience that is life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 3

Sometimes you can choose from a wide range of options, and other times you must go with the only one you have. In each case there are advantages and disadvantages.

Options provide you with great flexibility but they can also be difficult. When much is riding on a choice, making that choice has a way of being stressful and burdensome.

A lack of options is limiting but also in some ways liberating. When you have no choices, you don’t need to spend time or energy choosing, and can jump straight into whatever must be done.

When you have a options, choose one and then move forward with it. When you don’t have a choice, accept the situation and make it your business to move forward from it.

Whether there are dozens of paths across the landscape or just one, you must do the work to traverse a single path. Once you begin, once you commit, any options you may or may not have previously had become irrelevant.

So go ahead and make the commitment, no matter how many options you do or do not have. Make your way forward, step after step, from wherever you are able to begin.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 4

A good place to be

You don’t have to be spectacular to do a good job. Your life doesn’t have to be filled with glamor and drama to be a good life.

It’s great to work on being more than you are. Yet life can be fulfilling long before you’ve arrived at whatever destination you seek.

In all likelihood, where you are right now is not the perfect place to be. Nonetheless, you can always make it a good place to be.

Your high standards are valuable and admirable. But don’t let those standards prevent you from making good use of every moment.

Even when circumstances are less than perfect, you can live well, with purpose, with grace, with truth. Even when others in your life are less than accommodating, you can maintain a positive, purposeful focus.

Today is your day to embrace what is, to create unique fulfillment right where you are. Life is here now, ready for you to live it well.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 5

Give tomorrow some kindness

Live in the moment. At the same time, consider the consequences that will come from what you do with the moment.

Live in the moment while thinking beyond the moment. Do what’s best not only for you and your world right now, but also for your future world, your future self.

Often, your future interests will conflict with your desires in the present. Use your wisdom and experience to mediate those conflicts.

Sometimes there’s not a good, clear answer when balancing what’s best for now and what’s best for the future. Even so, it’s always helpful to take both your present and your future perspectives into consideration.

Many of life’s potential pains and disappointments can be avoided, if you act soon enough. And your enjoyment of the present is enhanced by knowing it’s not compromising your future.

No, you cannot craft a perfect future, yet you most certainly can have a positive influence on the way it unfolds. Give tomorrow some kindness today, and improve the quality of both.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 6

What you can do

What could have been doesn’t matter anymore. Who is to blame is beside the point.

What might or might not happen is mostly empty speculation. What people will think is what they will think, and there’s not much you can do about that.

What you can do is act on the opportunities in front of you. What you can do is utilize the time, energy, and resources available to you.

What you can do is identify a problem that’s holding your world back and work to create a solution. What you can do is envision some specific form of value and put forth effort to make it real.

What you can do is act to become a positive presence in the lives around you. What you can do is learn and grow and love and give.

Your sense of purpose grows stronger, and your life richer, with each action you take. Welcome and act on every chance to do what you can do.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 7

Strength grows stronger

Feel your strength. Let it grow stronger.

Exercise your strength. Experience the rewards it brings.

Does an excuse to give up slip into your mind? You are stronger than that excuse, able to transcend it and leave it behind.

Are distractions and temptations assaulting you from all sides? Activate your strength and rise above them.

Envision the good things your strength can bring to life. Then live that vision, make use of your strength, continue giving it opportunities to increase.

Your life has great meaning. With strength, come to better understand and fulfill that meaning.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 8

Do what is right

You know what the right thing is. So do it.

You know what the wrong thing is. So avoid falling into its trap.

Your choices are not easy, but neither are they particularly complicated. Strip away all their extraneous parts, and choose to do the right thing.

Some courses of action support and enhance life, and others degrade or inhibit, or worse. Do what gives more joy, more robustness, more respect and love to all of life.

Some things sound good at first, impressive, compassionate, sophisticated, but don’t feel right. You have the wisdom to know and to do what actually is right, so make use of it.

When faced with options, choose the one that will leave you with no regrets. Do what is right.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 9

A little courage

A little courage goes a long way. Act with a little courage and you gain greater respect from others and from yourself.

With even a little courage you experience how to summon courage, how to make use of it. That opens up a whole range of new possibilities.

