It’s time to consider a bit of Spring cleaning. While looking around your current living environment about things you could do without, you might consider things tossing out a few things from your more personal environment, by taking a closer look inside yourself.
You might find it’s time to cut our when Spring cleaning your life, like
Eliminate Excess
Find ways to minimize your lifestyle, streamlining it for maximum effectiveness with less effort and maintenance. If you can choose less over more, you will enjoy a life that is more simple allowing you to experience more happiness, joy and peace along the way to achieving your highest and best. You will find that you can cut out a great deal of nonessential possessions, dress more practically and adapting an attitude of finding less to say, listening more, when you speak make it more meaningful, and you will find your audience more attentive as you focus more on your higher calling and less about the things of this world that might otherwise weight you down.
Throw Out Caring What Other People Think
If you are unique (and you are. There’s nobody, like you, who brings your unique set of skills, talents and message – told only the way you can tell it – to the world), then at times other people are not going to get you, and they might even be inspired to prevent you from achieving your highest and best, for a variety of reasons. You may never be good enough for anyone else, but your responsibility is to God. To Him (her, or whatever you see God as), you are royalty. You have the highest authority on your side. All the greatest gifts given and advancements made in history were primarily made by people, like you and me, who were willing to go against the grain for the greater good, regardless of what other people thought, or the preconceived ideas they held tight to. Every once and a while someone needs to shake things up. Are you that person?
Place Perfectionism Atop the Trash Heap
Give up the idea that you have to have such a high standard of performance to release something to others. If you are constantly inventing/reinventing, creating/recreating, writing/rewriting, editing and re-editing, you are preventing your contribution from being released to benefit others and also preventing yourself from the benefits of your giving your gift or message to the world. Perfection often based in a fear of failure, can be holding you back, preventing your taking action, and could be your worst enemy.
Discard Excuses
Maximize your effectiveness by taking full responsibility for your life and all the opportunities that present themselves to you and avoiding making excuses that prevent you from executing. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or how you got here. Your worthiness can be eliminated from the equation because this is your God given birthright. So quit making excuses or nay saying yourself. Excuses are only rationalizations for your not taking action. Sure, life is a scary place, but you got this. So, go for it.
Dispose of Limitations
Not far off from excuses are self-imposed limitations or negative self-talk. You never have to be good enough and you will never be educated enough or qualified enough to meet your own expectations. You might be surprised that the world doesn’t really care about your qualifications as much as they need what you are holding back. Your ideas, your expertise, your perspective, your insight, your mater-of-factness, your openness and honesty. They are waiting, don’t let them (or yourself) down by letting limitations get in your way. If you feel like something is too much of a stretch for you that may be necessary to deploy our gift, have faith. Don’t let it stop you. If you keep moving forward with momentum, what you need will appear.
Chuck Your Need for Instant Gratification
Often the best things in life take time, require a process, or a variety of details or successive decisions and associated actions along the way to arrive at an expected conclusion. If you focus only on the ultimate goal and fail to see it appearing in your anticipated time frame, you are likely to abandon your goal prior to achieving it. You can instead like your expectations to the individual steps that can get you from where you are to where you want to be. While payoff may not feel as enthusiastic, find the joy and sense of pride in knowing that you are one step closer to what you really want. Stay steady on your path and you will get there. Keep in mind that your goal may change in shape and form as you are making your way to it, and allow it to shift as you approach it for the greater good.
Junk the Idea of Being Rinky Dink
Stop playing the game like a small-time amateur. It’s time to step up and take life seriously. It’s time to man up (or woman up) in order to make your greatest contribution to your community and the don’t let your impact be limited by your locale. You have a unique gift and message that you came to this world to share. It’s on you to stop letting you being satisfied with day-dreaming, fantasizing or treating your contribution as a hobby. This is your time to get serious and make a stand or statement, let your voice be heard and your blessing be realized.
