“People remain the same because of excuses. Call it fear, call it resistance, call it reluctance, call it anything you want to call it but do you know what an excuse really is?

It is a thought!

An excuse is a thought that prevents you and ‘excuses you’ from being accountable and responsible for making positive changes. It is a thought utilized to defend your present circumstances, conditions and mindset. It is a way of giving yourself permission to not do anything at all.

When you have an excuse you are simply using your thoughts to make a case for why you won’t engage in making anything different.

You are making a case for ‘why not’, why you won’t. Sure, some people say they can’t but that is the same as saying they won’t because  the end result is the same.

You could be using your thoughts positively, constructively and powerfully. You could be creating the life you want.

The fact is you are already using them powerfully to prevent you. Yes, you may be citing reasons or pointing to others and events which you deem as  the ‘real’ cause for why you are ‘NOT’,  who and what you want to be, but the bottom line is that YOU, and you alone, are using your mind to limit you and limit your possibilities.

Part 4 How To Change.

What I discovered is this:

I believe that things are easier for me when my attitude is optimum and I feel my very best. I know that when I think positive thoughts and focus on what I can do I feel better. I know  that when I feel better I think better and am able to do more, more easily.

Our thoughts and feelings go hand in hand so I want the best of both. When I am thinking great thoughts and having great feelings  things not only seem much better but I am much better equipped to ‘tend to the garden’. I function better, it is that simple. I am better.

I understand that WHATEVER I am thinking I am endorsing. If my thoughts are less than glorious and are focused on not having enough, not being enough, or not doing enough the result is I feel less than glorious and not much like doing anything.

I understand that what I currently have in life is due to my thinking and my efforts. If I do not like what is going on currently,  then for me to have a better future, I must change or fix something now, in the present. I know I am not going to be able to wish things different, I am going to actually have to make things different.

My thoughts determine how much I am willing to attempt to do this.

In order  to make things different and better in my life  it is important for me to think and feel and do my very best.  I need to be at my optimum. I can’t be half way committed.

It is said, ‘you don’t get uphill thinking down hill thoughts’, and for myself, I have found that to be quite accurate.

The way I get there is to fill my mind each day with positive material. I mentioned reading each day to stimulate and help you focus on the positive and what you can do. I suggested doing no less than at least a page a day, more if you are able. You can listen to positive messages, podcasts, streaming, cds, it is all available online, much of it for free. There is no shortage of positive audio and video available.

See, if you become what you think about most of the time, the key is to be thinking well most of the time. We eat to be healthy we need to ingest the positive, the strong and positive each day and throughout the day. We need be surrounded by it and bathed in it. This helps immensely. Often, when I find myself off track is when I have spent time getting the proper mental nutrition. I cannot emphasize this enough.

It is not a matter of looking at an inspirational poster or platitude once or twice it is making the positive messages the preponderance of what you ingest and pay attention to. It is filling yourself up so positively there is no room for the negative to grab hold and keeping yourself there. It is maintaining this as a habit. Then you find that you get back more and more positive thoughts and feelings and even situations because  your overall being and life is positive.

I have a better life because I make it a point to think better thoughts and to feel better and to work smarter and wiser. How I feel better is determined by what I put my attention on. I almost never feel better by criticizing myself, loathing myself or my circumstances or thinking life sucks. I feel better by choosing to think better thoughts. When I pay attention to those things that make me feel better I FEEL BETTER. So it is important to have a great daily diet of positive inspiration.

I think about what I can do and what is possible instead of what I don’t think I could do yet. I think about who I am and what I have right now that I appreciate, that I count as a blessing and that makes me feel good. I look around at this glorious planet to find those things that inspire me that I can aspire to and that helps me feel better. I look at the beauty of nature, people, animals and find myself smiling and in awe.  I look to what is decent and good and pure to feel better.

I seek to find whatever is positive and inspiring because that changes how I feel for the best . I place my focus on those thoughts and things. Whenever I notice that focus waning from the optimal I return it to something positive. I keep doing this each day. This is how I live.

I’ll use the analogy of a tightrope, not because you could plummet downward because of a mis-step, although that is not an un-useful analogy to consider. Negative thinking tends to cause people to spiral down. Obviously, if one leans too much to one side they will fall off the tightrope.

I use the analogy because of the fine balance that is required to successfully walk it. When one shifts too much over to one side an adjustment  needs to be made to return to the balance point on center. The walker never walks perfectly straight but is constantly making  adjustments to stay balanced.

By constantly adjusting balance one moves forward walking on the tightrope. This process never ends. There is not a moment when balance (in this example) is not necessary.  It is always about maintaining balance.

The thought of walking a tightrope might scare some. When one learns to walk a tightrope they begin with a rope on the floor or only inches from the floor, not 40 feet in the air. It is difficult or seemingly impossible at first to walk without falling off. It takes relaxed effort to continue.

The novice walker gets better  with practice. It becomes a skill and eventually the walker maintains balance while being able to do other things. They might eat, read a book, juggle, lie down on the rope, jump or anything else because they have trained themselves how to. What they learned in the beginning still applies to the new abilities they add in.

The walker developed the habit of finding and maintaining the balance point to successfully walk the tightrope. Now, too, if they wish they can walk higher and higher in the air. The same skill, maintaining  balance applies to 40 feet as it does at 4 inches.

The point is, when they began it seemed impossible. Sometime later, they do it with ease. In order to get good at it they had to engage in it. Reading about it wouldn’t make them a tightrope walker. Thinking they could never be one would not make them one either. They had to try it and stay with it. They had to change some things in order to make it possible.

If you want you life to change you have to change some of the things in your life.

The balance point, the center, for me, is feeling and thinking in the most optimum way through most of each day.

It is the place of positivity that I want to be in. It is where my strength and encouragement comes from. When a less than glorious feeling arises I recognize it, I accept that it is there and then I gently return my focus to what I want instead.

I am learning how to allow whatever occurs and to not resist it. Oh yes, I am a novice. I am learning to not fight these moments when they occur because to fight it would be to give energy to it. I prefer not to waste my energy with what I do not want. I would rather put it into what I want and who I want to be.

I find positive thinking a place of power from where I can be more resourceful, more resilient or flexible. I think better, I feel better, I act better, I can do more and life is much more enjoyable when I am positive.

We will continue this next time. I hope you are enjoying and benefiting from what I am sharing. Life can be so much more incredible than I ever thought it could be. It isn’t only about having more, although that is possible, rather it is about making more of what you already have. I do not mean that you settle for less either.

I decided I might only have one shot at this life. It wasn’t always what I wanted or would have hoped for. I lived many years taking whatever came my way as if that was how it was supposed to be. Once I decided I could have a different life, a better life, I start doing those things that helped make it happen. It is still a work in progress.

I discover two things among many I would like to share and leave you with today. Two quotes attributed to J. P. Morgan. I found this to be so true, I invite you to consider these:

‘When you expect things to happen – strangely enough – they do happen.’ J.P. Morgan

As I point out in the above this is accurate whether you expect good things or bad things to happen. I know many of my worst fears came true and then I learned I could make my biggest hopes and dreams come true similarly.

‘Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther.’ J.P. Morgan

I think of it this way. You never know what you can accomplish until you actually begin working at it. So go as far as you can in your thinking,  do as much as you are able, never let a thought stop you, go beyond where you are, because when you do you will discover that you can think and see and do more than you first thought. You can surprise yourself.

So surprise yourself today. After all, after today, it will not be here any longer, it will be a memory. Use the days you have to make them what you want them to be.” Rex Sikes

See you next time. Have a great day!

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