Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence is the key to unlocking our potential.


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Every healthy meal that you have is something to congratulate yourself on, look at the healthy changes you have made each day. When you have a lapse, plan for how to handle the same situation the next time it happens.

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Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.

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We're all pilgrims on the same journey-but some pilgrims have better road maps.

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Whether or not you reach your goals in life depends entirely on how well you prepare for them and how badly you want them. You're eagles! Stretch your wings and fly to the sky.

A NEW DAY

What has happened has happened. If you've had a difficult day, or month, or year, it does no good to dwell on your unfortunate experiences. Move on past them. Avoid the temptation to feel sorry for yourself or to enlist the pity of others. Your troubles are in the past so there is no reason whatsoever for dismay.

Get up and get going. The future is completely open and filled with an unlimited supply of positive possibilities. Today is a new day and you are fortunate enough to be living it. Furthermore, you can decide precisely how to live this day. You can determine what will become of it. Don't look backward with regret or contempt. Look forward with gratitude and excitement.

Your attitude right now matters more than anything that could have ever happened in the past. Forget about making excuses. Focus on making a difference. Every bit of negativity you've ever experienced is now in the past. Do yourself a big favor and leave it there.

-- Ralph Marston

GET BACK UP


Lots of things can knock you down, yet nothing can stop you when you're determined to keep getting back up. Success belongs to those who can endure enough disappointments and setbacks while staying positive and committed to reaching the goal.

The way to build strong muscles is to lift heavier and heavier weights. In the same way, the strength necessary for achievement comes when you quickly get going again each time you're knocked down. The setbacks are not really setbacks. They're opportunities to take your efforts to a higher and more effective level. The disappointments are not really disappointments. They're experiences that will strengthen your determination.

When you have the confidence to get back up, there's no need to be stopped by the fear of being knocked down. Even if you fall short, it's just one more step on the way to certain achievement.

Everyone knows disappointment. Winners are those who acknowledge the disappointment but who refuse to accept it as the final result. Keep getting back up, keep getting back in the game. No matter how many setbacks may come your way, each one is a golden invitation to get back up and move on ahead.

-- Ralph Marston

MAKING A CHOICE


Just imagine what would be possible for you today if only you could exercise positive, focused control over every thought and action. You wouldn't waste any time being angry or spiteful or envious. You'd simply move yourself positively forward. You would actually do all those things you know you need to do, and you would avoid those things you know you'd later regret.

In fact, you do have control over your thoughts and actions. After all, they're your thoughts and they're your actions. So why do they so often lead you toward things that are not in your best interest? It happens whenever you choose short term pleasure and comfort over long term joy and achievement.

Is that really what you want to do, or has it just become a habit? Today would be a great day to break that habit. Today would be a great day to start living in your best interest. Today would be a great day to put your efforts into building a life of purpose, achievement and fulfillment.

The shallow pleasures of the moment never last, so choose to invest your precious time in something more substantial. Every moment you're making a choice, and every moment you have the opportunity to build a life of greatness. You're in control of what you do, so make sure it expresses who you really want to be.

-- Ralph Marston

FINDING A WAY


Things which now come easily and naturally to you, at one time seemed difficult and even impossible. You found a way around those obstacles which once were so daunting. You found a way because you had enough desire to find it. You found a way because you had the commitment to find it and to make it work.

When you need to, or want to, or must, you can find a way to move past whatever is blocking your path, toward whatever you desire. The difficulty of the challenge is not nearly as important as the strength of your commitment.

What do you sincerely intend to do, and what do you truly expect to do? These are the things that will get done, because you will find a way. The efforts probably won't be comfortable, convenient or easy, but then nothing of value ever is. That's why commitment is so crucial, because it will get you through what you must get through.

You're going to get knocked down. With enough commitment you'll get back up. You're going to become sidetracked and blown off course. With enough commitment you'll quickly get back on track.

Your previous priorities and commitments have brought you to where you are right now. Commit to the best, the brightest, the most positive future you can sincerely imagine. Make the commitment, and you'll find the way.

-- Ralph Marston

MOVING THIS UP!

STICK IT OUT


Keep going. You've come all this way, invested irreplacable time. Don't stop now. Each moment brings you closer and closer to the success you desire. Each action ensures that you will get there that much sooner.

Have you ever wondered how many people give up when they are just a week, or a month away from finally succeeding? What a shame! What a waste!

