Setting Your 2013 Intentions

"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever." ~ Keri Russell

What do you want the new year to look like? What do you want to be, to do and to have?

This is where you can begin your process of setting your intentions or goals. Envision what it is you would like your life to be. Make the decision that this is what you want.

STOP, TAKE A BREATH, and ASK:

What would it take to make that happen?

What small steps can you take every day to reach that desire?

Taking small, consistent action will move you towards your desired intentions.

“You cannot make progress without making decisions.” ~ Jim Rohn

Friday's Purposeful Question

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Author and teacher Byron Katie says that when you question your stressful thoughts, the freedom that comes out of that graces the world for all of us.

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. So, what questions are you asking?

"What is the one small step you can take to create your 2013?"

“You can tell whether a woman is clever by her answers. You can tell whether she is wise by her questions.” ~ attributed to Naguib Mahfouz

Seek Determination for 2013

A blind boy paid his way to a master’s degree at Northwestern University by taking notes on class lectures in Braille, typing them, and selling copies to classmates who had stronger eyes but weaker ambition.

One of the great mysteries of life is why some people who seem to have all the advantages – the right connections, education, and experience – never seem to amount to much while others who have had to struggle for everything they have reach incredible heights of success. It hinges on determination. If you have the will to succeed, you will somehow find a way, regardless of the obstacles you encounter.

Do you use all of your assets to achieve your goals, or are you handicapped by your lack of ambition? No other person can create in you a desire to succeed. With enough motivation, you will see things all around you that will help you reach your objectives, things that you may have overlooked many times before. ~ Wisdom from Napoleon Hill

Just for today, think about your life to date. STOP, TAKE A BREATH, and ASK:

Do you have the determination to receive your goals and intentions? Or, do you have a lack of ambition?

What is one small step you can take right now that will move you closer to your goals?

Take that one small step today!

Friday's Purposeful Question

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

“In order to stay awake and be able to create a future that reflects our goals, we need to question the present. We need to question every choice we make and look at the positive or negative consequences of our actions if we are to align our daily actions with our deepest desires.” ~ Debbie Ford, The Right Questions

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. So, what questions are you asking? 

"What does your creative muse look like and how do you connect with it?"

"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question." ~ Decouvertes

Reconnect to Your Creative Muse

As children, we were creative beyond belief. We played and used out amazing imaginations to create anything we wanted to be, to do and to have. The sky was the limit. The most wonderful part of this was no one told us we could not, should not or must not be, do or have whatever we imagined. We were allowed to imagine freely without limits and without any restrictions. Oh, those were glorious times! Those of you baby boomers like me may remember when our parents purchased a large appliance – a washing machine or a television set. Remember those endless hours playing with the box and packaging? I created a life-sized doll house, a forte, a bus, and I played for hours on end, never getting bored. Whatever happened to those wonderful days and memories?

I’ll tell you what happened – we grew up! We not only grew up but we grew up and conformed to the masses. We had to go to school and the school had to have conformity. There was no way to teach children in the allotted amount of time all the things they had to teach if one child was a princess in her tower awaiting her prince and another child was an astronaut awaiting take off! It just would not do! So as we grew up, we were taught to suppress our beautiful, creative spirits and not to use our imaginations. We had to be realistic, practical, with our heads out of the clouds and our feet planted firmly on the ground.

Now as adults, we have lost touch with our inner creativity. Unless you are an artist, you have somehow mislaid your creative spark. As an aside, if you are an artist, you either had to be damned good to convince everyone or you took a lot of flack about your fanciful ideas. This is a very sad demonstration of creativity. The world will pay the Barbra Streisands, the Derek Jeters, and the Julia Roberts millions to live in their divine creative spirits. Yet, the rest of us poor unimaginative souls must eek out our meager existences as realistic, practical conformists!

Well, I say it’s high time for a revolution! It’s time for the rest of us to reconnect to that inner creative spirit who used to create out of television packing boxes. We may not be a Streisand, a Jeter or a Roberts – that may not be our divine call – but we are just as imaginative and just as creative and can choose to use those wonderful gifts to create more vibrant lives for ourselves. There is no reason on earth why we must live dull, lackluster, mediocre lives. We are all meant to shine our lights and shine them brightly.

There is a wonderful passage in my favorite book that says why hide your light under a bushel basket? This is a question for all of us. Why are you hiding your amazing creativity and gift? Perhaps there is something you love doing, you have gotten raves about it, yet you don’t see it as a divine gift. You could bake outstanding cupcakes, or sew beautiful children’s clothes, or create amazing scrapbook layouts. This is your bright light and when you can shine your light brightly, it not only illuminates all other areas of your life, but it shines light on those you come in contact with. When you are not living in your creative light, you not only do a disservice to yourself but you deprive the world of the gift you incarnated into this world to give.

So, just for today, stop, take a breath and ask yourself:

“What do I really enjoy doing?”

“What have I gotten great feedback about?”

“What truly lights me up?”

Then, listen for your Divine Inner Wisdom to bring you the answers. Someone once said that what the world really need is people living out their true passions – so go out and reconnect to your creative muse and live your life with passion!

