Simple Physics in Life

If you’ve ever taken a physics class in high school or college, you might agree or disagree with the title of this blog.  However, you’ve more than likely been introduced to Newton’s First Law of Motion, commonly referred to as The Law of Inertia.  In its most basic form, it states an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, and an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.  (I figured I’d save you the pain of reading about constant velocity by not quoting the actual law, or dredging up any more bad memories of physics classes that you might have.)  The point is that even though were are more complex than the simple objects that Sir Isaac Newton’s Law was created for, our lives mimic this law. 

Have you ever just had a really bad day where nothing seems to be going right, and it seems never ending?  Then all of a sudden something good happens, it makes you smile, and then it seems as if more and more good things seem to happen to bring you out of your dark state.  This is exactly how our lives can play out according to this law of physics.  That outside force of positivity acting on you, changed your emotional direction into a positive one when it seemed as if you were headed down a negative road.  The same thing happens when we are in a really great mood and something bad happens or it “acts” upon us and brings us down.

This is where we as humans are more special than a regular old object that sits in our surroundings.  We can be responsible for creating forces that bring us out of our own difficult situations.  While the same is true that we can also be responsible for creating forces that send us into bad situations when we’re already headed into a happy direction.

In addition to this, we are also responsible for being either a positive influential force on the lives of others or a negative one through the way that we treat other people, and the decisions we make.  Take for example a supervisor that is always berating employees, or not valuing their work ethic, and the effort they put forward.  The supervisor is limited in their view of the employee and sees the product produced, but they never appreciate the sweat equity that goes into the end result or recognizes it with appreciation.  This type of supervisor is someone who, while great at achieving the bottom line, might be creating a negative force bringing stress upon their employees and creating an unhappy, unhealthy work place.  I’m sure we all can think of different people in our lives in various situations who are negative forces, and those who are positive ones based on their actions and the things that they do.

As stated however, as humans we are more complex than objects so we do not only have to rely on extrinsic forces influencing our daily lives, we can create intrinsic ones for ourselves, as well as consciously be responsible for forces that affect those around us.  If you have found yourself volunteering your time to support others, or you have been someone that listens to that close friend who needs you at a difficult time, these are examples of creating positive forces to influence the lives of others.  If you’ve ever put in the effort to achieve one of your goals that seemed unattainable, or you’ve overcome a difficulty through perseverance and determination these are examples of creating intrinsic forces that are acting upon you to move you in a positive direction.  Even the power of positive thinking can be a force that affects how we move through our daily lives, and affects the decisions we make for ourselves.

There is acknowledgment that there are some extrinsic forces that we can’t control such as weather, government decisions, personal health issues, etc.   However we have the ability once acted upon by those forces to create our own intrinsic ones to take action to keep us moving in a positive direction no matter how bleak the future might seem, or insurmountable the obstacle that we face.  Also extremely important is having the awareness of the influence that we are having on those around us and the types of forces that we are creating on their lives.  Ultimately through positive thinking, awareness of our actions and of our decision making, we can create more positive forces and in fact move ourselves and others in a more positive direction.

Live Without Regret

 

Life experiences are the tiles in the mosaic that make up who we are as people.  We are all works of art in our own way, and have tiles that we are proud of, and some that make us not so proud.  The sum of the whole serves as a comprehensive picture of our past, and can help guide us through our future.  Therefore many people say that you should live without any regrets because you learn from the experiences that have brought you both joy and pain, and the decisions you’ve made that have led to positive and negative outcomes.  I loved this idea, and bought into it like an eager stock broker on a hot stock.  I believed it was the perfect answer to adopt for whenever someone asked me if I had any regrets.  I’d respond with an emphatic “No way!” followed by the prideful philosophic declaration of how my experiences have made me who I am. 

