Tag Archives: do your best

Be Gentle With Yourself

“Be gentle with yourself, you’re doing the best you can.” – unknown That’s a quote I think I need to tell myself a little more often. I find it’s easier for me to be gentle with others…but it’s not so easy for me to be gentle with myself… I don’t typically give myself a lot […]

Dare To Be!

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully. When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light. When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it. When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway. When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back. When […]

Don’t Let Today’s Disappointments Cast A Shadow On Tomorrow’s Dreams

“Don’t let today’s disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow’s dreams.” ~Unknown Life is full of curve balls that are bound to come up and mess up our best laid plans. It’s a part of life that cannot be stopped from happening. Unexpectedly loved ones pass away, family members fall ill, injuries occur, vehicles break down, […]

Some Days You Just Have To Do The Best You Can And Call It A Day

Today was one of those days where you are bombarded with things from the moment you wake up until 1am the next morning without so much as a two minute break. My day was absolutely packed today and as I sit here writing this at 1am its all I can do to keep my eyes […]

Defining Success

How do I define a successful day?  For me, a successful day is one I can come home from knowing that I did my very best, I gave it my all, I made good choices that upheld my integrity and that I treated others with kindness and respect.  That is a successful day.  Every other […]

Make It A Week Of Awesome Productivity

I was so excited when I went to bed last night because I was climbing into bed before 10pm which is a really big deal for me given the fact that I normally don’t get to bed until well after midnight if not the wee hours of the morning.  I had gone to great lengths […]

Enjoy The Moment With Your Full Focus

I’m one of those people that when I know I have something coming due in the future, that I haven’t had time to do yet, it weighs on me like a big ball of stress just waiting to smack me in the gut.  I find I have a hard time relaxing and enjoying anything if […]

My BEST Tips for Meeting BIG Deadlines

Because I’m busy conducting the big board conference tonight I asked my daughter Ashley if she would write a blog post for tonight – Ashley’s been working hard to help me pull this conference together and when she sent her blog post over to me I thought, “If only I’d read her advice in this […]

Getting Over A Painful Experience Is Much Like Crossing Monkey Bars

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” – C.S. Lewis Last week was a difficult one, but this week my grandson is out of the hospital and he’s back home again with his parents and he appears […]

Being An Adult Is Like Folding A Fitted Sheet

“Being an adult is like folding a fitted sheet. No one really knows how.” -unknown That is SO TRUE!  I still remember being a little kid and looking at the adults thinking “They are so lucky to be a grown up.” Then I became and adult and I was like, “Wait…what the?!?!…Well, this isn’t at […]

Work as if everything depends on you, Pray as if everything depends on God

I must have been out of my mind to think it was going to be possible for me to be gone for a week to London and then come home for a few days and go right back out of country again to Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Vienna, and Budapest for another full week and then […]

Stop Being A Worrier And Start Being A Warrior!

“Stop being a worrier and start being a warrior!” – unknown I lost several weeks of productivity when I was down sick with the flu the last few weeks. It put me so behind on everything that I found myself worrying to no end over how I will possibly catch back up again. and worrying […]

If You’re Beat Up, Don’t Give Up. Rest Up. Then Get Up.

“If you’re beat up, don’t give up. Rest up. Then get up.”  -Tristan Bishop I’ve never been one to accept that there are limits on what we are capable of doing. I have always been one to attempt to do more, to go beyond, to push through, and to at the very least try to […]

Come What May, And Love It

Years ago someone gave me a little plate that reads, “Come what may, and love it.” It is a quote that came from a fantastic story told by a man named Joseph B Wirthlin in a talk titled the same in which he shared: “When I was young I loved playing sports, and I have […]

You are more than enough. You. Are. Amazing.

The following article was written about Mom’s but the truth is that we have all been there before, both Moms and Dads. We’ve all had those moments when we feel we aren’t good enough to handle everything life is throwing at us as parents. But this article reminds us that we actually are: “To the […]

There is no such thing as a perfect parent

“There is no such thing as a perfect parent so just be a real one.” – Sue Atkins Without a doubt the hardest job on the planet is that of being a parent. The stakes are so high because every mistake you make as a parent affects your children and you realize that so you […]

There isn’t a person you wouldn’t love if you could read their whole story

“There isn’t a person you wouldn’t love if you could read their whole story.”  – Marjorie Hinckley I love that quote. When someone reminded me of this quote the other day I couldn’t help but stop and think how true it is. We see people through a certain lens…we make snap judgments…we make assumptions about […]

If parenthood came with a GPS it would mostly just say: RECALCULATING

The other day my son Dalton, whose wife is expecting their first child in August, called me sounding a little stressed and said something to the effect of, “Mom I just realized that I am going to have a kid here soon  that’s going to be with me forever and that I need to parent! […]

Can’t Never Could

In reviewing some important information tonight I came across the words “Can’t Never Could” and I couldn’t help but wish I had woken up to those words this morning. One of my first thoughts this morning as I woke up and thought about everything I needed to get done I had the thought, “I can’t […]

How To Gain One Hour and Thirty Minutes More In Your Day

The day didn’t start bad for a Monday morning…I woke up and realized the call I thought was starting this morning was scheduled to start thirty minutes earlier than I thought it was. So I decided to do what any rational person would do and I took the call in my pajamas. Don’t worry, I […]

We don’t know until we’ve tried

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Insist on yourself; never imitate. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as […]

If you think you are too small to make a difference…

If you have ever felt inferior, or powerless, or like you are simply too small to make a difference in the world, you need to hear this quote: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”- Dalai Lama Too often we feel like we are just an […]

How To Get Your Swagger Back

Do you ever have days where you wake up feeling blah? Where every outfit looks terrible, and your hair just won’t go right, and you can’t find your keys, and you are late for work…we’ve all been through days like that. Sometimes we endure them and pray they will quickly be over. Other times we […]

The fruits of today are the seeds of yesterday

“The fruits of today are always the seeds of yesterday. Each day of your life you are sowing seeds that one-day you must harvest.” –U.S. Anderson The choices we are making today and the actions we are taking are all helping dictate what our lives will be in the future. My little brother wrote a […]

Big Decisions and Avoiding the “What If” Bus

We are all familiar with the quote “Decisions determine destiny” and I genuinely believe that is the case. That is why it can be especially hard to make big decisions that come up in our lives. Anytime I have a big decision to make in life I think to myself “It would be so much […]

“All great changes are preceded by chaos”

Chaos is exactly the word I would use to describe my surroundings right now, so when I heard the quote by Deepak Chopra “All great changes are preceded by chaos” I knew exactly where the chaos was leading as this weekend will be one of great change for my family as we come to the final […]

DARE TO BE!

Dare to Be When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully. When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light. When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it. When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway. When life seems to beat you down, dare to […]

When You Can’t See The Positive Anymore…

Today was one of those days when I REALLY needed an inspirational quote to help keep my spirits up. The truth is that it has been a rough week this week for many reasons and I found myself getting to that point where you really need a motivational lifeline to help you get your head […]

Value Yourself and Others Will Follow Suit

Imagine you are at a car lot looking at a car for sale. You ask the salesperson to tell you about the car.  They respond, “Its okay I guess. It could be shinier, and it could go faster, and the color isn’t great, and it doesn’t have the best radio, and it’s not the cleanest, […]

Improving Our Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is a topic we read self-help books about and go to workshops to try and improve.  Everyone struggles to some extent with questions of their own self-worth.  It is a constant struggle for many people.  I believe that the key to self-esteem is to stop worrying what other people think about you and start […]