Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

Consistency, failure, Mistakes, Perseverance, Persistence, Planning

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett

I like quotes like these because they truly reflect reality. There is nothing that you will do in life that will not result in mistakes. Mistakes are what makes us human. If we fear to make mistakes we will never accomplish anything. Those of us that accomplish a lot also fail a lot. Those of us that accomplish a lot are not afraid of making mistakes.

The lesson: Make mistakes. Make many mistakes. Continue pushing forward and make more mistakes. If 10 mistakes result in achieving something—make them and achieve.

Take some time today and look at some of the goals you have set for yourself. Which ones have you put off? I bet there’s a little fear inside of you telling you that you are not good enough, you don’t have the right skills to do that, or you don’t know where to start.

Today, I challenge you to grab one of those goals and think about what your life looks like when you achieve it. Then, once you know where you want to be, put together a rough plan. Don’t do anything else, just put together a plan.

Tomorrow, look at that plan and flesh it out a bit. Get some specifics in place. Set a few milestones (deadlines) for those specific actions you have created for yourself.

On Friday take one of those initial actions and do it. On Saturday look at your plan and schedule execution on another one of your action steps to be finished next week. Try this out. You’ll find that once you’re moving on these action steps you’ll begin to feel better and better about achieving your goal.

One of my major goals is to lose weight. I’m down 28 pounds so far. When I started, I went through the same actions above. Has my weight loss been consistent? Has it been perfect? No, to both questions. I have had to continue to adjust, realize I made some mistakes, fix them, and get back on track.

When you are looking to lose weight, you must do one thing: create a calorie deficit. We analyze what we are currently eating by monitoring our food intake for a week. We don’t adjust yet. We just write down what we are eating every day. Then, once you’ve done this for the week, you know what you are currently eating (calories, carbohydrates, fats, proteins). Then we adjust. I’m at 2300 calories per week, but do not hit that calorie goal every day. I lose about a pound a week. That’s all I want to lose. I’m not in a rush, I want to keep off whatever I take off.

My plan:

• Collect food intake
• Determine total calories consumed each week by macro (Carbs, Fats, Proteins)
• Then reduce the calories by 500 (3500 calories in 1 pound of body weight)
• Stick to the new calorie goals

Assumptions:

• This is not an exact science
• My body will react differently over time as it adapts to the diet
• I will need to adjust as I go, but the adjustments need to be gradual and consistent

You see how simple this is? You can do it too. You just need to take a little time to create a plan, break the plan out into actionable steps, and execute each step. You’ll get there—I promise.

If you are stuck and still don’t know what to do, feel free to reach out. I like helping people with achieving their goals. Simply reply in the comments and tell me how to contact you. I’m not looking to make money here, just help others to achieve what they want to achieve.

Making mistakes is part of being human. Make them. Fix them. Move forward.

Until next time…

Dave

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Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Four Strategies to Improve your Mood

Tags

Exercise, Gratitude Journal, Meditation, Mood Improvement Strategies, Prayer

“Once the Holy Spirit grants us Its blessings, how often do we remember to acknowledge them? Acknowledgment is done through gratitude, which keeps our hearts open to love.” —Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Gratitude Journaling

Do you keep a Gratitude Journal? I do. I have found over time that it is beneficial to my well-being. It keeps me focused on the good things in life—the simple things—the things we tend to take for granted.

Keeping a Gratitude Journal is easy. Simply get yourself an inexpensive diary or notebook (about $.50 at Staples) and take a few minutes each morning to list out three-five things you are grateful for. That’s it.

A few years ago, I began looking for habits that would benefit me. Habits like meditation, reading, writing, learning, and journaling. Gratitude journaling was everywhere. I figured what did I have to lose? It wouldn’t take long to write down three-to-five things and if I scheduled it on my calendar or in my to-do list as a repeating item it wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

So, I started. Initially, my heart really wasn’t in it. I was going through the motions, so to speak. After a while, however, I began to look forward to my gratitude moment in the morning and really started to “feel” how grateful I was for a roof over my head, good friends, my personal talents that I was born with, my dog, my parents, you name it. This feeling began to carry itself throughout my day. Sometimes, even today, I go through the motions. It’s hard to be in a consistent state of happiness or gratitude all the time. We all have our days and we are changing continuously. We do tend to have more good days than bad, at least that is what I have discovered.