I felt so good about having that wonderful answer in my back pocket because I believed having a regret meant that you were somewhat ashamed of who you were, or that it was a rejection of a part of your personality.  But as I’ve matured I’ve begun to realize, it’s just looking at a situation and if you could do it over again you would do something differently.  It means that even through regret, you can still have taken away a valuable educational experience from that situation, and you can still feel apologetic for your words or for an action or lack of action.

With this new frame of reference I’ve come to believe that I share with many other people one specific regret in common.  The regrets are the times in my life and possibly in yours that we were not our true authentic self.  I’m not referencing lying, that’s not what that means.  I’m talking about the times where some specific thought was held in, words were not said, or there was a lack of vulnerability to someone you trust.  This can even extend to being too proud to give in, or to admit to being wrong when deep down you were cognizant of your erroneous stance on something.

I wrote about vulnerability before in my post ‘Be Vulnerable’ and it’s a subject matter that has really great odds of surfacing again because it is the root of where your authentic self lies.  You see we have this thing in our life and in our society where we need to save ‘face’.  Face saving is a sociological concept that I’ve studied through the lens of interpersonal communication during graduate school.  It’s where shame, and pride reside as we interact with others in society because we desire for others to perceive us in a positive way.  Therefore we will hide our vulnerability, to meet the expectations of others or even ourselves so that we are not perceived as too soft or so that our pride doesn’t take a hit, or to be strong for someone else.  But what about you, what about yourself.  Why hide something that is truly who you are, just to be liked and seen in good favor?

When you lose your vulnerability, you risk losing what matters to you the most, and pushing people away that you care about the most.  Is that really worth it?  Do you want to be separated from the things in your life that you cherish just so that you can save face?  This can happen in any situation and it’s something that you have to be cognizant of because if you’re not, you are putting yourself at risk of losing what’s important to you.

Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, and live with no regrets.  Brenè Brown a leading researcher in vulnerability says that vulnerability is our ability to be honest and to be seen.  So be seen, and be yourself!  Share with others how you feel, tell that special someone what’s happening in your life so that they can understand, or explain to those who care that you’re in a difficult place.  Forget about what the right words are, use all that you have to use even if you use too many.  You’re not an ad agency, so your message doesn’t have to be perfect and you’re not paying by the ad space or the letter.  Don’t hold back your true self so that you can save face.  The minute you hold back anything is the minute that you now will probably have a regret in your life, which is that you weren’t your authentic self.

Positive Music

This week here in Austin, Texas is a festival referred to as South by Southwest or SXSW for short.  It’s an amazing festival that has an interactive portion with technology, a film portion with movie and television show premieres, but my favorite portion is the music section of the festival and the musical artists that come to town for SXSW.  Because of this I’ve decided to do something a little different with this week’s blog in honor of the great music that’s here.

Music has always played a huge role in my life, even though I’m not the most musically talented with an instrument or through singing.  But if you know me you’ll know that I’m a positive person.  I tend to see the glass not half full or half empty,   I see it as all the way full because it has liquid and air in it either way.  I’ve been asked before on a few occasions how I stay so positive, and to be completely honest I’ve never had a really good answer for that.  The most accurate answer would be a blend of my life experiences and the people in my life have taught me that every cloud has a silver lining, not that every silver lining has a cloud.

I digressed there for a moment to bring up the point that I believe another really influential piece to explaining this puzzle of positivity for me is music.  I enjoy a very wide variety of music, and whether it’s in my car, in my apartment, or anywhere else, I am constantly listening to music.   There’s a song for almost every emotion, and I find that listening to great music can make any day a little brighter.

In that regard, and as I’ve stated in honor of the music portion of SXSW, I’d like to share just a few songs of positivity that you can enjoy.  These are just a few from a very long list and some artists have more than one song but I had to narrow it down so that this post didn’t end up being too long.  Since this is an abridged list of positive songs that I like, you might have some songs or artists that are not on here, but that you would like to add to the list, and I want you to please feel free to do so in the comment section.  It would be great to see some other songs or artists I might be unfamiliar with and I can expand my musical appreciation. 