Every little act of courage gives you added confidence and inspiration to live with even more courage. And it can spill over into the people around you.

Remind yourself that there’s more to life than just passing the time in comfort and certainty. Step forward with courage, taste a little bit of adventure and you’ll find yourself seeking more.

The world can be harsh and unpredictable. Yet with courage you can embrace reality for all it is and follow a pathway to goodness, value, and fulfillment.

Exercise a little courage here, a little courage there, and discover how well it resonates. The adventure that is your life deserves the all courage you can give it.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 10

Live with excellence

Whatever your objective may be, embed excellence in that objective. Anything you set out to do, seek to do it with excellence.

Excellence demands no less than the best you can give. That in itself is more than enough reason to put excellence into every effort.

Yet the benefits of excellence go further. Excellence sets new standards, gives birth to ideas never before imagined, pushes past what was once considered impossible.

Get yourself around excellence, in art, technology, architecture, business practices, thoughts, performances, presentations. Ignite and sustain your own capacity for excellence by immersing yourself in diverse manifestations of excellence.

Be eager to do the difficult, challenging work that excellence demands. Allow an attitude of excellence to shine its positive, transformative light on every aspect of your world.

Give your miraculous existence the respect and appreciation it so thoroughly deserves. In work and play, in thought and deed, live with excellence.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 11

Come to life

Come to life today. Live your life right now.

The tide will rise, the tide will fall. Fortune smiles on you a while, then turns away for a time.

Through it all, live your life. Set your intentions and follow through on them.

Life and love, richness, wonder and beauty are all meant specifically for you. Step beyond the fear, rise above the doubt as you journey through the magical experience of being you.

Feel the energy that is your life and let it flow throughout your world. Now is when you get to be the best you’ve ever been.

You’ve waited and wondered and worried long enough. Come all the way to life today and find delight in what you can know and do and see and be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 12

Out into the world

Go out into the world and make your way through its challenges. Discover your strengths and work to overcome your weaknesses.

You’ll encounter disappointments and then make your way beyond those disappointments. In so doing you learn not to fear the possibility of disappointment.

Look at life with a continually renewed sense of wonder and appreciation for all that is. Choose to see value, positive possibilities, opportunities for achievement, joy, and goodness.

Give of yourself to others, with your time, your presence, your effort and encouragement. Experience over and over again how your genuine generosity brings strength, richness, and connection to life.

Respect yourself, your potential, and all the people around you by being honest. Seek what is real, what is true, what retains its value, not just what is convenient or popular.

Embrace the responsibilities and the opportunities of living a good and consequential life. Go out into the world, day after day, eager to be and to do your best.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 13

Here to do

Do what you are here to do, in this situation, in this time and place. Make use of what you have, what you know and feel, what you see and understand.

Don’t dwell so much on whether it’s too much or too little, too soon or too late. You cannot change any of that, yet you can take action with the best of your abilities.

There will be opportunities later for reflection and refinement. But now, while the moment is still available to you, invest in it the effort you’re able to give.

Your outcome won’t be perfect. It can and will, however, be the best you can make it.

Breathe in the potential that surrounds you. Add to it your own passion, your own sense of purpose, and get to work.

You find yourself here, now, ready and able to make a difference that only you can make. Take up the challenge, join in the opportunity, and do what you are here to do.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

September 14

Repeated experiences

Go broad in your experience, but not at the expense of going deep. Just because you’ve visited some particular place, or participated in some unique activity, doesn’t mean you’re done with them for good.

Many things are better the second, third, and fifteenth time. You don’t have to get in a rut, but neither do you have to abandon what was once fulfilling to go chasing every new thing.

Repetition can deepen the value of positive experiences. You’ll find extraordinary, irreplaceable benefit in enduring relationships with people, places, interests, and activities.

It’s great to be adventurous and explore all sorts of different things. But what’s not so great is to seek out shallow, exotic experiences just so you can say you’ve done them.

There’s a big difference between getting off the cruise ship for a few hours and spending a couple of weeks at the destination. Lengthy visits, repeated conversations, deep dives into specific subjects all add a dimension to life that cannot be attained from a crowded schedule.

If it works, if it’s beautiful, pleasant, inspiring, fulfilling, do it again. It’s very likely to become even more so.

— Ralph Marston