Keep on going. Determination will prevail over any obstacle. Consistent effort will win out over genius, luck and talent. When things get difficult, it's probably because you're starting to make a difference. Continue doing it. Keep up the effort. You'll soon be there.

-- Ralph Marston
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ENERGY OF FRUSTRATION

Within every frustration is the power to move forward. After all, you could not be frustrated if you did not also know for certain that things could indeed be better.

The more frustrated you feel, the more you are ready, willing and able to move beyond that frustration with positive and effective action. Though it may be quite painful, frustration also is a powerful motivator.

Frustration has its positive, empowering elements as well as its negative, dismaying ones. Remove the resentment and self pity from your frustration, and what you have left is pure, positive energy. Remove the anger and the blame, and you uncover drive, ambition, persistence. Not only can frustration spur you into action and keep you going, it can do so in ways that enable you to clearly focus on what needs to be done.

When there is frustration, there is opportunity. Where there is frustration, there is an underlying positive energy that's anxious to spring into action. Don't let your frustration get the best of you or get you down. Instead, know that it's positively compelling you to move forward, and make use of the considerable energy that your frustration gives you to do just that.

-- Ralph Marston

COMMITMENT

True commitment is serious and it is powerful. Commitment is not just saying you'll do it. Commitment is doing it. True commitment is not conditional, for to be committed means to be absolutely committed.

Commitment is more than doing just what is convenient or comfortable. Commitment is doing what is necessary. Commitment is making the sacrifices and tradeoffs that are required to uphold it. Commitment is more than just wishing for the right conditions. Commitment is working with what you have.

Commitment is not easy. Commitment does not back down or run away at the first sign of trouble. Commitment perseveres until the goal is reached. Commitment does not waste time and effort whining or complaining or seeking to find blame. Commitment adjusts to reality and moves forward.

Too many people have been deceived for too long, and have come to expect that they can know fulfillment without the gritty effort of commitment. They are sadly mistaken. Real, solid commitment is real work. And well worth it. The evidence is overwhelming -- it gets results like nothing else can.

-- Ralph Marston

WITHIN YOUR REACH

Your dreams are most certainly within your reach. Yet just because they're within your reach does not automatically mean that you'll reach them. It is up to you to move yourself toward them. It is up to you to use each day, each moment, each thought and action to go surely and steadily in the direction you wish to go.If the place you plan to reach is just a few hundred yards to the north of you, and yet you insist on always walking south, you'll have a very difficult time ever reaching it. Are your actions in each moment moving you toward the place you want to be, or are they moving you away?

There are certain things, wonderful things, positive, valuable and exciting things you intend to accomplish. Right this very moment is the time to be taking clear, definite steps toward them.

Rise above the distractions of the moment and look at the big picture of your life. Give yourself some meaningful perspective and then take a clear, objective look at the direction in which you're headed.

Are you letting the distractions and temptations determine your direction, or are you following your highest vision for what life can be? The sooner you start moving in the direction of your dreams, the sooner you will get there, and now is the perfect time to start.

-- Ralph Marston

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THE NEXT HOUR


In just one hour from now, your world can be an entirely different place than it is this moment. You can make it a better place as a result of what you do with this time that you now have.One hour from now, you can be well on your way toward your most treasured dream. One hour from now, you can experience the exhilarating freedom of moving surely and steadily beyond your most difficult challenge.

In just one hour from now, you can be looking back with satisfaction at how much you've been able to accomplish. In just one hour's time, your whole attitude can be a thousand times more positive and productive than it is even now.

Yes, you could spend the next hour wandering aimlessly through a fog of anger, despair or frustration, and if you wish you'll find plenty of excuses for doing so. Or you can really and truly live the next hour with energy and vitality, looking positively forward with the very best you have to give.

The next hour is absolutely critical, for it is the one over which you now have control. You have every reason, every resource and every ability to make it the very best you've ever lived.

-- Ralph Marston

LEARN FROM IT

When the result is not what you expected, learn from it. When you get the result you want, learn from that too. Every experience is a wonderful opportunity to learn. Wisdom comes from learning the difficult lessons which experience teaches.

With wisdom comes respect, authority and effectiveness. You pay a hefty price for wisdom, and yet what you get is even more valuable than what you paid. It is indeed difficult to console yourself to "learning from this" when things fail to go your way. It is much easier to get angry, to get depressed, to complain or even to forget about the whole thing. But when you
do that, you end up paying the price without getting any value in return.

