A New Year gift to myself

So you and I begin a New Year 2016 with a lot of hope, a bit of trepidation and tons of goodwill from many! What one needs to quickly realize though, is that it is MY life and only I can make it the best one I can. Ideally we hope this year will be a lot better than the one gone by. We ponder over our mistakes and regrets of the past, we mentally note down the yardstick of others that become our benchmark for success and we rush into life aiming to win; little realizing that we are competing only with ourselves and all we need to do is challenge ourselves to excel.

Let us pause and ponder over a few life lessons to enable us to journey with a purpose, with joy in the heart, exuding the fragrance of our unique personality and contributing to creating a better world around us.

Life is a journey not a destination – We subconsciously realize this because while we do have aspirations we rarely limit ourselves to merely realizing our aspirations. Once we attain what we aimed for we reset our aspirations higher. This is a good practice for it allows us to pace and realize our progress. Unfortunately, most times we are consciously chasing goals that are not pragmatically designed but developed with materialistic considerations in mind. We tend to believe that if we attain that destination happiness would be ours. Alas, in pursuit of those materialistic goals, we do not enjoy the joys of life, fail to appreciate the blessings we have and instead keep craving for more. The key to life is to make the most of what one has.

There are no mistakes just chances we have taken – You cannot cross a chasm in two steps; so when we come to the chasms in daily life we have to either jump or turn back. At times we misjudge the width of the chasm other times we mistimed our jump or we overestimate our ability or we were unprepared to take that leap; in all the above cases we would have failed to clear the chasm. We would also fail we did not believe in ourselves and turned away. The times we have cleared the chasm and the times we deliberately and consciously refused to take the chance only to realize later that it was the best decision you made, are the only times one succeeds. In daily life the chasms are invisible, the skills sets required opaque, the decision making has to be quick and continuous and the results may not always equal your expectations. You just have to keep taking those chances for some of them could be the giant leap that can propel you to a different level.

Make the most of the moment without wasting time on regrets – The worst mistake one can make is to go back in time and keep wallowing in the misery of the regrets we have, If only is a common enough refrain that suggests that things would have been different and life much better. We keep wondering about the possible outcome if the choices we made were different. A decision made a point in time can neither be reversed nor can the consequences be altered. Not doing anything is also a decision. The reality is that we cannot escape our responsibility nor stew in our regrets. What we can do and must do is make every moment count.

Life is not a competition but a mere challenge – Your life is a challenge for you to cope with and not a competition with the next person around you. Each of us is blessed with unique talents, abilities and capabilities. What we need to do is be aware of our strengths and ensure we utilize it to the full. We fail because we do not run our race but pace ourselves using the others around us as pacemakers. If you are a sprinter and follow a marathon runner, you are bound to fail. Similarly if you a middle distance runner and use a sprinter as the your benchmark failure is certain. Success come only when you get up and keep running no matter what. It helps to plan well, pace yourself as per your abilities and push yourself to your limits. The challenge in life is to run your own unique race well.

Make life fun as you get serious work done – Most people go through life as if on a life saving mission. Reality is that everyone has to earn his/ her living. So then why not make that living while enjoying it. True there are periods of stress and turbulence but they are far few and in between, Do we really make the best use of the rest of our time to ensure that we make our life fun, our living a joy and the world we live in a heaven on earth? Do we laugh enough, can we enjoy a relaxed environment, do we pause to smell the flowers, do we have time to stand and stare? Can I experience bliss every moment of my life?

Each new dawn gives us another opportunity – So what are you going to do with the opportunity? Would you size it or squander it? Begin today, begin now by jotting down your goals for the year. Jot down all the things that you believe will make you happy. Outline the action you would take to overcome your weakness. Commit yourself to some unique experiences that you hope to have during the course of the year. List out 3-5 friends who you would surprise this year with a unique gift. Gift yourself an expensive gift this year (write down what you really want). There is so much more that I can do each day.

Try this:

Fill in the following list for yourself

A unique musical program that you will attend this year
An animal / bird that you will sponsor this year at the local zoo
A new skill set that you would like to acquire
A place that you will visit from amongst the following ; a hospice / a prison / a mental asylum
Three changes you will bring in to your daily life to make your healthier/ wealthier/wiser
Five people with whom you have lost touch but would reconnect with this year
A fund raiser in which you would participate and the amount of funds you plan to raise.

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com