Daily Gratitude: You can have love and hope while you’re being optimistic no matter what the circumstances. I’m sure you know people with devastating situations but they are still full of hope and optimism. If you’re like me, you shake your head and wonder how on earth they do it. I don’t have an answer other than that is their attitude abd they have mental habits they’ve cultivated for all their life. You can become like that if you work at it. Don’t wait until things go to pot before trying it though. Work on embedding those qualities now. I recommend a great book called “Think like a Winner” by Dr Staples. He shows you how to begin to incorporate it in your mind with specific techniques. It’s worth the effort.

Daily Gratitude: You all know about Vol State- my Tennessee race in July. Well, the wise meat wagon lady is always telling people to make sure they smile especially when things are not going so great. Smiling changes your chemicals by releasing endorphins, dopamine and serotonin. These are happy chemicals (yes it’s simplistic but if you want to know more you can look it up) so your mood will change and that’s what you want when you’re not feeling that great as frequently happens during the race. It works in life too. You can practice smiling and see how it works for you. If you do find it works then you can incorporate it into your everyday life! Smile – you don’t have to be on camera to smile.

Daily Gratitude: This is especially true when you realize we make our own happiness. This is why I use my “everything always works out for me” mantra. I don’t know what’s ahead but I know it will be a lot better if I go toward it believing it’s the best thing for me. Sure it’s hard when there’s a disaster in our lives but we have to go on. The recent hurricanes and flooding had brought terrible times on people but it’s also brought out the beauty and goodness of people. We can only control the controllables and the most important part of that is how we think about something and how we respond. Stay in the present but if you have to think about something else, pick the future and not the past.