In the success and self-help literature is a common reference to being what we think about most of the time. Focus on the good stuff. The more you place your mind on the things that are going well, the more you will recognize how good life really is. This is the benefit of a gratitude journal. It will help you find a few things that are going right in your life. Once you get in the habit of doing this, you’ll discover, like I did, that life is a treasure, ripe with experiences.

You’re probably saying to yourself, “Wow, this is great. I’m so happy for you, but this is not my life.” I get it. I too have some tough days from time-to-time. When I run across a problem or just feeling a little down, I have a few more strategies for you.

Four Strategies to Improve your Mood

Strategy #1 – Write a letter

Don’t mail this to anyone. Write your letter to Jesus, God, or some other person of importance you revere. Write your heart out, explaining your problem. Ask this entity for help. Write down the problem as you see it and ask, “What is the lesson here? What am I supposed to learn from this?” You’ll find that most of our troubles relate to a spiritual lesson or principle that God is trying to teach us.

Strategy #2 – Help Someone

Some of our challenges arise because we become too focused on ourselves. When we are focused too much on ourselves it causes an introversion to occur. We stop feeling empathy for others because we are too wrapped up in ourselves and “OUR” problem. Take a moment to do something nice for someone else, whether it be a family member, a close friend, or even a stranger. You can volunteer to do some charity work, you can do something nice for your family member like a chore around the house you normally do not do or send your friend a nice letter or give them a call to tell them how much they mean to you. When you focus on someone other than yourself, you’ll find that your troubles tend to be less burdensome and important and your mood will improve.

Strategy #3 – Pray or Meditate

When we pray or meditate we become quiet. Meditation and prayer require it. When you focus all your attention on a chant, your breath, or your creator, the mood you’re in will subside a bit. Ask a question and let it sit for a while. You’ll find that these little sessions of 10 minutes bring great benefits of calm and the answers to your problems will come if you remain open to the answers.

Strategy #4 – Exercise

Working out in the gym is therapeutic for me. It relieves a stress, improves your blood pressure, lowers cholesterol, helps you maintain flexibility, and keeps those muscles working. Exercise will get your mind off things that are bothering you and releases endorphins that create a feeling of pleasure in your brain. When you finish a workout, you’ll also feel some accomplishment and improvements to your self-esteem.

If you’re having a tough time of it, I hope this post helps you in some way. Try out some of these strategies if you are feeling down. You’ll find like I did, that they do help.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

Altruism, Asking the Question, Helping Others, Service

“By asking, you have reached out and taken the initiative—a first step that will lead you to the next answer.”—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Are you stuck? Are you facing a challenge or difficulty that you just don’t know how to solve?

Take a few moments, close your eyes, and be quiet for a moment. Take a few deep breaths and focus on your breathing. Once you have settled down a bit, ask the question you have. Take a few more deep breaths and focus on your breathing. If the answer comes, write it down. If not, let go of your question and go about your day. Use this exercise a few times over the next week or so, paying attention to any intuitive thoughts that come through. Write them down.

The answers to your questions are out there. In conjunction with the above exercise, pay attention to the things you hear and the things you see. No idea is a bad one, always write them down.

Once you have collected a few items on your list begin to go through each one to see if it will help you solve your problem. Put a star next to or highlight the ideas you have received that may contribute to solving your problem.

It is important that you write down each idea that comes to you. Some of the ideas you will receive may not make any sense initially but give it time. Once you receive your answer, take your time to put together a plan, using the answer as a way of developing your plan. Once your plan is in place—execute.

