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“Prize fighter James Corbett was once asked: ‘What’s the most important thing for a man to do to become a champion?’ He replied, ‘Fight one more round.’
Successful people have different talents, but they all have these qualities: perseverance, tenacity, and stick-to-it-iveness.
Thomas Grey wrote seventy-five drafts of ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ before he was satisfied with his poetic masterpiece.
S.N. Behrman, the American playwright, wrote plays for eleven years before he sold a single one.
Somerset Maugham earned only five hundred dollars in his first ten years as a writer.
While working full time in a factory, Enrico Caruso studied voice for twelve years before becoming a successful performer.
George Gershwin composed almost one hundred melodies before he sold his first one – for five dollars.
There’s an important lesson for you in each of these stories:
If your dream doesn’t come true immediately, don’t get discouraged. Continue to pursue your craft and develop your talent. Study and learn. Grow by experience. Keep working.
Victory goes to the man or woman who is willing to ‘fight one more round’.
We are going through unprecedented challenges
Today we are experiencing one of the most challenging situations the world has ever faced, and it is difficult to stay positive as we continue to hear reports of the daily death tolls and infection rates.
What we think about is what we feel – as we dwell on the negativity of this pandemic, we experience negative feelings, have low energy and feel like giving up. We lose motivation and achieve far less each day. We start to spiral in a downward trajectory.
Our conscious mind can only think of one thing at a time so while we are thinking about something negative, we feel the effects of that however if we switch to something positive, we start to feel more positive resulting in higher energy and better motivation which moves us in an upward spiral trajectory.
What are you grateful for?
Everyone has times when they feel thankful for a person or a situation. These moments of thinking about the past in a positive way give us a good feeling. Gratitude, or appreciation for the good things that happen in life, is a really important part of building happiness.
GRATITUDE is an extremely powerful technique which changes your state from negative to positive. Being thankful changes the way you feel by focusing your mind on positive things in your life and what you think is what you feel.
You can be thankful for anything in your life that makes you feel positive on some level. Some bigger things could include friends and family, achieving a goal, appreciating where you live, or the opportunities you have in life.
However, you don’t need to limit your gratitude to big picture ideas. Positive things that seem small and happen every day are also worth focusing on, such as a great day out, a funny joke you heard from a friend, a family pet, or a sunny day.
This really does make a difference
Gratitude matters. A grateful heart is a contented heart. Gratitude opens the door to simplicity and happiness. A person who is grateful for the things they own will care for them, enjoy them, and waste less energy seeking more.
They will experience contentment in the gifts they already possess rather than looking outside themselves for more.
One thing I am really grateful for is an opportunity that was given to me a few years ago by Nikki Burley, when she was the Director of Enterprise and Operations at the Galleries of Justice.
It was a great opportunity
She gave me an opportunity to speak to her staff when I was still relatively unknown. On the back of that, I was booked to speak at their Unique Connections Networking event which resulted in some good work for me. Thank you Nikki!
I think back to the days when I was building my business. I am grateful for those people who took a risk booking me, not really knowing what I was going to deliver – this gave me the opportunity to improve. I have lost count of the number of talks I gave to Rotary Clubs which gave me the chance to practise my speaking skills.
When I think about it, I am so grateful to so many people for all they have done for me, and I never run out of things to be grateful for. I have a Gratitude Journal, in which I write down the things I am grateful for, and every morning I read through some of them and feel the feelings of gratitude. This not only feels good, but it gets me in the right frame of mind for the day.
Thoughts for the week
- This week make a connection between your thoughts and your feelings.
- Really make the effort to check your thinking vs your feelings.
- You need to experience this to believe that this is true.
- Once you know that your thinking affects how you feel you can take action.
- This week every time you find yourself feeling low switch your thinking to things you are grateful for and watch your feelings change.
Well that’s it for this week have a wonderful weekend and be grateful.
Warm regards
John
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