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Practicing our good habits especially in uncertain times. Being grateful for what we have.

Being grateful for what we have. Practicing our good habits especially in uncertain times.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

First forget about inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Octavia Butler

It’s easy to let our good habits slip at times like these. It’s easy to let them slip at any time and any excuse will do if we want an excuse. There will always be something that comes up so we don’t do what we said we would do.

It is easy to not edit, write, or do what is to be done by looking at statistics for what is going on. When this is over there will be something else calling us. If we say we want to write, paint, sing, dance, create a business, cook dinner, or clean the house we have to actually do it.

Many of us have been saying we’d get to it when… Now is when, and we know it wasn’t enough time we were waiting for because we still don’t want to do it. We didn’t want to do it then and we don’t want to do it now.

We’ve done it in many areas of our lives. We would love to save and invest but now isn’t the right time. How many “now isn’t the right time” things do we have in our life? At some point, we have to look ourselves in the mirror and say “I don’t want to do it.” If it’s something we haven’t done and we are alive and our life works maybe it doesn’t really need to be done. If our life isn’t working, that’s another story.

Only we can determine if our life is working at a level we are happy with. Is there something we really want to do that we haven’t done yet? Or is there something we say we want to do because it sounds good to have something to say when everyone else is saying what they want to do with their lives. Maybe we are really happy with our lives. Isn’t that great?

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. James Clear

Maybe we want less in our lives, not more? What if we’ve been too busy doing this and that? So busy we don’t have time to stop and smell the roses. What if it’s a manure pile we smell that we’ve gotten so used to we don’t recognize what it is and do something about it. We have to recognize what we have in our life. All manure piles are not negative, manure can be composted down to enrich our soil. We may be able to do the same with the figurative ones in our lives. Are we comfortable with who we are, what we’ve done, what we’ve built, our relationships, and how we spend our time?

Life is never secure for any of us. We just don’t acknowledge it most of the time and feel we can take for granted putting things off until tomorrow, and tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that.

Many of us have a moment in time now when our lives are on pause and our senses are heightened. Most months fly by, but aren’t we aware of every day in March except for the first few? “When this is over,” isn’t that what we are all thinking?

What changes will we make? What things will we no longer take for granted? What will we be more grateful for?

If I must be a slave to habit let me be a slave to good habits. Og Mandino

Follow the three R’s respect for self, respect for others, and responsibility for all your actions. Buddha

Show respect even to people who don’t deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours. Dave Willis

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Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook

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Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook  Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Tony Robbins (Author, Narrator), Jeremy Bobb (Narrator), Simon & Schuster Audio (Publisher)4.5 out of 5 stars 1,331 ratings

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Where are we on our hero’s journey? Did we refuse the call to adventure? Are we spinning our wheels or meeting our goals?

Did we refuse the call to adventure? Where are we on our hero's journey? Are we spinning our wheels or meeting our goals?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Love is a hero’s journey, and the hero’s journey is a noble but difficult path. Marianne Williamson

We can be busy and accomplishing a lot, or we can be busy and not get much done. We can tell ourselves we need to look at this, do research about that, but at the end of the day did we do anything that got us closer to our goals?

We probably all have days where we get sidetracked from our goals. Editing can feel like spinning our wheels. We take out a comma, we change a few words and the next time we read through what we’ve written we add a comma and change a few words. Editing can feel like it will never end, but at some point, we have to call it finished, and this may be where bringing a professional in makes sense.

We can only afford to pay someone so much, and because they are a professional they know how to make something better even though it will never be perfect. Is it too late to make improvements regardless of what stage of completion we are at? Our mind has been churning and somehow something we never thought about pops into our minds. We know the answer to a question that has been churning in the background.

Should whatever that is be changed in our life, our art, our fitness, our family, our business, our finances, our relationships? I was looking at information on a writer whose books I like Diana Gabaldon the author of the Outlander series. She wrote something to see if she could write, and all of her books are stand-alone books but also a series. She didn’t know where her journey would take her but she was willing to go on the journey.

Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves. Carol Pearson

Isn’t that what we need to do in life be willing to go on the journey? Does anyone know where what they are doing will lead them? Didn’t people whose lives look like greatness was ordained from above have to be willing to go on the journey? What if the people who lead our countries refused the call? What if the Doctor’s who heal us refused the call? What if the writers and artists who inspire us refused the call?

What if we are all on a hero’s journey? What if we can all refuse the call? What if we do? Not all journeys lead to fame and fortune. Some lead to hard work and raising a family. Can we all be King and Queen of our own small kingdom? What if our greatest journey is to love and be loved and bringing forth the next generation?

Have we refused calls to adventure? Have we given up partway? Where are we on our hero’s journey? Are we a king, queen, prince or princess?