Friday's Purposeful Question

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

“In order to stay awake and be able to create a future that reflects our goals, we need to question the present. We need to question every choice we make and look at the positive or negative consequences of our actions if we are to align our daily actions with our deepest desires.” ~ Debbie Ford, The Right Questions

Author and teacher Byron Katie says that when you question your stressful thoughts, the freedom that comes out of that graces the world for all of us.

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. So, what questions are you asking?

"What radical transformation will you make for 2013?" 

"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question." ~ Decouvertes

Your Radical Transformation

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~ Victor Frankl

When you make the decision to change any area of your life, you are also making the decision to release yourself from your old way of being. This means that if you are going to make any kind of transformation, then you must make it across all areas of your life. You cannot transform in one area of your life while remaining the same in the others. Your life will be out of alignment and incongruent to who you are becoming.

For example, you make the decision to release about 30 pounds because you want a healthier lifestyle. With this decision comes many other decisions; like not spending all your time with those friends who are over weight and content to be so. Or, you have made the decision to become an entrepreneur, yet your family believes the only way to earn is by working for someone else and having a steady paycheck. Get the picture?

Just because you have made the decision to change, does not mean everyone else in your life has made that same decision; or worse, will even support your decision to change. People do not like change that is forced upon them because it challenges their belief systems. If you become an entrepreneur, you are breaking the belief about job security that your family has bought into for generation. Without this kind of support, you won’t have much success with your new dream.

What can you do about this? This appears to be an age old question, “What do I do when I want to change but those around me won’t change?” You have two choices, both are quite radical and must be done fully, lest your change won’t happen and your dream remains just that – a dream.

Both choices involve disassociating yourself from anyone who will oppose your dream – either for good, or for as long as it takes for you to reprogram your mind and make your dream a reality. You see, you cannot change yourself while remaining in the same environment that keeps you stuck. This is one reason there is such a high recidivism rate. A person is released from prison back into the same environment that created the bad behavior in the first place. Without the proper support and encouragement, this person will pick up the same habits and repeat the same behaviors that got him incarcerated in the first place.

One of my favorite films is the 1942 classic, “Now, Voyager” starring Bette Davis, Claude Rains and Paul Henreid. Not a typical classic love story, but a psychologically brilliant one. Bette Davis plays Charlotte, the overweight and repressed spinster daughter of a Boston aristocratic and dictatorial mother, brilliantly played by Gladys Cooper. Charlotte is on the verge of an emotional breakdown and through her sister-in-law meets Doctor Jaquith, played by Rains, who brings Charlotte to his clinic for treatment. Charlotte releases the weight, the eyeglasses and the neuroses. Away from her mother’s control and abuse, Charlotte blossoms. But instead of immediately sending her back home, Dr. Jaquith suggests a pleasure cruise. There she will be able to practice what she has learned at the clinic, with no interference from her mother. No one knows her on the cruise ship, so she can be the person she is meant to be. Not only does she find the courage and the confidence to be her authentic self, but she finds love as well.

  

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." ~ E.M. Forster

Friday's Purposeful Question

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

“In order to stay awake and be able to create a future that reflects our goals, we need to question the present. We need to question every choice we make and look at the positive or negative consequences of our actions if we are to align our daily actions with our deepest desires.” ~ Debbie Ford, The Right Questions

Author and teacher Byron Katie says that when you question your stressful thoughts, the freedom that comes out of that graces the world for all of us.

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. So, what questions are you asking? 

"You have what it takes. Do you truly believe that? If you don't, why not? What would you need to do to believe it?"

"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question." ~ Decouvertes

You Have What It Takes

Consider the following. Just consider... 

Picture in your mind the most incredible thing designed by mankind that you have ever seen. Perhaps the Empire State Building, the Shuttle built by the technicians at NASA, The Golden Gate Bridge or even the intricate detailing in a painting you've seen.

What name comes to mind when I say the words "creative genius?"

Who do you think of when I mention God-like compassion, caring and loving?

What author's name do you think of when I mention "poetry," "drama," "mystery," "fiction," and "comedy?"

What do you see when I say "strength," and "stamina?"

Finally "winner," "successful," or "role model?"

I'll bet you a Kids Meal at McDonald's you never saw yourself in any of those images. And yet...

Look at your hands. Are they not the same as the hands of the skillful artist, architect, mason, or technician?

If you were to x-ray your skull, would you not find the same brain matter that takes up the space between the ears of Einstein, Plato, and Disney?

Hold your hand to your chest. Can you feel the beat of a heart capable of paining for the homeless and starving? Have you not the same heart that beat in the chest of Jesus, Gandhi, Mohamed or the thousands of missionaries around the world?

Look at your fingers. Are they not like the fingers of Frost, Churchill, Stevens, Wilder and King that held tightly the pens that wrote the words that shaped the world?

Look at your feet. Show me the difference between yours and gold medalists of the Olympics or the rescuers who carried the people out of the rubble in a tragic earthquake.

Finally. Close your eyes as you stand in front of a mirror and picture in your mind that man or woman who you think of as a success, a winner and role model. Open your eyes and explain to me the difference between you and that person.

There is no difference...except in how you perceive yourself.

You have the mind, the hands, the feet, the fingers, the heart to be exactly what you want to be. The only thing that is stopping you is the person you see in the mirror.

You have all that it takes.

By Bob Perks

Just for today, what if... you have all it takes?