Daily Motivator - March

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March 16

Other direction

What can you do when someone violates your trust? Use it as an incentive to lift your own standards even higher than they already are.

How do you react when life disappoints you? Make up for the disappointment by raising your expectations and boosting your enthusiasm for moving forward.

When your world turns negative, the last thing you want to do is add to that negativity. Instead, go firmly in the other direction.

If you find yourself shocked by how bad the situation is, absorb the energy of that shock. Let that energy fuel your inspiration and your action.

Get yourself in the habit of beneficial transformation. When you encounter something bad, respond by doing something good.

You always have a choice, and this is one of the best you’ll ever make. Choose to always let the worst bring out your best.

— Ralph Marston

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March 17

Peak performance

You have a lot of difficult things to deal with. That’s no excuse to do less than your best.

In fact, it’s a reason to up your game. It’s an opportunity to boost your effectiveness, your knowledge, your energy level.

You could easily and justifiably gain the sympathy of others, and of yourself. But as you already know through long years of experience, that won’t do you any good.

What will help immensely is to operate at peak performance regardless of the situation. Things are tough, life is unfair, and yet you can be better than you’ve ever been.

The energy required to articulate your excuses could be better used to tackle your challenges. Plus, in addition to making real progress, you’ll feel a whole lot better about yourself.

Grab the difficulties, pull inspiration and determination out of them. Move forward, more purposeful and effective than ever before.

— Ralph Marston

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March 18

Use your strength

You are strong. Use that strength.

You don’t have to be imprisoned by idleness. You don’t have to be immobilized by excuses.

You’re strong enough to get past the harmful temptations. You’re strong enough to get up, get going, and get good work done.

You have the strength to press forward in the face of difficulty and discouragement. You have the strength to persist in your efforts for as long as necessary.

Very soon, you will be very thankful for making use of your strength today, now when you have the chance. And you’ll be even stronger for having done so.

Rather than allowing your strength to sit idle and wither, make use of it. Put your strength to good purpose, and push your world in a positive direction.

— Ralph Marston

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March 19

Thankful to live

Teach yourself to love the effort. Train yourself to delight in the challenge.

Asking will get you a few things. Action will get you much more.

Discipline yourself to keep on going when the past results have let you down. Remind yourself how much better life is when you’re fully engaged in being of use.

Caution yourself against cutting too many corners. Enjoy yourself as you work to do a good job with whatever must be done.

Seek the satisfaction of knowing you’re making a difference. Experience the sense of fulfillment that grows with every step you take along the way.

Live each day as an opportunity to give the best you have. And live the kind of life you can truly be thankful to live.

— Ralph Marston

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March 20

Mere intentions

It’s fine to have good intentions. But good intentions are just a very tiny start.

It’s useful to point out the problems. Yet for those problems to be solved, you’ll have to make many difficult choices and do a lot of grinding, tedious work.

Anyone can give a rousing speech about what must be done. Those people who actually move life forward are the ones who make the sacrifices, who jump in and get their hands dirty actually doing it.

Life is overflowing with great possibilities, and yet every good thing comes with a very real price. Every person who promises something for nothing is just leading you down a path to despair.

Go ahead and dream your biggest, most magnificent dreams. Then take full ownership and responsibility for them, and commit yourself to doing all the hard work necessary to bring them into being.

You deserve much, much more than mere intentions. You deserve the great, irreplaceable joy of working to make them happen.

— Ralph Marston

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March 21

Better and better

Each new day is an opportunity to up your game. Each new situation puts you in position to be more thorough and effective at whatever you’re doing.

If you’re not constantly making improvements, you’ll quickly fall behind. It is not a curse, not a burden, but rather a chance for you to become a better and better version of yourself.

Incremental improvement makes the passing of time into your friend. And there’s always a way to make some kind of incremental improvement.

Walk a little more briskly, listen a little more attentively. Be a little more patient and forgiving, focus a little more intently, care a little more deeply than before.

In every area of your life are constant opportunities for improvement. Little by little, without being overwhelmed, you can gently and enthusiastically make those improvements.

Don’t leave yourself struggling to catch up. Instead, make the choice in every moment to get a little bit further ahead.

— Ralph Marston

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March 22

Diversity of opinion

You can learn much more from someone who disagrees with you than you can from someone with whom you agree. Give yourself the courage and intelligence to do so.

Viewpoints different from your own will not harm you. They mostly have great potential to enlighten you.

Why wouldn’t you want to know in detail how other people feel, what others are thinking? There’s no good reason to wall yourself off from the great diversity of opinion that exists in the world.

Your own opinions become more refined, more useful, more aligned to reality when they are challenged. There is much power in giving consideration to things you’ve never before considered.

No two people have exactly the same perspective. That dynamic gives incalculable richness to the experience of life.

Rather than making assumptions about those you disagree with, seek to make connections. Rather than battling over divisiveness, reap great benefits from the diversity of opinion available to you.

— Ralph Marston

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March 23

Truth solves problems

Truth solves problems. When you can be completely honest about the problem, you’re in position to fix it.

Too often it is easier to deny the problem than to do something about it. But that allows the problem to become more costly, more solidly entrenched, and much more difficult to solve.

In such cases, the truth is quite painful. Yet the more painful the truth, the more powerful it is, and the more necessary it is for you to acknowledge.

To solve a difficult problem, face that problem with an unyielding commitment to the truth. Summon the courage and the deep compassion to be truthful, with yourself, with everyone else.

Truth hurts at first. Then it has great power to heal, to make things right, to transform drama and dysfunction into effectiveness and cooperation.

Shine the brilliant light of truth on the problem. You’ll enable everyone to see clearly what must be done, and to do it.

