Pick a Bad Habit You Want to Change or Choose a Good Habit You Want to Start
Forgive
Life is a series of moments.
Moments make seconds. Seconds make minutes. Minutes make hours. Hours make days. Days make weeks. Weeks make months. Months make years. Years make a lifetime of living.
And in reality, that is how we live – moment to moment.
Every emotion we experience happens in the present. Even if we are giggling about a memory or fretting about the future, we don’t experience either outside of right when we are thinking in the present moment. We are living right now with our feelings – good or bad, happy or sad. And we take them with us from one moment to the next.
But it all starts with the moment we are living right now – this second.
Not convinced? Stop breathing and see if the memory of breathing yesterday comforts you. No one suffocating cares about how they might breathe tomorrow. All they want is to breathe now – at the moment they are experiencing.
Thankfully most of us don’t have to suffocate to get focused on the moment.
The question is, now that you know how important this moment is as a building block of your life, how are you living it? Are you dragging anger and resentment from this one to the next? Are you unwilling to forgive even the simplest slight or harshest transgression at this moment?
Remember moments make seconds that turn quickly into a lifetime of living. Use this moment wisely. Forgive someone. Even if you can only manage to forgive for a second, do it. Keep at it and you will find you have built a lifetime of living in forgiveness. And that’s a good thing.
Be Hopeful
Become a prisoner of hope.
Don’t weigh the odds and then make a decision to be optimistic. Don’t try to calculate all the variables. Don’t try to envision every possible outcome.
The universe is too big. The variables are too fluid. There’s no way to wrap the mind around all the possible outcomes in an infinite universe.
Pride comes before the fall. Recognize pride’s arrogance in choosing to be optimistic based on running the numbers. Avoid the fall.
Avoid the fall by not becoming a prisoner of a formula concocted to navigate life. Weighing the odds as a path to optimism fails. Pessimism is always there, lurking in the background. Whatever positive outcome may be yielded from running the numbers draws its inverse as well. Fear stalks success from the shadows of doubt.
Cast aside the shadows. Stand firm in the light inside the cheerful walls of hope. With hope, there are no calculations, no variables to weigh and no negatives to compare.
Hope defies the odds. Faith sees through circumstances. Together, they achieve the impossible and take us where logic will fail us.
Ironically, when we are faced with the darkest times, we often become a prisoner of hope and chain ourselves to faith by default. They are our last resorts when everything else fails us. We surrender and in doing so, achieve what we thought was impossible.
Stop doing the math. Erase the formula. Become a prisoner of hope now, in this moment.
Use this affirmation, “I believe in good. I see the good. I experience good. I know all good is happening for me now.”
Communicate Effectively
Have you ever come across a situation where someone is on the losing end just because of his/her lack of effective communication? Well, I have plenty of experiences to elaborate on this phenomenon. Have any of following instances happened with you?
You thought your boss would love your idea, but she did not give it serious consideration because you were not able to make her understand exactly what you meant. You thought your spouse wanted you to praise him/her and indeed you wanted to, but you failed to convey the praise. You did not get a job, although you were the most eligible candidate, because you could not successfully convince the hiring manager to understand your qualifications.
Every once in a while, I used to find myself in one of these types of situations. I then decided to strategize and determine if I could improve my position in these situations by enhancing my communication skills, and trust me, I thank God for that day when He made me move in this direction. We can all continuously improve our communication techniques. Even though you think you are perfect at communicating, you will soon realize that much room for improvement exists once you start working on it. Several rules to the game of communication are key components that you need to keep in mind if you want the receiver of your communications to not just hear you, but listen to you:
- The receiver is the king of the game, regardless of who you are and who the receiver is, hopefully the receiver is also a listener, because any kind of communication is effective only if it is two-way i.e., the person with whom you want to communicate is actually listening. So, forget that you are the boss, forget that you are the elder, forget everything and mold yourself to suit the receiver of the communication.
- Do not be too specific or too detailed while communicating (except for SMS, which should be short enough).
- Keep it simple. Do not complicate your language. Complicated language will not do any good except for impressing or tiring the listener and making them think that he/she need not listen as he/she will not understand it anyway. It’s okay to use jargon sometimes, but do not make it a habit or overuse such terms, at least not in very important communications.
- Clarity of thoughts is an extremely important tool for effective communication as you can only convey something that you understand yourself. Understanding something yourself does not ensure that you will communicate it well, however, so be careful to break it down into manageable nuggets of information.
- Be confident of your position. First, you need to believe something completely, to make others believe it.
- Watch your wording. Sometimes, you may tend to use words that you do not really want to use, and in fact you do not even know how they will impact the listener. Be careful and keep watch over your own vocabulary, and avoid talking without thinking at all. Use a filter before speaking. Some filters may be: Is this true? Is this relevant? Is this hurtful? Is this biased? Do I want someone to repeat this and quote me? Try to be politically correct at least in public places, if not with family.
I hope you seriously consider adopting these techniques. Enjoy your day.
Calm Your Mind
Calm your mind at this moment. It’s really not that big of a challenge.
Nothing is that challenging because nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. Not one physical item. Your car, house, the street on which you live, and the city in which you live can fall away without a moment’s notice.
Nothing is permanent. Every tree, every bird, every rock, every drop of water evaporates into the nothingness from whence it came. Even your body will return to its origins and break down into the very molecules and atoms that make the universe.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust are not an end, but another step on a journey everything and everyone will take.
