Daily Motivator - February
 

February 1

Wish and do the work

Let your wish set your direction. Then do the work to bring that wish to life.

The moment you have the wish is the moment to take your first step in its direction. Act while your desire is strong and fresh, and establish momentum.

If all you do is wish, and then wish again, doing nothing about it, that drains energy out of your desire. Each time you express the wish without acting on it, your doubt increases while your confidence and enthusiasm erode.

Instead, demonstrate to yourself how powerful, decisive, effective you can be. Grab that wish, and experience the power of your desire as you act on it.

Forge a solid and persistent connection between desire and action. Get in the habit of immediately doing the work every time you feel the wish.

Don’t just let empty wishes fill your head again and again. Wish, and then do the work, because you deserve to bring those wishes to life.

— Ralph Marston

February 2

Calm and thoughtful

Stay calm, stay thoughtful, and stay in control. Tap into the great strength that resides in serenity.

Just because urgent action is required does not mean panic is called for. Choose to stay calm, and do your most effective work.

Anxiety drains your energy, distorts your perception, and gives you nothing of value in return. Frenzied activity invites carelessness and wasted effort.

Your best way forward is with calm and determined strength, especially when you’re immersed in noise, clutter, and confusion. Stay calm, and make decisions based on purpose and intention, not tumult and disruption.

Absorb the hectic energy as it swirls around you. Then utilize that energy in a focused and well-considered way.

Stay calm, and experience how strong and effective you feel. Stay calm, and when the chaos subsides, you’ll be far ahead.

— Ralph Marston

February 3

Embrace the magnificence

All of time and existence has led up to you being here on this day. See the beauty, feel the wonder, and resolve to make good and meaningful use of it all.

Realize the great value of the moment you’re in, taking care not to rush through it. Give to it your intention, guided by true purpose.

Live now as though you’ve been denied the chance up until this moment. Approach even the smallest experience with fresh, new enthusiasm.

Face the world with confidence and a genuine desire to make a difference. Live in awe of the great possibilities, with a commitment to bring the best of them to life.

This is your life, here and now. This is your life, your opportunity to deepen its meaning, and add to its richness.

Draw energy and inspiration from all you encounter. Embrace the magnificence, and find great satisfaction in making even more.

— Ralph Marston

February 4

Day of enrichment

Make today a day of enrichment. Rather than just getting through the day, make something valuable and lasting out of it.

Take a moment to look back on your life, and recall the things that have meant the most to you. Today you have the opportunity to create more of those things.

Instead of filling the moments with empty distractions, you can create new richness. You can make more of what makes life good.

You don’t have to settle for pointless, random occurrences that come your way. Today you can live with positive, purposeful intention, with substance.

Fill your time with the people, the places, the work, the fun, the experiences that matter to you. Invest your energy in fulfillment, in richness, in meaningful substance.

Take this opportunity to live this day as a day of enrichment. You have what it takes to make it the best one yet.

-Ralph S. Marston

February 5

Give your best

This day exists so you can give new richness to life. Ingrained deep within you is the desire to matter, to make a difference, and now is when you can.

What gives you fulfillment is what you give yourself to. What brings your life lasting treasure is all the good work you do to create, support, encourage, to offer kindness, to give hope.

The possibilities exist so you can savor the experience of bringing them to life. The challenges exist so you can work your way through them, lifting the world a little higher.

Countless circumstances, distractions, fears will tempt you to give less than your best. Pay no heed to those temptations, for they will only lead you to regret.

Don’t leave yourself stuck at the end of this day with bitter thoughts of what could have been. Give your best to every hour, every opportunity, every encounter, every situation.

Give your best, and discover each time how much better it makes your life. Give your best, for deep inside you know that is what you are here to do.

— Ralph Marston

February 6

Don’t be so certain

If you’ve decided you already know everything this day will hold, you’ve walled yourself off from its best possibilities. If you’re sure of exactly how the experience will be, you won’t get much out of it.

Be intentional, be purposeful, be confident, but don’t always be so certain. Rejoice in the knowledge that you don’t know it all, haven’t seen it all.

Live with the courage and humility to admit there’s a whole, wonderful universe out there you know nearly nothing about. Open yourself to truths that it seems cannot be true.

