As the weather warms up, and as we clean up our houses and prepare our patios and grills for cooking out, it is important to remember that we do the same with our lives. Even having written Weathering The Storm, I constantly find myself having to reenergize, revitalize, and restore myself and my attitude. Don’t think that just because I have the book that I don’t go through the journey with you – maintaining a positive attitude is really tough day in and day out, especially with some of the external circumstances and factors that can arise at any given time. It only takes one quick action or moment for your day, week, month, or life to be altered for better or worse.
With that being said, I thought I’d make a list of things I’m working on this spring, and hopefully you can take something away from the list for yourself.
#1 Eliminating Toxins
#2 Solidifying Personal & Career Goals
#3 Healthier Lifestyle
#4 Patience, Patience, Patience
#5 Don’t Forget The Little Things
#5 Don’t Forget The Little Things
First things first, when I speak of eliminating toxins, I’m referring to anything toxic you may have in your life. Toxic friends, toxic associates, toxic habits, toxic lifestyles, and toxic environments – we always have to work to eliminate them and disassociate ourselves from them. I have had to work hard to even start doing this, and it is a continuous work in progress. It has taken me years to understand this concept, and even as I’ve grown and matured over the years, it is still not something easy to avoid. Nevertheless, I vowed to make it one of my principle grand master plan efforts. Now that spring is here – I’ve really kicked it into high gear. I think the most important thing I’ve learned with removing yourself from anything toxic is to avoid it in the first place. Toxic situations embed themselves in your life like a virus, and often require major (and sometimes debilitating) changes or alterations to remove them once embedded. Move yourself away from the gossip and bad attitudes, and those who encourage such. Even if you did it yesterday, we can all start today by shying away from these behaviors. Bad habits and routines, same thing – vow to break them. Also realize that anything toxic can also have an intoxicating feeling that goes with it – so removing it from your life won’t be easy. Take it one day at a time to change your ways, and move a step closer to becoming a better person everyday. Give it time. If you slip up, apologize and correct what went wrong. I’m human, you’re human – errors are in our essence. Consequently, errors should also act as a map to being a better and well-rounded person.
Addendum: As you eliminate more toxins, you create a more favorable environment for you, your life, your health, and your personality to develop and grow.
One thing I also put my hardhat on for was laying a foundation and guideline for how I want my personal goals and career pathway to develop over the next couple of years. Granted, life will always find a way to throw a wrench into things, but I felt it was important to at least get myself angled into the right direction. Previously, I didn’t do myself any favors by being scatterbrained in my career goals or completing my tasks, and not having a roadmap for how I was going to complete them. This all created unnecessary stress, anxiety, and frustration for me – because I am impatient (more on that later) and like organization, yet had complete disarray in my objectives. This resulted in me being abrasive to my own self, and grinding my own self down. I sat down, laid out what I wanted to do and placed it against a timeline. Also, I decided that going forward any project, job, or investment I make must be something that works for me, that I am an excellent fit to do, AND allows me to operate at and above my full potential, otherwise I’m denying myself the chance to use my natural talents.
For healthy lifestyle – I sometimes think this is the most overlooked aspect of any self revitalization we undertake, especially for me. Thankfully, I was blessed with a great metabolism, but I still overdo it with the chips, fried chicken, cheese, etc. Having to deal with hypertension at 26 really helped put the brakes on that somewhat, and the “bad foods” are terribly addicting so it has been a struggle. On the flip side – the days I do eat well, I feel ten times better. I have more energy, more alert, and more able to focus – in addition to feeling just a little bit lighter (more wind in the sails). Again, I have no choice but to adopt a step at a time mentality, and change little by little until I’m at the place where my diet is healthy everyday instead of once every 3 or 4 days. With more energy – you can exercise more or get out and do things you’ve been putting off (both apply to me). I have also noticed that when you eat somewhat consciously, your sleep cycle is more routine and natural. I am not a morning person at all, so I am sometimes over-reliant on coffee – which drives up your blood pressure, makes you anxious for no reason, and then throws your sleep out of cycle even when you only drink it in the morning. Reducing my dependency has been hard (I believe foods can be just as addictive as any drugs), but worth it, and all I can keep doing is try to move more and more away from it. Added benefit – more sleep, which also makes you feel much better. Get your sleep, take some downtime and don’t always overdo it or overexert yourself, and be sure to take a few minutes to relax, even when the going is rough. It really helps you and your outlook in the long run, especially if you get in the routine of doing this.
When I sat down and completed my personal SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) one of my biggest weaknesses is my lack of patience. This has been something I’ve worked on and worked on, and while I’ve gotten better, it’s still a major flaw. My lack of patience has gotten me in trouble more than once; overextending myself, rushing into bad decisions, making choices too abruptly, and so on. Part of the problem I’ve found is because I don’t have any patience with my own self, I can’t have any patience anywhere else in my life. If I were patient with myself, I would be comfortable letting things run their natural course knowing everything will be alright. Instead, when you are impatient with yourself (especially with the poorly assembled personal and career goals I mentioned earlier), you begin to develop a controlling mindset and subsequently “aggressive” actions – that is, you try to force things to happen in your life. As you can imagine, this aggressiveness usually results in disaster. I must learn that there is a difference in taking initiative and having a high work ethic versus trying to manipulate myself into the higher planes desired. This isn’t just for careers and endeavors either, it’s for everything. Relationships, businesses, projects, goals, ambitions, education – practice patience with yourself first, and then let it develop in all facets of your life. You might not be where you want to be or have everything you desire at the time, but know there is nothing wrong with taking a methodical pathway to success. Rewards will always come to those (even if in a form we don’t care for) who work hard, work tediously, and work continuously for their accomplishments.
If you’re like me, I can tend to overlook the little things in focusing on a grander prize, but the truth is our success as a person and in life is heavily reliant on making sure all of our little things are in order first. For a lot of us, the little things form our foundation – they make us who we are. It’s highly important they’re catered to as well – things such as spirituality, our daily routines, time management, our hobbies, social interaction, even something as simple as downtime to unwind and relax (vacation!). Perfecting a lot of those things works as a natural stress buffer and reliever for some. Getting closer into your religion and its practices, should you choose to, will often help you focus your attention on gratitude and appreciation versus all that may be going wrong. Not everyone will take this route, and if you don’t, be sure to find what in your life does bring you satisfaction and focus on building that – family, friends, hobbies such as gardening or reading – or as I’ve chosen to do, become active in the National Psoriasis Foundation advocating for psoriatic patients. Of course, we are all different, so these little things will vary from person to person and that’s ok – I did say these things make us who we are! Find your niche(s), and work to excel in them!
Keep pushing.
Keep growing.
Keep striving.
Keep your head up.
Keep living unconquered.
J. Junior
5/7/13