Get Rid of the Need to Multi-task
Let go of the idea that you have to do everything, or that nothing will get done if you don’t do it: All of it. Be willing to ask for help and look for ways to outsource parts of the process that are less enjoyable. Don’t let your tendency to be all ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) about it, endlessly jumping into engaging every shiny object that comes along. The most successful and effective folks (while they can manage more than one project at a time) focus on one project until it gets to the point of maintenance, then can focus on another project that is waiting in the wings. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by every new thing that comes along, because ti will be unlikely that you’ll be able to complete anything if you allow your attention to be diverted from current processes. Shorten your to-do list by focusing on the essential things you have to do and ditch everything else that only keeps you busy. Stay focused.
Cast Off the Bad Yes
You know the one: When you say, “Yes,” and make promises that do not represent your highest and best or support your ideals or goals. If you have a tendency to self sacrifice or give all you have to others, while watching your goals and dreams suffer and die, like some kind of martyr, now is the time to put an end to it. You are not only doing a disservice to those you are helping (Why? Because you’re not allowing them to flourish and grow. You are actually hindering their own ability to find and make their own way, as you’ve made them dependent on you.), but you are allowing others to prevent you from achieving your highest and best. You need time to focus on you and your ministry, start finding polite ways to say, “No.”
Ditch the Need to Be In Control
Certainly, you need to have a plan, but don’t be obsessed with controlling all of the minute details. You can’t possibly control everything. Allow the momentum and flow you’ve created with your intention and action to follow its own path. You might find that by releasing some (or more, if not all) of the control to your higher power, you will have a much easier and effective go of what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. Let things find their own way to fall into order as your keep pressing forward. Obstacles are not always opposition, sometimes they are the only way to lead you in a better direction. If something is not going the way you like, do not post up to fight against it. Instead look for a better way, and you will find an alternate door, window or path to follow and find yourself ultimately in a better position.
Jettison Toxic People
You know the ones: They suck the life, joy and resources out of you, leaving nothing left for you. They are unsupportive contrarians who could care less about you achieving your goals and ideals, and are often responsible for making you feel unworthy of the calling which beckons to you. It is also important to keep in mind that the frequency of your vibration is likely to adjust to the people whom you keep in close proximity. It’s time to eject the toxic people from your life, so that you can make room for the like-minded people who are ready, willing, able to support you and desire seeing you achieve your highest and best.
Reject the Media
Not just the news, but don’t allow your attention to be interrupted or yourself to be dissuaded by anything you see, hear or read in any media. Consider a media hiatus which includes all forms of media, including the television, Internet, social media… anything that might be bombarding you with negative energy. Avoid the temptation of these destructive forces that suck the time and life out or you, which could be thwarting your otherwise healthy pursuits.
Incinerate the Unhealthy Choices
You might find it’s time to let go of your attachment to activities that are not in the best interest of the maintenance of your body (AKA your temple of God). This is your vehicle for your performance and enjoyment of the journey you are on. Wouldn’t you enjoy the journey more, if your vehicle is in tip top shape? You’ve already discarded excuses, so start looking for ways you can eat better and find physical activities that lead to a more healthy lifestyle. We all could use a tune up.
Stop Looking for the Easy Way
You have to give up on the idea that what you want is simply going to fall into your lap, because that is never going to happen. Everything you could possibly desire (you only desire it because you don’t have it) cannot be realized without first taking action. It is highly unlikely (although not impossible because nothing is impossible) that you will win the Lottery without purchasing a ticket (if not a number of tickets in succession) first. You have heard stories of the instant, overnight success of others, but the truth is: Most of those stories are fiction. I don’t mean some are fiction and some are true and include all of the facts that contributed to the story as it was presented, I mean: None of those stories include all the facts necessary to tell the whole story, ‘ere they are all fiction. Does that mean there’s no hope? No. Good fortune always follows those who create it for themselves.
Is it possible for you to live the best life ever and have all your dreams come true? Yes, it’s all up to you.
Are you ready to take responsibility to do what it takes to have the life you want?
You can do it, and it’s not as hard as you might think, a little Spring cleaning will get you on your way, but you must move and keep moving toward what you want, and you will get there, if you don’t give up and keep going.