BUSY BEING BORN OR BUSY DYING?

You can’t coast in life

We all wish we could but it doesn’t work that way. It’s the gravity principle. When you coast you go down hill…faster and faster. If you never do anything new you become bored and boring.

So since you can’t coast, why not make a little extra effort and accomplish some things? It’s good for you, it’s healthy…like breathing fresh air.

Unless you WANT to get stale, old and bored, press forward for the things that will keep you energized.

Play a musical instrument?
If you do and you aren’t learning some now songs, you’ll get bored, no matter how well you play. You need new pieces to keep you fresh. Who want’s to play the same songs over and over? Jack Nicholson made a great movie about that subject called “Five Easy Pieces.”

Even your body works gets bored. 
If you go to the gym and do the same exercise routine over and over, your body adapts and stops improving. To keep it growing, you have to change your routines, to keep giving it fresh challenges. That’s how you get they biggest improvements in the shortest time.

It’s true in all areas of life

• A business that stops expanding begins to stagnate and slump.
• A team that runs the same plays becomes predictable and easy to beat.
• An athlete that doesn’t push for new records loses interest, stops training as hard and eventually starts losing.
• A knife that doesn’t get sharpened , getting a new edge, will get dull
• Relationships that you take for granted eventually dissolve and disappear.

It’s why they say variety is the spice of life… because it means you are getting exposed to new things. Variety is actually more than a spice in life, it’s like a MAGIC INGREDIENT that drives you learn new things and stay fresh!

Positive change from new ideas, new people and new experiences can keep you young

• It energizes you. 
• It challenges you. 
• It forces you to think. 
• It forces you to stretch.

 As Bob Dylan said, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”

Why You Should LOVE Tests

No one likes a test

It was the worst thing about school. You got nervous thinking about it. The kids who weren’t that smart worried. The kids who didn’t study worried. The smart kids, those who should have had nothing to worry about worried the most, scared that they wouldn’t score 100. 

We all expected the testing to be over
Everyone expects the testing to be over when they get out of school. It’s a great thing to look forward to. No more study. No more pressure. No more being judged…once they graduate! What a relief it will be! A pain free, pressure free life is waiting. Of course we know we’ll have to work…but the stress will be gone.

But unfortunately the testing never ends.
That’s one of the biggest “welcome to the real world” lessons we learn when we get out of school. We slowly realize the tests are going to keep coming. We find we’re tested at work. We’re tested managing our money. We’re tested by marriage, by raising our kids, by maintaining our health. Constant challenges. They keep on coming. Gradually we realize that the challenges are going to keep coming…that they are part of life.

Problems appear like magic!
Anything in life that you accomplish is done by overcoming obstacles. All you have to do is decide you want to do something, build something, start a new exciting project or even plan a vacation…then here comes the problems. They come automatically, without effort and they come every single time—it’s magical! Even if you want to do something as simple as have a meeting, as soon as you pick a time you find out almost everyone has a time conflict. Unfortunately, most rebel against problems. They turn sour and bitter about having to spend time on what seems to be such a waste of time. They let it sour their attitude and that’s not a good because…

The testing is a very good thing!
The challenges of life toughen us up. They make us stronger. They make us able to handle bigger responsibility and as a result achieve more success. We develop a strength we never knew we had. We are able to accomplish more and make big positive impacts in many areas of life that are important to us. Situations that earlier in life would have caused us to panic now we can handle with ease. Also the struggle tests our desire. It makes us be sure that whatever it is we are working on is something that is worth all the extra effort  to get it done.

Because we’ve been tested and survived, we are able to help others
When those around us go through may of the same challenges we faced, we are able to encourage them. We are able to give them a perspective on trials and help them to stay on course until they succeed. They can tell when we talk that we’ve been through similar situations and because of that they know they can trust us.

Overcoming challenges also makes the victory so much sweeter
Things that are easy don’t have much value. If you didn’t have to stretch yourself to accomplish your goal it won’t mean much to you. It’s the things that are the hardest, that you have to struggle and strain to pull off, also that take the longest, that you remember the most. If you ever won a Super Bowl or World Series ring you would treasure it. It would be in a very safe place. But if you won a bowling trophy for a one night tournament, you might not remember where it was the next week.

