Some of us are afraid of flying.  Some of us are afraid of mice. Some of us are afraid of public speaking.  Many of us fear cancer or some other debilitating disease.  There’s also the fear of failure or insignificance.  On and on it goes, the list of fears and phobias like anxiety and worry, which tend to come from the inside and mostly never happen but they’re still fears, nonetheless.  Fear is one of the most basic problems we all have to face and overcome . The goal is to not allow fear to hold you back from experiencing life because the fears we don’t face become our limitations.

Don’t be afraid to dream, live or love.  Don’t let a hard lesson harden your heart.  Life’s best lessons are often learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes.  There will be times when everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong.  You may feel like you will be stuck in this rut forever, but you won’t.  Sometimes things have to go very wrong before you arrive at the life you were meant to live.  Therefore, you might have to go through your worst to get to your best you.  Opportunities wait for no one.  You must not be afraid to grab one as it passes by.  If you don’t take the risk, you will never know how great it could have been.

Don’t be afraid to change.  You will lose something but you just might gain something better.  See your life as a photo; touch up the edges, adjust your tone, blur out the background, cut out the people who no longer play a role in this season of your life.  Thank the people who walked into your life and made it better, and be thankful for those who walked out but played a part in making you wiser.  It’s ok to fail.  If you are not failing you are not trying.  You gain strength, courage and confidence by standing up to fear, looking it straight in the face and saying “I can do this!”

Courage doesn’t mean that you never get afraid.  Courage means that you don’t let fear stop you.  Don’t focus on what you are up against . Focus on your goals.  Every day is a new day and you will never find happiness if you refuse to move on.  Learn from the past but focus on the opportunities you have today.  How will you ever know if you made the right decision if you never make it?  Don’t try to understand everything.  Some things happen that you will never understand and are meant only to be accepted.  When was the last time you did something for the first time.  There is no substitute for experience.  To get it you must try it.  It doesn’t matter what others are doing.  It only matters what you are doing.

Find balance in your life.  Work hard but don’t let work over take you.  Know that you are worthy to having your dreams.  Don’t be afraid to dream.  You may not know what will happen, when it will happen or how but it will never come to pass if you don’t first believe.  Don’t compare yourself to others.  You are unique and here for a purpose.  You are irreplaceable.  Embrace change.  Embrace life.  Happiness is achieved when you stopped waiting for it and make the most of the moment you are now in.  Don’t be afraid to fail. Instead be afraid of not trying.  There is even some good in failure because the feedback you get will help you to succeed the next time. Your new life is going to cost you your old one! It doesn’t matter how many times you don’t succeed.  Listen to that small voice inside of you that says ‘you are not done yet; get back up and try again,’

The day before Thanksgiving, a guy in Phoenix calls his son in New York and tells him, “Son, I’m really sorry but I have to tell you that your mother and I are splitting up. We can’t live with each other anymore.”  The son is distraught and shouts at his father, “Pop, what are you talking about?”  The father replies, “It’s just that we can’t stand the sight of each other anymore and I’m sick of talking about this, so will you call your sister in Chicago and tell her?”

The father than hangs up, and the son frantically calls his sister, who’s equally distraught and exclaims, “Like heck they’re getting divorced! Leave it to me. I’ll take care of this.”  So she calls her father and shouts at him, “You are NOT getting divorced! Don’t you dare to do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t you dare do a thing about this. Do you hear me?”  She then hangs up, at which point the father hangs up his phone, turns to his wife and says, “Okay dear, they’re both coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way.”

****

Don’t forget what Thanksgiving is all about. Reflect and be thankful for all that you have in your life. Today you didn’t wake up cold and hungry but someone else did. Never forget that no matter how hard your life is it’s still harder for someone else out there. Be thankful for the things you do have instead of complaining about the things you don’t have. Life is a gift. Wake up every day and realize it. Happiness isn’t about getting what you want all of the time. Happiness is about loving what you have and being grateful for it.

Don’t start your day with the broken pieces of yesterday. Every morning you wake up is the first day of the rest of your life. Be grateful for whatever your circumstances might be. What if you woke up today with only the things that you thanked God for yesterday? Life is a series of tiny miracles. Notice them. Choose to be grateful. Even the worst day is better than no day at all. Don’t get so busy adding up your troubles that you forget to count your blessings. Don’t be negative when you have so much to be positive about. It’s not happy people who are thankful. It’s the thankful people who are happy.

Your life may not be perfect but be thankful for everything you do have. You have too many blessings to be ungrateful. Never let the things you want make you forget the things you already have. Appreciate the people in your life. Tell them why you adore them and how grateful you are for what they add to your life. The best way to keep amazing people in your life is to show them your gratitude and let them know that they are appreciated. Don’t assume that they know. Tell them.  Appreciate those who love you. Help those who need you and forgive those who have hurt you.

Be thankful for what you are now and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow. Be thankful for your struggles. It is because of them that you stumbled into the wisdom and strength that you now possess. Gratitude is one of the most important human virtues but it is not developed without practice. You have a choice every single day to be grateful. Be thankful for those protecting your freedom who have given up their freedom and will miss being with their families this holiday season. You may not know them but you benefit from their sacrifices.

Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire. If you did, what would there be to look forward to? Be thankful when you don’t know something for it gives you the opportunity to learn. Be grateful for the difficult times for it is in those times that you grow. Be thankful for your limitations because they give you opportunities to improve. Be thankful for your mistakes because they will teach you valuable life lessons. Be thankful for your troubles because sometimes they have a way of becoming amazing blessings. Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present but not giving it to the one it is for. Gratitude is a shortcut to finding peace of mind. No matter what is going on in our lives there is always something to be grateful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The road to your dreams will not be easy.  Progress isn’t always a result of a straight line nor is it a smooth path.  The road to success is filled with mountains to climb, obstacles to overcome and such hard times that it will make you feel like quitting.  Success is a slow process but quitting won’t speed it up.  Just remember that anything worth having doesn’t come easily.  There is no elevator to success – you have to take the stairs.  Persist.  You will not feel motivated every day so you must learn to be disciplined.  If you want to be successful, the fire inside of you must burn brighter than the fire around you.  Babe Ruth said ‘it’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. ’ Every accomplishment starts with the decision to never give up.  If you already know what giving up feels like, begin again and see what it feels like to not give up.

The best project you will ever work on is yourself. You must push yourself because no one else will.  Stop saying ‘tomorrow.’ Tomorrow won’t make any difference if you are not motivated today.  You future is created by what you do today.  Do you have a vision?  If it doesn’t challenge you it won’t motivate you.  Seek to inspire people and then get ready for the day when someone tells you “because of you I didn’t give up!”  Every “pro” was once an amateur.  Every ‘expert’ was once a beginner. It takes a dream to get started, a desire to keep going, and determination to finish.  Don’t be left regretting the chances you didn’t take.

Great things never come from comfort zones.  Doing your best is more important than being the best.  The greatest fear we have is the opinion of others.  Once you become fearless, life becomes limitless.  You are far too smart to let you be the only thing standing in your way.  Losers quit when they fail.  Winners keep failing until they succeed.  Don’t stop just because you are tired.  Stop only when you have succeeded.  The one who falls and gets back up is stronger than the one who never fell.

Did you know that one year = 365 opportunities!  If you want to be happy attach yourself to a goal and not to people or things.  Never think that you are insignificant.  This world needs what only you have to offer.  Get ready to start living your best life ever. The story of your best life starts now no matter what your circumstance are in life.  You’re in the right place at the right time to start living your most amazing life. Where there is a will there is a way.  Don’t put
off until tomorrow what you can do today.  There will never be a perfect time nor will things ever be just right.  Start where you are and do what you can.  Get up every morning and tell yourself “I can do this!”  You can’t change yesterday but you can change today.

It takes 21 days to break or form a new habit.   If you don’t go after what you want you will never have it.  If you never take the next step forward you will always remain where you are today.  The secret to success is to put your energy into creating your dream and letting go of the past.  Some may ask why you are doing what you are doing but with after perseverance they will ask you how you did it.  Imagine yourself standing on top of the hardest mountain you have had to climb.  The view doesn’t get any better than that!

Adversity is a normal part of life; it cannot be avoided. In adversity there is opportunity.  No one who has done something worthwhile managed to avoid adversity.  Challenges make life interesting. Overcoming challenges is what makes our life meaningful. Strength doesn’t come from what you can do.  Strength comes from doing those things that you once thought you could never do.  Your struggles develop your strength.  When you go through adversity and decide not to give up that is strength.  Smooth sailing will never develop the skills necessary for a captain to run a ship properly.  He and his crew must know what to do when they encounter rough waters.  The same is true in life.  Adversity is the best teacher to instill in you the ability to fight situations that will surely come your way.

Overcoming adversity will allow you to learn valuable lessons and transform you into a stronger and wiser person.  Struggles will develop your self confidence and help you to move forward in life. When you face challenges, resolve to keep moving. There is something inside of you that is greater than your struggles. Character cannot be developed without adversity. You must have experience in trials to achieve real success.  Anyone can win if things always go their way.  It’s the man who overcomes his struggles that becomes a champion.  You have no idea what you can do until you are forced to do it!  When your back is up against a wall, you can either beat your head against it or you can use your head to create a plan to keep moving forward despite the wall.  A dead end street is just a place to turn around.  Choose whether you will turn around and begin again or simply stop and give up.  Don’t let a situation stop you. Go around it or work through it but don’t stop.  Fire is used to test gold. Struggles test the character of a man.

One of the strongest attitudes to have in the face of adversity is the ability to keep your focus on the goals you want to achieve.  If you lose focus, then your struggles will seem larger than life and solutions impossible.  Great leaders understand that it is difficult to press through hardships alone.  They ask for help when needed.  One of your most powerful assets is understanding that no one achieves success alone.  Success is an accumulation of skills and the support of people who want nothing more than for you to achieve your goals. The people who have known their share of struggles, defeat and loss but found a way out have an obligation to share their experiences with others.  They know what does and does not work. Seek them out.  Glean from their wisdom and then you pass it on as well. Remember, the things that go wrong for you have a way of becoming a part of the gift within you that you can share to help others.  No one grows from living an easy life.  We grow only when we face a challenge head on and work through it until we have success.  If life throws you to the wolves, come back leading the pack!