Spring Revitalization

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    

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

Shaking Off The Dust

Shaking Off The Dust

As we wrap up the first month in 2012, one common theme I am hearing is the deterioration of our New Year resolutions. For whatever reason, we’ve just gotten off the path we set before we brought in 2012.

Don’t worry, because you don’t need it to be a new year to set goals for yourself. Set realistic goals. Start small, stick to the course, and them grow them. Let one goal transform and develop into others. If you want to eat better, start one thing at a time. We can’t go from a diet of cookies, Pringles, and coke to salads and water overnight. Set a goal to replace things overtime and wean yourself away from whatever is bad. Same thing for removing bad habits; take it a day at a time, wean yourself down first and decrease your dependency on things that are bad for you. Looking to lose weight? Start with a pound or so a week. As your energy begins to increase from the weight loss, up the ante to a pound and a half a week. See what I mean?

One small goal I’d like to set for you is that you develop a monthly word of encouragement/ optimism for yourself. As you move into February, use the word “wonderful”.  

<<< Wonderful >>>

Let my month be wonderful – therefore I’ll need to make everyday of the month wonderful. Not only that, I’m going to make the month wonderful for those around me. I will operate in a way so that not only is February wonderful, so is the rest of 2012. My walk, my talk; I will be wonderful.

I put that paragraph in italics because I want you to use that paragraph when developing your word of the month from March 2012 on. It should fit into that paragraph in place of wonderful (it can also be a phrase in some cases). For example let’s replace wonderful with positive.

Let my month be positive – therefore I’ll need to make everyday of the month positive. Not only that, I’m going to make the month positive for those around me. I will operate in a way so that not only is February positive, so is the rest of 2012. My walk, my talk; I will be positive.

If you want to replace that word with things that are negative, that’s fine too, but you better read the paragraph aloud to you with that negative adjective and know that’s the image you are portraying. For example -          

Let my month be trifling – therefore I’ll need to make everyday of the month trifling. Not only that, I’m going to make the month trifling for those around me. I will operate in a way so that not only is February trifling, so is the rest of 2012. My walk, my talk; I will be trifling.

Get my drift?

As this blog is so titled – a lot of the times we don’t really need that new year’s resolution, we just need to shake off the dust and revive ourselves. Looking at myself, I know that one of my bad habits is trying to compare myself to how I was in days long past, for good or for bad. Unfortunately, the past is just that, the past. What we can tend to overlook in yearning for things to be like they were in the “good ole’ days” is the problems that came along with them; we just don’t happen to recall them.

There is nothing wrong with recapturing your glory, but aim to recapture it in the present year and not mirroring days long gone (or projecting into the future). If it’s a different time, then you are (at least should be) a different person. The circumstances could have been vastly different; your environment could have been vastly different. If you feel like you’ve gotten dusty, then try self-revitalization activities. Chat it up with friends (new and old, reestablish friendships), try new hobbies (volunteering, intramural sports, habitat for humanity, etc.), make sure you are appreciative (of your life, your surroundings, of what you do have, your friends, your family, etc), or dedicating yourself (to a cause, to a project, to your work – just don’t overdo it and strain yourself). Don’t center your focus on just your physical; being consumed with that can detract from what really may need fixed – your mental, your spirit, your intellect, etc.

We all will have eras in life that we get stagnant and start to collect dust. The best advice I can give you is to put yourself back into action and move. Move your feet, move your mind, move yourself into a new environment, and most importantly don’t cower from change or the rain in life – they both are excellent removers of dust and rust.

Until the next time –

J. Junior II
January 23^rd, 2012