Daily Gratitude: I’m sure I’ve written about this before but reminders on this topic are always useful….especially at this time in the world.

Understanding and comprehending this concept is probably one of the first steps toward success in your life.

It’s not just to prevent saying things you’ll wish you hadn’t, but it can prevent you from making impulsive decisions.

“Not me” I can hear you saying. “I don’t make impulsive decisions.”

OK. Making an impulsive decision isn’t just seeing how nice something looks and buying it. It really revolves around whether or not you looked at the consequences. To me that means thinking it through. I’ve made a lot of impulsive decisions in my life because i didn’t think of the long term consequences. The best example is when I’d been in the navy 16 years (only 4 to go to full retirement). I got orders to go to Okinawa. Not so bad I’ll bet you’re thinking. Yes but….(famous words). I would have had to have my two Siberian huskies in quarantine for 6 months – 6 months I couldn’t have them with me. So what did I do? I put in my resignation papers. I was just going to lose all that I’d worked for because of my dogs and 6 months. If that’s not impulsive I don’t know what is. Fortunately things worked out so I neither had to resign nor go to Okinawa. But you get the point.

Our emotions can govern us and when they do, we’re usually sorry.

There needs to be time between the stimulus (my getting the orders) and the response (to go or not to go). In my case there was a space, a pause. I didn’t make that decision lightly. I just didn’t really evaluate all the consequences BECAUSE I was being ruled by my emotions.

Practice the pause.

Next time you’re in traffic and some one cuts in front of you, pause before you blurt out what you were thinking. Then ask yourself “am I responding from my emotions or from reason. Have I considered the consequences?” Then you can move on. I suppose you’re saying “ha what consequences could there be when someone cuts me off?” Nowadays you’d be surprised at the possible outcome. Can you spell “road rage?”

Do this with every situation in your life. Make “practicing the pause” a habit.

Daily Gratitude: “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.”

I harp on this concept perhaps more than any other. Why? Because it’s a key element in upgrading our lives. You can go to life’s App Store and see that there is an upgrade available. It’s easy to download.

And you know what? It’s also easy to install. You can do your own beta testing too. Try it out. And it’s free. No damn membership fee for this upgrade. You just have to be willing to use it.

Your attitude and your thoughts are your tickets to improved life experiences. And improved life experiences lead to an overall improved life.

How do you do this? Well for one, just decide to feel the opposite way about something that’s annoying you. For instance, we’ve had several days of rain here in San Antonio – for those of you who are chuckling, that is a big thing here. Our roads and structures are not built to handle significant amounts of rain.

Anyway, the storms have interfered with my training plans for Vol State. Initially I was frustrated but then thought to myself “it’s stupid to be upset with nature. You can’t do anything to change it. Everything always works out for me.” And not surprisingly, once I made that statement I realized that this forced rest was going to be excellent for my Tailor’s bunion (on the little toe) because it’s pretty inflamed from all the walking lately. I began to accept (first step) the circumstances as just that, circumstances. And then I began to be grateful for them (second step). Gratitude led to calmness and calmness then allowed me to be happy.

What’s upsetting or annoying in your life right now? What can you do, inside your head, to change that?

Daily Gratitude: “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”

This is key to learning to back away and get a Birds Eye view of what’s happening in your life.

While you’re in the midst of troubling times, all appears exaggerated. Your thoughts are rampant and the end of the world seems close.

What can you do about it?

Remember that “this, too, shall pass” but here’s something to try ahead of these times.

Review your life. Find some bad times where you were feeling horrible about how life was going. See if you can get back into feeling the way you did way back then. Really relive it for just a few minutes.

Then remember how you felt 6 months to a year later. How important in the grand scheme was that bad time then. I bet it was more like “oh yeah it sucked but we got through it. What are you doing for your birthday.” It’s as if you’re just reporting on a news item.

The original episode is influenced mostly by emotions. The memory of it later is influenced mostly by facts. That’s why the memory probably isn’t as charged.

Write that sequence of events, thoughts and feelings down. Concentrate on the difference and see how “yep, it really did pass”.

Create a list of these situations – the befores and the afters.

The next time something bad is happening, review your list to remind you that it’s your emotional response that’s influencing you right now and you will get through it and it won’t seem as tragic. Sometimes doing this exercise can help you have a more positive perspective on the present moment.