This may seem like witchcraft or some weird metaphysical trick, but it works. We are all connected. Someone in the universe has had the same problem you have. Reach out for answers they will come. Just remember the importance of each idea. Do not discount any of them, regardless of how ridiculous they may appear at first.

I believe we are all here in this reality to learn. We are here to learn about ourselves and become self-sufficient beings. It is important to become self-sufficient so you can be able to better serve others. Service is the key to all we are about. Serving others is about making another person’s life just a little easier, but don’t infringe. Help people when they ask, serve people by doing the little things. This service will pay HUGE dividends. Altruism is not self-sacrificing, it is self-building.

Happy hump day!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Journaling Series Finale

Tags

Benefits, C.S. Lewis, Daily reflection, Dreams, Exercise Journal, Gratitude, journaling, Nutrition Journal

“But what am I to do? I must have some drug, and reading isn’t a strong enough drug now.” —C.S. Lewis, writing about journaling after his wife died in A Grief Observed

Dear reader,

I was looking through my blog this morning and discovered that I forgot to wrap up my Journaling series. If there was one piece of advice I could pass on to others, it would be this: Start journaling. Journaling allows us to communicate with ourselves. It allows us to air out our problems and be totally open without having to pretend or act a different way. You get to talk to yourself as yourself.

As I mentioned in my Journaling series, there are plenty of journals, even ones that I did not address. I only wanted to address the journaling that I do, not cover types of journals that I do not have experience with.

As promised, I also wanted to provide you with the ritual I associate with my personal journaling. My ritual for journaling involves two time periods. The morning is for my dream journal and gratitude journal. I enjoy recording my dreams. I have found that the more time I put into my dream journal the more memorable my dreams are. They are not like this all the time, but the detail and my recall have improved over time. My gratitude journal is used just for that—to record all the things I am grateful for.

I use the evening to reflect on my day. I call this my daily reflection. My daily reflection is more like a diary. I record the events of the day. I also have conversations with myself about things that are troubling me, things that I’m thinking about, and even the problems I’m trying to work through.

I also log my food into an app called My Fitness Pal and my exercises into another app called Body Space. The app I use for my gratitude, dream, and daily reflection journals is called Diaro (www.diaro.com).

Look around the web and for “benefits of journaling” and you’ll find an endless list of good things that come to those of us that journal. The benefits that I derive from journaling is the ability to get things out of my head. Sometimes when I’m writing in my journals I get impressions or ideas. These ideas help me solve a problem or provide an answer to a question. Sometimes these impressions point me in a direction to learn something or give me a nudge to act in some way.

One question I’ve wondered about. Should a journal be handwritten or typed? I’ve been torn between the two but settled on typed. I cannot read my own handwriting. This is the reason. I like to go back through my journaling and dreams and read them. It is amazing how much transpires in our lives that we forget about a few months later. It is also a great way to remember great things that happened during the day. I always discuss things that have happened as a sort of record of my life. I think it would be nice to pass down to my relatives once I’m gone.

A journal is your own biography. It tells a story about your feelings, your dreams, the people you’ve loved, your fears, and your happy times. It is your history.

Journaling has been one of the best decisions I have ever made and committed to. Honestly, there are some days I just don’t want to have anything to do with journaling and those days the entries are pretty short, but there are other days when I have a lot to talk about and fill a few pages.

In some respects, even this blog is a journal. The content I contribute to this community is from me. It is mine, but it is tempered. There are things I would never put on my blog. Those things are reserved for my journal.

I used C.S Lewis’ quote because he used his journal to get through the death of his wife. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. A journal can be that “ear” when you need one. It can be a very healing process. I have used my journal during some tough times and it helps—it really does.

Well, this is the end of my journaling series. I hope you had a chance to read through my other entries. I also hope that this series influences you to begin your own journaling practice. You won’t be disappointed.

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

Exercise, Gratitude, Learning, Mindfulness, minimalism, Reading, solitude

“Be who you are, not who the world wants you to be.”
– Unknown

Hello, Readers!