Whatever happens, let it increase your wisdom and, ultimately, your success. Whatever happens, get past the concerns of the moment and learn from it.

Copyright 2001 Ralph S. Marston

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THE BEST EVER

To make this new year the best year ever, start small. Start with one small moment, this one you now have, and put into it all your energy, your enthusiasm, your passion and commitment. Make full use of what you have right here and now, whatever it may be. Though it may not seem like much, this small moment can put you solidly on course for magnificent positive achievement.

To make this new year the best year ever, keep going. Though challenges and disappointments will certainly come your way, you do not have to go their way. At times you will know discouragement, yet there is no value in continuing to be discouraged. There is every reason to continue moving forward, no matter what, for that is the best response to every discouragement.

To make this new year the best year ever, take responsibility for it. Instead of making excuses or assigning blame, put your energy into focused, creative effort, into creating value, into living with purpose.

This new year can be the best year ever. Because it will be for you whatever you are willing to make it.

-- Ralph Marston

INVEST IN HOPE

It's great to hope for the best, as long as you're also doing something to bring it about. Keep your hopes high, and yet do not allow them to become a substitute for your efforts.

Hope will work for you to the extent that you work for it. With hope and positive expectations behind your efforts, those efforts become vastly more effective. But hope can also work against you if the only thing it inspires you to do is to sit and wait. For then it just becomes an empty wish.

When you find yourself hoping for something, be sure to also find a way to invest the energy of your efforts in that hope. Give your hope a way to move you forward by doing all you can to move it forward.

Have the vision and the faith to hope for the very best. Then get busy, as you hold that hope in your heart, and make the effort necessary to make it happen.

-- Ralph Marston
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VALUE YOU PUT IN

Anything worth accomplishing is going to take some long, difficult and sustained effort to reach. Yet even though the goal may be a long way off, the benefits of working toward that goal begin to be yours immediately. For the value of accomplishment is in the accomplishing. The reward is not so much in what you obtain as in the person you become in the process of obtaining it.

No matter how difficult the journey may be, it makes all the difference in the world when that journey is leading to a destination you have chosen. By setting your sights upon where you intend to be five years from now, for example, and by committing yourself to following that path, you immediately add value to even this day and this very moment.

The commitment, the discipline, the focus and the effort are indeed their own rewards. And they begin to be yours the moment you decide to begin. Though at first you may wish you could reach the goal without having to work your way past the challenges, you'll soon realize that such a thing would be worthless. For it is precisely the value you put into any accomplishment that gives it value to you.

-- Ralph Marston

LITTLE CHOICES, BIG RESULTS

If presented with the choice, would you choose to be healthy, wealthy, secure in your relationships, happy and fulfilled, or would you choose a life filled with illness, poverty and despair? That's an easy decision. Anyone would choose the first alternative without even thinking about it.

In fact, you do have that choice. It isn't usually presented to you in such a momentous way, and it never comes as a single choice. Rather, the quality and direction of your life depend upon the many, many choices you make, moment after moment, day after day, which build on one another to fashion the reality of your world.

The little choices you make, the ones that seem not to matter much, soon add up to produce big results. They directly affect the life you live. Over the course of every day, you're presented with an overwhelming number of choices. As you make these choices, keep yourself clearly focused on where you want your life to go. Make the appropriate choices, one by one, day after day, and you will be headed powerfully in the direction of your own choosing.

-- Ralph Marston

THE NECESSARY EFFORT

We think of success as being glamorous and exciting. At its moment of culmination it often is. Yet for the most part, the essence of success is not so exciting. Usually, it can be downright tedious.

The actions, discipline and focus which lead to great achievement are themselves quite ordinary and unremarkable. Magnificent accomplishments are built mostly out of plain and pedestrian efforts. Even the greatest, most innovative ideas require ordinary hard work to implement. Without that work, they are nothing but unfulfilled dreams.

Are your dreams valuable enough to justify the effort needed to achieve them? Of course they are! Though the work itself could certainly be deemed difficult and tedious, in the context of reaching for your dreams it becomes as exciting and fulfilling as anything you could imagine.

Achievement requires plain old hard work. And because of that, it is available to anyone who is willing to do that work. Visualize your dreams and clarify your goals so that they will pull you steadily through all the effort needed to reach them.

-- Ralph Marston

FAILURE


The surest recipe for failure, is to avoid failure. If you cannot accept the prospect that you might fail, then you will most certainly fail. To avoid failure, is to avoid even the possibility of success.