Listen to the rumble of a distant train, and resist the urge to look up where it’s going. Instead, imagine you’re riding along with it to a mysterious destination, wondering what you’ll see when you get there.

Just because you know the facts doesn’t mean you understand the entire truth. Sometimes what you don’t know can rouse you to feel more fully alive than all you do know.

Let go of the need to always be so certain. And let in more of the wondrous treasures you never knew you never knew of.

— Ralph Marston

February 7

Live hope

Fear builds the unknown into a crippling enemy. Hope, on the other hand, inspires you to bend the unknown in your favor.

Seek hope, hold hope, live hope, give hope, be hope. There may be scant justification for hope, yet there is always great reason for hope.

Because hope does not merely describe what’s going on. Hope pushes you to change the situation for the better.

Hope adds confidence, energy, persistence to your actions. Hope connects those actions to meaningful purpose.

True hope is not an empty wish. True hope embodies a powerful strategy.

On its own, hope achieves nothing. Yet with hope in your heart, you can do whatever is necessary to get anything accomplished.

— Ralph Marston

February 8

Thought energy

What is possible for you is what you see as possible. What limits you is whatever you consider to be a limitation.

Your thoughts produce energy that flows into everything you do. The effectiveness of that energy is determined by the content of those thoughts.

Your resistance to the task, to the process, to the result, is what makes it a struggle. Acceptance enables, creates, manifests in your life whatever you choose to accept and to live.

Actions, guided by your thoughts, give specific form to abundance. Focus the whole of your life, of your being, on what you seek, on what you love, and it grows stronger and more abundant.

You have as much or as little power as you think you have. What you honestly, genuinely think you can do and want to do, you will do.

Your thoughts set you on the path to whatever you think. Choose them wisely, choose them with kindness, integrity and love.

— Ralph Marston

February 9

Live with diligence

Honor this day by living it with diligence. Do what you must, do what you have chosen, and do it well.

Notice how your satisfaction grows with every effort, inspiring you to keep going. Observe the beauty of accomplishment as it flows from your work.

Every moment arrives with a new set of choices. Choose to persist with your intentions, to meet your obligations, to remain focused and driven by purpose.

You will make a big difference today, regardless of what may threaten to distract you or push against you. Because you can continue to act with diligence.

Rise to meet each challenge proactively, willingly, on your own terms. Recover quickly from each setback, knowing that positive action is always your best option.

Today holds the best opportunity you’ve ever encountered. Give to that opportunity, and to yourself, the diligence you so thoroughly deserve.

— Ralph Marston

February 10

Up to the challenge

You are up to the challenge. You can do the work and reach the value that’s yours to claim on the other side of that challenge.

You can take hold of impossible tasks, break them down into manageable chunks, and get them done. You can gather the information, find the resources, and develop the skills necessary for the job.

You can make decisions and then implement them. You can build on what works and make adjustments to what doesn’t.

You can stay connected to your driving purpose, motivated and enthusiastic through every difficulty. You can express that purpose in a way that inspires others to share your enthusiasm.

You can draw positive energy even from negative situations. You can identify weakness and transform it into strength.

You can do whatever it takes, and now is your time to act. Your next achievement is ready for you to bring it to life.

— Ralph Marston

February 11

Pressing on

When you’re ready to quit, that’s when you can make the biggest difference by pressing on. When you feel like giving up, you’re closer to a breakthrough than ever before.

How do you find the strength to keep going? You don’t worry about finding strength, just take one step after another.

Feel weariness as you choose to transform it into new energy. Feel discouragement as you choose to make it into fresh enthusiasm.

You can persist, because the reward for doing so is great. You’ve pushed yourself this far and you can use that same kind of push to keep yourself going.

Achievement is hard work, and you’ve already done a great deal of it. Now, as the payoff nears, keep going and do the rest.

Feel new determination as it floods into your awareness. You’ve already earned great value, so keep at it and claim your reward.

-Ralph S. Marston

February 12

Driven from within

No matter what happens today, at the end of the day you will still be you. You will still love all you love now, still care about all you care about now.

The world will change today in countless ways, some of them completely unexpected. Yet whatever happens, the good things that truly matter to you will continue to be just as important.

