Daily Motivator - July

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July 1

What you notice

Notice something different today, something you usually ignore. Notice something new today, something that sparks a fresh insight, a feeling of enrichment.

Those things you notice, combine together to form your view of the world, to influence the way you feel and speak and act. In those things you pass by without noticing, could be hiding a whole new set of positive thoughts, perspectives, and possibilities.

You cannot notice everything. However, you can choose to lift your attention out of the rut into which it may have fallen.

In this very same time, and place, and life, are countless joys and opportunities you’ve not yet noticed. Aren’t you a little bit curious as to what they might be?

All the valuable things you now know about, that benefit your life greatly, you had to first notice. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to open yourself to even more?

Your whole experience can change without the reality of your situation having changed in the least. It all depends on what you notice.

— Ralph Marston

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July 2

Make the choice

When you have a choice, make the choice. Think about it, but don’t overthink it.

You can spend a lot of time constructing all sorts of hypothetical scenarios. Yet the scenario that really matters is the one that actually unfolds.

The only way to know for sure which option is best is to act on one of the options. The only way to know for sure the best way to begin, is to actually begin.

Make the choice and quickly put it into action. If the choice is not right for you, not workable for the situation, you’ll know it soon enough, and you can make changes.

Before you put your choice into action, there’s simply no way to be certain what the perfect choice will be. That’s the case whether you’re deciding what to say, what to buy, what to write, where to go, or what to do.

Give it some thought, give it some serious consideration, and then move quickly to give it something much more. Give it your commitment and your action.

— Ralph Marston

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July 3

New richness

Set something new, good, and worthwhile in motion. Let it create a life of its own.

Don’t merely think a great idea. Bring it out into the light of day and act on it.

Give it a push, set the ball rolling, and soon enough it attains momentum. Inject some passion and effort into your good idea so it expands far beyond you.

Don’t get too impressed with what you’re doing, and don’t get too critical of what you’re doing. More than anything, keep on doing what you’re doing.

Never settle for less than your best. Remind yourself often of what it’s about, why it matters, and the value and satisfaction of being able to make a difference.

Give your unique creative self a means of expression in the real world. Guide and carry new richness all the way from thought to reality.

— Ralph Marston

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July 4

Freedom

Do you wish to be free to succeed? Then you also must be free to fail.

True freedom does not discriminate, does not favor one outcome over any other. True freedom empowers you to create an outcome that’s based on what you put into it.

When you create value, freedom enables you to own and benefit from that value. When you make mistakes, freedom obliges you to clean up after those mistakes.

Freedom is precious, and a powerful way to live. Those who don’t have it yearn constantly for it, willing to pay almost any price to obtain it.

But freedom is not a free ride. Freedom exists only when those who have it are willing to shoulder its serious, life-long responsibility.

Freedom is kept alive by responsible, respectful living, by employing that freedom to benefit yourself and others. Draw upon your strength, meet freedom’s demands, and help to spread the boon of freedom far and wide.

— Ralph Marston

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July 5

The moment is new

Events didn’t work out the way you planned. What if that turns out to be a good thing?

You didn’t get what you wanted. Perhaps that is making room in your world for something even better.

There are a whole lot of great things in life that you don’t even know about yet. Just because one or two matters didn’t work out to your satisfaction, isn’t the end of the world.

Consign your disappointment to yesterday. Today, and tomorrow, and every day from now on, you have the chance to move far beyond it.

Life is filled with beautiful people, places, experiences, and countless other treasures. Don’t deny all that richness to yourself for any reason.

Get up, go forward, get out and live, learn, love, discover, and live some more. The moment is new and your life is ready for the best you can put into it.

— Ralph Marston

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July 6

Active achievement

Stop telling yourself what you should do, what you need to do, what you want to do. Take in a deep breath of energy and determination, and do it.

Wishing is easy, but it leaves you empty. Doing is much more difficult, yet it is far more satisfying.

Imagine how you’ll feel to have it all done. Picture yourself looking back on your accomplishment and feeling great about it.

Put an end to your disappointment with yourself. Enter the bright new territory where you’re immensely pleased with what you’re achieving.

Your mind is good at coming up with empty, unfulfilled wishes, yet it’s also good at something much more powerful. It’s good at prompting you to take action.

So put your mind, your body, and everything else into a state of active achievement. And feel how great you will feel to get it done.

— Ralph Marston

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July 7

Choose only the best

Don’t internalize the pressures. Instead, internalize the beauty, the hope, the positive possibilities.

You can effectively deal with every difficulty, without allowing any difficulties to become a part of you. Remind yourself that you exist beyond them all.

Respond to life with a smile rather than with new stress. You can see the situations clearly and realistically without taking them personally.

Your life is too beautiful to let it be degraded by frustration and annoyance. Your possibilities are too magnificent to let them be compromised by negativity.

Enjoy putting your capabilities to use, solving problems, making progress. Always choose to make the best of those problems rather than letting them get the best of you.

It’s always your choice what you hold on to inside. Each time, each day, choose only the best.

— Ralph Marston

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July 8

Prepared to be patient

As soon as your day begins, be prepared to be patient. Be prepared to be tolerant, understanding, and forgiving.

Know from the start that someone in your life will do something foolish, selfish, hurtful. For no one you encounter even comes close to being perfect.

But that’s okay, because you can prepare yourself to handle it. You can remind yourself that someone else’s foolishness is not, after all, about you.

You can be so ready in advance for the offenses of others that they don’t offend you at all. You can enable and empower yourself to quickly let them go, and to move positively forward.

