Start right now to fulfill your best possibilities. Start right now to achieve the goals you've set for yourself. Those goals, those possibilities are too important to let them go stale. There is something you can do right now to move toward them. Get busy and do it. There is some initial action you can take. Get busy and take it.
What have you always told yourself you would do? Who is the person you have always wanted to become? What is the lifestyle you've always wished for? Wishing is not enough. Intention is not enough. At some point you must take action to achieve those things you truly desire. That point is right now.
Now is the time you have available to you. Now is your opportunity to act. Now is when your goals, your dreams, your ambitions begin to become a reality.
There's no need to put off the fulfillment of you best possibilities for another moment. Start now, take action, keep going and experience the incomparable thrill of making your dreams a reality.
-- Ralph Marston
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Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A CHANGE IN ATTITUDE
There is enormous power in the fact that something so all-encompassing as your attitude can be changed so quickly. Your world can be an entirely different place than the world you lived in a few moments ago when your attitude toward it changes.
The key thing to keep in mind about your attitude is that it is yours. Though anything can influence it, you control it. You have final authority over your attitude. By exercising that control, you can literally change your world.
You say there are certain things which put you in a bad mood. Yet the truth is that you put yourself in a bad mood. It is a way in which you choose to respond. What if you were to make a different choice? Those "bad mood" things would no longer have control over you, and your precious time could be used moving forward rather than feeling miserable.
You say there are things which put you in a good mood. Yet again, that is a choice you make. What if you were to choose it more often? Imagine the positive possibilities!
-- Ralph Marston
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BELIEVE IT
It pays to be a little skeptical in a world where people are constantly making all sorts of fantastic claims.
You certainly cannot believe all you read, or hear or see on television. Get-rich-quick schemes, miracle weight loss products, hot stock tips and other such things promise to quickly and easily solve problems with little or no effort. They seem so enticing, yet they usually turn out to be just enticement and nothing more. A healthy skepticism can save you from a lot of pain and disappointment.
When it comes to yourself and the possibilities for your own life and your ability to make those possibilities a reality, however, set your skepticism aside. What you believe is possible for your life, is possible. What you believe about yourself, is who you are. What you decide to accomplish, you will accomplish.
Allow yourself to believe in yourself. Allow yourself to believe that the best in life is possible for you. Let your belief infect, infuse and empower your thoughts, your actions, and your expectations. In your belief is the power to overcome whatever obstacles may stand in your way.
When the world promises you something, it's just common sense to temper your belief with a healthy skepticism. Yet when you make a promise to yourself, believe it with everything you have and you'll find a way to keep that promise.
-- Ralph Marston
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EVERY STEP
Even the most difficult challenge can be broken down into finite, easily accomplished steps. People who only take some of those steps will fall short of the goal. Those who are willing to take all the steps will enjoy success.
Some people will often take a few steps and then stop, complaining about how unfair life is. Others will take some steps in one direction, grow bored, and then start off in another direction, only to become disillusioned.
The only way to success is to go all the way to success. Take one step after another until you are there. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. It doesn't take exceptional strength to get it done. What it takes is desire and commitment. You have them if you choose to use them.
The path to any success is in front of you, and you are free to travel that path, one step at a time. Each step is within your reach. It's up to you to take them all, every one of them.
At the end of this day you are going to be tired. The choice you're able to make is what kind of tired that will be. You can be tired from not doing much, from just getting by, and that is a weary feeling indeed. It's something that not even a good night's rest will take away.
Or, you can be tired after a day's worth of positive effort and accomplishment, while at the same time being satisfied and fulfilled. Then, after a good night's sleep, you can wake up tomorrow feeling energized and enthusiastic about moving forward again.
There is nothing that can compare with the sense of accomplishment that comes after a day filled with positive, focused, effective effort. In just a few hours you can be enjoying the delightful, empowering experience of being good and tired.
You're going to be tired anyway, so doesn't it make sense to get something positive and valuable out of it? You're going to move through this day anyway, so doesn't it make sense to move forward with effective, enthusiastic effort and accomplishment?
Use this day to get yourself good and tired, and experience for yourself just how great that can be.
Ralph Marston
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DETERMINED
It is true that discouragement can lead to defeat. Yet discouragement can just as surely lead to determination and increased resolve. Discouragement can drain the energy from you, or it can infuse you with fresh new vitality to push on ahead. It all depends on how you choose to respond to the discouragement that comes your way.
Every effort of any significance will meet with some discouragement. It may often seem that you are burdened with more than your share of it. But is that discouragement really a burden or is it instead a blessing in disguise? You can indeed turn it into a blessing if you so desire.
For the same things that make it so discouraging can also be positively compelling reasons to move forward. Powerful determination and unstoppable commitment come, more often than not, from discouragement that has been turned in a positive direction.
You cannot avoid discouragement, but then you really wouldn't want to. For you can choose to take it and let it make you that much stronger, that much more determined, and that much more successful.
Ralph Marston
******************** Decisiveness
If you could live your life backwards it would be easy to avoid mistakes. You could simply look back on the mistakes, clearly and unmistakably see them coming, and move in another direction.
In the real world, where time moves only forward, avoiding mistakes is not nearly so easy to do. For the only way to completely avoid mistakes is to completely avoid taking action.
But that, of course would be the biggest mistake of all. For although you would never make any mistakes, you would never move forward either, and never get anything done.
In order to accomplish anything, you have to accept the fact that you're going to make some mistakes. Of course you would never set out to intentionally make a mistake, and it's wise to take reasonable precautions against them.
And then, have the courage to move forward, to make definite decisions, to take specific actions, even though some will turn out to be mistakes. When the mistakes do come, that very same decisiveness will get you quickly past them.
from April 2001
Words of wisdom from my husband Mark