Today is your opportunity to grow stronger, more capable, more kind and loving, more purposeful. Today you can find new ways to put your highest values into positive action.

And you can do so with full confidence. Because nothing can happen today that will diminish the sincere, authentic person you are.

All sorts of unexpected incidents can quickly alter your outer circumstances. Yet none of them need to even slightly scratch your brilliant inner beauty.

Remind yourself often of that beauty, of your peace and essence that nothing can touch. Do all you do, not intimidated by the world, but peacefully driven from within to make it better.

— Ralph Marston

February 13

Morning light

Every morning, light appears on the eastern horizon and begins to push away the night. It is a wonder occurring so often, so reliably, you rarely even think about it.

Next time it happens, take notice. Remind yourself of the ongoing celestial dance making everything that’s possible for you, possible.

Life-giving light, warmth, and energy rain down in great abundance from the sky above. Nothing anyone could ever do, no problem, no worry, no difficult situation, could ever stop it.

The challenges you face are big for you. Yet they are small compared to all the possibilities, all the wonders, all the resources, and the whole of abundance that’s available to you.

Countless others who came before you found ways to harness the morning light, to transform raw abundance into meaningful lives. Because of their faith, effort and perseverance against all odds, you are here on this day, able to enjoy the wondrous life you experience.

Now is your chance to continue the progress, to add to the wonder, to live up to your potential, hard-won by so many over so much time. Marvel at the morning light as it warms your face, and put its energy to use as you add your own fresh goodness and wonder to life.

— Ralph Marston

February 14

One good thing

You can always get one good thing done. And then that one good thing will lead to another.

If you attempt to make the entire journey in a single leap, you’ll be disappointed and quite possibly injured. Yet taking one step is easy, accessible, and makes the next step even easier.

Nobody can summon, all at once, the dedication necessary for a massive undertaking. However, anybody can be dedicated enough to make one little effort.

One effort at a time is really all it ever takes. You just have to make one effort, and then another, and another, until the job is done.

You can do that, and you can do it in this instant. There’s no need to fret or procrastinate, to worry, make excuses, or avoid the effort.

It’s a whole lot easier to just go ahead and do it. Now is when you can.

— Ralph Marston

February 15

Remind yourself

Remind yourself how far you’ve come. Remind yourself how much you’ve done.

Remind yourself of all you love and value. Remind yourself how much you care.

Remind yourself that most of what screams for your attention doesn’t deserve it. Remind yourself often to gently guide your focus back to the things that truly matter.

You know what to do, how to do it, and why. Yet all too often the fears, complexities, and shiny trinkets persuade you to forget.

Your possibilities are too magnificent to let them go to waste. So remind yourself how capable you are, and how important it is to act on those possibilities.

Remind yourself of your dreams, your passions, your desire to live life at its best. Then with renewed energy and inspiration, put your unique, beautiful vision of excellence into action.

— Ralph Marston

February 16

Passion for the work

Stop waiting for the time to be right. Use the time you have, and make it the right time by virtue of what you do with it.

Don’t wait to be inspired before doing the work. Go ahead, do the work, and your efforts will create plenty of inspiration.

Conditions are the way they are, and you feel whatever way you feel. None of that has to stop you from doing what you must do.

The best way to feel like doing it, is to get started. Get started, keep going, and just one short hour from now you’ll have some powerful positive momentum.

You can’t expect passion to suddenly well up within you. What you can do is create passion for the work by actually doing the work.

If you’re feeling uninspired, that’s a sure sign that the best thing you can do is take action. Take action, and you’ll have the inspiration you seek.

— Ralph Marston

February 17

Fresh new world

No matter how many times you have failed in the past, you can go positively forward now. No matter how often you’ve wandered from the path, you can now choose to move straight ahead.

Do not be dismayed by anything that has come to pass. For this is a new day, with new possibilities, and you’re here to live them, now.

Whether you’ve let yourself down for a few minutes, or for decades, that time is now over. This is your time to fill your life with purpose, action, joy and fulfillment.

Whatever has been, has been, and is done. What is to be, is yours now to choose.

Every disappointment you’ve ever felt can now fuel your determination. Every opportunity you’ve missed can remind you to fully seize the opportunities you now have.

