Posted on by BWThomas

Creating an Illustrated Journal to celebrate our life, document our days, and excavate our soul.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open. Natalie Goldberg

Has creating an Illustrated Journal been something you’ve done or would like
to do? I’ve kept journals for many years, mostly written, and I believe they
have helped me in ways too numerous to mention. Most of my journals are written but sometimes we can’t find the words to say what is in our heart and mind.

Long ago I gave up the page-day Diary in favor of the blank page Journal,
but I picked up a few yesterday that inspire me, for 2025 I might try a page-a-day guided journal, and one I like is called “Fit Happens.” It includes gratitude, goals, fitness, and inspiration with a two-page spread for each day. I purchased it at Dollarama.

Our journal is a place, to be honest with ourselves; we can pour our heart
and soul onto a page in words, art, or both. Sometimes it’s hard to find the
words and a picture might let us get all our angst out on the page in a
scribble, maybe we want to color in the blank space, or maybe we don’t. Georgia O’Keefe tells us, “I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way.”

Zentangles are patterns we can add to our illustrated journal.  Lines, circles, and dots create a pattern. Four patterns create a tile, we can incorporate lines and patterns in our journal in any way we choose, and can become a mindful meditative practice. Creating mandalas is another way of expressing ourselves.

Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, insights, and learning promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context. Stephen Covey

Art is for all of us, and expressing ourselves on the page might be one of
the best ways to sort out our feelings, fears, goals, and aspirations, and help us deal with the problems and challenges in life. Art isn’t only for those whose artwork will end up in a museum or gallery. It doesn’t need to be hung up on our walls, but it can be.

The benefit of art is in making it, expressing ourselves on the page, and when we keep that art in a journal we can look back on it and see our progress. The words and pictures will bring us back to that day. We think we remember everything about our life but I read my journals and am surprised by what is in them. There are events written about in my journal I don’t remember until the journal jogs my memory. We might think we’ve always looked at things the way we see them now, but if kept over a long time, our journal will document how our view on things has changed.

A written journal or an illustrated journal is a way to examine our lives,
we may get more out of life by looking for things to put into our journal, live more fully, and drink more deeply from the cup of life. Does our life call out to be documented in some way? Isn’t this why we love taking photos? They can also be included in our illustrated journal and other memorabilia we can glue or tape in.

My idea of an Illustrated Journal is to excavate the past, document our
present, and plan our future. As a scrapbook, life planner, and vision
board nothing is too small or too big to be included.

Will creating an Illustrated Journal help us to live well from the inside
out? Will it change our lives in ways we can’t imagine? Is it true the more you
put into life the more you get out of it? Would creating an Illustrated Journal
be a way to get more out of life?

In the journal, I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any
person” I create myself. Susan Sontag

Documenting little details of your everyday life becomes a celebration of
who you are. Carolyn V. Hamilton

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. William Wordsworth

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love. 

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end. 

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program. 

 

Posted on by BWThomas

Does luck favor those who believe they are lucky?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Don’t minimize the importance of luck in determining life’s course. Alex Trebek

Where does luck fit in our lives, do we consider ourselves lucky, or unlucky?

When a situation could have been terrible but isn’t what can we call it but luck?  Last Thursday I planned on giving a speech at Toastmasters about the exhilaration one feels after a close call. When I was nineteen a girlfriend and I drove down Highway 401, I was in the passenger seat, when she hit black ice and the car skidded out of control. A police officer was speaking to the driver of a car he’d pulled over. Our car’s front end came within inches of his legs as it did a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree donut coming to a stop in the same lane, going the same way we started. The police officer didn’t motion to us to pull over so we drove off. It is times like that when time seems to stand still and I still feel lucky that we didn’t end up in a horrific accident hitting the police officer and parked car.

On Wednesday night I went for a bike ride and as I was heading home riding down a path, a woman turned the corner to come down the path so I moved to the right, and my handlebar must have touched the wire fence on the right because the next thing I know I was picking myself off the pavement. It happened so fast that I felt momentarily stunned, but I picked myself up, mumbled, “I’m okay,” to the woman,” I wasn’t expecting that,” got on the bike and rode home.

