15 Sunday Sep 2019
Posted in Spread Your Wings
This week’s challenge:
The song that I love to move/dance to is_____________________. Play it now and boogie. Great way to start the day! Courtesy 5-minute Journal
I hope each of you has a great Sunday!
Until next time…
Dave
16 Thursday May 2019
Posted in Thankful Thursdays
Image by Miesha Moriniere from Pixabay
“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” — Willie Nelson
Expressing thanks for our blessings in life is a life-changing habit. It focuses our attention on what is good, rather than bad. When I first kept a gratitude journal, I started with the 5-minute journal. The 5-minute journal has you write 3 things you are grateful for when you wake up and again in the evening before you retire. At first I had to work at it, because I was so engrained with seeking what wasn’t working in my life.
Over the years it became easier to think about all the things I am grateful for and that has made all the difference. Now my gratitude spans multiple areas of my life. Imagine the difference this practice will have on you. Instead of waking up in the morning and saying to yourself, “Oh, God. I have this to do today and that to do today and I don’t like this and I don’t like that.” That was how my day began for years. Now, I start my day out with good music and journaling. I start with my dream journal, then I move to my gratitude journal, and then my morning pages. After my journaling is complete, I move right into writing for Daily Ramblings in a fantastic mood and ready to take on the world.
The key for me is to write and write and write until I get in that mood where I am grateful and not just going through the motions, which is easy to do. Here are some suggestions to help you out:
These are just a few prompts. Your gratitude journal will be unique to you. I literally keep writing what I am thankful for until I get a familiar feeling of satisfaction and peace, both of which come when you have found that state of gratefulness that always come when the mind focuses on what’s right, rather than what’s wrong. Gratitude feels like peace, calm, and warmth. It feels like a warm blanket.
If you are tired of being pissed off, stressed out, and all the rest, try starting your own gratitude journal. It will make a huge difference in your life.
Until next time…
Dave
28 Thursday Feb 2019
Posted in Thankful Thursdays
Tags
Appreciative, family, Friends, Grateful, health, Life, Little Things, pets, Tecumseh, Thankful
“When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.” – Tecumseh
Read more at: BrainyQuote
I want to start today’s post with a “Thank You!” to my new followers this week. I appreciate you following my blog and hope my content helps or inspires you to do great things in your life. Today is Thankful Thursday and I want to talk about the things we take for granted in our lives.
Each morning I journal. The first thing I do is write in my dream journal, recording whatever I remember about the dreams I had the night before. The second thing I do is write in my gratitude and affirmations journal. The third thing I do is work through my morning pages to empty my mind and think about the day ahead. All these journals are important in different ways. The most important journal is my Gratitude and Affirmations Journal.
I am grateful for this life. I am grateful for God’s love. I am grateful for my family and friends. I am grateful for my pets. I am grateful for the little things. Little things, like a warm cup of coffee as I stare out my office window and look at the snow. A nice meal. A good book and a cup of tea. I am grateful for my health. I am grateful for the intellect I am blessed with. I am grateful for the insights that come into my mind.
The beauty of practicing gratefulness is the way it focuses my mind on the good rather than the bad. It is so easy to be unconscious. It is so easy to develop bad habits. It is so easy to blame everything outside of us for our problems. It is so easy to get upset and pissed off. I started my gratitude practice by writing three things I was grateful for. Initially, it was hard. It was hard because it takes a conscious effort. It requires you to act and recognize how great your life is.
Despite your current circumstances, you have lots to be grateful for. You are alive. This life is yours to live. Be grateful for what you have. Look at all the things that make your life great. Maybe it’s your warm bed. Maybe it is one of your friends. Maybe it is taking a hot bath or shower. Find things to be grateful for. You will notice a feeling enter you. This feeling will be one of comfort, joy, and contentment. It may take a while to recognize it because we are so focused on what’s wrong with our lives. Flip the switch. Look for what’s right. Focus on that.
Each of you who are reading this posting has things to be grateful for. What are they? When you think about them, how do you feel? Try this out for a month. Each morning take time to write three things you are grateful for. Constantly look for new things to express your thanks for. When you concentrate on what’s good, more things will rise to your attention. Before long you will have hundreds of things you are grateful for. This is one habit that can change your life. It will change your life because it will focus your attention on the good rather than the bad. It is a great way to live.