The hero journey is inside of you; tear off the veils and open the mystery of yourself. Joseph Campbell

The cave you most fear to enter contains the greatest treasure. Joseph Campbell

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell

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Hero (The Secret Book 4) by [Byrne, Rhonda]

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Hero (The Secret Book 4) Kindle Edition

by Rhonda Byrne (Author)

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Do we worry too much? We can do the best we can and worrying won’t change anything.

We can do the best we can and worrying won't change anything. Do we worry too much?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. Leo F. Buscaglia

Why do we spend so much time worrying? I couldn’t sleep two nights ago worrying about an event I was hosting. What good did worrying about something I couldn’t change at that moment do?

It makes me wonder how event planners function. When their daily life is putting together someone else’s biggest moment the pressure must be immense. At some point we have to trust we’ve made the arrangements, delegated responsibilities, issued invites, and sent out directions. It is as they say out of our hands but often our mind still goes on churning about what if this happens, or that goes wrong.

Then the event happens and people show up, and everything doesn’t go as planned but we make adjustments. We laugh and enjoy ourselves, and everyone else enjoys themselves, and we wonder why were we so worried?

If we do this often enough we will worry less. We will relish the excitement and adrenalin that putting on an event gives us. We will develop camaraderie with those we chose to help us. We will build a network.

The more we put into life the more we get out of it. Standing on the sidelines thinking other people are having more fun is no way to live. When we get involved, take on responsibilities, and help other people achieve their goals we enjoy life more.

My husband keeps asking, how much does Toastmaster’s pay? It pays a lot, but not in spendable money. We get opportunities to grow and develop to be more than we were, to become the best we can be, to stretch ourselves. It pays in building a network of like-minded people. Our confidence grows with self-development and by helping others develop.

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. Swedish Proverb

I was speaking to a lady at my Toastmaster’s group and her husband like mine thought the amount of time and energy spent on Toastmasters was too much. Sometimes, for short periods of time, it is, and it could continually be, but I will limit it to what is reasonable. We have to find balance; we don’t want to ruin our home life being too busy outside of it. We don’t want to cause our partners to worry that all of the excitement in our life happens without them.

Don’t worry, be happy can be good or bad. If we don’t worry and think things will take care of themselves we should have looked after – things won’t go well. Hope is not a plan. If we’ve done everything we can, and we are still worrying – we need to let go and trust it will unfold as it will, we’ve done what we could, and we’ll adjust.

Do we worry too much? Do we spend too much time worrying instead of living in the moment?

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration, and resentment. Dale Carnegie

If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today. E. Joseph Cossman

When I look back on all these worries. I remember the story of an old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened. Winston Churchill

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Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead Paperback – Apr 7 2015

by Brené Brown (Author) 4.7 out of 5 stars 4,774 ratings

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Journaling is the best therapy. We sort out our thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams. We find courage in its pages, we find our self.

We sort out our thoughts,fears, hopes, and dreams. We find courage in its pages, we find our self. Journaling is the best therapy.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

People who keep journals have life twice. Jessamyn West

Yesterday was a lazy day; the weather wasn’t nice so it seemed like a good day to go through my journals. My youngest sister gave me a journal for Christmas in 1974. This started my journal journey. The first five years of journals were small little one year journals with one page per day. I moved to blank page journals and I have quite an assortment collected over the years.

I was looking for a particular year and I couldn’t find it. This is what made me decide to put them on a shelf and on the spine write the year they were written. They are now on a shelf where I can see them in order by year.

My Grandmother on Mom’s side kept a journal. Unfortunately, the squirrels got into her journals and they are gone. It would have been great to have her thoughts living through the early years in Saskatchewan, the depression, and World War ll.

It was interesting paging through my journals to see what I was thinking about at various points in my life. I’m still working on many of the things I was working on years ago, my need to be right, a little too opinionated, too controlling.

We are who we are and often our circumstances may change but we don’t change that much. We can operate as the best part of ourselves or our worst. That can seem like two different people but it really isn’t.

As someone said, it isn’t one thing after another it’s the same thing over and over.  We think things in our lives are so important, poignant, we couldn’t possibly forget them. Any time I read my journals I read about a life I can’t remember, and my husband thinks I have an excellent memory. There are things I don’t find in my journal I don’t know why I didn’t write about, and things I wrote about that seem so trivial, and unimportant.

Journaling is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same time. Mina Murray

It would be very interesting if both members of a couple kept a journal and we read them side by side to see what they thought about the same events as they went through life. My guess is it would seem they didn’t live the same life at all.

I have a friend whose father kept journals and when he died he said he wanted them burnt. That seems like such a waste. All that life experience, insights, and view of the world as it was happening, gone.