Bruised but not broken, another instance of wow, that could have been so much worse. My face was swollen and bruised enough that I didn’t go to Toastmasters and give my speech, which was going to be about how fear, especially a fear of death, also results in a fear of life.

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. Cormac McCarthy

Luck often comes if we are prepared for it through hard work. But, if a bullet misses killing you by a quarter of an inch you’re lucky. When things could have been terrible but aren’t, we are lucky. If we are born healthy, into a good family, and in a great country, we are lucky.

There are things we work hard for and if luck comes our way we might prosper, but some circumstances in life come down to luck. We might do better in life if we feel we are lucky than if we feel we aren’t. Some of us might feel if something bad happens we are unlucky, and some might feel lucky because they escaped a worse outcome. A lot of life is about perspective, and feeling lucky or unlucky might be one of those things. We can look at almost any situation and think if I was lucky that wouldn’t have happened, or wow, I’m so lucky, because it could have been worse. Is it true, that luck favors those who believe they are lucky?

If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it. Bette Davis

Luck is a thing that comes in many forms and who can recognize her. Ernest Hemingway

All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck – who keeps right on going – is the man who is there when the good luck comes – and is ready to receive it. Robert Collier

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon Affiliate program.

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Loving what is, be grateful, be happy.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for. Norman Vincent Peale

Don’t worry, be happy. We’ve all heard it but it isn’t easy to calm our mind when something keeps going round and round. I was listening to a speaker (I can’t recall her name) on YouTube the other day. She said, “We need to be careful of what we say because what we say matters. To recognize what we are saying she recommended adding, “And I like it like that, or that’s just the way I like it.”

So when we say we are fat, and add silently, and that’s just the way I like it, maybe we will change what we say to something we do want. “I’m healthy and getting healthier would be a better thing to say. I’m working on my fitness. What if we took our negative self-talk and flipped it to the positive? What if we count our blessings instead of our fears?

Can this make a difference in our lives, relationships, and mental health? How hard is it to shift our inner dialogue from negative to positive and start focusing on the positive?

What if we silently added, “And that’s just the way I like it,” to some of the thoughts going around in our head, would we realize if we are going to be happy with what we are thinking we have to think about it differently?

We might have a problem that is overwhelming us, but focusing on the problem, instead of focusing on a solution, is part of the problem. Perhaps we need to ask how could we improve this situation. Some situations can’t be made better but they must be dealt with and finding a positive way to go forward might be one of the hardest things we will do in our lives but we still have to do it.

I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy. Will Arnett

How do we go forward after losing someone? We need to figure this out because we will all lose people in life. Can we focus on what they brought to our lives and how lucky we were they were a part of our lives, the blessings they brought instead of the empty hole left by their leaving?

Sometimes we ask questions like, what if the worst thing happens, but what if instead, we asked, how can I prepare, how can I improve the situation? It might take some thinking and maybe a piece of paper to work out a positive framework for our feelings. How does our statement change if we exchange should to could, and what to how?

Byron Katie in “Loving What Is” tells us to ask four questions:

Question One: Is it true? What is the reality of it? Whose business is it?

Question Two: Can you absolutely know that it’s true? When do you think that it’s true? And it means that __________. What do you think you would have if reality were (in your opinion) fully cooperating with you? What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the should? Where’s your proof?

Question Three: How do you react when you think that thought? Can you think of one stress-free reason to keep the thought?

Question Four: Who would we be without the thought? The turnaround – as long as we feel that the cause of our problems is out there – as long as we think someone else is responsible for our suffering – and the situation is hopeless. It means we are forever the victim.

It might take real effort to turn our thoughts from negative to positive, to count our blessings instead of our fears, and to find a way to love the reality of our lives.

The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want. If we want reality to be different than it is, we might as well try to teach a cat to bark. Byron Katie

Reality is what it is, and we can like it, or hate it, but what we can’t do is change it if it is not in our control, and part of what leads to suffering is when we can’t accept what we can’t control.

But, we can control a lot, and can we start by counting our blessings instead of our fears? If we get more of what we focus on, don’t we want more things to be grateful for?