Well folks, that’s it for today. I hope each of you begins a daily gratitude practice. It will make a huge difference—promise.
Until next time…
Dave
12 Wednesday Sep 2018
Posted in Wisdom Wednesday
Tags
Achievement, Character Building, Coach John Wooden, Goals, habits, Little Things, Making time, rituals, Time Chunking
“It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” – John Wooden
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_wooden_384652?src=t_wisdom
John Wooden is best known for his history as Coach of UCLA basketball. This quote relates to a part of his coaching philosophy. If you’d like to learn more, you can visit his official website at http://www.coachwooden.com/
Each of us has habits. Each of us follows a certain ritual each day. We get up. We go to work. We conduct that work. We go home. We go to bed.
What is important are the things we do in between all these mandated activities. What do you do with your time? Do you watch TV? Do you play video games? Do you read? Do you write? Do you learn?
It’s interesting when you look at your efforts over a given period. I looked at my blog this morning like I always do. Since Daily Rambling’s creation, I have posted more than 500 posts. I spend about 20-30 minutes on my daily postings. That 20-30 minutes doesn’t seem like much but when you add that 20-30 minutes up over 2 years you arrive at a pretty big number.
If you examine your life like John Wooden would do with the teams he’s coached over the years you will begin to realize how important these small contributions are over time. This is the crux of this quote. Small things turn into big things. This is one of my key learnings over the years as I have studied success, productivity, accomplishment, and all the rest. I learned that habits are important, but rituals are more important to a person’s overall success. Rituals are habits packaged up together in a synchronous and synergistic way to gain maximum advantage.
My rituals take on context. I write in chunks of time. I read in chunks of time. I exercise in chunks of time. I pursue my learning in chunks of time. I plan in chunks of time. These rituals are important because they literally guide your day. You get up, you make your bed, you brush your teeth, you eat.
If you work, you have rituals as well. You get up at a certain time, you clean up your room, you wash up, you eat, and you head out the door. When you get to work you fire up your workstation or do whatever your work requires. There are hidden rituals that occur all day long despite your awareness of them.
The impetus of my topic today is on actively and purposefully documenting your personal rituals to begin gaining an awareness of what you do every day so you can find out what you can change to achieve those things that are outside of work. Do you want to exercise? Find a place in your calendar and make the time. What will you add to that exercise ritual? Packing your gym bag, putting it in your trunk so you can workout before or after work? What type of exercises will you do? What gym or park will you go to?
If you’ve never exercised before, you may want to start small. Maybe you buy a second-hand workout bench and some used dumbbells. Maybe you find a used stair-stepper or treadmill that someone wants to get rid of. Whatever you choose, create a ritual that you can commit to. Maybe you’re like me and must do your first workout routine in the morning before anything else. Maybe you’re comfortable doing it on the way home from work. Regardless of what you choose to do, try it out for a bit. Does it work, or do you need to change it? If you need to change it–do it.
You can create rituals for hobbies you’d like to pursue, exercise programs, sitting down and getting on with writing the book you’ve always wanted to write, or any number of things.
My rituals surround a few topic areas. These topic areas are writing (blog, book, school work), exercise (aerobic, weight lifting, sleep, supplementation, tracking my food), reading (nonfiction and fiction), and learning (helping my wife with her degree program, Coursera, Hillsdale College, and others), and spiritual pursuits (praying and spiritual reading daily).
You have the freedom to pursue whatever you are interested in. You can pursue whatever drives you from day-to-day. Make some choices. It’s ok to watch Netflix (I do). It’s ok to watch your favorite sports teams when they appear. Just keep it in balance. Find the areas of your life that you believe need some work, write down a plan, get it on your calendar, and execute. Start small and grow the ritual as you see fit. After a while, you may decide that the price a certain goal or activity is too much for you right now. Put it to the side and continue with the others you have selected and are willing to pay the price for. You can always go back to one of these things should you decide to.
Little things add up to big things. 20 minutes of exercise a day, reading a chapter a day, writing a few paragraphs for your book each day, spending 15 minutes on a video course each day are all actions that are very doable and will deliver huge results over time. I wish all of you well on your life’s journey and hope you achieve what you want to in this lifetime.
Until next time…
Dave