This list in no particular order, but please click on the songs and it will link to a YouTube video of the song.

Pharrell Williams – Happy

Bob Marley – Three Little Birds

Michael Franti – The Sound of Sunshine

Michael Franti – I’m Alive

Michael Jackson – Working Day and Night

Stevie Wonder – Positivity

Stevie Wonder – Uptight (Everything’s Alright)

John Legend – If You’re Out There

John Legend – Wake Up!

Beatles – Here Comes the Sun

Machel Montano – Energy High

Machel Montano – Float

Strengths and Weaknesses

We are all pretty familiar with the terms strengths and weaknesses.  Sometimes they are used to weigh the options of a personal choice, categories on an employee evaluation, or a question in an interview such as “What are your strengths, and weaknesses?”  I’ve come across it multiple times in those situations as well as while running S.W.O.T. analysis in the beginning stages of project development to evaluate its potential before full development, and launching it.  (S.W.O.T stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)  No matter the setting, strengths and weaknesses are common bedfellows but frequently used in opposition to each other.

Despite the words being used in a contrasting way, which is a context that they are habitually placed in, let us suppose that a strength can be a weakness and vice versa.  Initially this sounds like something that can’t truly be possible because one tends to think that if my strengths are what I’m good at, there is no way it can be something I’m bad at as well.  The reality is, that it is very possible, and something that we need to be aware of as we all embark in roles of leadership and supervision as well as in our daily personal lives. 

I was engaged in a conversation with a friend recently, and we were talking about optimism and how it can be a great quality to have, but be a hindrance as well.  During this discussion it was brought up that with a great amount of optimism it is easy to find the silver lining and see that things will work out for the better.  On the surface, we can all agree that this is an uplifting and empowering disposition to have.  However, as the conversation progressed, I began to understand that sometimes this way of thinking can prevent someone from facing the realities of certain circumstances.  In turn it can stunt someone from stepping out of their comfort zone to take the action steps necessary in the interim before that desired optimistic ending happens. 

Therefore finding a balance is important, and it’s healthy to have a little fear mixed in with that optimism shifting from the thought process of "It will all work out!", to "I better make something work out."  Some label the “It’ll all work out” attitude as fatalistic optimism and as my friend pointed out in our discussion, a balance is crucial to have so that one can take important actions along the way of reaching the light at the end of the tunnel.

My penchant for conversation that exercises my brain left me processing this idea of your strengths can be your weaknesses long after the conversation was over.  As I mulled it over during this time, it was very evident that it can be true with almost any positive trait that we have, and the same is true for traits that we label our weaknesses.  They can become strengths, in the right situations, but it heavily depends on the situation you’re in and how you are using your traits at that instantaneous point. 

Whether it is in the workplace or in your personal life it is important to do a lot of self-reflection to be aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are.  Furthermore self-awareness to know how you are using those traits, and the effect they can have when fully dominant is important as well.  We should know how best to utilize our strengths and weaknesses, and when to balance them out to maximize our productivity at work and at home. 

They Will Say No, You Will Say Yes

It’s definitely that time of year in sports.  There are NFL Playoff games happening, and NCAA College Basketball is in full swing.  So many of us watch great catches and defensive plays on the football field, and then flip the channel to amazing dunks that make us stand up and high five complete strangers.  If you take the time to read some of my past blogs, it will come as no surprise that I pull a lot of motivation and leadership philosophy from athletes, sports quotes and sports teams.

This week, I was reminded of something from playing basketball my freshman year in high school when I heard the stories of two athletes Derrick Coleman and Isaiah Austin.  I was reminded of a motivational quote our coach gave us during our first team meeting.  It stuck out to me, so I cut it out and hung it in my locker.  From then on, I would look at this quote all through high school, college, and eventually come to share it with people I supervised when I started working full time.  It’s from a Nike Ad (the ad is below) and although I love the whole thing, my favorite line is:

“They will tell you no.