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John F. Kennedy

Living in a state of gratitude is the gateway to grace. Arianna Huffington

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. Eckhart Tolle

Thank you for reading this post. Please return, read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Luck and good management, sowing and reaping, and where preparation meets perspiration.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. Robert Louis Stevenson

Where does luck play in our lives and what role does god management play? When we hear about the lives of the rich and the famous it does seem they were at the right place at the right time, and they were prepared to take advantage of the luck that came their way. What were they doing to make that lucky break possible?

My son showed me a short video last night of a mother and her daughter taking an ice bath, the daughter looks to be about three. If we are willing to take ice baths what else might we accomplish in life?

I love to hear stories of how author’s books were discovered. A book has to be found, opened, read, and thought to be worth the read to become a great book. But, no one can find the book if it hasn’t been written, and no one can take our great invention, discovery, or idea and turn it into something bigger if we didn’t do something with the small kernel of an idea when it came to us.

How often have we seen something and wish we’d thought of it, but how often have we seen something someone else is doing and we did think about it, but didn’t do anything with the idea?

How many thoughts have we had that if implemented would have elevated our lives? We can’t do anything about opportunities that came in the past we didn’t take advantage of, but what would our life look like if we took advantage of the opportunities as they come in our future?

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. Meister Eckhart

What if we fail? What if playing it safe is a big failure in life? What if living a life with audacious goals is living the good life? What if we regret what we don’t do more than what we do?

We might write a book that doesn’t sell, but we’ve still written a book. We might start a business that doesn’t become a big success, but we still started a business, and if we’ve started one we can start another, just like we can write another book. What if collecting failures is something we have to do on our way to success? We have to get in the game to win the game, and too often we sit on the sidelines waiting for someone to do something, but if anything is going to change, we have to be the ones to change it.

How often do we think about what we could have done differently in the past, but what if we start thinking about what we can change in the future? We have no power to change the past, but what if we have a lot more power than we think to build our future? We have however much time we have and it will pass whether we do anything with it or not.

This is the month to plant a garden, and those who don’t plant now won’t enjoy the benefits of the garden later. Life is all about sowing and reaping, but we can’t reap what we didn’t sow!

What seeds can we plant today to reap in the future? What seeds are we planting that we won’t reap, but our grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren will reap?

You cannot hold on to anything good. You must be continually giving – and getting. You cannot hold on to your seed. You must sow it – and reap anew. You cannot hold on to riches. You must use them and get other riches in return. Robert collier

Life is an echo. What you send out comes back. What you sow, you reap. What you give, you get. What you see in others, exists in you. Zig Ziglar

If you don’t like the crop you are reaping, check the seed you are sowing. John C. Maxwell

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Living life, making choices, and asking questions.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spring flowers, trees in bloom, and getting out into the garden, what a wonderful weekend. The plants at my local store look lovely, and it’s time to plan what to plant.

This year we are making a little garden for our grandson. Four tires are in the backyard waiting to be painted and then we’ll assemble three on the bottom and one on top. Once we fill it with soil we can take him to pick out what he wants to plant.

I can hear him now, “This one, this one, and this one.” He happily played in his sandbox while I gardened on Saturday, and he was having so much fun when his father asked if he wanted to go to the park he said “No.”

I think about how Mom and Dad managed the farm when we were little. But when I was taking the tires out of bags, I had my grandson sit on the step and each time we went back for another tire he’d sit on the step.

He’s a big helper; he wants to help with everything. He helps crack eggs for breakfast, peel the garlic, and put it in the garlic press, and his favorite is to spin the lettuce.

Mom always said, “If you don’t let them help when they are little they won’t want to help when they are big.” It is so much fun watching him develop, and enjoy the little things in life. I hope he remains exuberant and willing to do things all his life. Is there a better motto for life than, “I do it.”

We don’t see things the way they are. We see them the way we are. Talmud

Watching him I wonder where my, “I do it,” went. That whatever is out there I could learn, master, and go on to the next adventure. I think of things to do, then think of the effort and cost, and wonder if it is worth it. We censor ourselves which is good and bad, we need good judgment to live a good life, but we also need a sense of adventure, getting out of our comfort zone, and doing things we haven’t done.