Open your eyes, your heart, your everything to the fresh new world of possibilities. There is so much you can do, and now, right now, is when you choose.

— Ralph Marston

February 18

Possibilities you’ve never imagined

There is something you’ve been telling yourself forever you cannot accomplish. Today, prove yourself wrong.

A new moment has arrived, and past assumptions no longer have to hold you back. Decide to be free of those limitations you’ve imposed on yourself.

See now that every big and little thing can inspire you, support you, motivate, encourage and empower you. Today, take the first step toward the accomplishment you’ve been putting off for so long.

Every past experience has prepared you for today, when you can now move forward in a new way. Feel the power of the momentum you’ve already established and point it in the direction you choose.

Push your expectations beyond where they have been. See possibilities you’ve never before imagined and see yourself fulfilling them.

Enjoy watching yourself do what you used to think you could not. Let the satisfaction of achievement energize you to achieve much more.

-Ralph S. Marston

February 19

What is true

Even if a thousand people tell you today is lousy, it does not have to be that way for you. Even when everyone you know tells you something cannot be done, that does not make it impossible.

Opinions are useful, interesting, revealing, instructive. But don’t mistake opinions for reality.

Every person has an opinion. Yet no person, not even an expert, has all the answers.

What is true is not necessarily what is popular. Widely held opinions are still just opinions.

Listen patiently to the opinions of others, and consider them thoughtfully. Then insist on understanding for yourself, through your own experience, what holds truth, what works, and what doesn’t.

Do the work to arrive at the truth. Truth is worth all the effort you put into knowing it and living it.

— Ralph Marston

February 20

Everything that is now

Accept this moment fully, and you will find in it no stress, no anxiety, no tension or worry. Accept what is, as it is, and you have access to its full power and potential.

Your ego wants to fight, to prove it is bigger than reality. But fighting against reality is a battle that’s lost before it begins.

Do not strive to find some clever shortcut around reality. Seek instead to find your place within it, to imagine the value you can add.

Allow your heart to fill with gratitude for what is. Watch as the entirety of your self rises to the occasion and springs into effective action.

Here is great opportunity. Here and now, your thoughts, your actions, your love and care make a difference.

Let all resistance fall cleanly away. You have everything that is now, and you are here to live it fully.

— Ralph Marston

February 21

Offering of love

There’s a job to do, and as difficult and demanding as it may be, it never has to be a fight. Let it be an offering of love.

You have the opportunity to invest your time and energy in something worthwhile. Choose to do the work with gratitude and a positive presence.

Decide to find fulfillment in working through the complications instead of automatically reacting with frustration. Recognize value in the challenges rather than letting your attitude be poisoned with resentment.

The work demands much of you. Remind yourself what a good thing that is.

Your intention makes all the difference in the way the work unfolds, in the value that you create. Proceed and persist with the intention to offer your best, to offer your love.

You are spending your irreplaceable time on the work, so make it time well spent. Make it an offering of love.

— Ralph Marston

February 22

Rise above thoughtlessness

Pretty much no one in your life is going to treat you the way you want to be treated all the time. Decide to be okay with that.

Certainly if you’re being threatened or abused you must extract yourself immediately from that situation. But if you’re being slighted, or offended, inconvenienced, not fully appreciated, so what?

The way people treat you is their problem, and you never have to make it yours. You can exercise and expand your strength by rising above the negative, thoughtless behavior of others.

No, that doesn’t mean acting aloof and superior. It means focusing on what you can control, on your own good thoughts, your own words, your own behavior.

Respond to disrespect with respect, to thoughtlessness with kindness and understanding. You can be the person to improve the quality of interaction, and that is a powerful position in which to place yourself.

Most people don’t want to be rude or hurtful, they’re mainly dealing with their own fears and insecurities. Always keep that in mind, and be an example of how a positive, accepting attitude can create a more positive world.

— Ralph Marston

February 23

Choose to enjoy

When you enjoy something, you naturally come up with ways to make it even better. Enjoy where you are, and suddenly where you are has more value.

Enjoy the moment you’re experiencing. And suddenly your enjoyment opens your eyes to new, positive possibilities.

