September 10

Live with excellence

Whatever your objective may be, embed excellence in that objective. Anything you set out to do, seek to do it with excellence.

Excellence demands no less than the best you can give. That in itself is more than enough reason to put excellence into every effort.

Yet the benefits of excellence go further. Excellence sets new standards, gives birth to ideas never before imagined, pushes past what was once considered impossible.

Get yourself around excellence, in art, technology, architecture, business practices, thoughts, performances, presentations. Ignite and sustain your own capacity for excellence by immersing yourself in diverse manifestations of excellence.

Be eager to do the difficult, challenging work that excellence demands. Allow an attitude of excellence to shine its positive, transformative light on every aspect of your world.

Give your miraculous existence the respect and appreciation it so thoroughly deserves. In work and play, in thought and deed, live with excellence.

— Ralph Marston

September 11

Be frustrated

You have plenty of reasons to be frustrated. So go ahead, be frustrated.

Then be done with it, quickly. Allow yourself no more than ten or twenty seconds of pure frustration.

After that time is up, drop the frustration. But hang on to all its energy.

Rotate that energy around to face in a positive direction. Do something useful, productive, transformative with it.

Frustration is a strong signal that something must change. Send that signal to yourself, receive it loud and clear, then get to work on changing things for the better.

Get good and frustrated, but don’t get mired in that frustration. Similar frustrations have led to great achievements for plenty of people, so work to make sure they do the same for you.

— Ralph Marston

September 12

Be real

Say what you think, not what you think they want to hear. Make your choices based on what matters in your life, not based on how they will appear.

It’s an insult to others to second guess how they might perceive you. It’s a disparagement of your own authenticity to play a role that’s not really you.

You can be respectful and considerate without being fake. You can be genuinely impressive by dropping your desire to impress.

When you’re desperate to appear impressive, it’s the desperation that shows. By obsessing over your appearance you ruin that appearance.

Let your pretenses and their accompanying anxieties melt away. Give yourself the permission and the freedom to be you.

What will benefit your life and your world is genuine connection. Be real, be honest, and make that connection every chance you get.

— Ralph Marston

September 13

Your territory

It’s a place, a state of mind, an activity or area of expertise that’s yours, where you know you belong. It’s your territory.

Going there inspires you, replenishes your energy, gives you space to create, achieve, connect with purpose. Just thinking about it can motivate you to persist through whatever you must.

What’s your territory? When was the last time you were there?

You easily recognize your territory because that’s where you experience the magic of flow. It’s where you get the good and meaningful work of life done without friction, where distractions lose their power.

Whatever happens or fails to happen elsewhere, your territory is a place where fulfillment is assured. From within your territory you bring forth great value into all of life.

It’s a powerful place to be. Go there soon, go there often.

— Ralph Marston

September 14

The best choice

The wind blows were it will, and you have no influence over its direction or intensity. Yet you do have control over your own direction, your own intensity.

Sometimes the wind will be in your favor, and other times it will rage against you. Make progress as you can toward a constant purpose, whether that progress comes easy or not.

The obstacles you encounter care nothing about you and your intentions. Rather than cursing them, despising them, or fighting them, just deal with them, work your way beyond them.

If you waste your time and energy on resentment you’ll create even more cause to be resentful. Invest yourself instead in the worthy pursuits that create value.

Though countless factors affect you, only a few of them respond to your actions. Those are the ones to focus on, for doing so will make all the difference in your life.

Obsessing and complaining about what you can’t control gets you nothing, while attending to what you do control can change everything. The best choice is obvious, and it’s a choice that’s always yours.

— Ralph Marston

September 15

Changing your mind

You’re allowed to change your mind. It can actually be a refreshing thing to do, not to mention helpful, productive, and insightful.

It won’t kill you to admit to yourself or others that you were mistaken. Perhaps it could even make the situation a whole lot better.

Sure, it’s a blow to your pride when you acknowledge being wrong, particularly if you’ve been adamant about your position. But is your pride really more important than the truth?

Sincere, honest people admire open-mindedness, and for good reason. Being truly open minded involves an eagerness to change your mind when that’s what the facts call for.

It’s an act of freedom, an act of integrity. It serves to better align you with truth and reality.

When circumstances make it necessary and appropriate, change your mind. Improve your perspective and improve your world.

— Ralph Marston

September 16

The task at hand

What you are least enthusiastic about doing you will be most thankful for having completed. Be generous to your future self, and get the unpleasant stuff done.

A short while from now you can be free of the burden imposed by what you must finish. Envision that desirable state, and eagerly work yourself there.

Resisting the task at hand only makes it more difficult. Let go of the resistance and notice how much lighter you feel.

While you’re at it, let go also of the drama and self pity. Replace them with a sense of pride in your ability to persevere.

If you find yourself wishing to be engaged in something else, remind yourself of this. The more you focus on what you must do right now, the sooner you’ll be able to move on to what you wish you were doing.

Now is when you can make tomorrow brighter and more enjoyable. Now is your chance to finish the task at hand.

— Ralph Marston

September 17

Accept no excuses

Accept no excuses from yourself. You deserve better.

You’ve had a difficult morning, afternoon, and early evening. Even so, as the day draws to a close you can revive your sense of purpose and re-establish your focus.

When you find you’re offering yourself excuses for giving up or slacking off, don’t accept the offer. Instead, remind yourself of how precious your time is and of all you’ve committed to do with that time.

Sure, you have the ability to talk yourself out of making the effort. Fortunately you have just as much ability to talk yourself into it, and a lot better reason to do so.