A thousand times no. Until all the no’s become meaningless. 

All your life they will tell you no.

Quite firmly and very quickly.

And you will tell them yes.”

Derrick Coleman is a player for the Seattle Seahawks.  He climbed the ranks playing football through high school, at UCLA, and now will play on the greatest and biggest stage in the NFL, the Super Bowl.  I came across Derrick through, surprisingly enough, a Duracell commercial.  After reading more about Derrick I realized that he has a very inspirational story.  What you may not know about him, is that he is a legally deaf person playing in the NFL.  In a sport where snap counts, audibled plays (plays changed by the quarterback before the ball is hiked) and crowd noise play a vital role in the success of the team, Derrick has learned through his hearing aid and coping mechanisms to play at the most elite level in the sport.  From being a child trying to fit his hearing aid under his helmet, to going undrafted in the NFL, he was constantly being told ‘No’ and through perseverance and determination, he told them ‘Yes’.

The story of Isaiah Austin is also a story of triumph under difficult odds.  Isaiah Austin is a basketball player for Baylor University, a Division I Men’s Basketball Team.  Through a routine dunk in warm ups during middle school, he aggravated an injury from little league.  In basketball where eye sight and depth perception are as vital as a good jump shot, Isaiah was learning to play the game in a completely different way than most youth.  He tore his retina in one eye and despite surgery and efforts to save his sight, he eventually became blind in one eye.  He was therefore learning coping mechanisms to compensate for his sight, and how to play through his unique circumstance.  Bearing this secret until very recently, he admits to hiding his loss of vision in one eye because he was afraid people would tell him ‘No’ suggesting that he wasn’t good enough, or not take a chance on him because he only could see through one eye.  Instead he found ways to tell them ‘Yes’ before they even had a chance to say ‘No’.

I share these stories and the Nike Ad because intrinsic motivation is such a vital source of the drive we must have to succeed.  I think about my favorite line whenever I get the sense that someone thinks I’m not good enough, or when I come across an obstacle blocking me from something that I want to achieve.  Our circumstances may not be the exact same as Derrick’s or Isaiah’s, but they serve as great examples of how to overcome the odds against them to achieve their goals in life.

Most importantly I use the Nike Ad and will now think of these athletes when doubt creeps into my own mind wondering if I’m good enough, or talented enough.  I think it’s safe to say that we have all had moments of self-doubt where we have second guessed ourselves or berated ourselves in comparison to others.  We can easily get sucked into the spiral of negativity in our minds and our thoughts second guessing ourselves on whether we are capable of something.  It’s natural for those thoughts to creep in occasionally, but it’s even more crucial to put them out and stand resilient with the confidence in ourselves.  We have to eliminate those thoughts and be determined to succeed the same way Derrick and Isaiah have persevered through their challenges to succeed.  The reason this is so important is because as the Nike Ad says: “They will tell you No”, so if you’re not willing to tell them ‘Yes’, then who will?

Story from ABC about Derrick Coleman click here.

Story from Sportscenter about Isaiah Austin click here

Your Friends are Your Future

Recently I watched a documentary in the ESPN 30 for 30 series about Maurice Clarett and Jim Tressel called Youngstown Boys.  It centered primarily on Maurice’s tumultuous experience playing football at The Ohio State University and how he was tied to his coach there, Jim Tressel, both from the city of Youngstown, OH.  It was very intriguing, and in the end, inspirational documentary about never giving up.  But something he said during a clip of a speech really stuck out to me, causing me to write this week’s blog.  In response to how he stays strong and on a new path in life, he said, “Show me your friends; I’ll show you your future.”  It was a very brief statement but so very true and insightful.

