Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Distractions

Tags

Annoyances, Discipline, Distractions, Drama, Focus, Monday, motivation, News, Procrastination

Distractions. They cause us to fall off track. They’re so easy to get wound up in. Drama with family or friends. The bad news we are bombarded with every day. The Corona Virus. The list goes on and on.

I’m not against staying abreast of what’s happening in the world, but do caution you of getting too mired in it. Have you been to your social media feed yet? If it’s anything like mine, it’s nuts. Mind you, I reduced my list drastically and informed those that remained that I do not want to hear about anything political on my feed, regardless of political orientation. I want my social media feed on Facebook to be free of that stuff. I like baby pictures, pictures of my friends on trips, jokes, poetry, good music or videos on YouTube. That sort of thing. If I want bad news I can watch CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, ABC, CBS, or NBC. I don’t have to look hard.

Yes, there will be some things you cannot avoid being distracted by. Someone in your family gets hurt or sick, your car breaks down, or heaven forbid you get sick. There is a difference between annoying distractions and real ones.

For me, a real distraction is pain. When I was having back issues, I was in so much pain I couldn’t think. That was something I couldn’t do anything about. What I’m talking about in this post is the annoying, rabbit hole crap that helps you make excuses for not tackling the list of to-dos sitting right in front of you.

Stay focused on your goals. Even if it is only one little step each day to get you closer. Those little steps add up.

Have a great Monday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Overcoming Obstacles with Contingency Plans

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Accomplishment, Achievement, Dedication, Discipline, Drive, Monday, motivation

Whenever you embark on a new goal or strive to achieve something you’ve set up for yourself, you will run into obstacles. Obstacles, like my gym closing in the middle of last week, after COVID came raging back and caused a lot of open places to close again.

How do you overcome them? Well, sometimes you have to put a contingency plan in place. A contingency plan is something you put in place in case something you planned to accomplish is disrupted. My contingency plan is using exercise bands and a supine bicycle or stair stepping to replace my gym workout.

There are many examples I could give for obstacles and overcoming them. Let’s say you are working on a book and your laptop or desktop crashes. If you save your work in the cloud, you have nothing to worry about. Always plan for the worst and develop a contingency plan to handle the unexpected.

So there you go. My way of overcoming obstacles. Always plan for the worst and have a go-to plan waiting to be initiated if that worst thing happens.

Have a great Monday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Setting Goals

Tags

Discipline, Drive, Goals, Monday, motivation, Persistence, Setting Goals, SMART acronym

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.

Tony Robbins

I set yearly goals each year. Last year I achieved most of them. This year I was on track. But then…you know the rest of the story. Covid-19 has put a damper on a lot of things, particularly now that it is back. But the goals I have set that Covid didn’t disrupt are all on track.

Setting goals gives us direction. They require us to decide about what we want to achieve. Once we’ve done this, however, we are on autopilot.

If you’ve never set goals before, just keep in mind the SMART acronym. This acronym stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. If you’d like to read about it and watch a short video, here is the link.

I think the most important benefit I receive when I set a goal is the ability to see where I am and how to finish the rest of the journey. Try it out. You won’t be sorry.

Here is my week:

Physical – I will concentrate on shoulders this week. Every day I will exercise shoulders and do nothing else (See workout routine)

Mental – Learn, read, write, and journal

Spiritual – read my Bible, do my spiritual exercises, do my discourse work, and share my goodwill to all

Social – post uplifting quotes and articles to my social media feeds, interact with friends and family wherever possible

That’s it for today, folks. Have a great Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Monday Motivation – Week of June 22, 2020.

Tags

Consistency, Discipline, Drive, Mental, motivation, Persistence, Physical, Social, Spiritual

Well, folks, Father’s Day was a success. Dad got some cards, a few books, multiple phone calls from my Brother, Sister, and the Niece and Nephew. Dad also had steak for dinner. Steak is his favorite. I hope all of you had a good Father’s Day!

This week, we’re back to it. Here’s my schedule:

Physical – Exercise Monday – Saturday (see Workout Routine)

Mental – Coding, Writing, Reading, Online Classes

Social – Post meaningful and positive quotes and articles to my social media feeds, Blog daily, Interact with family and friends whenever I can.

Spiritual – Discourse work, read the Bible, Spiritual Exercises, Gratitude and Dream Journaling

I hope all of you are have a terrific week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of June 15, 2020

Tags

determined, Disciplined, Driven, focused, Monday, motivation, Pumped, rituals

Here we are again, folks. It’s Monday!

I hope all of you had a great rest this weekend. I know I did. My “Do Nothing Day” (Sunday) was relaxing beyond belief. I napped and it felt really good!

Here’s the game plan for my week:

Physical – Exercise daily (See Workout Routine)

Mental – Writing Course daily, Codecademy daily, Reading Daily, Writing Daily

Spiritual – Spiritual discourse work, spiritual exercises, read my Bible (all daily), Dream Journal daily, Gratitude Journal daily

Social – Post uplifting quotes, poems, and other uplifting content, daily, help the folks when needed, stay in touch with extended family and my friends

Have a great week, folks! Here we go!!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Circle of Control

Tags

Consistency, Daily Rituals, Daily Tasks, Discipline, Mental, Motivation Monday, Persistence, Physical, Social, Spiritual

The late Stephen Covey wrote about the Circle of Control in his book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The Circle of Control is what you control entirely. It is your attitude, your belief system, your values, and your actions. The Circle of Control does not depend on anyone or anything else.

What a lot of people worry about is what is called the Circle of Concern. They are concerned about the weather, what another person will do, or what event might happen. Do they have control of any of these things? No. This is why the Circle of Concern if focused on will actually shrink the Circle of Control. Focus on what you can control and you will grow your Circle of Control. Take this little piece of advice into the upcoming week. You’ll be less stressed and more productive.

