New Post at Boom Travel & Wellness

My wife in her ultramarathon days.

FINDING YOUR WHY

Motivation. Whether we like the word or not, motivation is what causes us to get up out of our chairs and do something. We all need it, otherwise, we’ll never get going!

A lack of motivation, then, is what causes us to stay the same, not change, and sometimes not do anything at all. In fact, a severe lack of motivation can lead to depression; physical and mental lethargy.

Motivation comes in different forms. (For more click on the link.)

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FYI - My wife and I have started a new blog called Boom Travel & Wellness. The purpose is to share stories of travel, transformation, and wellness - all in the pursuit of a healthy, active lifestyle.

We'd love of your to subscribe that way you can keep up with our journey as we transition from Kansas to Puerto Rico ... and beyond! We'll be doing a lot of travelogues and sharing of ideas, inspiration, and tips to maintain a balanced, but adventurous, life.

Change Your Feelings, Change Your Attitude

It almost goes without saying, but when I'm grumpy I have a bad attitude. 

What this tells me is that my attitude - which can be fairly easily ascertained by my facial expression and body language - is simply an external representation of my internal feelings. 

 If I'm feeling down, my body sags. Doesn't yours? 

Now it's not any secret that the answer to a bad attitude is a good laugh, a smile, and pleasant thoughts. Why? Because you can't genuinely laugh and smile without a corresponding good feeling. Our feelings have a direct impact on our outward demeanor. 

The challenge is controlling our feelings. Here's the principle: Change our feelings, change our attitude!

Good news is that we can control our feelings. We're not at the mercy of our emotional life. Emotions (the well from which our feelings arise) serve as a barometer of what's going on inside of us. 

And we can change what's going on inside. How? By monitoring our thoughts. Our thoughts affect our feelings which in turn shows up in our attitude.

I've found that the best way to monitor our thoughts is by listening to our self-talk. In other words, we need to think about our thinking. 

This might be a true difference between humankind and the animal kingdom. We have the ability to consider our thought process and not just react by instinct (which seems more emotional in nature, doesn't it?) 

Therefore, since we can control our thoughts, we have the ability to influence our feelings and thus change our attitude. That is good news indeed!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope this #MidweekMotivation was helpful. 

This post originally appeared on my blog Thought Renewal in 2007.

~*~

"Tip a buck, get a book."

(via PayPal.Me - an e-book from Tule Fog Press.) 

This blog is reader supported. Thank you for your support!

The Universe Doesn't Care But God Does

Read a lot of self-help books about 10 years ago. Success strategies, personal development, leadership, self-improvement. Awaken the Giant Within and How to Win Friends kind of stuff.

All pretty good. Well, mostly. Much gristle to spit out while chewing the meat, if you know what I mean. 

I still practice possibility thinking.

I still resonate with a lot of that material but I filter it through a Christian worldview. In other words, I take what someone says or writes and think through the biblical ramifications of what they are teaching. 

Then I restate it in my mind (or write it down, like I'm doing now) as a scriptural principle.

For example, came across an IG post of a travel blogger I follow that reminded us that gratitude is a wonderful virtue. Totally agree! 

Gratitude attracts, complaining repels. Yep! Gratitude brings about abundance in one's life. Sure, I can buy that.

Why? The blogger went on to explain how this works - the Universe [note the capital u] is ready to give good things to those who are thankful. 

That's where I get off the bus and find a Bible transfer ticket.

The universe (small u) doesn't care whether you are grateful or not. It is impersonal. It has no mind, no spirit, no personality. I had a pet rock once. I fed it. I petted it. I talked to it. It didn't care.

But God? God cares for you. God loves you. God gives good gifts. So our demonstration of gratitude? Should be directed to God.

You've heard the admonition: "have an attitude of gratitude." And that's fine. But an attitude of gratitude implies being thankful for someone or something. There's something that sparks our gratitude. 

You see, we're thankful for gifts - whether it's a physical object or something more intangible, like friendship. Either way, there's a source for our thankfulness. We're grateful for something. It's more than just an attitude. 

You with me so far? Here's where a biblical worldview enters in. A gift (for which we are grateful) presupposes a giver. Now that giver could be a fellow human or God. But the universe? Nope, the universe can't give us anything. 

But the land, you say, gives us a harvest. The sky gives us rain. The sun gives us warmth. Kinda? But land, sea, sky are not personal - there's no relationship there. These things are created by God to be tools and are gifts from God himself.

The universe won't say you're welcome if you thank it for a new day. It doesn't care. But God? He longs to have a relationship with each and every one of us so he can give us more good gifts, more of himself. 

For me, then, I am grateful to God for all that I have. And I know that gratitude produces abundance because the more I grow closer to God through thanksgiving and worship, the more I will experience all that he has to offer.

That's a lot more powerful than having an attitude of gratitude and thinking the universe will somehow take notice. If you want to talk more about this, leave a polite comment.

~*~

"Tip a buck, get a book."

(via PayPal.Me - an e-book from Tule Fog Press.) 

This blog is reader supported. Thank you for your support!

Midweek Motivation - Overcoming Excuses

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

I used to write "positivity" blog posts about 15 years ago, back in the self-help / leadership / positive thinking resurgance. 

I still have the blog called Thought Renewal, so thought I'd crib from there on occassion and share some success strategies.

Here's my last post from that blog (from 2012!). It's a little midweek motivation for ya. If you're into that kind of thing. Which I should probably get back into! 

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You've been there. So have I. A spark of interest in something creative. A new hobby, maybe. Or a project that you've finally decided to start. 

But then fear or intimidation or hesitancy sets in. "Oh, you should (fill in the blank)," someone says. You respond quickly with, "But I'm not (fill in the blank)."

Go on, you can admit it. You've said that phrase in protest to something or other in your past. 

• Someone recommends an excellent book. "But I'm not much of a reader." 
• A friend suggests you take Zumba together. "But I'm not that coordinated." 
• Back in middle school, your Language Arts teacher gave an assignment. "But I'm not a writer."

And so you let the "nottas" control your life. The truth is we are (and can do) almost anything we decide to be (or do). It's a matter of choice. 

Oh sure, there're some genetic limitations that limit an insignificant number of our choices in life. But those miniscule exceptions prove the rule - we can choose to do and be and create! 

In other words, we have the ability to choose, to a substantial degree, what our life looks like.

So here's my challenge: At least have the guts to say, "I choose not to read. I choose not to dance. Or I choose not to write." For at the point that we admit "we are choosing" we take ownership of our current state.

So, if you were not happy with your response to 2020 and 2021 (and all that happened "to us" these past few years), what that means is that you chose not to be happy with it. 

You didn't read that book, not because you aren't a reader but because you chose not to read it. You didn't exercise and get in shape, not because you aren't coordinated but because you chose not to. You didn't write that story, not because you aren't a writer but because you chose not to write it.

That's the tough talk! lol The good news is that you can do something different this next year. 2022 can be fantastic. Next month can be incredible. Next week, even! Or this next moment. 

You can choose to be happy with what you do, who you are, and the results you get. What's holding you back? Be someone different in the coming days. Do something different. Create something. Do it.

~*~

"Tip a buck, get a book."

(via PayPal.Me - an e-book from Tule Fog Press.) 

This blog is reader supported. Thank you for your support!