Making Your Life Great

Driving desire

What is the most important thing you must contribute to your own success? It is the persistent and prevailing desire to make that success happen.

The things you don’t know can be learned. The resources necessary can be found and acquired.

Yet if there is no driving desire, then the knowledge and the resources will be of no use. Real, unique, meaningful desire is what will make success happen and is what will make it worthwhile.

Complex systems, vast networks and powerful machines can accomplish much. Yet they cannot figure out what to accomplish.

That is your special area of expertise. You are able to feel the tug of desire and then find ways to express and fulfill those desires.

Listen intently to your authentic desires, and dive into the heart of them. Find the value that you can give to all of life, and make it happen. 

Quiet enthusiasm

Sometimes enthusiasm shouts loudly and is very obvious. Yet many times enthusiasm works quietly, diligently and effectively behind the scenes to make great things happen.

Both kinds of enthusiasm are valid and powerful. Both kinds of enthusiasm can change life for the better.

Noisy, flashy enthusiasm commands great attention and makes many promises. Quiet enthusiasm follows through and fulfills those promises.

You don’t have to be loud and boisterous to be enthusiastic. You can be just as enthusiastic and committed by being fully and yet quietly engaged in getting the work done.

Outer actions may be a sure sign of enthusiasm, yet they are not where enthusiasm comes from. Enthusiasm originates in the authentic passion that lives deep within you.

Explore, understand and feel that passion. And express enthusiasm in your own very special way. 

Welcome criticism

When you are sincere in your efforts, you have nothing to fear from criticism. For when you are sincere, criticism can make you stronger and more effective.

Listen eagerly to those who disagree with you. Seek to genuinely understand their perspectives.

Don’t get caught up in the need to prove you are right. Focus instead on more fully understanding what is true, what is workable, and what is best for everyone.

The willingness to be open to criticism is one of the surest signs that you’re on a successful and authentic path. If you feel the need to avoid or evade or ignore your critics, it may well be time to re-evaluate your efforts.

Intelligently responding to the doubts of others will reduce your own doubts and help your confidence grow. From the criticism, you can gain much valuable and useful information.

Welcome the criticism, and respond with sincere gratitude. Being challenged is one of the most enriching experiences you can have. 

Immediate action

When you decide to do it, begin to do it. Give substance to your commitment by acting on it right away.

Intention is powerful, and yet there’s something your intention must have in order to survive. That something is real, solid action.

Make your choice, and then immediately give power to it by taking the first step toward it. There is always something you can do right away.

When you act, you seal the commitment. When you act, you create momentum.

The way to make sure you stay in motion is to get yourself in motion right away. When the reason for your decision is still fresh in your mind, give power to that decision by acting on it.

Accomplishment occurs when you go beyond merely thinking about it. Get up, get going, get moving and you will indeed get it done. 

Point the way

Dream big dreams, and set magnificent goals that take your breath away. When the going gets rough, the small, relatively meaningless goals are too easy to abandon.

The big, authentic dreams, on the other hand, will compel you to move forward. They give you solid reasons to work persistently through whatever challenges may come.

You can choose which dreams to follow. So make those dreams big enough to overpower any difficulty.

Make them dreams that faithfully express who you truly are. Make them dreams that resonate perfectly with your highest vision of the best that life can be.

When you get knocked down by disappointment, it’s important to have a dream that will compel you to get right back up. When obstacles block your path, be sure that you’re carrying a dream that will show you the view from a higher perspective.

Move constantly toward the best you can imagine. Hold on to those dreams that point the way there. 

Make life great

There are endless ways to become more efficient, yet there is no way to shortcut this fundamental fact. You cannot possibly get more from life than what you put into it.

You can be very clever and think up all sorts of ways to cheat. What you end up doing, though, is cheating yourself most of all.

If you run or hide from the challenges, life’s greatest rewards will never find you. When you avoid the difficulties, you also miss out on the fulfillment.

For it is in making a difference that you make a life. It is by working through the challenges that you build real and meaningful value.

Your success is up to you. Think about that, and you’ll see that you really wouldn’t want it any other way.

Accept that life can be difficult at times. It is through that acceptance that you are truly able to make life great. 

Know you can

It’s great to believe you can accomplish some particular thing. It is far more powerful, however, to know you can.

When you merely believe, there is still room for doubt. When you know, there is no doubt at all.

How do you go from belief to knowing? You must put that belief into action.

Go ahead and take the first small step in the direction of your goal. Feel how it feels and know what it’s like to actually accomplish what you have chosen to accomplish.

With thinking and planning and strategizing, you believe. With experience, you know.

Get yourself some real live experience in moving toward your goal. Once you know you can, you will.

— Ralph Marston