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LifeThought: Resolve to give, love, laugh and grow more than ever!

Resolve to give more, love more, laugh more and grow more than you ever have!

The verb “Resolve” means: to decide firmly on a course of action. This is exactly what you need to do!

To change your life for the better, you need to be committed to the actions necessary for change. Not committed to the ideas or desires, but committed to the actions! You can want to change, even decide to change, but no change will occur until you take action.

Give more: Be a generous person. If I were to ask your family and friends if they considered you a generous person, how would they answer? Being generous doesn’t mean giving away all of your time or money to the point you have nothing left. It simply means that you intentionally look for opportunities to be a giver. It can be as simple as a smile, a kind word, or a helping hand. The more you practice generosity, the easier it becomes!

Love more: We get so caught up in our own lives and struggles that we often neglect to tell and show those around us how much we love them. Too often, we lose someone we love and regret not having told them know how much we loved them. Don’t let that happen! Be generous with words and expressions of love. A spouse, child, or friend is never going to be sad to hear you say “I love you”, but will be very sad if you don’t.

Laugh more: Seriously, lighten up! There is a lot of really funny stuff all around you every day. Look for it and laugh at it! Smiles and laughter are contagious. Spend more time with people who like to laugh. Be a person who laughs genuinely and people will genuinely like to be around you!

Grow more: If you are giving, loving, and laughing more than you have previously, you will automatically be growing! However, I want you to grow intentionally, not just as a result of other behaviors. Look for areas of your life that you can expand. Do you like to read but just don’t have the time? I’m willing to bet you just aren’t making the time for it. If you audit your life, examine how you spend your time, you’ll find time that you can spend intentionally growing your mind, health and relationships. Be committed to growing as a person!

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This is one of my daily “New Thoughts = A New Life” posts. To receive these automatically in your InBox each day, simply subscribe by entering your email address in the box below.

Do you agree or disagree with what I’ve written? I’d love to hear your comments!

LifeThought: Start Praying, Thinking, Dreaming and Planning!

Start praying, thinking, dreaming and planning. This year is going to be the BEST year of your life!

This is where it all begins, both literally and figuratively: Start!

If you are going to change your life and the lives of those around you, you have to start. This may seem obvious, but it is a stumbling block for many people. Wanting to do something is not the same as actually doing it! We won’t change anything until we actually start the process of change!

Start: You are here, you are reading this, so you are, therefore, starting the process of change. Congratulations!

Praying: I am person of faith, a Christian specifically, so I believe the first place to start anything is prayer. I don’t know what your spiritual beliefs are, but I’ve discovered that most people believe in God or in some form of Higher Power or Creator. Scientific studies, completely independent of religion, have proven the significant power of prayer on physical and mental health. So, whatever your faith is, let me suggest that the first step in trying to improve your life is to connect to a power source that is greater than you. Pray for help, guidance, wisdom, and the stamina to stay on course when things get tough. Your prayers should also include giving thanks for the very life that you have and for the desire you have to improve your life. Prayer works!

Thinking: If you are like me, your thoughts have been more task-related than goal-related. I want you to think specifically about what you want to BE, more than on what you need to DO. If you can identify what you want to BE, it’s easier to know what to DO.

Dreaming: I want you to start dreaming again. People do not lose the ability to dream, we simply stop doing it! When we were younger, dreaming came naturally to us. We dreamed about being a _____. We imagined ourselves as _____. Silence the negative voice in your head that says “this is just silly; you’ll never be _____, so don’t bother.” Dream. You don’t have to tell anyone you dreams, at first; just get used to dreaming again. We’ll work on telling people about them later.

Planning: If this is going to be the best year of your life, what do you need to do differently? What do you need to start doing? What do you need to stop doing? What are your goals? These are the questions you need to ask yourself. Write the answers down on paper or on you computer and look at them ever day. Break them down into actionable steps and set a plan for accomplishing those goals.

Starting today, I want you to pray, think, dream and plan your life. Live intentionally. Take one day at a time, on purpose. This is how you start to have your best year yet!

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This is one of my daily “New Thoughts = A New Life” posts. To receive these automatically in your InBox each day, simply subscribe by entering your email address in the box below.

Do you agree or disagree with what I’ve written? I’d love to hear your comments!

A New Year, New Thoughts, A New Life

New Year

As we enter the new year, I want you to ask yourself this question: What is the single most important thing I can do to improve my life in the next year?

I’d like to propose an answer to that question: The single most important thing you can do to improve your life is to change the way you think!

The way you think about yourself, others, and the world in which you live has a direct impact on the reality of your life. You may not be able to control all of your circumstances, but you are 100% in control of and responsible for how you think!

My life is better today than it was this time last year because I made a decision to change the way I think.

My outlook for the future is more optimistic than it has ever been because I’ve made a conscious effort to change the way I look at my past, present and future!

I want to help you make the same transition I have made–and am still in the process of making–by posting something for you to think about every day!

Many of you already follow me on Twitter or Facebook and you know that I love to post words of wisdom and encouragement. Twitter is a great way to share little snippets of thoughts, but 140 characters is often not enough to into the heart of a topic.

Each day in 2014, I’m going to take one of those short thoughts and expand on it to dig a bit deeper into what it really means and why it might be something you should incorporate into your mindset.

So, are you with me? Are you ready to start changing your life by changing the way you think? Are you willing to spend just a few minutes each day with me?