It might be true that a library and a garden help us lead a contented life, but is there room in our lives for adventure? Are we trying new things, going to new places, eating new food, and meeting new people? Fitting everything into our life is a challenge. We can’t do everything, see, and experience everything, but could we do more? Is it time for many of us to decide what is important to do in the next few years?

Is there one thing we want to do in different areas of our life we haven’t done yet? The best time to do it might have been twenty years ago, but the next best time is now. Spring is a great time to think about who we want to be, what we want to do, and what is possible.

Is there an adventure in our future? Do we need to get out of our comfort zone? What do we still want to do we haven’t done?

Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live. Anne Sweeney

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Albert Einstein

Sometimes the questions are complicated, and the answers are simple. Dr Seuss

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Directing our days is directing our lives. We are where we are because of the choices we’ve made.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

It is not enough to be busy… The question is: what are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau

Are we saying yes to life? As opportunities come along do we say yes or no to living an adventurous life? We might think adventure never knocks at our door, but is that true? Aren’t there always things we could be doing, learning, and experiencing?

One of the things I do is look at things I’d like to do and say, “That’s too expensive.” But at some point in our lives, it becomes do or don’t do, we’ve put off the things we want to do so long it is time to make it happen or know it will never happen.

Travel is one of the things we’ve wanted to do but haven’t done much of. But next year we are planning a trip to England. Many people are well-traveled but we’ve always used the excuse that it is hard to get away from a business – which it is, but every time we’ve taken time off it has worked out well.

Living a good life is up to us to interpret in our way, no two lives are the same, and we’ve made choices that have brought us to where we are. What would we like more of and what would we like less of in our lives? Would we like more fitness and health, that might mean less chips and ice cream, more walks, and less TV.

Do we want to go through life hand in hand with our partner, or do we have individual goals? Does one want one and the other partner wants the other? How do we make it work if we want to be out doing things in the world and our partner thinks we should be happy at home?

This weekend I said no to a walk with a friend, because my sister-in-law was coming over, or so I thought. But in the end, I did nothing on Sunday afternoon. I could have had a lovely afternoon walk, laughed, and stopped for tea.

It is easy to put off going for a walk, calling a friend, trips we want to take, exercising, and reading the books we say we want to read. The things we have to do, we do, but what about the things that feed our soul, expand our mind, and benefit our body? They often wait patiently, and if we aren’t careful they might never happen, because they aren’t urgent so we must fit them into our lives deliberately.

What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important. Dwight Eisenhower

How good are we at sorting out the important from the urgent? We get to decide what we do with our time, but if we don’t decide what to do with it others will decide for us, or the time will fly by with nothing accomplished.

Somehow we need to balance our lives between the urgent, and the important, our goals and dreams, and our partner’s goals and dreams. Today is the day we have, to plan and schedule the life we want, to make the most out of what is possible. It takes a plan and a schedule to get things done, and we should stop and smell the roses along the way.

Is there something we need to put into our schedule that we haven’t found the time to do?

A plan is what, a schedule is when. It takes both a plan and a schedule to get things done. Peter Turla

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days. Zig Ziglar

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. Anonymous

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you for leaving a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

How high can we go if we work on being better today than yesterday?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

If we are growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone. John C. Maxwell

Last night I listened to John Maxwell as I painted, he said he was told if he spent five years learning anything he could be a master at it, and he chose leadership. Halfway through his five years, he started seeing progress; people began seeing him as a leader. He changed his question from, “How long will it take, to how far can I go?” That question changed his life, how far can he go? How many more books can he write, and how many more people and organizations can he help?

What if we asked ourselves the same question? How far can we go, how much impact can we have, what difference can we make? Some of us may have a broad reach touching many lives, and some may have a deep reach where we impact fewer people but impact them mightily. We may have little impact outside of our family, but our impact may reverberate, and what seemed small and insignificant may have a wider impact than we think.

The family is the building block of our civilization and we are each part of a family. Do we lift others when we can, encourage them when needed, and help someone get back on course? Are we there in the good times and the bad, with them in glad times and sorrow, can they count on us for an encouraging word and a warm hug?