This week’s edition of Wisdom Wednesday addresses a few items related to the most important person in your life—YOU. I’m a bit of a hermit, spending a lot of time in my study reading, writing, and interacting on social media.

I enjoy interacting with people in public, like the gym where I workout or the coffee shops I frequent from time-to-time. I like people, but my focus is on my writing, reading, exercise, learning, and spiritual pursuits. I have learned over the last few years, since my retirement, that so many people are controlled by the society that surrounds us. In the U.S. we work harder and longer than most in other countries, we spend more money on stress-reducing drugs than any other country, and our population is less happy than other countries. This is a bleak outlook, right?

We Americans are the largest consumers on the planet. We chase after the glowing bobbles in the malls, we strive for bigger homes, newer cars, boats, new clothes, plastic surgery and all the rest. Why do we do this? Well, part of it is related to the advertising and marketing practices present every day in our lives. Wherever Americans go, we are bombarded with an advertisement. Advertisement on the web, social media, the radio, television, even our mobile phones. We buy things we don’t need, eat the wrong foods, use alcohol, tobacco, and drugs (prescribed and unprescribed). We take vacations and do so much that we return home more exhausted than before we left. All this purchasing causes us to borrow money in the form of credit cards, signature loans, shopping cards, and the like. This, in turn, drives us to work harder and continue to work to pay off all of these “nice” things, and before we know it we become slaves to the very things we thought we wanted. In the end, we’re still unhappy, we’re exhausted, we’re addicted to things we don’t want to be and we are overweight.

How do we turn this around?

Disconnect

It’s awesome to be connected to the world. It’s fun to have access to our books, music, friends, movies, and the rest on our phones. It’s terrific to be able to watch movies on our computers and interact with our friends on social media.

I’m not proposing that we shut all this down forever but taking some time away from our devices and our technology can be a much-needed relief and put us in a position to just relax and enjoy the moment.

Minimize

If you haven’t looked at Minimalism, you might want to take a look. Minimalists propose only owning what they need and owning only the bare minimum required for survival. The claim is that the less you own, the less you have to take care of, the less money you’ll spend for just more “stuff”.

You can start with your closet. Really look. If you own clothes that you haven’t worn in the last year, donate them. The same applies to the other things you possess. I’ve done this myself and it is quite liberating.

Meditate and Practice Mindfulness

Taking the time to live in the moment is a relaxing and joyous act. Mindfulness is nothing more than paying attention. Enjoying your meals, enjoying the quiet, enjoying the experiences you have, enjoying the people you are with, are just some aspects. Really savor everything. You’ll be amazed how relaxing, centering, and fulfilling the act of mindfulness is.

If you have trouble with this mindset, you should try meditation. Meditation in its simplest form is nothing more than paying attention to your breath. Focus on breathing in and breathing out. This one act performed for just 10 minutes a day will garner some amazing benefits, along with training your mind to be more focused on the task at hand.

Gratitude

Realizing that what you have is all you need is liberating and calming. It also provides a sense of contentment that you may have not felt in a long time. Purposely express your gratitude each morning for a few minutes. You can say what you are grateful for or write these things down in a journal. By putting your attention on being grateful for the blessings in your life, you’ll be less likely to continue chasing after that next “thing”.

Exercise

There are numerous benefits to exercise. Whether you lift weights, do Yoga, run, swim, or just take a walk, the benefits of exercise are huge. You can start by doing something as simple as stretching out in the morning and knocking out a few push-ups or taking a walk in the morning or evening.

Eating Right

Nutrition is the cornerstone of health. Take some time to learn about nutrition. Try focusing on eating whole foods (not in boxes or packaging) and cooking your own meals. You’ll find that you’ll spend less, the food tastes better, and your body will thank you for it.

Sleep

Go to bed on time and avoid the electronics too close to bedtime. They will disrupt your sleep. Come up with a ritual composed of hygiene (hot shower), a little reading, meditation, or a nice cup of herbal tea. Your sleep is critical to your performance and health.