Great! Let’s make this new year the best year of our lives so far! Stop reacting and start living and thinking intentionally. This time next year, it will be fun to look back and see just how far we’ve come!

You can check back here each day or, better yet, subscribe to my posts by entering your email address in the box below (or in the upper right-hand corner); you’ll get each day’s thought in your inbox!

Happy New Year! Happy New You!

You CAN Go The Distance!

I’ve been very busy and very excited for the last two months!

Back on November 12th, 2013, my book You CAN Go The Distance! Marathon Training Guide: Advice, Plans & Motivation for All Runners was published!

You would think that I would have written about it much sooner and you’d be right! I don’t have any good excuses for not doing it earlier, but I do have a few (they just aren’t good ones!)

I’m very proud of this book for many reasons. First, I’m proud of the content. I was very hesitant to write a book about marathon training because there are a lot of books on the subject and most of them are excellent! So the competition is tough in the Running & Jogging category! I’m not afraid of competition, however, so I didn’t let that stop me!

Now, after 7 weeks on Amazon’s Best Sellers list, I’m very glad I didn’t let the competition scare me away!

Another reason I’m very proud of the book, and proud of myself for writing and publishing it, is because, in doing so, I did exactly what the book preaches! I overcame my fears and self-doubts and took the steps necessary to reach my goal!

In the book, I write about how many people never achieve their dreams because of fear and self-doubt. They look at a distance like 26.2 miles and say “I could never run that far!” so they never even try! Many would-be writers have great ideas and may even commit them to paper, but the fear of criticism keeps them from ever sharing their work with the world. I wasn’t going to let that happen to me!

I had no idea how well the book would be received and I was afraid that runners with more experience and qualifications than me would skim the book and scoff at it. I was a afraid of my book would not be taken seriously. Nevertheless, I took a deep breath and decided to press on. If negative comments came pouring in, I decided that I would turn that into a learning experience.

Needless to say, I’ve been thrilled to see the comments coming in through Twitter and Facebook and, at the time of this writing, the book has received 12 5-star reviews from readers on Amazon.

I’m not going to write much about the book here because it’s all explained on the book’s website: www.YouCanGoTheDistance.com

If you are a runner or would like to some day be a runner, I’d be honored for you to browse over to that website and check it out!

Meanwhile… I’ve already started writing 2 more books! More on those as they progress!

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Focus on Your Strengths, Not Your Weaknesses

Focus on StrengthsI think this is something with which all of us struggle. We tend to think about and work on our weaknesses more than on our strengths!

Think about it! If someone came up to you right now and said: “tell me what your strengths are.” You’d probably struggle to come up with more than just a few pat answers like “I’m kind, I’m loving, I have a good sense of humor, I’m especially good at expectorating! ” Right?

However, if that same person said “tell me your weaknesses,” you can probably rattle off a pretty long list of substantial things, like “I struggle with self-esteem, I’m not good a math, I’m afraid of failing, I worry too much about what other people think of me,” and the list can go on.

We can easily list our weaknesses because we’ve been taught to identify the weaknesses in our lives so we can try to improve them. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to improve our weaknesses. I’m just saying it’s an inappropriate focus.

We tend to focus on the negative things in our lives, rather than on the positive. How many times did you come home from school with several good grades and one or two bad grades on your report card? What got the most attention? I bet you remember the criticisms more than the praises!

It is, however, important to remember that sometimes a bad grade can be the result of not being able to dedicate enough time to write to the best of your ability.

A friend of mine has a son who is in college and he always used to struggle to balance his studies with extracurricular activities. Nowadays though there are some useful resources out there such as collegepaperworld.com that can provide help and support with academic writing.

Since getting help with some of his work his entire outlook on studying has changed and he has managed to start getting the grades he needs to progress. So, if you, or your child, are currently struggling to get a paper, essay, or report written on time, you might want to check out the College Paper World website to learn more.

The better approach to our lives is to know what we are good at and to strengthen our strengths. In other words, know what you know, and know what you don’t know. Spend more time doing things and getting better at the things you know and let other people handle the things you don’t know or aren’t good at.

I don’t need to be good at accounting–I can hire an accountant. Maybe I can even look for a professional who does accounting near me! With their knowledge and experience, they might be able to help me with bookkeeping, auditing, tax filing, and other finance related tasks. I rather focus on something that I am good at and leave the rest to competent hands!

I know I’m not a good golf player, so I don’t spend hours a week trying to become one! Saying that though, I know a few people who use launch monitors, for example, as this allows you to track your golf ball. In that sense, improving skills in golf is important for some people, especially if they are passionate about it. Instead, I enjoy getting my golf fix by playing fantasy golf matches on the likes of FanDuel and other fantast sport gambling platforms, negating the need to be good at golf, but instead having as much knowledge as possible will do you far better when playing fantasy sports. Pick your strengths.

I know I’m a good writer, so I work on trying to become a better writer. I know I’m good at encouraging other people to become better, so I try to do that more intentionally. I know I’m a good father, so I spend more energy trying to become better in that area of my life.

I’ve found that as I focus my energy on the positive things in my life, internally and externally, the negative things, somehow, become less negative or, at least, less important.

So my advice to you and to myself, every day, is to know what you know; know what you are good at; know your strengths; know what makes you great (and everyone is great at something!) and focus your energy on those things. Look for the positive in yourself and in others and you’ll probably find it!