Daily Motivator - March

[bluidkiti]

March 1

Big impact

Sure, you want to find ways to make a big difference. But in your zeal to do so, don’t overlook all the opportunities to make a small difference.

Incremental improvements are not dramatic or glamorous. Most people probably won’t even notice them at all.

Yet that doesn’t mean those small, incremental improvements are unimportant. Indeed, they are the way that almost all progress is made.

The most highly educated people do not gain all their knowledge in a single, spectacular event. That knowledge is built incrementally, one page of one book at a time, one lecture at a time, one experience at a time.

Successful enterprises do not spring into being fully formed. They are built, hour after hour, week after week, with plain old ordinary effort.

Are you looking to make a big difference, to have a big impact on life? Then seize every chance to make a small difference, for those differences are what will add up to the big impact you seek.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 2

Go with what unfolds

You cannot arrange a perfect experience in advance. What you can do is embrace whatever experience comes, and make the very best of it.

Take reasonable precautions, make detailed plans if you wish. But don’t avoid life’s genuine experiences just because you’re unable to perfect them in advance.

Much of the value of any experience is contained in what you didn’t expect. If you’re reluctant to be surprised, afraid to be challenged, you’ll miss out on that value.

Sure, you have your preferences and expectations. But don’t let your obsession with them limit the quality of your experience.

Go with what unfolds. Invest yourself in the unique beauty of each moment as it comes.

Treasure the unplanned, the unexpected, those surprises that paint the world in a shade you’ve never seen before. They are prominent among the experiences that add real richness to your life.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 3

You will solve this

You will solve this. You will get through this.

Take a breath, invite serenity into your being. Think clearly, act intentionally.

The moment feels lost, out of control. Yet the moment will pass and you will remain, willing, able, empowered, inspired to move forward.

You will zero in on what to do and you will carry that out. You always have and you always will.

You will find balance and the ability to maintain it. You will move closer to truth and your life will find new benefit in its positive and uplifting power.

You can deal with this, and do so with success. And once you do you’ll find yourself that much closer to the best of who you can be.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 4

Competence

Competence is what keeps you alive. Across all species, across all environments, across all time, life is defined and made possible by achievement, ability, competence.

If you have food on your plate it is because of competence. If you are sheltered from stormy weather you have competence to thank.

Love, compassion, and kindness are essential to a good and meaningful life, yet they are not sufficient. If you are to give your love, if you are to offer your care, you must be alive to do so, and that is possible only with competence.

Life has boundless possibilities but it also has very specific requirements. You can live extremely well within life’s harsh parameters, but only when lots of competent people are well rewarded for getting good things done.

Even the most highly competent people and institutions have their flaws. Yet as serious as those flaws may be, their existence is no reason to denigrate or discard competence itself.

Seek competence, celebrate competence, value competence, reward the competence of others. It makes possible your life, all that you love, and all the good things you can do.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 5

Lift up the lives around you

If you always dominate the conversation, you’ll be invited into fewer and fewer conversations. If you always cheat at the game, very soon no one will want to play with you.

It is in your own interest to restrain your own interest. Because your own well being is interwoven with the well being of others.

Your most rewarding goal is not to always win at any cost. Your most rewarding goal is to develop and maintain a world where as many people as possible can win.

That doesn’t mean denying or opposing your own self interest. It means understanding your self interest from a broad perspective.

Success is not an isolated phenomenon. Though success is built through individual effort, the greatest successes are those that encompass and benefit the most individuals.

Seek always to succeed in ways that inspire and enable many others to succeed. Lift up the lives around you, for that is the most dependable and fulfilling way to lift your own life as well.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 6

Better with every effort

In order to be smart you must ask stupid questions. In order to gain new skills and wisdom you must be willing to look like a fool.

No one rides a bicycle perfectly on the first attempt. The only way to become graceful at it is to start as an awkward beginner.

Is there something you’re reluctant to attempt because you’ll look bad at first? Well, you’ll look even worse if you’re always afraid to do it.

To get good at it you have to go through being bad at it. The way to do anything well is to give yourself permission to do it poorly for a while.

From the moment you were born you’ve been improving your skills and abilities. Give that positive trend new avenues where it can continue.

Admit you don’t know, accept that you can’t do it, and then challenge yourself to learn. Encourage and enable yourself to get better and better with every effort.

— Ralph Marston

[willbe275]

Nothing beats a try but a failure.

[bluidkiti]

March 7

Image of yourself

How do you imagine yourself to be? Imagination alone won’t make it happen, yet it does guide your expectations and actions.

See yourself as struggling, and you’ll continue to struggle. See yourself as achieving, and you’ll continue to achieve.

Decide to have respect for yourself, and you’ll find yourself doing what is respectable. Choose to feel confident, and your efforts all benefit from that confidence.

Talk positively to yourself, and discover how encouraging and empowering it can be. Step forward with faith in your abilities, and you’ll find yourself working to earn that faith.

Your image of yourself plays a major role in your goals, your plans, your levels of determination and success. Make that image the best you can imagine.

Think highly of yourself. With how you live, with how you act, continually give yourself plenty of good reasons to think that way.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 8

Pathway to improvement

You deserve better than what you’ve been giving yourself. You deserve to be more purposeful, more disciplined, more filled with joy and authentic richness.

