February 16

Where your focus points
When the camera's focus is altered, the photograph changes dramatically. When the focus of your awareness changes, your whole life changes with it.

The quality of life you live is dictated by which portions of life you focus upon. The world appears different for every person because every person brings a unique focus to it.

To quickly change your life, change your focus. In an instant, the picture is different.

Focus is a powerful tool you can deploy to see the big picture, the small details, and everything in between. Focus shuts out the distractions, tosses away the irrelevant, and leverages your passion.

The direction of your focus maps out the direction of your day, your year, your life. The span and persistence of your focus will enable you to achieve the most ambitious goals.

Where your focus points, you cannot help but follow. Keep it always pointed in a positive, meaningful direction.

Ralph S. Marston

February 17

Live your good fortune

Good, valuable possibilities wait eagerly to be fulfilled. Life is rich, and yet can be so much better.

Every new day is filled with hope and with potential as it dawns. Welcome the goodness, and commit yourself to making sure it is not wasted.

You've done well, given much, lived with passion and purpose. Now, remind yourself how good and right that all feels, and do more.

Be better than you've been lately. Life continues to offer great new opportunities, so take them and make good value with them.

Today, more positive possibilities swirl around you than ever before. Live your good fortune by putting it to good use.

This is a day to show life how great and amazing it can be. And you are the lucky person who can do it.

Ralph S. Marston

February 18

Live in awe

If you wish life to change for the better, you must change for the better. Today will be happy to present you with many fine opportunities for that.

Are your best possibilities hiding behind stale old assumptions? Perhaps those assumptions have become so much a part of you that you've forgotten they even exist.

Imagine yourself looking at all the details of this day as the child you were years ago. Feel amazement at seeing the wonder in front of you, free of the jaded cynicism you have so proudly perfected.

Somewhere inside you is someone who wishes to live in awe of the miracle that is your life on this day. That sense of pure wonder is as close as your next thought.

Give yourself permission to stop fighting the empty battles imposed by your ego. Give yourself permission to be fully in love with each moment you're in.

There are wondrous experiences to be lived, here and now, hiding in plain sight. Remind yourself how great and meaningful this very day can be, and make it so.

Ralph S. Marston

February 19

Full of promise
Your dreams are too important to wait for someday. Act on them today.

Your perspective, your skills, your insights are too valuable to go unused. Jump into the fray, do something good and meaningful with them today.

Your best possibilities plead with you to follow them, to fulfill them. Great opportunities pop into the picture with every turn of events.

Your future is too full of promise to spend any of it wondering what could have been. Let your highest potential continue to unfold today through your focused effort.

Here and there you've had little tastes of how great life can be, of how much good you can do. Decide now to stop fighting over the meager scraps and to start enjoying the whole magnificent feast.

Give your unique existence in this abundant universe the love, respect, attention and effort it all deserves. This is all too precious to waste even a morsel.

Ralph S. Marston

February 20

Whatever you choose
Some people start out with the greatest advantages and end up doing nothing with them. Don't be one of those.

Others start with nothing, with just about everything going against them, and yet manage to achieve many great things. By all means, be one of those.

What life hands you is a factor, but not the most important one. What matters most is what you do with what you have.

The day doesn't have to be bright and sunny in order for you to make it beautiful. People don't have to be friendly or cooperative in order for you to be your best in their presence.

It's easy to blame a difficult situation on bad luck, or on the misguided intent of others. It's much better, though, to accept full responsibility for finding positive possibilities and bringing them to fruition.

There's not much that can stop you, or push you forward, without your participation. No matter what comes your way, you can make of it whatever you choose.

Ralph S. Marston

February 21

Unrealized potential

You have vast amounts of unrealized potential. Now is your time to transform the good things that could be into the good things that are.

There is great abundance in this universe. Today is a fresh new opportunity to harvest and express that abundance in specific, meaningful ways that will enrich all of life.

Yes, it can be done and you can be the person who does it. Yes, it will take significant effort and you are able to make that effort.

You’ve already proven how capable you are by navigating your way through life’s many and varied challenges up to this point. Now, seek to take on new challenges and to create new value.

Whatever you have already achieved, you owe yourself the splendid, satisfying experience of working to achieve even more. Your unrealized potential has been waiting long enough, so jump forward and bring it to life.

Throw away all the excuses, step beyond your doubts and hesitations, and go for it. Feel the great treasure that’s already so very close, and make it real.

— Ralph Marston

February 22

Crazy good inventive
Invention is not just for mechanical contraptions or software applications. You can and often do invent new ways to optimize and energize life.

Creativity is not limited to artists, musicians and film directors. You can benefit from your own creativity in everything you do.

The purpose of your life is not to be like every other person's life. You're here to invent unique ways for expressing joy, experiencing wonder, giving love and raising life to a higher level.

Jump away from the well-worn path, rebooting your senses and sensibilities with refreshing stimulation. Give yourself permission to feel what you feel, then take those feelings and invent with them.

If you're bored, or angry, dismayed or burned out, you're not paying attention to the swarm of creative opportunities each moment delivers. Practice a little less self absorption and a lot more self invention.

The moment calls you to invent, and you're made for it. Be crazy good inventive with big things, little and in between.

Ralph S. Marston

February 23

Allow life to be rich

Allow the drama to subside. Allow peace to permeate your presence.

Allow hope to have a welcoming home within your heart. Allow fear to fall away, leaving love to take its place.