Reading and Learning

Too many of us read too little and stop learning after leaving school. Reading opens us up to new horizons, new ways of thinking, and it allows us to explore the thoughts of authors in different times and nationalities.

Learning should be life-long. There is always something we can learn to improve our lives, our performance at work, and even pick up new skills that will contribute to our well-being far into the future.

Become Your Best Friend

So many of us depend on others for our happiness. So many people need someone else in their lives to be happy. Don’t get me wrong, we are social beings. We need contact with other people. It is wired into the human psyche to interact with our fellow beings. The real question, however, is this: Are you happy with you? Can you be happy without that guy or gal in your life? I would argue that the answer to this question is yes. You can be happy with you and enjoy the solitude that being alone delivers. I’m not proposing that you dump all your friends. I am proposing that you take some time to get to know yourself. Enjoy you.

Final thoughts…

All these tools are easy to implement but are not a panacea. Only you can determine what you need, what will work in your personal situation, and what acts you can take (even others not mentioned) that will improve your outlook and happiness.

If you are happy with your current situation, leave it alone. If not, take some time to look around a bit to find some suggestions offered online, in books, or even ideas you could get from one of your friends or confidants. You’ll be glad you did.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

Achievement, Character, Dreams, failing, Goals, Your "why"

“Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_jackson_brown_jr_101336?src=t_wisdom

This is such a great quote. I think we can all admit we have done things that we might not be too proud of when we think no one is looking. Aren’t all the great quotes the ones that demand a little more from us?

Character, like our minds and bodies, is a product of our experiences, decisions, and actions. What you are today is the resulting combination of these things. If you want to look at where people have the most difficulty in character development, look no further than online marketing ads.

Ads with the new magic weight-loss pill, the pill that will help you perform sexually, the pill that will add 20 pounds to your biceps and all the rest. Applications that will help you invest better, live longer, be happier.

Why do you think New Year’s Eve resolutions fail? The things we want are hard to achieve. They require us to be disciplined. They require us to stretch beyond our current capabilities. More importantly, they require us to commit, even when no one else is looking.

A buddy of mine approached me about exercise and losing weight a while back. Like most, he jumped right in with both feet. Then, after a week, he admitted he stopped exercising. He also admitted that he had 4 pizzas, two boxes of Cheese-Its, two bags of potato chips, and a family-sized bag of Fritos—in one weekend!

This is why you can only provide advice to people when they ask and let them do with the advice what they will. This is why you can’t compel anyone to do what they should want to do themselves. This is also why, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE “WHY” behind your motivation to do something, whether it is to lose weight, exercise, eat right, meditate, write, or whatever.

I don’t care what goal you set for yourself. You will have a real challenge getting to the finish line if you do not know you’re own personal “why”. The “why” cannot come from outside of you. The goal must be yours and yours alone and you have to know why you want it.

I worked out with my brother for a few months a few years ago. The same result. He wanted to feel better, get into better shape, but he did not want to pay the price as badly as I did. He is eating better and avoiding foods his body knows aren’t good for him, but his exercise routine is drastically different than mine. That’s ok. He found the sweet spot for his personal exercise plan. The key is this exercise plan works for him and satisfies his “why”. His “why” was to just feel better and it is working.

If you really understand your “why” and you’re not lying to yourself, you will achieve anything you want. You’ll be willing to pay the price. Your “why” will be stronger than any price you have to pay. You will succeed. You won’t cheat on your diet, you won’t eat foods that are unhealthy or off your diet plan, you’ll do the exercise deliberately, and you won’t miss exercise days. You will be true to yourself because you have a compelling reason to do the work.

If you don’t have a “why” for a goal you are pursuing, put it aside for a while. Don’t torture yourself. Admit that you are not willing to pay the price it requires and feel good about that decision. You can always pursue it later. It is better to do this than attempt to do something you are not truly motivated to do. You’ll feel bad when you fail, you’ll beat yourself up, and you will still fail to accomplish what you set out to do. Leave it alone. If it’s important to you, you’ll discover your “why” and execute. If you don’t, that’s ok. Pursue another goal—a goal you really have a drive and the ability to complete. You’ll feel great and may be in a position to return to a previous “dream” and make it a reality.