Don’t run from challenges, they’ll always be there doing their work. It doesn’t do any good to gripe about them. So why not accept them and enjoy the benefits? They are just making you better and stronger!

Winners Win Anyway

You will be challenged.

In every phase of life, at every age, in every circumstance you will face challenges. It doesn’t matter if you're rich or poor, old, young, what country you come from, what faith, what background, what combination of good and bad or bad things have happened to you in your life. We all have been, and will be, facing challenges. 

As soon as you solve one problem another pops up…its always something.
You are going to have things happen that aren't perfect, that mess up your world, that you have to deal with. When they come into your life they bring a question: is this the one that causes you to give up? The answer to that comes back to your attitude, your toughness and your fighting spirit. 

When faced with challenges do you give in or do you fight?
Do you let them push you around or do you push them around? How much do you need to be backed up before you get your back to the wall and you come out fighting? How much does it take for you to turn on your fighting response… your “fight back” response? 

Success goes to the overcomers
In life, challenges come no matter what it is you want to do. It doesn’t matter what it is… fun things, hard things, work things, hobbies, big challenges….it doesn’t matter. In anything you want to do you're going to have challenges and things are only accomplished by overcoming. Most of these are unanticipated. So when these challenges come what is your response?

Are you going to fight or are you going to give in?
It's at time of the biggest challenge that people reveal who they are; if they can be trusted, if they're resilient, if they've got the fighting spirit, if they'll hang in there or if they mean business or dead serious, if they can be counted on to lead or are they weak, they're shallow, uncommitted, looking for an excuse, ready to run, ready to fold and give up just because something went wrong.

This is when you find out how bad you really want it
Unless you make your mind up, unless you want to do something bad enough to overcome the problems you'll never get anything done. Something will always come up that will give you a reason to quit. The people who win are the people who win “anyway” or in spite of things that go wrong along the way. It doesn’t matter what goes wrong. They find a way to win “anyway.”

They've got problems or maybe more problems than anybody else, but they stand and fight and the result is… win “anyway.”  

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Feedback: Isn’t it amazing that there is always something standing between you and every single thing you want to do?

Go With Your Strengths

As long as you live, you will face challenges.

When it comes to being on your own and supporting yourself it makes a lot of sense to go with your strengths.

• What are you best at?
• What are you interested in?
• What fascinates you?
• What do you have the most experience doing?

To create a good income to provide for yourself and your family you are more likely to success if you are doing things you can do very well.

The way to becoming great at anything relates to having a lot of experience. It's hard to get enough of that kind of experience if you don’t believe in what you’re doing. Everyone has different interests and talents. Some we are born with, some are developed along the way.

Your strengths may be in academics, music, art or sports or business. You may may be more technically oriented or you may be more people oriented. You may like dealing with the public or you may prefer being in the background.

It may be that you have never even thought about you having any particular strengths—but you do.

It may just be that you have a stronger interest in something than most people do and you haven’t had the opportunity to pursue it yet. The best way to find your likely area of strengths is by pursuing the things you are curious about and that fascinate you.  If something fascinates you or you are drawn to it, there’s a reason and you need to find out how important that interest is—casual or serious.

No matter what occupation you choose there will be income involved. But the big key for you is do you enjoy it? That will be the key to how well you’ll do.

Do you get personal satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment from doing it? Is it important to you? When you enjoy things, you put more energy into them, and wind up becoming more and more valuable, usually resulting in advancement and greater income opportunities.

When you don’t enjoy it you wind up just going through the motions and doing the minimum—and never really improving.

We enjoy things we are good at and we get good at the things we enjoy. My boys loved video games growing up, played them every chance they got and became very, very good. I had little interest in them, could never get the hang of them, as a result never liked them and never became any good at them. That’s pretty much how things turn out in life in everything.

To be great, focus on your strengths. So it just makes sense. Want to really enjoy what you do with your life? Want to have the best chance to do well financially?

Then find the areas of your strength and the best possible spot for you to use your strengths to benefit yourself and to benefit others.