Here’s my week folks (All tasks listed below are daily tasks (Monday – Saturday):

Physical: (See Workout Routine)

Mental: Reading Star Carrier Series Book 3, Reading my Bible, Computer Science Path on Codecademy, and working on my book, The Forever Soldier.

Spiritual: Reading my Bible, Gratitude and Dream Journaling, Working through my Spiritual discourses, doing my spiritual exercises

Social: Post uplifting quotes and poems, Blogging, staying in contact with my friends and family

Have a great week, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Avoid Negativity At All Costs

Tags

motivation, Negativity, toxic music, toxic news, toxic people, toxic social media, toxicity

Whenever you embark on anything to improve yourself, there will always be naysayers. I’ve found the primary reason for this is that these people are so insecure with themselves, they cannot stand it when someone else is doing something to improve themselves that they cannot do or discipline themselves to do.

Another source of negativity in your life is the news. Today’s news is not like the news when I was growing up. When I grew up, the news reported the news. They reported what was happening. They didn’t discuss how they felt about what was happening or try to put some political spin on what was happening. They reported the news. If you want to remain positive throughout the day, stay away from the news.

There are also people in your life that are negative. They have nothing to say that is positive. Their entire life is filled with gossip, complaining incessantly, and looking at the bad side of everything. These people are toxic and should be avoided at all costs. If you have one of these people in your life, get them out of it. Let them live in their own private hell by themselves.

Here are some good tips on keeping a positive mind set:

1. Listen to beautiful music.
2. Read inspiring works.
3. Learn new things.
4. If you read the news, read positive stories that revolve around achievement, science, exploration, travel, etc.
5. Watch educational shows that teach you something.
6. Avoid toxic social media sites. If you have to post to them for business purposes, fine. But do not get too involved in the feeds. They are filled with toxic, stressful, and hurtful messaging.
7. Exercise, get your sleep, and eat well.
8. Meditate.
9. Contemplate.
10. Create.
11. Play (Do something you enjoy that is just pure fun for you, be it gardening, puzzles, video games, etc.)

The one thing that I offer in this posting is to avoid anything that brings negativity into your life. When you do this, it’s like volunteering to have someone poison you every day. What you see and hear affects 100% of you.

Here’s my week, folks:

Physical – Exercise daily (see my Workout Routine posts), 8 hours of sleep minimum, drink a gallon of water, avoid processed foods

Mental – Learn, read, and write daily

Social – Post positive articles I find, post poetry, post uplifting or funny quotes, contribute through my blog

Spiritual – Read my Bible daily, discourse work daily, spiritual exercises daily, and contemplate on spiritual topics daily.

That’s all I have for today. Have a glorious week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – You VS You.

Tags

Attack, Choice, Discipline, do it, Grind, motivation, Push, You VS You, YouTube

I hope you enjoyed the video. It’s short, but I was pumped after watching it. Here’s my week, folks!

Monday – Day off for Memorial Day.

Tuesday – Saturday:

Physical – exercise routine

Mental – online classes, writing, programming, reading

Spiritual – journaling, reading, studying, contemplation

Social – blogging, posting quotes and articles, stay active in social networks, including WordPress

That’s all I got, folks. Keep pushing, grinding, and digging to get what you want. YOU are the only one that can make that choice.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Act As If.

Tags

Atwood, Dorothea Brande, Execute, Masterclass, motivation, No excuses, Patterson, Writing

To guarantee success, act as if it were impossible to fail.

Dorothea Brande

I’ve been busy taking a lot of writing courses on Masterclass. If you’ve not taken any on here, it is a great platform and the teachers (experts in their craft) are wonderful to listen to and watch. There is one underlying theme common across all the writers I’ve been watching—write. No excuses, no worrying about whether it is good or bad, just write.

My favorite so far has been Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale. She said that the wastebasket is your friend and God made it just for you. Her point is that if you can’t work it out, trash it and start with another idea. The same goes with your initial draft. You can revise it. So, no excuses—WRITE!!

It is liberating to keep the mindset that you cannot fail. You really can’t fail when it comes down to it. Even the exceptional writers have been rejected by publishers, or written books that won’t ever be seen by the public. They keep writing because this is what they do.

I’ve also begun to get the idea that writing on paper is probably the best way to create. There are no distractions, you can get your ideas down on paper without the temptation to auto-correct or edit what you are doing, and you can get the first draft done! James Patterson, another author who offers a class on Masterclass, said to drive through the first draft like a freight train. Like Atwood, he made it clear that the rewriting will also occur. Get the story out of your head and onto paper. Then the real work can begin.

Keep this quote in the back of your mind as you tackle that next challenge. You’ll be more motivated when you realize that the project is not complete until you say it is.

Have a great week, everyone!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of May 11, 2020.

Tags

Attack!, Disciplined, Driven, Engage, Forge ahead, motivation, Pumped, Stick with the plan

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.

Vince Lombardi

We all have talents. Some of them we fail to discover, but have them, we do. This week is yet another test. A test to see if you have the ability to continue chipping away at your goals. Don’t waste the week. Get out there and get to it.

Here’s my week:

Physical – See Workout Routine Posting.

Mental – Read, journal, learn, blog, and write daily.

Spiritual – Spiritual exercises, Bible reading, Spiritual/Dream/Gratitude Journaling, and Discourse work daily.

Social – Spend time with my Mom and Dad, Chat with my brother, sister, and wife this week. Stay in touch with colleagues on social media when appropriate.

Until next time…

Dave