That’s the challenge. We temporarily mitigate the challenge by preserving museum artifacts and by keeping bodies functioning longer with medical advances. We write our thoughts on paper, in books, on computer chips, and in the vast cloud of technology. Eventually, they will all go the way of dust.
The only big challenge about anything is the importance we give it in our own minds. The universe doesn’t care. Even stars eventually grow cold and wink out of existence. What chance does your favorite chair have against that? No chance at all.
This is not to say we shouldn’t try. We should try because life is worth living.
It’s just that when we can accept the impermanence of everything in the universe, we gain perspective.
Perspective saves us from the disaster of thinking and acting as if what we’re doing, or wanting or holding onto are the most important things in the universe. Stars eventually grow cold and wink out of existence. What chance does your coveted item, your brilliant scheme, your careful planning have against that? No chance at all.
Keep everything in perspective. Mt. Everest is but a speck from space. A diamond is still a rock. One man’s treasure is another man’s trash. There’s always a bigger fish to catch.
Calm your mind at this moment. It’s not that big of a challenge.
Free yourself from fear with perspective. Appreciate and give thanks for the people and things you have now – today.
Take deep, relaxing breaths with this affirmation, “I live in the moment with everything and everyone. I accept all my good and give thanks for what is now.”
Reduce Sugar Intake
You are getting so close; congratulations! Take a moment and celebrate your success today! You have come extremely far and are right on the cusp of completing this program and jump-starting your new and improved life. Let’s finish strong!
Today, we are going to replace one sugary drink with a tall, cool glass of water. Our bodies are made up primarily of water and we need to continuously pump more and more in to replace what we lose in sweat. Your body needs optimal amounts of water to function at max capacity and keep you running strong and smooth all day long. Try and find an area where you can make this essential swap that will offer multiple benefits to your health and to your life.
Do you drink sugary sodas, flavored coffees, iced mochas, even diet sodas loaded with artificial sugars? If so, these are what we are looking to replace.
Don’t worry, I am not asking you to go cold turkey and give them up all together. Start by replacing just one and work your way up from there.
By making the switch to water you will feel full, causing you to eat less. You will feel more hydrated which has benefits for your mental alertness and skin tone. You will be sheltered from the typical crash that comes along with a burst of sugar, helping you to be more productive throughout the day. Plus, you will save the calories, helping you to lose weight and look and feel better. Now, who doesn’t want that?
Relax and Let Good Things Happen
Be encouraged. There are seven billion people in the world. All of them are moving through life just like you. They stumble. They fall. They get up and keep moving.
They move through the bad and get to the good. They move through the good and get to the bad. Then they move through the worst, and eventually get to the good stuff again.
And so it goes, on and on…
Like mice constantly searching for cheese, people live life running back and forth between good and bad, ultimately hunting for something better. They are anxious and fearful even in good times because the next bad thing is right around the corner. When the bad times come they are anxious and fearful because, well…things are bad. How else are you supposed to feel?
Good to bad, bad to good, good to bad, bad to good, and back again. The whole thing is crazily exhausting. Honestly running back and forth between the two extremes should drive a person insane – because it is crazy to run in circles all the time.
That’s the world – crazy. And the world expects you to be crazy right along with it. Stop running around like a crazy person!
Be encouraged. Good things are happening. Relax and let them happen to you. Notice the good in you and your life. Even when things seem bad, even when things are legitimately bad, good is still there – right where you are at the moment.
Pay attention to the good. Give thanks for the good. If all you have is one slice of bread, eat it with a grateful heart. If you have two slices of bread with your favorite meat, lettuce and tomatoes, but no mayo, eat the sandwich and be grateful. You don’t have to starve to learn how to take what you have and be grateful because it beats being hungry.
This is not a lesson about settling for less. Far from it, this is a lesson about getting more. Recognize what is truly good by being grateful for what sustains you and keeps you alive. The rest is extra stuff that’s nice to have, but won’t kill you if you don’t. Rise above crazy and know goodness.
Congratulations on all of your progress throughout this journey and I hope you continue moving forward in a positive direction. See you tomorrow for the final day of our 21-day challenge.
Review Your Previous Habits and Set New Goals
Give yourself a massive pat on the back for making it through this 21 Day exercise! All of these changes were small in nature, but I am hoping that you truly saw massive gains in your life. And, I hope it does not stop here. I hope you continue to put into practice the techniques we went through together to ensure exponential growth in your personal and professional lives. On our final day together, I want you to review and work on new goals.
Do you remember those goals you wrote out in Chapter 1 on the very first day of reading this book? I want you to dig those out and re-read them now.
Really spend some time walking through them and thinking about them.
Now, spend a few minutes answering the following questions about those goals:
Did you achieve any of the goals you set on day 1?
Were there any goals that you did not achieve, but you came really close to achieving?
How have your goals changed since you started this book?
❖ Are your goals more singular, more focused or broader?
❖ Have your priorities and goals shifted in any way?
❖ Did some goals seem daunting in the beginning, but now seem too easy?
After this review, I am sure some of you have already started working on new goals; or, at least making adjustments to your existing goals. Get creative with them, and have a little fun letting your imagination wander.
Best of luck and keep driving forward!
