It's easier than you think!
Remember….You are an ARTIST!
This means you are exceptional! It also means you are rare. You are no different than a priceless diamond. And like a diamond, sometimes after being out in the world you can lose your shine. The wonderful thing is that it just takes a little elbow grease to bring that shine back to the surface.
Continuing with our series on Accepting the Challenge and addressing the importance of Knowing Your Purpose, we are going to venture down the road a bit and discover how it is we get distracted (lose our shine) and allow roadblocks to appear virtually out of nowhere. Then, we'll reveal how to shine that surface back up!
There are, I'm sure you'll agree, a few culprits that seem to cause all of us to veer off our path at least every now and again.
Here they are:
1 ) Not being prepared
2) Not getting enough rest
3) Getting hungry - irritable because you're hungry
4) Being critical
You would think these things, in and of themselves, can't take us too far off our paths, but you would be surprised.
One day you are lovin' life, maybe you're in a new and exciting relationship. All is so well that you can't sleep, then you wake up late, you're running behind and aren't prepared for your class or meeting or event. By the time you meet your new friend for dinner you're hungry and you find yourself being critical about the waiter, about the flowers on the table, etc. You are so deep in it you don't even notice it, but your new friend does. Suddenly, they're just not as interested as they were before. Next thing you know it's six months later and nothing seems to be going right. You're thinking, "What happened?"
Well, you got on a negative roll and you just kept rolling. The solution here is to stop it before it becomes a trend.
Everyone has a bad day, just don't let that day become your life!
For example: The one thing that is most damaging to my purpose is when I start to let life take over and I start to become critical. At that point it makes it almost impossible to see what is good and lovely about others and even more impossible to write about it. So, my solution comes in the form of a jar.
Whenever I find myself getting cranky, or especially if I become critical, I drop a quarter in a jar. It has seriously never taken more than one quarter to stop the trend. I can't tell you why, but the simple action of doing it seems to short-circuit it.
There are many other ways we get off track and shall I say, lose our shine. : ) The idea is to not get stuck in the down trend, but to do something about it before it becomes your life.
Here are 3 steps to help you:
1 - Notice when life is good (know and live your purpose), so
you can notice when roadblocks get in the way.
2 - Put something in place to acknowledge the roadblock.
(Break the trend)
3 - Create a Purpose-full life.
That's it for today, my friends! Next week we are going to move on to step 3 of Accepting The Challenge: Confront.
In the end, we are looking to create that life we all know we deserve. We want to achieve our potential, see the world through our own eyes and create beautiful effects on others and the world around us. We have the keys to the car, let's continue down the road toward happiness, success, and fulfillment together!
You are an ARTIST!
We see it.
Check out The Observation Deck! A very personal and endearing story about life and the importance of teachers!
truly eye opening!! this is great!!
For years my friend and I would walk every day. Sometimes early morning, sometimes after work. We worked in an Elementary School, she in Kindergarten, me in Special Education. We took our jobs very seriously which meant it took a lot of energy, both physically and emotionally. So, walking was a healthy release for us. When we first started our daily walks we used our time for venting, thinking this would invigorate us, but we ended our walks feeling completely depleted! We were on a negative roll and we just couldn’t stop! This didn’t feel good at all in fact, it felt toxic! When we realized we had totally lost our purpose for these walks we came up with …
Love the coin idea! Thinking of how I can adapt it to help Beckett as well as myself. Great thoughts once again Annie! 😊 love ya!
Hey Annie,
This is so true! I sometimes derail myself before I even begin. I love the idea of the coin jar!
Thanks for sharing.
Love ya,
Lynne