Thousands of Reasons

Thousands of Reasons

If every morning,

You can find a reason to say,
“Yes, it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

And every day, you can find a reason to say,

“Yes, it is a beautiful day.”

 And every night, you find a reason to say,

“Yes, it was a beautiful day.”

Then one day,

You’ll look back and easily say,
“Yes..it was a beautiful life.”

By Doe Zantamata

     The key to a beautiful life is your mindset.  I'm sure you've heard many keys to life from many experts or just people with opinions.  There is no debate that there are many keys and many ways to intertwine those keys to make your life beautiful.  Eating healthy, having good relationships, saving money, having integrity .... the list goes on and on.   However, I believe it all boils down to your mindset.  That is the basis of what this poem means to me. You get to decide whether your life if beautiful right now.  You get to make that decision every day.  Your life is beautiful.  You can command it.  You can demand it.  You can acknowledge it.  It is a mindset.

     Yes, life may throw some hurdles at you along the way.  The best way to handle a hurdle is to attack it head on.  You have to explode out of the blocks with the mentality that you will successfully clear each and every hurdle along your race.  Sure you may clip a few of those hurdles and they may slow you down.  You may even hit one of the hurdles so hard that it causes you to fall down.  If you do fall down you will get back up.  If you do slow down you will also speed back up.  You will if you have the right mindset.  Do not let the hurdles determine the beauty of your life.
     

     Your life is beautiful.  You have so much to be grateful for.  You have so many reasons to know you have a beautiful life.  Yet too many times we let life’s hurdles slow us down to the point where we don’t get up.  The only way to get better at getting over life's hurdles is to practice and prepare for them.  That’s what the 3 approaches in the poem are doing.  They are preparing you to have a beautiful life.  They are building your mindset muscles so they are strong and full of endurance. By practicing these 3 different approaches you will make sure your mindset is well conditioned to take you down the path of the beautiful life you deserve.  You will be prepared to encounter every hurdle along your path.

     Tomorrow morning wake up and affirm it’s going to be a beautiful day.  I recommend you don’t initially rely on your memory to do this either.  I recommend the first time you decide to implement this action you make yourself a reminder.  You know what works best for you but here are some great examples to follow.

1.     Write it on a 3x5 card and put the card on your dresser or sink before you go to bed.  You will see it first thing in the morning and read it.  “Today is going to be a beautiful day.”

2.     If you are tied to your phone put a calendar reminder in your personal calendar.  Just put the topic “Today is going to be a beautiful day” and make sure you repeat the occurrence for a week to a month. 

3.     Tell your spouse or significant other how important this is to you and have them send you a text every morning as a reminder.

Those are just some examples.  I’m sure you can come up with your own if none of them work for you.

      At lunch tomorrow take a moment to acknowledge the beauty of the day.  Make it a point to decide that something you see, taste, touch, hear or feel is beautiful.  It shouldn’t be hard you just have to be mindful.  You have to be aware.  You can’t be a zombie just going through the motions.  That piece of shrimp in your salad tastes beautiful.  The fact that you made it through the first half of the day without issue is beautiful.  That fact that you are halfway finished from going home is beautiful.  Yes you can see that the day is beautiful if you just open your eyes and use your mind.
 

     Tomorrow night, right before you go to bed, think about the things that made that day beautiful.  This is the time that a journal can come in handy.  You can actually write down 3 things that you are grateful for today.  Those things will help you see how beautiful the day really was.  Maybe you already have a routine from childhood that you can tap into like saying your prayers before going to bed.  If so you must make sure those prayers express gratitude for the beauty of that day.  Practicing gratitude before bed will have the added benefit of making you sleep better according to many scientific studies.
 

    All of this may seem like a lot of hard work but I can tell you from experience the return on investment is amazing.  You will build a mindset that will ensure the success and beauty of life that you desire.  Life is a long journey with many hurdles.  The right mindset will help you clear the majority of them.  It will also help you get up from any fall so that you can get on with the your journey and the beautiful life you deserve.  So go out and make these changes now without delay.  If you do so will find much more beauty to enjoy throughout life including watching this year’s Olympic Games in Rio, especially the hurdle events.

As always enjoy the journey and remember everything you need is already within you.

Drew