Tag Archives: past

Want To Be Happy? Try A Dose Of Nostalgia

If you want to be happy try a good old dose of nostalgia. For those not familiar with that term it is defined in the dictionary as, “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” With all the madness in 2020 I’ve thought quite […]

Choose to be better because better equals HAPPY

“Happiness is the ability to move forward, knowing the future will be better than the past. Today I choose to be happy!” I think our ability to feel happy is substantially stronger when one has the ability to evaluate oneself in an honest way so as to recognize one’s own strengths and weaknesses, doing so […]

One Guaranteed Way To Feel Happier

Did you know that being nostalgic can make you a happier person? Well studies show it can! Recalling happy memories from the past can literally make you happier. At the end of an incredibly busy day when I was feeling a bit stressed out and slightly grumpy, I sat down to finish one last to-do […]

Avoid coming down with the “I’ll Be Happy When…” Syndrome

I call it the “I’ll be happy when…” syndrome. It starts subtly but it spreads quickly. It goes something like this:  I’ll be happy when I finish this project, or, I’ll be happy when I can afford to buy _____, or, I’ll be happy when I can lose ten pounds, or, I’ll be happy when […]

The Roads We Choose Make All The Difference

Back when I was in Jr. High School we were given a homework assignment to memorize a poem. I chose the poem ‘The Road Less Traveled’ by Robert Frost to memorize. Back then I was too young to really grasp the meaning of the poem but I memorized every word. Thirty years later I can […]

As I Began To Love Myself…

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is “AUTHENTICITY”. As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody As I try to force my desires on this person, […]

Your future can be better than you’ve ever imagined. Welcome to the year of – you fill in the blank

We just turned the corner and started a New Year. 2017. This will be the year of ______________. What is the blank?  Well that’s something each of us has to fill in for ourselves. It’s a personal choice. What do we want the year of 2017 to be?  Do you want this to be the […]

“Growing from our past is productive…attempting to live there isn’t.”

When we lose something in life, such as losing a job or losing a relationship, we run the real risk of getting stuck. Stuck looking back at what we had, stuck overanalyzing why we lost it, and stuck feeling sad about it being gone. If we allow ourselves to get stuck spending all of our […]

How to Ensure That Great Things Are Coming

I love that feeling of knowing that great things are coming! And the awesome thing is that all you have to do to have that feeling is to think it!! You can control having great things in your future and it all begins with controlling your own thoughts. In his book As A Man Thinketh, […]

One Chapter Ends And Another Begins

Last week I shared five blogs that each gave clips from different emails we had received from our daughter during her 18 month mission. I hope you all enjoyed hearing the life lessons she shared in those emails. Today was the final event of her 18 month journey – she gave a homecoming talk at […]

You’re Better Than You Think You Are (Forbes Article)

We’ve all experienced times where we’ve had a false sense of security, but we’ve also experienced times were we’ve had a false sense of insecurity…in ourselves. Too often we are our own worst critics. When circumstances of life don’t go the way we hoped for, we often allow them to make us think less of […]

Striving for balance in your life

Balance…it’s a word that makes me crazy because I feel like it’s dang near impossible to achieve in life. Nonetheless, I find myself constantly seeking out articles with advice on how we can gain better balance in our lives. Tonight a dear friend sent me this article below. It is apparently a speech that was […]

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself. Avoiding Self-Sabotage At Work (Forbes Article)

I was standing in the security line at an airport when a TSA worker came walking alongside the line yelling out in an animated way, “No liquids, no aerosols, no gels or creams on the airplane…You better check yourself before you wreck yourself!” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud. As the CEO of […]

What will your mark on this world be?

We all come into this world for a time, not knowing how short or long the time we have in this life will be. We go about our lives being busy, getting things done, and hopefully having some fun along the way. But when is the last time we really sat down and thought about […]

Complaining About Yesterday Won’t Make Tomorrow Better (Forbes Article)

“Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better.” -unknown Nothing in life goes perfect for any of us, which means we can always find plenty of things to complain about. In fact, I’m fairly certain that most of us could fill our days complaining about things that have gone wrong in our lives […]

Don’t Close the Book, Just Turn the Page.