I wish all of you the very best in achieving your dreams, whatever they may be.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

digression, improvement, Knowledge, plus factor

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/socrates_101212?src=t_wisdom

Knowledge is so fleeting, isn’t it?

We learn something, gain some knowledge, apply that knowledge and learn more. So much of what we learn, gain, and apply is unique to each of us. Our unique nature drives us to learn things that others are not interested in, but literally, drive us to learn more. The more we learn, gain, and apply, the more nuances we discover during the process that are specific to us.

I find that knowledge, along with any skill we develop, evolves. The better we get at something; the more opportunities arise that allow us to grow again. Learning then is evolutionary and continuous. Each time we learn something new or gain proficiency in something provides more opportunities. These opportunities are more like capabilities. The more capable we are, the more things we can do, the more things we must learn, and the upward spiral continues. Each time we elevate to a new level compels even further learning, further improvement, and even more discipline than we had before.

This plus factor is continuous. There is always something more to learn, something more to explore, something more to experience. There is a catch, however. If you fail to push your limits continually, you will stagnate and digress.

The best analogy for this is exercise. Your body is an incredible machine that will adapt to new environments. If you stress your cardiovascular system, central nervous system, lymphatic system, musculature, tendons, and bones, the body responds by making them stronger. The body by itself is very stupid. It doesn’t know that you are curling a 20lb dumbbell or a 40lb dumbbell. It only knows the stress that is placed on it is greater than its current capability to lift or move this weight. Subsequently, the body over adapts by repairing that muscle to meet the demands that were placed on it. The same follows for every system in your body.

Each of us is unique but the principle of the plus factor is active in all aspects of our lives. Take advantage of this factor by improving all aspects of your life. Push yourself to get better physically and mentally. Increase your social circles and your network. Pursue improvements in your spiritual life. Each time you reach a new level, you’ll be able to do more. Then push again.

This is what this quote means to me. Each time we learn something or achieve something, we are on new ground. That new ground requires us to learn the new rules that only exist at this plateau. Be the very best you can be and continue to raise the bar. Growth is healthier than decline.

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

Happiness, Knowledge, Rabbit hole, Searching, Truth, wisdom

“The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.” – John F. Kennedy

Boy, is this a good one!

When I was studying for a Doctorate, I truly began to realize how true this and other statements are about our limited knowledge in so many fields. When we discover something new, we begin to discover more avenues to follow and begin to discover there is a lot more to understand. It’s almost like running down a never-ending rabbit hole, much like the one in Alice of Wonderland. The key difference is the rabbit hole only leads to other ones, and other ones, ad infinitum.

I think we just need to understand that this seeking will never end. There will always be something more to know, more to apply, more to do. It is never ending because with each new discovery, more doors open in other fields, more doors open for commercial application, and more doors open to refine the idea just discovered.

Subsequently, science needs to keep seeking to understand that it needs to seek some more only to understand that this answers this question and presents ten more. We need science, but science will never discover the truth about our reality. Truth is only experienced. Truth is known when we see it. Truth is unchanging. When you find the truth, you don’t need to continue looking. Truth just is.

Our search for knowledge also concerns other aspects of our lives. Think about happiness for a moment. Are you happy? If not, why not? Happiness is a state of mind—an attitude. You either are happy, or you are not happy. Happiness, like truth, is within. We must learn how to be and nothing more.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Self-Discipline

Tags

Accountability, Achievement, Goals, Self-discipline, What is your "why"?

“The further you go in the spiritual life, the greater becomes the responsibility. And the greater the responsibilities become, the greater becomes the need for self-discipline.” —Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

When you examine your life, you find that most of your challenges and problems have arisen from a lack of self-discipline. Self-discipline is simply doing the things that need to be done, regardless of how tired or unmotivated you are. Self-discipline like many things in life evolves over time. As we evolve our expectations and goals also change.

