BLISS IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COMMITMENTS YOU KEEP WITH YOURSELF

This week, I had a conversation with a friend about how easy it is to keep commitments with others. Yet somehow, when we make commitments with ourselves, we can easily postpone, run, and hide. Many of us live in this vicious cycle. This can look like that project we’ve been wanting to do for a long time, that exercise regimen that we said we would take on, the call we needed to make, the blank page hungry for ink, that blank canvas staring at you in the face. As I’m sitting here writing this piece, I’m looking for all kids of distractions and reasons for not writing. Admiring my notes, fiddling on my phone, looking through Facebook, and reading e-mail, just doing anything except putting pen onto paper. I don’t know about you, but some of the things that are most difficult to do are then ones that we must do fully committed.

On the day my dad left Cuba at 17 years old with just the clothes on his back and the dream of freedom, his father said to him, “Son, I’m sorry I don’t have any money to give you on your journey, the one thing of value I can give is the advice that my father gave to me — When you give your word, keep it. When you say you will do something. Do it. When you make a promise, honor it. Even when the situation may tempt you for a change of heart, you must keep your word”.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and have noticed how many of us practice this concept especially in business, and among friends and family. But, when we make promises to ourselves, making the commitments with ourselves, it is so much easier to postpone and derail. I believe this is one of the reasons why some of our most important life projects take such a long time or just don’t happen at all.

I began to put this concept of keeping the commitments with myself into practice a couple of years ago. On New Year’s Eve while vacationing with my family at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, I made the commitment I would wake up to watch the first sunrise of the New Year. The morning of January 1^st, the alarm rings. Exhausted from the night before, the warm comfy bed felt like it was hugging me so tight it wouldn’t let me go. I look through the window. The fog is so dense that I cannot see beyond a yard or two. I’m thinking it is impossible to see the sunrise under these conditions. The moment merits reconsidering the warm, comfy bed calling my name. The thought of postponing the commitment to another day seemed like the most logical and reasonable alternative. But since there was something specific I wanted to practice, I decided to keep my commitment and go outside to watch the sunrise with an open heart. So, together with my husband and our dog, we ventured outside to see the sunrise.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It is difficult to express how magical and transcendent the moment of this particular morning sunrise was and how deep the mark it left on me. It was a lesson in its fullest expression. A Divine gift for which I will be forever grateful.

That morning I learned, loud and clear, that – bliss, miracles, realization, they are all on the other side of the commitments you keep with yourself. I needed to wake up to understand this. When applied to living our purpose and taking action on those projects we know we must do, this lesson will make all the difference.

IT’S TIME TO BEGIN…

In the process of gathering the confidence to begin my blog, I’ve come across this quote by Theodore Roosevelt on criticism and daring greatly. I’ve been writing for the past couple of years, yet paralyzed to publish or share anything. So here’s to the courage to begin…

“It is not the critic who counts; nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

— Theodore Roosevelt (The Man in the Arena)

What will you dare to do today?

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”

— Seneca

P.S. So go dare today!

 

“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself.  Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.” 

— Lao Tzu

                                                  

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Solo Journeys

— Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

 

21 TIPS ON ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS

 

1. Decide to start
2. Make a strong distinction between your goals and your to do list.  They are not the same!
3. Visualize and act as if what you want is already there for you
4. Focus: Ask yourself every day, “What is the one thing I can do today to get closer to achieving my goal?” and act on that answer everyday.
5. Break a large goal into small manageable steps
6. Schedule the time. Put it in writing on your calendar!
7. Keep your commitments, especially the ones you make for yourself
8. Train yourself to be in the moment, in the now. Be somewhere else later.
9. Tune into a positive mindset
10. Eliminate distractions and clutter
11. Snap out of negative mindsets
12. Stay away from people who trigger insecurity and doubt
13. Close the Facebook and open the Notebook instead
14. Nurture your authenticity
15. Remember that everyone makes mistakes
16. Keep a learning frame of mind
17. Curate the quality and content of the information you take in.
18. Surround yourself with people who help propel you
19. Practice “perfect practice” consistently
20. Master your basics
21. Remember that goals take time to achieve.  The difference between achieving and not achieving is whether or not you decide to start.

 

“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”

– John Lennon

Share your dream today with your friends, your family, your network, your colleagues…They might just be the ones who will enable that dream possible.

The day you decide to step out of someone else’s shadow and acknowledge your true value is the day “your” genius will begin to flourish. Shine for who you are. Do it. Do it now.

— Giselle Marzo Segura

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”

–  Ferdinand Foch