Daily Gratitude: Can you think back over your life and remember how you’ve felt when you’ve accomplished something you didn’t think you could do. Wasn’t it a great feeling, leaving you, perhaps for a second or two, thinking that just maybe you could do even more. I have felt that once and it’s better than almost anything I’ve ever felt. I wish I could say I’ve experienced it more than that once but at least it gave me a taste of what to shoot for. At my age you think more about regrets. I don’t have a lot of them because I have been able to achieve a lot. I have overcome many obstacles – but unlike many people, mine have been self- imposed obstacles mostly. They are the so-called inner demons or ghosts in the closet. In the past several years I’ve worked hard to confront these and have had large success. One thing I have held on to, though, is that a conquest over myself is so much sweeter if it also includes benefiting others. Let’s all keep aiming to conquer whatever’s in our path!

Daily Gratitude: It’s so important that we hold onto this concept each and every day of our lives. It will help us get through the “stuff” that happens. It goes along with one of my favorite mantras – “This, too, Shall Pass”. If we don’t have something like this to believe, it’s so easy to lose hope. And hope is what gets us through each day. There will be a new beginning even when we can’t seem to see it.

Daily Gratitude: I don’t know about you but I have had a problem with perfectionism – well, it was a well disguised coverup for fear (which is the basis for most perfectionism). If I never completed anything, then I couldn’t be criticized because there was never a finished product for people to judge. So. If you’re looking to try to overcome that trait, take some time to contemplate this. Bill Beswick offers this: “mastery, where there is intense desire to achieve while avoiding the frustration of non-perfection. Mastery accepts that the performance might well include mistakes and setbacks but prides itself on continually striving to achieve your very best despite these.” If you are trying to master something (instead of it having to be perfect), you will accept mistakes and even setbacks (which you formerly called failure) as the “way”. If you’re giving it your best, then this mastery is what we should be aiming for. How does that resonate with your personality?