These changes require more self-discipline than we needed previously. This process is almost like a spiral. Once we reach the very top of a spiral, our view of the world changes, we realize we can do more than we did before, and we commence pushing for the next plateau. I have always felt a shift within myself when this occurs. These shifts are like little internal nudges that push you on to do more with your life.

Over the years the gym has become my haven. I consider exercise and proper nutrition and supplementation more of a norm now than I did previously. When I’m in the gym I feel exhilarated, accomplished, and even a little special. I feel special because so many lack the discipline it takes to continuously push themselves to great heights of fitness and health.

Self-discipline is interesting because it tends to “bleed over” into other things. Those of you who have experienced this know what I’m talking about. Once you attain a certain level of self-discipline it tends to grow. You find it easier to do things you disliked in the past. You find yourself anxious to tackle the next challenge. You gain a little self-confidence in yourself because you realize that you can handle more than before because the self-discipline you have developed has demonstrated that what you need to do will be completed.

I think the key to all of this is understanding your “why”. We all do things that are good and bad for us. When you really analyze why you do what you do, you’ll see the “why” everywhere. It is easy to do things we want to accomplish when there is a big, fat “why” behind the activity. I interact with quite a few of my friends in this regard. One of these friends asked me to help him out with his fitness routine. The very first thing we discovered was his inability to stick to his routine. He was always “outthinking” himself, coming up with every excuse in the book as to why he couldn’t exercise today.

I think this is about anything we set as a goal or New Year’s resolution. We start out strong, but then realize that we just don’t have the discipline or drive to keep it going. I think this is because many are doing things or pursuing things because of what the “other guy or gal” is doing. Or perhaps they are doing something because someone outside is telling them to. Neither one of these solutions is effective.

You must set goals for yourself that really align with your “why”. What is it? Is exercise something you want in your life, for the rest of your life or are you just trying to cut some pounds only to gain them back again. Fitness is one of those things that is really an all or nothing venture. If you want to change your diet, your exercise regimen, your sleep schedule, etc., you must really want it. Your “why” must be stronger than your excuses.

This discipline follows you everywhere. If you want to learn how to do something new, you have to pay the price. You have to read the books, do the tutorials, interact with people who are already doing what you want to do and find out what they do. Self-discipline is about taking care of your responsibilities. If you want to live a long-term, quality life, you need to begin doing things that will help you continue to improve or at least sustain the health you have. Do you really want your body to degrade so much that you need to be helped out of a chair or walk around with an oxygen tank in tow?

Sadly, a lot of my relatives, who are all in their 70’s has succumbed to their age much faster than they should have. Their minds have slipped, their bodies are brittle, their eyesight and hearing are failing, and the flexibility of their youth is long gone. Today, there are folks who are at this age competing in bodybuilding competitions, marathons, even triathlons. That’s who I want to be when I’m 70. Do you?

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Love of Learning

Tags

Growth, Improving, Learning, Reading

“Few realize that a deep love for God also implies a love for learning.”

—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

I love to learn. I take courses, talk with people, read lots of books and articles, and engage with life. There are so many free resources online, I have a hard time understanding why more people do not take advantage of them.

What is learning? Learning to me is literally gaining knowledge about something that you can apply in your life. If you are interested in photography, there is a wealth of free information online that can help you develop your eye for the perfect picture.

The same goes for writing, playing an instrument or even learning a new language. Each requires a certain discipline to learn, but there are so many ways to learn new things via books, via blogs, via YouTube, Coursera, Udemy, or even the Khan Academy.

I love learning more about writing, bodybuilding, nutrition, exercise, history, and other non-fiction topics. I’m also a huge fan of anything that can help me be more productive and achieve my goals.

Today, take this quote to heart and think about what it means to you.

Learning is one way to continually add to your current skillset. The more skills you have the more ability you have to help others and perhaps even earn more for yourself and your loved ones.

Until next time…

Dave