Maurice’s statement was precisely yet implicitly getting at what friends and colleagues are, your support network.  A solid support network is so crucial to success because as Maurice said, it can determine your future.  I’ve talked about being your own CEO before in a previous blog and making sure you have a strong board of directors that you can depend on for constructive feedback, and directional support as you try to achieve your goals and stay motivated on the path to success.  However, now with his statement, this is getting more at the grass roots and expanding it to the ‘employees’ in that analogy. 

As we traverse on our various paths in life, it’s important that as we are surrounding ourselves with people who lift us up and help motivate us to follow our goals.  It is vital that these people that we interact with on almost an everyday basis are the kind of people that share your values, aspire to do great things, and can positively encourage you during your journey.  More importantly it’s crucial that through their actions and words they are positively influencing you to be who you want to become.  Your basic everyday interactions with your friends can work as a cumulative influential effect when it comes to even the tiniest decisions that you make in life.

We’ve all heard the cliché statement “crabs in a barrel” in regards to those we surround ourselves with pulling us down.  The same is legitimately and conversely true for helping us up out of the barrel if we are trying to be successful and change our circumstances for the better.  There is a challenge of maintaining relationships with where we have come from and not abandoning those friends that were in our lives as we were growing up.  What I would assert is that if these people are still in your life, think about how they influence you and the role that they play.  In addition to this, we all have friends of a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures and some have values that we may disagree with.  That’s the benefit of knowing diverse people who can challenge you to grow.  The danger is when those people do not align with being beneficial to who you desire to be in your own life.

Don't Quit

This past Thanksgiving Weekend was filled with some of the most exciting endings to college and NFL football games.  The most memorable was the end of the Auburn versus Alabama game, which has saturated almost every news and media outlet for the past few days.  I bring up this college football game not to exhaust an already fatigued sports news story, but because it serves as a classic example of why we should never give up, even if it seems like the game is over.

If you haven’t seen it, the Auburn win came on a last second, long range field goal attempt by Alabama, with both teams tied and braced for the possibility of going into overtime.  Auburn put one person in the end zone to catch the field goal if Alabama missed it short.  It was a heads up ‘let’s be prepared for any type of situation’ play calling mentality that gave them the win.  This attitude that the game isn’t over until the clock says zero is the mindset that we need to carry with us every day.  In life your game might be a job hunt, starting a business, or another circumstance you face where not continuing to try means the difference between quitting and success.

All too often many of us get caught up in convincing ourselves that our circumstances are too monumental to overcome and we give up.  We might have been trying so hard, for so long at something, that frustration has set in from a lack of the results that we expect.  Just when it seems like we are at the end of our journey some of us choose to quit.  Not quitting at that instant in time makes successful people successful.  Just when successful people start to think their ‘game’ is over or feel frustration start to set in, instead of quitting, they push a harder to keep on going until they reach their goal.

Before Auburn won they were down two touchdowns to the number one team in the nation but they didn’t give up and neither should you.  Auburn put someone in the end zone in preparation for something good that might happen to help them win.  They took a chance even though the odds were stacked against them, and that’s what we should do with every opportunity.  We need to be ready to go, ready to take a chance, ready to finish strong and play hard through every last second regardless of the odds we face.  Had Auburn not been ready for opportunity to come their way in the form of a short missed field goal, that game probably wouldn’t be in the history books for the way it ended, and Auburn might not be in the SEC championship game. 

You too have to be ready for opportunity to strike in whatever form it may come to you, just like Auburn was.  Don’t give up and say I’ll get it next time.  Had Auburn adopted that thought process, they could have lost in overtime.  Fight until the very last second, and be prepared to put in extra effort just when it seems like it’s all over, because an opportunity might come your way.  When opportunity knocks, you need to make sure you’re ready with a welcome mat ready to let it come into your life.

Over the years I’ve shared a poem titled “Don’t Quit” written by an anonymous author with those I have supervised.  I would share it with them as motivation to keep working hard no matter what.  It’s my favorite poem to read for inspiration, and the last stanza which I have pasted below summarizes what I’m getting at with this week’s blog.
(You can Google “Don’t Quit poem” for the full version)

"Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit."

