Daily Gratitude: This is so profound and bears examination in your own world and life. Some people spend their whole lives not only drawing lines but finding them where they don’t even exist. Why? So they don’t have to summon their courage and take a chance. That’s what this is all about, simply taking a chance. And that’s usually because of fear. Fear of so many things. Mostly it’s fear of failure but not just because of the failure but because of what others might think or say about you because you failed. Babies don’t hesitate to try to walk or climb up on things….until they are yelled at. Then they may become more cautious rather than curious. Can you put blinders on and stop looking around and behind you, wondering what people are or will think about you if you cross that line? Why do you really care anyway? Just take that step and I bet you will feel something like “wow that didn’t hurt at all. Maybe I can take another one.” Soon you’ll be all across the line!

Daily Gratitude: Be grateful for luck but never rely on it. If you hope for it, do your “hoping” for a certain period of time and then move on. You may see lots of successful people and sigh, whining “that person is so lucky. I wish I had that luck”. I imagine that almost everyone you say that about hasn’t been lucky so much as they have been persistent and undeterred when things didn’t always go according to plan. What looks like luck is behind the scenes hard work and long hours. Never mistake the two. If you really want something, you will apply yourself to it and what comes from that hard work will appear to others as Luck but you’ll know what it really was!

Daily Gratitude: Maybe you can’t do much (or anything) about your past thoughts other than to examine your life and see if you can correlate the two. But you certainly can do something about your future. Despite the chaos in the world today, you are in control of your thoughts. And it is your thoughts that will determine where you go. Sure you can say “but I can’t do anything about the political situation or all the wars” and that would be true. But you can do something about how you think about your life and your interactions with other people. Why not focus on your own microcosm – your family, friends and maybe even your community? How? By monitoring and measuring your thoughts. The most important part of that formula is to monitor them. You’d be surprised and maybe a bit overwhelmed by the number of negative thoughts that go through your head every day. even if you think you’re a positive person, I think you might notice some back and forth in your mind – a positive thought comes and then some little voice (it’s really a part) pipes up and says “oh yeah, well let me tell you how it really is. Your positive stuff is BS….etc.”. This is normal because your mind and your parts are protectors. They are meant to get you through danger and you can’t get through danger if you don’t recognize it and haven’t experienced something like it so you know what to do. this is all ok. don’t get discouraged. For a week or so, just become aware of what’s happening, aware of the conversations in your head. you don’t even need to change them for that first couple of weeks. just notice them. write them down if you can. that will help you review later rather than just relying on your memory. it’s also a way to enable you to decide what you want to change. Start with this.