Daily Gratitude: This is so important. I was (and sometimes still am) a victim of this thinking. “I’ll be happy when I do this or do that (lose weight, gain weight, gain muscle, graduate, etc)”. What if that never happens? All those days and weeks and sometimes years went to waste. The ironic part is that many of us won’t even be happy when we lose those 10 pounds or get x amount of money. We have to look deep – at the reason behind this desire. What are we really looking for? That is the important question to examine. When you find yourself saying “I can’t wait until x,y, or z” stop and ask yourself why you can’t just be happy and enjoy the now? It may be all you have.

Daily Gratitude: It’s with not giving up that faith comes in. You hear about people who tell you that the most common time people give up is just before they are about to succeed. I always wonder how they know that if they’ve given up. But enough people have professed it to be true that I kind of have to believe it. And maybe you should too. But if I can remember this and put it forefront in my mind just when I want to stop doing something, perhaps it will give me a better chance of succeeding. I do know I’m going to try it and embed that philosophy in my subconscious mind so that it will be easy to call upon it when things are at that point. You know. The point of just giving up!

Daily Gratitude: This took me a bit to figure out (ok so I’m slow). But once I did, I really liked it. It could be a good quote for a yoga studio too. Keep stretching. But it’s meant to remind us not to give up, especially when it seems there is nothing good happening or coming. I learned this at Vol State this year – for the first time. In the past when my legs would statt to feel empty or spent and they just slowed down on their own, I would find some place to rest (you know my good friend the guardrail). But this year I just kept moving them no matter what they felt like. Somehow I had come to the realization that I could still cover miles if I kept them moving even if not as fast. But if I stopped, I wasn’t covering anything and just wasting time. I’m not sure how that enlightenment happened but it soon became a conscious decision and i continued to do it. I think it made a difference. So no matter how you feel. If something is Important to/for you, don’t stop. You can ”feel sorry” for yourself while you continue to move. Just keep going.