There’s no need for the negative behavior of others to waste your energy or drain your spirit. Simply know that it will happen, and when it does, continue with your own highest intentions.

Be ready to encounter the negativity of others. You’ll immunize yourself, and won’t have to make that negativity your own.

— Ralph Marston

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July 9

Relaxed attention

If you wish to copy a drawing by hand, you’ll improve the accuracy of your copy by first turning the original upside down. Try it, and discover how it focuses your attention on the actual lines and curves, and prevents you from being overly judgmental about how well you’re doing.

Plenty of other things in your life can benefit from more relaxed attention and less opinionated judgment. You can free up much time and mental energy by letting go of the need to have so many opinions.

Sure, to function in life you need to have a well-developed perspective. But that doesn’t require you to carry around a truckload of opinions on every little issue.

Is it really necessary to conduct an extensive internal dialogue about every person you encounter? Perhaps you’d be better served, and much better liked, by attentively listening to what that person is saying.

Give your opinionating a rest, and give life the opportunity to unfold in front of you. Stop over-analyzing everything you come across, and give yourself the chance to simply enjoy it.

Improve the accuracy of what you observe. Actually look at, listen to, and experience what you experience rather than placing so many judgments on it all.

— Ralph Marston

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July 10

Give goodness

Give goodness, not in the abstract, but in real places, with real people. Give goodness, not as a vague idea, but to a specific moment.

There’s quite a lot you can do to lift up life, here and now, as you are. And nothing is as satisfying as doing so.

Rather than accumulating more reasons to boast about yourself, give goodness. If you want people to care about what you achieve, pursue achievements that improve their world.

Give goodness because you can. Give goodness because it makes a difference that reverberates through lives, through time.

In ways large, small, and in between, give goodness. In ways that inspire you to give even more, give goodness.

Put your love for life into loving action. Give goodness.

— Ralph Marston

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July 11

Live it now

All of existence has arrived for you to experience now. Your entire life has unfolded so you can enjoy it now.

This is not practice for later. Now is when the experience of living becomes yours.

There is no waiting for the perfect moment, for the ideal condition. There is no putting it off until this arrives or that departs.

Life, with its endless variety of richness, is now. Life, with lethal risk and sublime joy wholly intertwined, exists entirely in this moment.

Celebrate your unbounded good fortune at being, right now, in the same exact realm as everything that is. Put that glorious opportunity to use in the service of all you love and treasure.

Open yourself to the ups, the downs, the discoveries, difficulties, joys and wonders that extend out as far as you can imagine. Life is here, live it now.

— Ralph Marston

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July 12

Difficult things happen

Every problem is a chance for you to become a better version of yourself. Every challenge charts a path for growth and improvement.

Every setback carries the potential for powerful motivation. Every disappointment can lift you to a higher level of resolve.

Every inconvenience has the power to inspire new resourcefulness. Every frustration gives you a way to strengthen your patience.

From each positive experience, you learn a few things. From each negative experience, you learn much more.

Of course you would not intentionally seek to be hurt or disappointed. But neither would you want a life where hurt and disappointment never happen.

Difficult things can happen, do happen, and amazingly, life finds a way to make them beneficial. Difficult things can happen, and that’s what makes the good things so very good.

— Ralph Marston

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July 13

Continue to persevere

In this moment, persevere. In the next moment, continue to persevere.

Yes, you can persevere for another minute or two. And yes, you can stretch those minutes of perseverance end to end for as long as necessary.

Make the commitment to yourself to keep up the effort a little while longer. Then keep renewing that commitment as many times as it takes.

Perseverance does not tie you down. On the contrary, perseverance enables you to soar as high as you choose to go.

Perseverance is not a long-term tribulation that you must suffer through. It is your choice to continue investing your best efforts in your highest ideals.

Your life, and all the great things you can do, are well worth your perseverance. Persevere now, and continue.

— Ralph Marston

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July 14

Do all you can do

What you do, matters. What you fail to do, matters.

To tell yourself otherwise is just an excuse. Pretending you’re powerless to change things is mostly a way to avoid responsibility for working on those changes.

Sooner or later, that game gets old. Eventually, regret hits you like a ton of bricks.

So now, when you have the opportunity, do all you can do. Now, while this day is yours, make full use of it.

No, of course you won’t be one hundred percent effective in everything you undertake. Yet you can work, and persist, and learn from your results, and make real progress.

The obstacles and challenges are real, and so are the opportunities. Today, take those opportunities and give to them the best you have.

— Ralph Marston

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July 15

Make the rewards real

When someone expects to be rewarded for no effort, there is no effort, and thus no real reward. Not only does a participation trophy fail to confer self-esteem, it actively hinders true self-esteem.

The value of the reward is created by the earning of that reward. Absent the effort to earn it, the reward, whatever form it takes, is little more than a meaningless token.

Receiving praise you have not earned makes you cynical, about yourself, about those offering that praise, about the world in general. Repeatedly receiving material goods you have not earned makes you dependent, and soon enough, resentful.

Real achievement has value precisely because it is so difficult, because the odds against it are so high. The fact that you can put forth sustained effort and create value, is an amazing state of affairs, deserving of your constant gratitude and utilization.

Seeking to cheat the process ends up seriously cheating and depriving yourself. Life gets unbearably grim when you prevent yourself from making a difference, yet fortunately that never has to happen.

Always, in every moment, are opportunities to contribute your effort, to earn the fulfillment of a life well lived. Do the good work, respect others enough to expect the same of them, and make the rewards real.

— Ralph Marston