What is Real Success?

By: Tim Conner
Everyone wants success, and yet they often
don’t know when they have it.
For most, it is the maddening chase toward a better
way of life or more of something.
More fame, power, recognition, money, or material stuff.For some, it is the understanding of a loving partner, the love of their child, or the people that they can count on when life throws them a curve.
I am coming to believe that success is not more material wealth, but peace, happiness, contentment, and love.
Most of all love.
Real success is not to be sought after in the outer world, but discovered in your inner world. I am not condemning the stuff of life. We all want the things that life offers.
But we don’t need as much as we think we do.
Sooner or later you will discover that real success is friends, strangers,
and anyone who crosses our path.
It is kindness shared, support given and received, listening,
giving, and caring.
These will endure while your car rusts, your toys break, and you tire of the temporary gratifications that bring you what you think is real.
What matters is people.
What lasts is love.
What counts are true friends, and if you treasure these
you can count yourself a success.

Attitude

By: Charles Swindoll
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes,
than what others think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company… a church… a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding
the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past… we cannot change the
fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens
to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.”

10 things that kill motivation…by kevin

There is a lot that has been written about how to motivate yourself when your motivation is weak.



Many of those motivation techniques are great, but in order to make them even more effective, let’s take a look at 10 things that kill motivation in order to figure out what causes our motivation to die in the first place.



1. No goals



Without goals, you really don’t need motivation. I mean, what in the world would you do with it? Run around in circles? Many people complain about not being motivated to do anything. The majority of the time, it’s because they don’t have any goals that excite them enough to do anything.



2. Failure



This is a big one. When we set out to achieve something and things don’t go as planned, we feel this thing we called failure. It could specifically be feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, or overwhelm. Knowing what to do when this happens to get your motivation back is critical.



3. Negative people



One comment of discouragement is often enough to kill any motivation some people may have. People who constantly make negative comments directed towards you should be avoided if you want to maintain your motivation.



4. Negative news



Bad news sells. If you focus too much on the bad things that are happening in this world, that may suck the motivation right out of you. No matter how good things are, the media will always have something bad to report. Try to focus on what’s good instead.



5. Low energy



Being fit plays a big role in your motivation. When you barely have enough energy to move around and do stuff, your motivation will suffer greatly. A good diet and exercise regimen will help with that.



6. Distractions



Distractions can come from anywhere. These are things that tend to throw our focus off course. If you stay off course for too long, your motivation will deteriorate.



7. Not taking action



When you don’t take action towards your goals, your motivation will die off fast. Often times, people will sets a goal, make all these plans, and then wait for the right time to start. Times like the first of the month, after the holidays, New Years, when summer starts, etc. Once you have a goal, you must take action right away, even if it’s on a Tuesday.



8. Lack of belief in yourself



You could be inspired and motivated by a book you read or a movie you see to go out there and make your dreams a reality, but if you don’t believe you can pull it off, you will eventually stop. You must truly believe you can achieve your goals, otherwise, you’ll soon start doubting yourself and when you do, kiss your motivation good-bye.



9. Boredom



There will be goals that require you to take repetitive actions that may slowly kill off your motivation. If you find running to be extremely uninteresting to you and your goal is to lose weight, that’s a formula for failure. Change up your strategy if necessary and where possible, hire someone else to do certain mundane tasks for you.



10. Lack of support



Often when we feel like no one is behind us, during the tough times, our motivation will fade. Having people who will encourage you is a great motivation booster. They can also help increase your belief in yourself.



By becoming aware of these 10 things that kill motivation, you can better prepare yourself to deal with these ahead of time, or when they occur, in order to keep your motivation alive. Being able to keep your motivation up will eventually lead to achieving your goals.

The Laws of Adversity By Joe Tye

Bad things happen to good people. It’s not fair, but it’s true. Other than the fact that it was beautifully written, I think the reason Harold Kushner’s book struck such a chord (and was such a huge international bestseller) is that we can all relate to the title.


We’ve all seen it happen – to ourselves or to others (or all of the above). If life is a journey, then we all at some point pass through the valley of the shadow of death.



I’d like to share with you ten principles that I consider to be the Laws of Adversity. I hope that adversity doesn’t strike you this week, but if it does I hope that someday you’ll be able to look back and say that it was the best thing that every could have happened.



Law #1: Adversity is not optional; bad things do happen to good people. Fortunately, as Harold Kushner writes in his book of that title, “The ability to forgive and the ability to love are the weapons God has given us to live fully, bravely, and meaningfully in this less-than-perfect world.”



Law #2: You might not be able to choose whether or not you pass through the valley of the shadow, but you do choose whether or not to take up permanent residence down there in the darkness.



Law #3: We learn and grow more from our setbacks than we do from our successes. Adversity prepares you for bigger challenges and accomplishments in the future.



Law #4: Surviving adversity is a great way to build self-confidence, and to give you a more positive perspective on future adversity (if we survived that we can survive anything!).



Law #5: Adversity helps prevent hubris, arrogance, and complacency.



Law #6: When things aren’t working, it forces you to look at more creative solutions. There is opportunity hidden in every single adversity if you have the strength and courage to search for it and to pursue it when you’ve found it.



Law #7: What you’ve fought to gain you’ll fight to keep and vice versa – easy come, easy go – but what you had to fight to gain you will fight doubly hard to retain.



Law #8: Without the valleys, you won’t appreciate the mountains.



Law #9: Adversity keeps teaching – it provides great stories for the grandchildren! Your setbacks can, if you’re committed to learning from them and teaching about them, be the source of great learning for others.



Law #10: Adversity is a quiet teacher; you have to probe carefully for its lessons.