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Use The Day – Make The Most Of Your Problems

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Use The Day!
make the most of daily difficulties

Quote from Alcott’s heroine ‘Jo’ in Little Women. Also attributed to Aeschylus.

Make the most of each day rather than be used by it. Use life’s daily challenges to practice being and becoming the person you want to be.

It’s really an attitude thing; the way you choose to look at each situation. For example, don’t let your job just use you and then spit you out wasted in return for a few dollars. Instead, keep getting smarter as you figure out how to use your job to become your dream.

Don’t play victim. We let ourselves become slaves when we give up or when we drift and let problems and our environment control us.

Instead look at problems as opportunities to learn and grow. Use problems like you would weights in a weight room. They are a way to practice getting smarter and stronger and better.   Believe you can and act like it; then indeed you will learn and grow.

Affirmations:    top

  • Use the day. I use what’s right here, right now to become the person I want to be.
  • How can I learn & grow from this?
  • Control the Controllables
  • “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary” said by Robin Williams in the 1989 movie  Dead Poets Society.
  • “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning.

Affirmations From Burn Your Goals:

  1.  Practical instructions to handle daily challenges:
    (1) Control what is in your control. (2) Let go of the results.
    (3) Believe it is in your best interest and
    (4) an opportunity to learn and grow.
    (5) Ask yourself ‘What is one thing I can do to make it better.’ p.152
  2.  Anything that happens to me today is in my best interest. It’s an opportunity to learn and grow. p.259 In any situation we can always learn something. p.166

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Take a Mini-Break, Meditate when Tired or Sick

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Take a Mini-Break,
Meditate when Tired or Sick

Meditation mini-breaks truly work wonders when you are completely whipped. This meditation tip can be a life saver!

Most of us with busy lives have experienced occasions where we are very, very tired but have an unavoidable event planned in a few minutes like going out for the evening or giving a presentation or finishing a tough project. Besides the misery there is sometimes even a concern about getting sick from pushing things so hard.

Once you have learned how to meditate (see below) it is surprising how rejuvenating a 10-15 minute meditation break can be. Sometimes as short a 5 minutes will work but it usually takes us longer.

Among other things meditation is a form of deep relaxation. When very tired we have found that it is quite easy to get into a deep state of meditation, much easier than usual. Within 5 minutes the outside world completely disappears and we fall into an almost unconscious state (perhaps sleep or something deeper). It’s good to have a cell phone alarm to “wake” you up.

Upon waking we usually find ourselves deeply refreshed and ready to go! As an aside, there have been occasions when it felt like a bad sore throat was coming and after 10 minutes of meditation that sick feeling disappeared.

This meditation tip works much better than the same short amount of sleep. We couldn’t have gotten to sleep so fast and it would have been nowhere so deep or refreshing.

We’ve tried this tip many times and it almost always works. As a caveat you obviously should learn how to meditate first; that’s not very hard but you will need a little practice.

How to Meditate

You only need to do this simple form of meditation for a few minutes to feel relaxed, refreshed and refocused.  “It involves relaxing and focusing on your breathing.  Set a timer for three minutes and close your eyes.  Then, take slow, deep breaths.  Concentrate on each inhalation and exhalation, and ignore all other thoughts.”   For more  suggestions on how to meditate see Meditation Breathing Exercises.

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Meditation Tip to Help You Sleep When You Can’t

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Meditation Tip
to help you sleep when you can’t

What to do when jangled nerves keep you awake and you just can’t get to sleep? Sometimes this happens to me in the middle of the night which can mean staying awake for several hours no matter how tired I am.

What works for me is to meditate.  I’ve found that about 20 minutes of meditation while lying down in bed is the right amount; shorter doesn’t seem to work. I’m not trying to sleep but am meditating and, as usual, have a timer set to let me know when time is up.

After meditation my mind is always much calmer. This allows me to naturally fall asleep within 5-10 minutes without seriously trying. I was already tired and once the nervous jangle is gone sleep comes easily.

I’ve also tried meditating when sick in bed. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, probably because it is daytime and I’m not tired. If it doesn’t work I will meditate again later, typically 3-5 times/day when sick and have nothing better to do.

This may not work if you’ve never practiced meditation before … but it sure does for me.  That may be why you should learn to meditate too. 🙂

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Practical Affirmation Tip from Tools of Titans

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A Very Practical Affirmation Tip
from Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris

This positive affirmation tip worked big for Scott Adams, creator of the famous Dilbert comic strip:
“All you do is you pick a goal and you write it down 15 times a day in some specific sentence form, like ‘I, Scott Adams, will become an astronaut,’ for example. And you do that every day.”

Scott credits that simple tip with amazing results when he used the following positive affirmations:
“I will become a number-one best selling author” … when he had never written a book,
“I, Scott Adams, will speak perfectly” … after losing his voice,
“I, Scott Adams will become a famous cartoonist” … when he was an unknown.

Scott says the exact method of repeating the affirmation doesn’t matter. What matters is the focus and commitment you have to that focus. For example the “speak perfectly” affirmation was done in his head while driving, but continuously for about 3 years.

What matters is what you pay attention to and spend the most energy on. Steady persistent attention, intention, energy and repetition impress your mind and, if done right, can make it a goal seeking dynamo.

That is what you are after … a deep impression which unconsciously guides you towards your goal.  Once your mind and memory are focused on a very specific mental equivalent you will start (1) believing it’s possible & creating the environment for same, (2) noticing relevant opportunities in your environment and (3) moving both consciously & unconsciously towards the end result.

 

By the way, since affirmations are messages to the brain they need to be stated in simple ways that make it easy for the brain to embrace.  Use these three rules when you create a positive affirmation.

  • Always in the present tense.
  • Only positive words.
  • Expressed as simple statements of fact and truth.

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Thought Management Reading List

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Interesting Things To Read
About Thought Management

Here are some links to browse when you are looking for some interesting things to read about thought management:

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