Thankful for Good...and Bad?

As the Thanksgiving Holiday draws closer by the hour, we see on many social media networks people asking friends to post what they are thankful for.  This is certainly the perfect season to be pensive of what we appreciate and to share that gratitude with our friends and family as we all get together and reconnect this upcoming weekend.  There is plenty in my life that I am grateful for, and the ease of creating such a list is something in and of itself I am thankful for.  I won’t bore you with my full inventory here, but as I watched others post their thankful lists on Facebook, some by the day, others by the week, I started to notice a pattern.  I noticed that so many things were related to family, pets, jobs, and all around very positive feel-good type things.  This got me to start thinking (not in a scrooge bah-humbug way) but what about the not-so-good things; can we be thankful for those too?  In that moment, I found this week’s blog.

I started to think about the potential for being thankful for the unconventional not-so-good things that people usually aren’t thankful for.  I wondered if I could still be thankful for some of those things even though in the moment it was painful and difficult and the answer was, “Yes”.  You’re probably thinking I went off the deep end and how could that be so, but it’s possible.  I’ve written about finding a silver lining in a previous post titled ‘When Life Happens…’ but this is something a little bit different.  I’m referring to being thankful for something after the event or occurrence has happened in a reflection for how it has contributed to making us a better and stronger person, not just finding something positive in the moment to get through it.  I’m also not saying you should be thankful for every bad thing that has happened to you, but there are some that might not be as bad when we look back on it.

A prime personal example of that was the end of my dream of becoming a doctor.  As a child, adults always ask, “What you want to be when you grow up?”.  For as long as I can remember my answer was consistently ‘A doctor’.  In college my experiences coaching youth basketball, volunteering as a mentor for kids, and substitute teaching narrowed my answer down to ‘A Pediatrician’.  The next thing I knew I was walking across the stage with a Pre-Med Physiology degree, but I had received rejection letters from the medical schools that I applied to.  Instead of becoming a Pediatrician, I pursued a Master’s Degree in Health Communications.  While in that program I was an Assistant Hall Director and discovered and built a career in Student Affairs.  I couldn’t have been more thankful for those med. school rejection letters because student affairs (Residence Life to be specific) was where I had some of the most amazing experiences, and met an abundance of wonderful people, staff and students.  At the time yes, the rejection letters were devastating, but I could never have predicted such a bright light at the end of the tunnel and looking back on it, I am thankful for what it lead to.

When asked what we are thankful for we tend to focus on the easy things that make us happy and that are positive. There’s nothing wrong with that because that’s great, I always encourage positivity.  But it’s also important to reflect on the tough times that have made us who we are today.  The things many people focus on as regrets, are instead the events and occurrences that have given us an opportunity to be stronger, smarter, and better people.  I’m not saying you should ruin your Thanksgiving by flooding your thoughts with bad stuff that has happened to you.  However it is important to think about the things that have made you who you are today, that may not have been ideal at the time but now could be something you would be thankful for happening because without it, you would never be who you are today.  We should learn to live our lives with no regrets.  Stop looking back and saying “I could’ve, would’ve, should’ve”.  The bottom line is that it happened, and you can move forward carrying with you the knowledge and experience gained to make your own life and the lives of others better.  We can be thankful for those times as well as everything else that is feel-good and positive.

Watering Your Own Grass

After you read the title for this you might be wondering if I’ve turned in my typing thumb for a green thumb after only one post.  Well, my parents are the better gardeners in the family, so I’ll leave that to them.  The title refers to a meme I saw while scrolling through Facebook inspired me to reexamine a cliché.  (a meme is where a phrase is typically superimposed on a picture).  It took the cliché “The grass is always greener on the other side.” and flipped it on its head.  It said “The grass is greener, where you water it.”

