Daily Motivation 10-28-11

Friday, October 28, 2011

Today's Gift

 

We learn from making mistakes and repairing them.

 

We do not believe in perfection, we believe in mending. We make progress toward a goal, but we seldom move in a straight line toward it without missteps. Life is like a zigzag chain of events that first brings everything together just as we want and then spills it all over again. We try to do our best, but inevitably we make mistakes. So a large part of normal daily life is spent mending.

 

When we accept imperfection as a fact of life, we make peace with the constant need for repairs. Saying I made a mistake and I owe you an apology is never fun, but when we do it we grow stronger. Every disappointment, every complaint, points to an underlying hope or wish. We can use them to point us to repairs we would like to make. We do not learn anything new from correctly repeating what we already know. We learn from making mistakes and repairing them.

 

Select one complaint or one mistake that you want to mend and turn it into a learning experience.

 

From the book The More We Find In Each Other by Merle Fossum and Mavis Fossum:

 

 

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Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Keep It Simple

The most elusive knowledge of all is self-knowledge. --Mirra Komarovsky
Discovering who we are is an adventure, one that will thrill and sometimes trouble us and will frequently occupy our thoughtful reflections. We are growing and changing as a result of our commitment to the program. And it's that process of commitment that heightens our self-awareness.

We learn who we are by listening to others, by sensing their perceptions of us, by taking an honest, careful inventory of our own behavior. The inner conversations that haunt us while we're interacting with others are poignant guidelines to self-knowledge, self-definition. Just when we think we've figured out who we are and how to handle our flaws, a new challenge will enter our realm of experiences, shaking up all the understandings that have given us guidance heretofore.

It is not an easy task to discover who we really are. It's an even harder job to love and accept the woman we discover. But too many years went by while we avoided or denied or, worse yet, denounced the only person we knew how to be. The program offers us the way to learn about and love fully the person within. Nor will we find the way easy every day. But there's time enough to let the process ease our investigation.

Action for the Day: I will be soft and deliberate today as I listen to others and myself.

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One Day At A Time

Complacency
When I am feeling good and things are going well, I can become complacent.
I need to get into action, to take stock: where am I and where am I going?
A daily inventory will tell me what I must change to regain spiritual balance.
Admitting what I find within myself, to my Higher Power, and to another Human being,
keeps me honest and humble.
- Daily Reflections, p. 283

Thought to Ponder . . .
Make a change, move a muscle.

AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
A A = Accountable Actions.

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Daily Motivation

Make your efforts matter

When the outcome doesn’t matter to you, even the most flimsy excuse is enough to stop you. When it’s not a priority for you, even the most trivial distraction will knock you off course.

Are the distractions and excuses holding you back? That’s a good indication you’re not committed to whatever it is you’re doing.

Either you must find a way to be more committed or find a more meaningful endeavor. There’s nothing to be gained by wasting your time and energy on a halfhearted attempt.

The best commitments are not the commitments you must force yourself to make. The most powerful commitments are the ones you enthusiastically embrace.

Challenge yourself to take a good, hard look at what you’re doing. Challenge yourself to follow a purpose, a goal, a dream that is truly yours.

Your time is too valuable to be wasted on anything that doesn’t really matter. Make sure your efforts matter, and you’ll make them highly effective and immensely rewarding.

— Ralph Marston