Every minute of every day is a new opportunity to fully engage with the one-of-a-kind miracle that is your life. Take hold of those opportunities and live them for all they’re worth, for all you’re worth.

Feel each disappointment as it arises, and let it illuminate a pathway to improvement. Experience the satisfactions that come, allowing them to further enlighten and instruct you.

You deserve, and life itself deserves, the best you can be. Seek to improve upon last year, last week, five minutes ago.

Avoid wasting your energy on envy for what others have or resentment about what anyone else is doing. Concentrate on being more skillful, focused, and effective in advancing all you love and treasure.

In everything that happens is a pathway to improvement. See that path, keep yourself on it, and commit yourself to going where it leads.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 9

Accept this moment

Accept the moment that is, as it is. Settle into it, easing away from dissatisfaction with the past, away from concern about the future.

Accept the situation that is, as it is. Once you do, you give yourself the power to transcend it.

Acceptance is about right now, and doesn’t mean you’re forever fine with the way things are. It means you’re clear, realistic, able to focus, able to act in beneficial ways.

Let go of your racing thoughts about what could have been, what might or might not happen. Stop second guessing yourself and center your thoughts and actions around a positive intention.

What’s done is done, and now is the time to make good use of it. Whatever challenges may loom ahead, the best way to meet them is with clarity and meaningful purpose.

Keep all your energy pointed toward what you can do right now to support those things that truly matter. Accept this moment fully, and empower yourself to create maximum value with it.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 10

All that will happen

Think for a while about the days to come and remind yourself of this. You will have the chance to do your best, and you will be able to do well.

Life’s challenges will continue to test your strength. As a result your strength will grow and your skills will improve.

You cannot know all that will happen tomorrow, yet you can know this. Everything you experience has the potential to add richness to your life.

You’ll have opportunities to offer kindness, to practice patience, focus, and discipline. There will always be new mysteries to intrigue you, lessons to teach you, endeavors to enrich you.

There was a time when you never even knew about or cared about much of what you now value. Imagine how much more you will come to treasure and love as life continues to unfold.

In whatever may come there is goodness and value to be found. Step forward with confidence and create your own unique richness in each new moment that arrives.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 11

Profound responsibility

For your entire life you’ve been an observer. Again and again you have made note of which behaviors lead to desirable outcomes and which ones do not.

You’ve observed actions and their consequences in your own life and in the experiences of many others. You have watched, read, listened to, and passed along stories of success and failure from throughout history.

As skillful as you are at observing, you are much, much more. Because every day you put into practice the wisdom you’ve amassed from all the experiences you’ve ever known about.

Amazingly enough, every day you are in a position to learn from and improve upon everything that has ever happened. Not only is that an opportunity of unimaginable proportion, it is a serious, profound responsibility.

There’s a good chance your next action will result in success, if you act in accordance with all you know. You are indebted for that good fortune to everyone who has ever lived, and obligated to uphold their legacy.

Right now, doing exactly what you’re doing, you embody all of life’s priceless value, wisdom, and potential. Rise to the task of performing that role in the most beautiful and beneficial ways imaginable.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 12

Truth and falsehood

What is the difference between truth and falsehood? Truth can stand up to repeated, robust scrutiny, and falsehood cannot.

Truth is not a function of who it comes from. That is trust.

Certainly there are people you trust to speak the truth and people who can be depended on to lie. Yet truth itself is independent of how it gets to you.

Those who deal in truth are eager to be questioned and challenged about it. Those who deal in lies cannot tolerate any dissenting opinions.

At the most fundamental level, you depend on truth, from yourself, from others, to survive. Whenever you venture away from what is true, what is real, reality always wins.

Seek out and live by those truths, within you, outside you, that can stand up to challenge. With truth, every good thing is possible.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 13

Bring your courage forth

You must give up some degree of certainty in order to act. You must give up being where you are in order to move forward.

Every bit of progress you’ve made has been an expression of courage. Today you can extend that progress with more courage.

In places you least want to go, doing what you least want to do, you gain your most valuable rewards. You have the courage to do great things, if you will let yourself use it.

You have good reasons to fear the unknown. Yet you also possess the skills to perceive and adapt to all kinds of situations you cannot yet imagine.

Don’t be reckless, but do be courageous. You owe it to yourself, and to all of life, to transform potential into richness.

Today you’ll encounter opportunities to bring your courage forth. Notice those opportunities and choose to act on them.

— Ralph Marston

[bluidkiti]

March 14

Positive force

You cannot always choose everything about your circumstances. Yet you can choose your state of mind no matter what the circumstances may be.

Can you focus your awareness on something positive, right now? Can you think of all the good things, and people, and experiences, and values, that you are thankful for?

You can’t control all the things that will happen to you today. Yet you can absolutely control the person you will be today.

Every factor on the outside, good or bad, can fill you with fresh determination to live with joy in the inside. Feel that determination, and let it push you positively forward.

The world and all its problems can bring you down if you let it. But you always have another choice.

Choose to be a positive force, for yourself, for those around you, for this time and place, for the world. It’s a choice you always have the good fortune to make, and one that will lift all of life higher.

— Ralph Marston