I understand we haven’t only thought and written high minded thoughts. A journal is not the same as someone’s edited memoir. A memoir in many instances is written in the present looking backward instead of a journal written in the present looking forward. It is a different perspective when you know what happened, and then make sense of what came before, then when you are trying to make sense of the now, and you don’t know what is coming.

We don’t know when we start something where it will go. That is part of the journey, if we knew where we were going, and exactly what we’d face, and where we’d end up what would be the point?

We are the hero in our own story. New adventures await at every turn.  Every day is a blank page, and even when we can’t control what happens we can control what we think about what happens. The only difference between a good day and a bad day might be our perspective.

Can we learn to love ‘what is’ and be grateful for the bounty, joy, and abundance in our lives? The paradox in life may be that we can control very little in life, yet we can control how we feel about things, and thus we have potentially complete control over our happiness.

Keeping a journal is a joy, not a burden, where we find clarity, ourselves, and peace. The best time to start a journal was twenty years ago, the next best time is today.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden. Seneca

I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. Anne Frank

Journal writing is a voyage to the interior. Christina Baldwin

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The Beginners Guide to Starting a Journal Paperback – Aug 19 2016

by Corena Beach (Author) 3.0 out of 5 stars 1 rating

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Our habits create our life. Success is a string of good habits that lead us in the direction of our goals. We become what we continually do.

We become what we continually do. Success is a string of good habits that lead us in the direction of our goals. Our habits create our life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. Samuel Jackson

So much to do, and so little time. Isn’t this our lament, and yet don’t we all have the same twenty-four hours? How do some people fit so much into their lives? Is it because they harness the power of habit?

My daughter and I were in the kitchen as she was getting ready to leave for work. “Food always seems to be on my mind,” I said as I thought about what we should have for dinner.

A week of dinners might be, Saturday soup night, Sunday a more special dinner, Monday pasta night, Tuesday rice, Wednesday potatoes, Thursday leftovers, and Friday burritos. There a whole week of meals I don’t need to rack my brain over. A rotation of four to six dinners that fit into each category and dinner becomes automated. Food shopping becomes easier because we have a set menu. Restaurants have set menus we can do it too.

If we want something to fit into our lives we need to develop it into a habit. One of the best habits we can develop is to pay ourselves first. We will never get anywhere in life if we don’t keep a portion of what we make to build a life and take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.

Saving becomes a habit like exercising, cooking dinner, making our bed, and brushing our teeth. Most of the things we want to do in life aren’t one and done. They are small things that lead to big things. If we aren’t willing to take the small steps, often there won’t be a big step.

We become what we repeatedly do. Stephen Covey

If we harness the power of habit we don’t know what we can accomplish, but we have started. I was reading about someone who wanted to bring more exercise into his life so he started doing two pushups every time he used the bathroom. Almost anyone can accomplish two pushups. When we pair something we already do with something we want to do, every time we do what we already do we are reminded to do what we are adding to our life.

Eventually, if we are consistent that becomes a habit we can tie something else to. Most successful people have a string of successful habits. If we want to see what kind of life someone will build, look at their habits.

We become what we consistently do. Spenders spend, and savers save, we can err by being too much on either side. Balance is in order, but we will never achieve anything unless our habits lead us in the direction of our goals.

If we aren’t able to find a way to turn our dreams into doable habits that create the opportunity for success, we are unlikely to succeed. We may dream about success, but have we planted the seeds that can germinate and grow into success?

When we name a dream or set a goal, we’ve given our self a job. The job is to break it down into small steps we can continually take to bring it to fruition and completion.

A dream is just a wish unless we’ve broken it down into doable, achievable steps we continually take. When those steps become habits we are on our way.

Are our habits working for us, or against us in achieving our dreams and goals?

Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny. Gandhi

A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit. Erasmus

If you believe you can change – if you make it a habit – the change becomes real. Charles Duhigg

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Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels by [Breuning, Loretta Graziano]
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Making plans and setting goals. This is our life, what do we want to do, achieve, experience?

This is our life, what do we want to do, achieve, experience? Making plans and setting goals.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

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

This morning the extra hour made it easier to get up at five o’clock. It is still too dark to go for a walk at six. In my morning reading, Brendon Burchard says in The Motivation Manifesto we should write our goals down in the morning before everyone starts to push and pull us toward their ends.

When we’ve decided what our goals for the day are, we can then work around other people’s demands. There is something about scheduling commitments to our self that is more of a commitment than when it is just in our head.

One of the problems we have in our lives is fitting in the things that need to be done, should be done, or could be done. We need to move some of the could’s and should’s into the schedule. We feel we don’t have enough time to fit everything in, but what if we figured out how to do things in less time.

Last night flicking through the channels my husband came upon a show about what we really have to do to be fitter. The answer is less than we think. Instead of ten thousand steps per day, three ten minute brisk walks are more effective because they raise our heart rate. Twenty seconds of high-intensity activity elevates our heart rate.