Yes, that effort can be complicated, frustrating, uncomfortable, and inconvenient. And it can also be highly rewarding.

You deserve life’s best rewards and you deserve the experience of doing the demanding work to attain them. Accept no excuses, and give yourself the fulfilling life you deserve.

— Ralph Marston

September 18

Thankful for your critics

Criticism hurts, especially when it’s based on truth. And criticism helps, particularly when true.

You don’t like to think you’re doing anything wrong, and it’s no fun when someone else points out your shortcomings. But wouldn’t you rather know about it than to continue repeating the error?

Receiving encouragement feels good, and inspires you to take positive action. Receiving criticism might not feel as good, yet it has the power to inspire you just as much as encouragement, perhaps even more.

Sure, people can often criticize you just to hurt you or as an attempted boost to their own egos. Fortunately, you don’t have to take such criticism in the negative spirit in which it’s intended.

Embrace criticism and use it as an opportunity to remind yourself how much better you can do. Experience the sting of criticism and transform its power into motivation, determination, action, and valuable results.

Choose to be thankful for your critics and their criticisms. They provide opportunity for major improvements and repeated success.

— Ralph Marston

September 19

Make excellence

Focus on a corner of your world and infuse it with excellence. Apply effort, focus, creativity, and persistence to produce an environment, an idea, an object, an experience of excellence.

Even if no one ever notices that excellence, you will always know about it. Your life and the lives of others will benefit from it.

An exercise in excellence, no matter how small, spills over into other parts of your world. The habit of engendering excellence, once acquired, raises your expectations for every endeavor you undertake.

Your time is arguably your most precious resource. You owe it to yourself to spend time in ways that yield excellent results.

Dedicate yourself to excellence and it bolsters your ability to meet challenges, makes you more purposeful, and reverberates positively throughout your being. In seeking to create excellence you find yourself living with excellence.

Where you go, with what you do, make excellence for the sake of excellence. Demand excellence from yourself and you’ll experience life at its best.

— Ralph Marston

September 20

Now life happens

Now life happens. Now the enticing music plays and the dance begins.

Now fulfillment springs forth from your choices and actions. Now you make your way through reality, love, abundance, challenge, beauty, joy.

Now sounds resonate, lights sparkle, you walk along the ever-unfolding path of existence. You gather experience, wisdom, insight, adding strength and substance to a life well lived.

Now you stride forth in the direction you’ve always wanted to go. You find satisfaction in creating value that endures.

Now you utilize your skills, energy and resources to the benefit of your world and those with whom you share it. Now you listen, you learn, you care, you develop and implement strategies for moving forward.

The limitless opportunity of now has arrived. Live it with all you have, now.

— Ralph Marston

September 21

Life’s substance

What you once felt, you still are. You carry with you today a lifetime of experience that grows with each new sight, sound, step, breath.

Whatever you do resonates within you for a long time. Realize what an opportunity that is to make life increasingly rich, meaningful, impactful, rewarding.

Over the years you’ll forget many of the details. Yet you’ll always have the living you’ve engaged in.

From every difficult season will eventually come treasures you never could have otherwise known. From bright, pleasant days will come even more.

Take them all in, carry them forward, share those treasures profusely. With your choices each day, create ever more of life’s substance to fill the years to come.

You’re able to spread purpose and meaning across time and space and into all the lives you touch. Marvel at your good fortune and seek to fulfill all the potential it affords you.

— Ralph Marston

September 22

Your dreams are real

Dreams exist for a reason. They’re meant to get your attention, to captivate your imagination.

So pay attention. Imagine with wild abandon.

Of course your dreams are not practical. Yet they are what can drive you to be extremely practical and highly productive in pursuit of their promises.

You’ve pushed your most treasured dreams aside for too long. But they won’t hold that against you.

Indeed, your dreams will welcome your renewed attention by filling you with a sense of positive purpose. They’ll intensify your appreciation for all you’ve been through and illuminate new possibilities of what can be.

The dreams you have for your life, for your world, are as real as anything there is. Now is a great time to bring them fully to life.

— Ralph Marston

September 23

Miracle of it all

Listen as waves roll again and again onto the shore. Watch as the sun gently sinks below the horizon.

Invest the whole of your awareness in the moment you’re in, the place where you are. Notice how completely the spectacular permeates the ordinary.

Gaze long enough in the same direction, and everything you see is beauty upon beauty. Give sufficient discernment to the situation, and its great value and potential become self evident.

Relax your concerns. Face the possibilities.

Let yourself be so consumed with gratitude that gratitude is not even close to enough. Then act upon your most sincere and loving instinct to expand upon the miracle of it all.

Shiny, dusty, old and new, simple, complex, soft and hard, everything joins in the magnificent spectacle. And here you are to know it, share it, carry it forward.

— Ralph Marston

September 24

That’s inspiration

Are you waiting for inspiration before getting to work? You’ve got it backwards.

Inspiration doesn’t just come to you out of the blue. Inspiration comes from what you do.

Are you wondering where you’ll find inspiration? You’ll find it by participating in life to the fullest extent possible.

You’ll find inspiration in your encouragement of others, in your acts of generosity, in tackling difficult challenges. You’ll find inspiration when you stop searching for it and start attracting it to the energy with which you live your life.

When you’re not inspired to get started that’s all the more reason to do precisely that. Get started and get the inspiration flowing.

Bring the spirit inside you to the surface where you can see it in action, hear it speaking, feel it making a difference in the world. That’s inspiration.

— Ralph Marston