Enjoy whatever you’re doing, whether it has a reputation for being enjoyable or not. When you do, your effort becomes a pathway to great achievement.

Enjoyment, or lack of it, is not a function of your outer circumstances. Enjoyment is a perspective, an attitude, an experience you choose, whatever the circumstance may be.

Enjoyment empowers your efforts with persistence, enthusiasm, effectiveness. Enjoyment is a magnet that attracts the support of others to whatever you’re doing.

Enjoyment is a choice you make, a choice that delivers major positive benefits. Choose to enjoy, and you’re choosing to live, to think, to act, to work at your highest level.

— Ralph Marston

February 24

Good things in life

You are much more valuable for what you are than for what you have, or consume. As you let go of superficial desires, you free yourself to be yourself.

Lusting for momentary pleasure will interrupt and delay your progress toward deeper fulfillment. Learn to step beyond those cravings that always lead to disappointment and regret.

You receive from life what you are willing to invest in it. The problem with instant gratification is that it disappears in the next instant.

Just because you’re able to get your hands on some particular shiny object, doesn’t mean it’s your best choice. Seek to choose based on purpose more than impulse.

It’s great to possess good, beautiful, useful things. Yet life becomes increasingly empty when you cling to the expectation they will fulfill you.

Let your outer possessions and experiences be expressions of your inner beauty, not the other way around. When you’re not enslaved by the good things in life, you can truly enjoy them, and everything else.

— Ralph Marston

February 25

Your day to fill with richness

You are alive and living, so today, act like it. Put your imagination to use, and then put effort and commitment into creating the good things you imagine.

When conditions change, adapt. When you encounter beauty, enjoy it, without guilt, without judgment, without doubt or worry.

Instead of wondering what certain experiences would be like, find out. Instead of wishing for things to be better, get busy making a positive difference.

Say what you think and do what you say. Follow the dreams that live in the heart of who you are.

Welcome the challenges and feel yourself growing strong as you work through them. Admit what you don’t know and make use of what you do know to learn more.

This is your day to fill with the richness of life. See what a great opportunity you have, and live it with all you can.

-Ralph S. Marston

February 26

True success

Let go of the need to chase mere tokens of success. Allow yourself to create your own unique, authentic success.

Detach the idea of success from your ego. Connect it instead to your soul.

Get away from needs and worries and the toxic tension they produce. Immerse your awareness in the abundance around you, in the possibilities, in your love of making a difference.

Gently embrace each challenge, grateful for the opportunity to transform it into value. Recognize in each person you encounter, in every situation, the chance to bring new fulfillment into the world.

What can you do with this day, that you’ll remember and be thankful for ten years from now? In pondering such things, you will discover yourself pointed toward true success.

Seek ever to serve, to expand, to celebrate and share what nourishes you at the deepest level. Live the reality of true success.

— Ralph Marston

February 27

Energy of frustration

When you’re feeling frustration, you’re feeling a powerful energy. The problem is, that energy is pointed in a negative direction.

You can change that. You can direct the energy of frustration toward a positive purpose.

Frustration means you care, and that’s a good thing. In frustration is the strong desire to take action.

So go ahead, embrace the frustration, gather its energy, feel how much you care. Then, in that powerful, motivated state, think of one immediate step you can take in a positive direction.

Frustration wears you down if you resent it and fight it. Decide instead to experience it and transform it.

Frustration has great power, yet it doesn’t have to push against you. Harness the energy of frustration, and put it positively to work for you.

— Ralph Marston

February 28

Imagine the wonder

Imagine the weight of the world has been lifted clean away from you. There’s no pain, fear, worry, or anxiety.

There’s just you, and this moment, and the wonder of existence that surrounds you. Feel how easily you are amazed by all that is.

Your eyes gaze in wonder and awe at what just a moment ago seemed so ordinary, so plain. You realize how magical it is to be, here, now, alive, aware.

Weariness and cynicism seem at first like a distant memory, then disappear altogether in the brilliance of now. Beauty, possibilities, and new wonders stretch out in every direction.

This unique, magical now has been in the making since the instant that time began. Allow its energy to fill your spirit, gently encouraging you forward with inspired purpose.

Imagine the wonder that is, the wonder that can be. Now, live what you imagine.

— Ralph Marston