Two rounds of one minute of jumping jacks followed by one minute of squats is an effective workout we can do anywhere without gym equipment, or spending any money.

Writing every day doesn’t mean hours of writing, it does mean actually writing something and creating a habit of writing. We can do the same with fitness, some small form of exercise fits into our life, if we do it every day we will develop a fitness habit.

Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them, and there’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them. Jim Rohn

If I take a couple of minutes every morning to schedule my day it will become a habit, and being more organized makes achieving our goals easier. Sometimes if we don’t write down our goals they remain hazy and unformed in our minds. At the beginning of the year, I found some yearly journals and I bought a bunch in various colors. I haven’t used them nearly enough. The one I like the best has the week on one page and a blank page opposite for planning. The mistake I made was thinking I should have journals for different parts of my life instead of one very messy journal with everything in it. My goal until the end of the year is to use one journal to plan my days and weeks.

If we don’t make a plan it can be harder to meet our goals. Carving out a little time for ourselves for exercise, creative pursuits, reading, even important phone calls can seem daunting, but once we’ve written it down we are more likely to get it done.

Instead of starting out January 1st, today is the day to make whatever changes we want to make today, and tomorrow is the day to make whatever changes we want to make tomorrow. No one else will do for us what we need to do for ourselves.

If we write our goals down we have more of a chance of meeting them. They will, of course, need to be revised but at least we’ve set a goal to meet, revise, and maybe even change. Isn’t that better than having no goals and moving aimlessly towards what? Is it time for making plans and setting goals?

You have to set goals that are almost out of reach. If you set a goal that is attainable without much work or thought you are stuck with something below your true talent and potential. Steve Garvey

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

Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right’. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. Unknown

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High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way Hardcover – Sep 19 2017

by Brendon Burchard (Author) 4.6 out of 5 stars 59 ratings

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Getting enough sleep. Could this be the best habit to keep or create? Don’t we all want to be healthier, happier, wealthier, and wiser?

Don't we all want to be healthier, happier, wealthier, and wiser? Could getting enough sleep be the best habit it keep or create?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything. Irish Proberb

The air is cooler as I walk this morning, but not quite cool enough to run back and get a sweater. Since I started getting up at 5:00 I think I’m sleeping better. If I get to bed at 10:00 sleep comes easily. When I get to bed a little later it seems harder to go to sleep.

Everywhere we go it seems people are complaining about not being able to sleep. Melatonin is the answer some say, others try it and say it doesn’t do much for them. I now find I am tired right around 10:00. If I stay up later I get a second wind and then it is harder to go to sleep.

Could part of the problem be that we don’t take the time to figure out our own bodies rhythm and work with it? Many of us choose bedtimes and wake up times based on our professional, family, and social lives. They tell us we have individual variations when it comes to what our best sleep hours are.  Can we figure out what our individual circadian rhythm is and work with it?

The optimal bedtime for most people is between 8:00 pm and 12:00 am.  We are told to keep our bedtime and wake time consistent. I find this difficult as it means not much social life on the weekend if I have to be in bed by 10:00. Being too rigid makes it more likely to just give up establishing a routine at all. It is the same with our eating and exercising routines. Life has to fit, and our routines have to be elastic enough to accommodate life, and routine enough to give our bodies what they need. Finding balance is what we need to focus on.

Sleep in an investment in the energy you need to be effective tomorrow. Tom Roth

Not getting enough sleep affects all areas of our health. A lack of sleep can lead to memory lapses, accidents, injuries, behavioral and mood problems. Inflammation is one of the problems lack of sleep exacerbates. Inflammation is linked to many of the most serious health conditions.

Getting enough sleep is not a small problem, nor one we should take lightly. It may not be possible for couples to keep the same bedtimes and rise times. My husband doesn’t appear to need near the amount of sleep I need.

Studies have shown that people who slept less didn’t wake up with high inflammation, but they had greater inflammation responses to conflict. According to the study if both partners got less than seven hours of sleep they were more likely to argue or become hostile. Lack of sleep and marital conflict appear to go hand in hand. Canada is listed as the third most sleep-deprived country and the Canadian Men’s Health Foundation found that 33 percent of men aged 30-49 were only getting four to six hours of sleep per night. Twenty percent of Canadians get between six and seven hours of sleep every night, and six percent consistently get less than six hours of sleep per night.

Is getting more sleep the best thing we can do for our marriage?

What we’ve only come to realize recently is that the brain is pretty far from resting during sleep… the brain is actively cleaning synapses and reinforcing important ones. So not getting enough sleep means you’re not doing your housekeeping. Unknown

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The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time Paperback – Apr 4 2017

by Arianna Huffington (Author) 3.9 out of 5 stars 21 customer reviews

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