Accomplishment requires effort and commitment. And it requires risk. Accomplishment requires that you make decisions, set priorities, make choices, and take action. Those things are all very risky. They can lead to failure just as surely as to success.

Yet what is failure? It is merely another step toward success. When you don't get the results you want, at least you've learned how not to act. So, is failure really so bad?

Without failure there would be no success. Make the effort. Expect the best, and accept that it may be necessary to adjust your approach to improve your results.

Be willing to fail as you take action, and you're on the road to success.

-- Ralph Marston
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ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT

In an instant your attitude can change, when you decide to change it. It requires no money, no technical skill or knowledge, no preparation, no physical strength. You don't need anyone else's consent or assistance. It is free and easy and quickly accomplished.

When your attitude is holding you back, when it is making you miserable, when it is working against your efforts, change it. Just change it. Realize that a positive perspective will add value to any situation, and it costs you nothing. In fact, it pays to be positive. You can then clearly see opportunity, and you can see how to capitalize on it. You'll engender the support, respect and admiration of others. You'll be getting things done rather than worrying about how things are.

Your attitude is one of the most powerful tools available to you. You can control and direct it, and it can change the world for you. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being positive right now, no matter what is going on. Take a moment to inject yourself with a winning attitude. It will steadily lead you to a winning reality.

-- Ralph Marston
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SCRUTINY

What if everyone knew your secrets? Would that change the way you live your life, the way you conduct business, the way you act when no one is looking? You may not live and work under the close scrutiny of others, yet it pays to act as though you do.

Scrutiny imposes discipline. If we're certain that no one will ever know, we're more likely to take shortcuts. Yet when we know that others are watching, we're more scrupulous about everything. That is almost always a good thing.

Though the world is not always watching you, the fact is that every action you take has consequences, whether you act publicly or in secret. If what you do today could not stand up to the scrutiny of others, then someday it will catch up with you.

Live as though the world is watching, and reap the many rewards that discipline and integrity will bring.

-- Ralph Marston

PERSEVERE

The greatest accomplishments happen when you get just a little way beyond the point where others would have quit. The difference between someone who enjoys magnificent success, and someone who just managed to get by, is the willingness to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to reach the goal. How far away are you, from reaching your destination? If you quit before you get there you are infinitely far away. Make the commitment to keep going, and suddenly you are almost there.

Go beyond where others are willing to go. Put in the extra effort. The time will pass anyway, whether you use it or now. It just makes sense to make the most out of every moment. Give a little more than others are willing to give, be a little more patient, have a little more curiosity, take a little more responsibility, learn a few more things, and it will make all the difference in the world.

-- Ralph Marston
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INVEST YOURSELF IN EXCELLENCE

What can you do better today than you did yesterday? Whatever you focus on improving, will improve. When you focus on building something, it will increase.

What can you do, what can you learn, who can you talk to, what can you create, what problem can you solve, what new perspective can you gain today? Every moment is an opportunity to move forward.

If you are not constantly growing, you're losing ground. Momentum only has two directions -- forward or backward. Standing still is not an option. Learn, grow and create. You're getting better and better every day. Your power and effectiveness are growing as you make the commitment to use each day to the fullest.

You have the very best of everything, within yourself. Give it a chance to get out and grow. Make your light shine brightly.

Invest yourself in excellence. A life fully lived is a life full of giving, of creative effort, of making a difference.

-- Ralph Marston
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Many men fail because they quit too soon. They lose faith when the signs are against them. They do not have the courage to hold on, to keep fighting in spite of that which seems insurmountable. If more of us would strike out and attempt the "impossible," we very soon would find the truth of that old saying that nothing is impossible... abolish fear and you can accomplish anything you wish.

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WHAT HAVE YOU DECIDED?

A decision is more than a wish. When you decide to get something done, it will get done. When you truly decide, it's more than just a vague intention. It's more than saying you're going to do it. It's more than hoping to get it done someday. It is a commitment that you make to yourself. When you truly decide, it will happen.

What have you decided to do? Look around you. Look at your life. Look at the person you've become. Look at what you've accomplished and you'll see exactly what you've decided to do.

What will you decide to do now? You have the ability to achieve whatever you decide to achieve, to become the person you decide to become, to live the life you decide to live.

Yet ability alone will not get you there. All the resources in the world, by themselves, will not get you there. Opportunity alone will not get you there. You must decide to get yourself there. Then it will happen.

-- Ralph Marston