Success is a continuing thing, it is growth and development. It is achieving one thing and using that as a stepping stone to achieve something else. John C. Maxwell

At the Writers Group on Saturday one of our members wrote what he thought was the perfect book, and he gave it to his editor, who said, “I don’t think there is a market for this.” How great must it be for a writer to think they’ve written a perfect book? He’s written several books and didn’t get into what made that one perfect, but I’m assuming as he wrote each book he tried to make it better than the last until he thought, I don’t know how to improve on this one. It would be a great feeling to develop oneself to that point even if said book never becomes a commercial success.

We don’t know what something will become until we do it; we need to be willing to do something poorly if we ever can do it well. We will make mistakes, fail, and try again to make progress. This is the lesson we can teach our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. Play on at whatever we do, and start new adventures throughout our lives.

Mom didn’t start quilting until she was in her eighties. Grandma Moses was in her late seventies when arthritis made continuing with her embroidery difficult, it was suggested she start painting instead.  Her last painting “Rainbow” was completed when she was 101.

If there is something we want to do, or something isn’t working for us anymore and we have to find another creative outlet, why not figure out how to make it happen? We may think it will take ten years to become good at it, but what can we accomplish in those ten years?

What is possible for our lives? We won’t know unless we take the steps to make something happen.

Courage isn’t an absence of fear. It’s doing what you are afraid to do. It’s having the power to let go of the familiar and forge ahead into new territory. John C. Maxwell

The only one you should compare yourself to is you. Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday. John C. Maxwell

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one. John C. Maxwell

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day, filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Staying the course, being true to ourselves, making things better by making a difference.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. Winston Churchill

Is it easier to give up than to stay the course? One of the things that sustains us when we want to give up is the habits we’ve created. We are told we can count on our habits more than our willpower.

Is it easier to create bad habits than good ones? We have to be careful we create the habits that will sustain a good life and not result in a bad one. When we realize something isn’t working for us how easy is it to change our direction, to regroup, and go forward in what we hope will work better for us?

We need to ask ourselves these questions throughout our lives. Is it easier to look at someone else’s life and see the change in direction they need but hard to see it in our own life? How often do we say to ourselves if I were them? Why is it easier to know what someone else should do than what we should do ourselves?

If we don’t keep on doing what we know needs to be done it will be our own life that suffers. What price will we pay if we don’t write our book, sing our song, or create whatever calls out to be created? What if we don’t stand up for what needs to be stood up for?

We create order out of chaos, but order is not created randomly. A pile of car parts in a garage will never randomly end up in the right place and the car rebuilt without effort by the car builder. When I see restored cars I appreciate only a small part of the effort it took to rebuild that car because I don’t know how much work and money went into it.

We are told we should only give up one dream for a greater dream. If we give up on our dreams without a bigger dream what kind of a life do we end up with? How many women give up on a dream in the workplace to create a family?

The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. William Wordsworth

Creating a family is the one lasting thing we have, the one we can leave behind, and the one that builds on itself. If some of our dreams get put aside for family then I think the greater dream wins. We have to be careful we don’t think just because we have a family we can’t do anything else, but we also have to be careful we don’t think going after what we want means we have to give up on family.

If we are lucky at eighty we will be surrounded by family, and their accomplishments will be part of what makes us proud. They might be the one that fulfills a long-lost dream. They might be the one that finally attains the pinnacle of success, and we might have played a part in that.

We will be as proud, and maybe even prouder of what our children or grandchildren accomplish than if we accomplished it ourselves. Because they are the legacy we leave behind, our contribution to the greater good, and the progress of the future.

As I write this my grandson asked me to read him the puppy books. He didn’t sit on my knee long enough to finish them both and he was off on another adventure. He plays the piano as I write. It takes longer to accomplish things with him but everything is brighter and more fun because of him.

We must leave our world in a good place because of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Can we agree on what makes a better world?

Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. Maya Angelou

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. Edith Wharton

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest of intention. Kahlil Gibran

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Living our best life is about choice, we have to choose between what can only happen now, and what can happen later.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you. John C. Maxwell

Stretching ourselves too thin often doesn’t accomplish what we want it to. We want to keep all our balls in the air, everyone and ourselves happy, but instead of getting everything done, we might end up spinning our wheels.