Striving burns you out, and the harder you try the more difficult it gets. Do whatever you do without waging a personal war against it, and rise to new levels of effectiveness and joy.

Allow life to be as it is, and allow yourself to make beauty and greatness with all you find. Allow those around you to be who they are, and bask in the bright glow of every living presence.

Tune out the voices shouting that you should be worried or angry. Contemplate the immensity of your good fortune on this day, and empower yourself with a perspective of gratitude.

Allow value and rich meaning to flow forth from your actions, your words, your thoughts and your heart. Allow life to be rich as it is uniquely expressed by you.

Ralph S. Marston

February 24

Steadily increasing quality

Having more, doing more, seeing and experiencing more, those are great to a point. Then they're not.

If you spread yourself too thin in order to have everything, you lose the ability to enjoy anything. When your attention is pointing in a thousand different directions, it's not really pointing anywhere.

Visualize yourself hiking along a mountain road under a clear blue sky with a few treasured friends. Then think of how much less enjoyable the same trip would be in a bus with a hundred people crammed inside.

Packing too many activities, possessions, priorities and commitments into your life can have a similar negative effect. It's better to clear out the meaningless stuff, giving yourself time and space to enjoy the beauty.

Ambition is admirable, and following that ambition makes your whole world a better place. Being insatiable, though, just makes you weary, ineffective, and not very pleasant to be around.

Though countless good possibilities tug at you, follow only the ones you can give yourself to fully. Instead of always craving more quantity, build yourself a life of steadily increasing quality.

Ralph S. Marston

February 25

Someplace in particular
When you can be specific, you can be effective. If you are not making as much progress as you'd like, perhaps it is because you have not clearly defined that progress.

It's all too common to want to go someplace nice. The way to get there is to aim for someplace in particular.

When you know exactly what you want to do, you're already well on the way. As you fill in the details of your dream you are in fact bringing that dream to life.

Vague wishes can make you feel good, and also leave you without anything tangible. Specific goals give you a map that leads exactly where you want to go.

The very act of clarifying your intentions gives powerful energy to those intentions. You are capable of anything if you simply keep pointed in the appropriate direction.

Be clear and precise about what you intend, and the path to fulfillment opens up in front of you. Then, take the steps that will bring you there.

Ralph S. Marston

February 26

Always making a difference
Zero in on what you do well, and do it often. Whatever it is you do that makes the biggest difference, ramp it up.

Don't be timid, embarrassed, worried, lazy or arrogant about it. Just get busy and go make a positive contribution to life.

You live in a beautiful world, filled with endless possibilities. This world needs what you have to offer, and is begging for you to add your own unique value.

The fact is, you're good at a lot of things. Have the courage to admit what you love, to put your efforts into what you do well, and to create something awesome from that dynamic, every day.

Pour yourself into the incomparable experience of doing what you do best, of making palpable progress, of knowing that what you do truly matters. Refuse to accept any discouragement or excuses, especially from yourself.

Revitalize every moment you enter by giving your best effort. Delight in knowing you're always making a difference.

Ralph S. Marston

February 27

Learn and leave it behind
As life plays out in its minutes, months and decades, you'll occasionally make some mistakes. When that happens, don't get mired in regret, self-loathing or self-pity.

Choose instead to learn everything you can from the error of your ways. Then commit yourself, remind yourself and in fact insist to yourself that you never make the same mistake again.

Everyone makes mistakes, and if you're going to do anything worthwhile, you're sure to make some of your own. You cannot entirely avoid making mistakes, yet you certainly can avoid making the same mistake multiple times.

It may seem obvious to avoid making the same mistake twice, but unfortunately it is not so obvious when the possibility presents itself. There are all too many people who have fallen into repetitive, self-destructive patterns, making the same mistakes again and again.

To avoid that fate, start by accepting full responsibility for the mistake. That gives you power to learn from it, and perhaps even more importantly, to let it go.

Accept the mistake, and learn enough from it so you'll never make it again. Then leave it behind as you move forward, smarter, more experienced and more positively purposeful than ever before.

Ralph S. Marston

February 28

What you can do

What you can do is to do your best. Honestly, authentically, with no excuses or cutting corners, just go ahead and do your best.

Some people might appreciate it, and many others probably will not. What really matters, though, is not what others think or say, but the fact that you’ve given your very best to the effort.

So don’t hold yourself back out of fear or anxiety about the way you’ll be received. Push yourself forward, true to your highest ideals, focused on your dreams, your values, your passions.

What you can do is to do your best, and it can be spectacular. What you can do is contribute to life in your own special way.

Courage comes from realizing how profoundly blessed you are to be able to make a difference. Feel your good fortune, feel your courage, and put it into action.

Today, experience how right it is to do what you can do. Give your best to every situation, to every opportunity, to every hour of this day, and reap the rewards of a day well spent.

— Ralph Marston

February 29

Launch into action

There’s one way and only one way to seal the commitment. Launch yourself into action.

The moment you actually start doing something about it, the whole situation changes. Wishing, hoping, wondering, speculating and theorizing are left in the dust by action.

The real world runs on real effort. Invest yourself in it and start generating some real returns.

No, you can’t be sure your efforts will bring the results you want, but if you’re looking for a guarantee, consider this one. You are guaranteed not to get results if you just sit there and do nothing.

Action will squash your doubts, electrify your passion and open doors you never knew existed. Give yourself some focused action and see how much more powerful you suddenly feel.

Take that first step and you zip from doing nothing to doing something. It makes all the difference in the world.

--Ralph Marston