Now it doesn’t take a horticulturist to figure out something as obvious as a plant is greener due to more water.  But it made me think, what if we on a daily basis really applied this meme to our lives the way we typically fall into the trap of the cliché.  I know I’ve been guilty of the thought on quite a few occasions that: “the grass is greener on the other side”.  However as I reflect on the words within the meme, was I really noticing my own grass, and was I cultivating it to be as green as ‘the other side’?  In addition to that, was the grass I was seeing in the proverbial ‘over there’ truly as green as it initially seemed?

I reflected on the times I had wished I was someone else, or had someone else’s position in life.  Occasions that came to mind were watching my friends get married while I was single wishing it was me, driving past multi-million dollar homes wishing I was living there, or even as a young child I can sometimes remember thinking “I wish I had a sibling” (I’m still an only child…um...well adult. But you know what I mean).  I’m sure that at some point, you’ve had a similar line of thinking, or maybe you have it frequently, I’m not here to judge you.  I can tell you that even the most self-confident person has that little green monster of envy rearing its ugly head from time to time evoking the thought “Wow. I wish that was me.”  There is however a danger here when we begin to buy in to this line of thinking.  For some people this envy can lead to resentment toward their situation or worse, resentment toward special people in their lives.  Quite often in those other situations the grass isn’t really that much greener and there are a lot of unseen circumstances that might not be too great that has led to what we deem as ‘greener grasses’. 

I want to encourage you to take the time to water your own grass to make it greener like the meme says.  Take time to be thankful for the things in your own life that you’re truly thankful for.  If you don’t know where to start I will share some suggestions with you to help get you started at the end of this post.  Even if you believe your life situation isn’t the most ideal, I promise you, that you still have green grass to enjoy.  Sometimes that situation you’re looking at isn’t meant for you at that time in your life.  On other occasions you might be missing out on the benefits of your own situation and some really great memorable moments or opportunities because you’re too worried wishing you had someone else’s.

I will concede that there is a thin line here where some people would assert “But it’s just my goal to live in a house or drive a car, etc. like that. What’s wrong with that?”  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Having a goal is something completely different and that’s where watering your own grass comes into play.  Taking the time to assess your situation and what decisions you can make to better yourself or your situation to reach your goal is a substantial way of watering your grass.  Don’t just say I wish that was me.  Look at your situation and make a plan to reach your goals.  Sometimes it takes small goals which can lead to you accomplishing your larger goals.  Finding the things you are thankful for is another way of watering, and it may help you realize that your grass is greener than you originally thought.

I promised to share some suggestions as a sprinkler to help you get started on watering your own grass and you can find those simple tips below.  They might even inspire you to think of other ways.  I have faith in you.  You can make your grass greener, so go for it!!!

Tips for watering your own grass:

1.       Put a notepad next to your bed.  Before you go to sleep write down something good that happened to you during that day.  It can be as simple as I got my favorite parking spot.  After a while you’ll have a record of positive things that have happened to you that you can look at when you’re feeling not so positive.

2.       When you wake up in the morning say to yourself three times “Today is going to be a good day.”  Putting yourself in a positive mindset first thing in the morning will affect the decisions you make all day

3.       Think of an activity that makes you happy and feel good about yourself.  Make a plan to make that activity happen more than once, or on a regular basis.

4.       Think of someone you shared a great memory with that you haven’t talked to in a while and reach out to them to relive that memory.  Do this on multiple occasions with different people you know.  You’ll be able to reconnect with friends and share a good laugh.

5.       Figure out a way to laugh at least twice in a day.  Whether it’s watching a YouTube video, retelling a story, watching a funny movie, etc. There is plenty of scientific research that says laughing is good for your health.

6.       Make a list of 10 things you’re thankful for in your life.  If there are people on your list, take the time to tell them.

7.       If you find yourself saying “I wish that was me”, take the time to write down some concrete steps (big and small) that you can take to make that you.  Then follow through on those steps.  Soon your grass really will be greener. 

Happy Watering!