Some days things happen that throw us for a total loop. When that happens it often causes you to feel totally out of sorts. You can find yourself questioning things that you used to feel certain about. You notice let fear and doubt creeping in. The picture in your head seems suddenly erased and you’re […]

Don’t put off living

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We dream of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our window today.”    -Dale Carnegie I totally agree that too often we put off […]

Maybe the Angels Will Quote From It for Eternity

As we go through life we have experiences that teach us, hurt us, bring us joy, help us grow, and shape us into the person we are. But if we don’t take the time to stop and write down those experiences and what we learned from them we are limiting their impact to only impact […]

Don’t Look Back, You’re Not Going That Way

I shared this poem once before but I had forgotten all about it until I came across it today and it just seemed to reflect what I was feeling today so I wanted to share it again: As you travel through life there are always those times when decisions just have to be made when […]

TODAY IS THE START OF SOMETHING BRAND NEW!

That’s right! Today is the start of something brand new!  It is the start of a brand new week! And it’s a new week that can literally become whatever we want it to be because it is something BRAND NEW! Look, I’m just going to say it – last week was miserable – but I […]

Choose Your Own Adventure

Remember back when you were a kid and they had those Choose Your Own Adventure books?  I used to love those! You would start off reading the story and get to the bottom of the page and it would say, “To choose to do <this> go to page x or to choose to do <that> […]

An optimist’s way of viewing one step forward and one step back

“Optimist: Someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s more like a cha-cha.” That may just be one of my favorite quotes I have heard in a while. Maybe because it incorporates being optimistic and dancing, and everyone who knows me knows how much my […]

The Characteristics Of A True Leader (Forbes Article)

Every one of us is a leader in our own right. Whether we lead an entire company, or a team of people, or a group of friends, or our families, or just ourselves…we are all leaders in some form or fashion. Whatever size our circle of influence may be today, if we work to improve […]

The Ultimate Goal Is To Be Better Today Than Yesterday With A Plan To Become Even Better Tomorrow (Forbes Article)

How do we stack up? It’s a question we seem to constantly ask ourselves. Our brains want to know how we are measuring up compared to everyone else. Do we matter more than other people matter? Is our position more valuable than another person’s position? People can spend their entire lives trying to determine where […]

It may not change the past but it sure does change the future

“No matter how good a friend someone is, they’re going to hurt you every once in awhile and you must forgive them for that.” When someone hurts your feelings you have two choices: You can hold on to the anger and bitterness and let it continuously bother you, or you can decide to forgive them […]

Happy New Year! 2015 Is Going To Be Epic!!

Happy New Year everyone! The start of a brand new year – it is so exciting!  2015!!!  Don’t get me wrong, 2014 was a major year for my family that was full of big time milestones. We finished building our new house and our new houseboat, we moved into our new home, my daughter Ashley […]

“Everybody deserves somebody who makes them look forward to tomorrow.”

Back when I was single someone shared this quote with me: “Don’t marry a man unless you would be proud to have a son exactly like him.” That really made me rethink the men I was dating in my life. I hadn’t thought of them in that light before. Would I be proud to have […]

In The Famous Words From Disney’s Frozen “Let it Go”

There are just three short days until we celebrate Christmas! This weekend was fantastic. Our kids came home from college and we went to an awesome Christmas concert by pianist Kurt Bestor. During the concert he brought out a children’s choir and one little girl sang the famous song “Let it Go” from the Disney […]

Schedule Life Experiences So “Stuff” Doesn’t Steal All Your Time

I’m busy, your busy, we are all busy.  It’s just that simple. Life is BUSY!  And if we are not careful we will find that our time is no longer our own, rather it gets taken over by this meeting or that meeting and those emails and these people to call.  Even if you don’t […]

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

Life is ever changing, and sometimes it is hard to let go of the past we loved in order to make room for the future ahead.  We hold on to things tightly, dreading the thought of letting things go that we cherish so deeply.  But what we have to recognize is that as much as […]