— Ralph Marston

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March 24

Continue forward

The original path you envisioned may have been blocked. Yet the goal still beckons, and it’s still accessible, because somewhere, somehow, there’s a more realistic, more effective way.

You haven’t been knocked off track. You’ve been challenged to find that better way.

Stay committed to where you intend to go, while being open to all the many ways of getting there. Be flexible enough to keep moving forward no matter what.

If you’re prevented from taking a big step right now, take a small step. If your original strategy doesn’t work, be thankful you don’t have to spend any more effort on it, and fashion a new strategy.

All the while, stay focused on the goal, on the destination. Identify yourself, your efforts, your energy, with that goal, rather than with any specific path.

The obstacle in your path does not have to block your progress. Decide instead to make it an opportunity, to learn, to improve, to adjust, and continue forward, more effective than ever.

— Ralph Marston

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March 25

Where your possibilities lead

Don’t let yourself be limited to just what you already know you can do. Let yourself be inspired, motivated, challenged to do all the great things you’re able to imagine yourself doing.

If there’s something new you must learn, learn it. If there’s some resource you must have, find it and figure out how to get access to it.

Be an active participant in your own growth, your own learning, your own progress. Every yearning you feel is an opportunity to make yourself into the person who can fulfill that yearning.

It’s easy to dismiss your ambitions, your dreams, to make excuses for why you’re not following them. Yet you have those dreams for a reason, and the reason is to push you out of your comfort zone and into life’s best possibilities.

No matter how much you’ve done, you’re capable of much more. Let go of your doubts and hesitations, and remind yourself that you’re able to do whatever must be done.

Experience how good it feels to be enthusiastic about what you can do. Get to work and discover the great places where your possibilities lead.

— Ralph Marston

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March 26

Invest in healing

Casting yourself as a victim is a waste of your time and energy. Whether a minor inconvenience appears or a major difficulty arises, you have a much more powerful option.

Even when you truly are a victim, seeing yourself as such, treating yourself as such, will not improve your situation. What will improve the situation is to take full responsibility for doing something about it.

Make it your job to actually make things better. The smallest positive action is infinitely more effective than any amount of self-pity.

Acknowledge the tragedy, the unfairness, the carelessness, the injustice, but don’t make it worse by wallowing in it. No matter who or what is to blame for what happened, you can choose to be responsible for moving positively forward from it.

You cannot always avoid being hurt. But you never have to continue investing yourself in that hurt.

Decide instead to invest yourself in healing, in progress, in love and care and meaningful living. When life turns bad, for you or anyone else, let your response always be to make it better.

— Ralph Marston

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March 27

Give yourself a little joy

Tend to the important things, the serious matters, the consequential tasks. But don’t neglect yourself in the process.

In order to be a positive influence, you have to come from a positive place. Give yourself the time, the care, the space to maintain that positive presence.

It’s tempting to put off the simple enjoyment of life until all the problems are solved. But though you can make much progress, the problems will never all be solved.

Give quality time and attention to your own life, not later, but now. Make yourself able to be there for others by being good to yourself.

Though the demands are high and your resources are limited, there are plenty of ways to take good care of yourself. Refuse to use anything as an excuse for neglecting nutrition, exercise, family, friends, and enjoyable moments.

Remember to give yourself a little joy today, and every day. It will help renew your supply of energy to continue making a positive difference in life.

— Ralph Marston

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March 28

Unnecessary stress

Want to make something more stressful than it already is? Wait until the last minute to do it.

Want to reduce your stress and increase your effectiveness? Do the job long before it must be done.

Things are often not as hard as you imagine them to be, once you finally get to work. But you can make them much more difficult by procrastination.

When an unpleasant task awaits you, the stress associated with it builds over time. The longer you put it off, the more you add to that stress.

What will quickly dissipate the stress is to take control of the situation. Take control by taking action and getting the work finished.

Get out ahead of your obligations, working to put each one behind you as soon as you can. And save yourself from a whole lot of unnecessary stress.

— Ralph Marston

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March 29

The value of hope

Hope does not come with a guarantee. It comes with something much more powerful and enriching to life, which is challenge.

Hope is yours to choose, at any time, in any situation. Yet the value of hope is not in acquiring it, but in rising to its challenge.

Set hope before yourself where it can constantly pull you forward. Let the power of its positive, compelling challenge surge through every part of your being.

Speak with hope, act with hope, live with hope, but don’t expect hope to do the work. That’s your job, as indeed it must be.

For the real value of hope is not in what it gives you, but in what it compels you to give. Hope is a challenge you cannot turn away from, a challenge to be your best.

Dare to look forward with great hope. Then step up and work through the rewarding challenge that hope so graciously provides.

— Ralph Marston

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March 30

Beyond you

Let go of the empty thoughts that revolve only around yourself. Let in a sense of pure wonder and awe for the whole of existence.

Don’t let your small ego deprive you of connection to the massive splendor in which you’re immersed. Choose the power of a perspective that encompasses all that is, and all that ever has been.

There is so very much substance, energy, knowledge, beauty, goodness, and wisdom in the vast realm that exists beyond your own limited concerns. Keep yourself open to all that abundance, to all its possibilities.

Look up at the night sky, and realize that some of the light just now reaching your eyes has traveled for thousands of years to get to you. Feel the vastness that is impossible to fully grasp.

Give yourself a perspective that enables you to quickly transcend all the petty, meaningless noise. Inspire yourself with a sense of wonder and awe that directs your energy toward those things that matter most.

By realizing how small you are compared to all that is, you can understand what a tremendous opportunity it is to be alive in every moment. Over and over again, you can create real goodness and value from that opportunity.

— Ralph Marston