If it is true that the first twenty percent of what we do gives us eighty percent of our results, how can we focus on the effective twenty percent? I’ve been thinking about this with my morning writing which goes between the blog two mornings and writing a novel the rest of the week.

When I started the blog it was seven days a week, then I cut it down to two days a week because I didn’t have time for any other writing, and now I am cutting it down to one day a week.

How effective can we be if we set our minds to it? Parenting and grandparenting are not the areas to cut our input. Children and relationships need time and attention. We don’t have effective conversations because we’ve set aside twenty minutes for an important conversation. If we want an effective conversation, especially with a teenager we should take them on a long road trip, and not fill the space with the radio or audiobooks, but let the conversation flow however haltingly.

Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever. Keri Russell

We can have relationships with many people, but most of us won’t have many close friends. We will have a few important people in our lives and the more time we spend with them the better.

Life is always about choice, where we spend our time is important. I’m spending more time with my grandson and less time writing. These wonderful months are passing by quickly, he’s almost two, and I don’t want to look back with more books written wishing I’d spent more time with him. I’m spending more time with him and getting less writing done, and I’m sure I will never regret that.

Your life is a result of the choices you have made. If you don’t like your life, start making better choices. Ziz Ziglar

Life is a chess match. Every decision that you make has a consequence to it. P. K. Subban

When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier. Roy E. Disney

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Make a choice; make a change, the compound effect works in our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee. Marion Wright Edelman

The other day, I listened to Mel Robbins talking about rating how we think we are doing in different areas of our lives and then figuring out what we could do to raise our rating a point or two.

Where do we think our health and fitness rates on a scale of one to ten? Are we averagely healthy and fit for our age? That puts us at a five, so what could we do to raise it to a six or a seven? What action could we do every day or week that would add to our health and fitness and start to move our rating by a point or two? If we went for a walk once a week, that’s fifty-two walks a year, and most of us wouldn’t have to change our lives drastically to do it.

We might think we need to join a gym to get in shape, but what if we started doing morning or evening exercises? Gym memberships are expensive, and if we haven’t figured out how to fit exercise into our already busy lives, fitting the gym in might be difficult. What if we started smaller than a gym membership? What if we started with a yoga mat, stretches, pushups, and plank?

If we want to bring creativity into our lives, could we do something creative once a week? Would we like to write, paint, draw, dance, knit, crochet, sew, quilt, or build something? Could we integrate creativity into our lives once a week?

Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Unknown

Would joining a group like Toastmasters elevate our lives? Becoming a better public speaker gives us confidence that will flow into other areas of our lives and might become the catalyst for the change we seek. Most Toastmasters groups meet once a week with a low yearly fee, and we can check out various groups by attending three meetings for free.

Are we reading books, and would we like to read more? Is there a book we would like to be able to say, I’ve read that? Maybe it is the bible or other religious books full of wisdom. There are many templates for reading the bible in a year. What if we decided to read a great book in a year, but it took us two or even five years to get through it from end to end? Would that be a failure, or would it elevate our lives?

Small changes create results if we build on those changes over time. Saving small amounts of money and investing will eventually lead to the compound effect, and small changes in our lives do as well.

Small daily decisions shape our destiny, and those decisions lead us to a better life or a worse one. The compound effect is working in our lives, and small changes throughout our lives can change the trajectory we are heading for. A little exercise every day or every week will pay dividends. Reading every day or every week will pay dividends. Bringing creativity into our lives will pay dividends. What if we make a small positive change in our relationships, and what if we hug those we love more often, smile at them, thank them for doing something for us, or do something for them?

Small changes over time will lead to results. What if we implement small changes in every area of our lives and create the life of our dreams? What if this is our little experiment to see how great we can make the life we have, our relationships, health, wealth, and personal growth?

It’s never the big things… it’s all the little changes you can make in your life that make the difference. Dean Graziosi

Don’t try to overhaul your life overnight. Instead, focus on making one small change at a time. Over time, those small changes will add up to big transformation. Don’t give up! Unknown

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. John Maxwell

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.