Beyond Words

As a writer, blogger and lover of all things current events, I follow several blogs and am an incessant reader.  As a human, I often find myself between a rock and a hard space.  I share a lot with you and I recently posted blogs sharing some of my New Year’s Resolutions and goals.  Today I’m taking a break from my writing and am instead sharing with you two recent posts from fellow bloggers that really resonated with me.

Expecting to win without preparation and hard work is arrogance. Expecting to win because you’ve prepared and worked hard is confidence.

I am a huge fan of “Marc and Angel Hack Life” (marcandangel.com) and loved their recent blog entitled “15 Ways to Live a Year with No Regrets.”  In it, they instructed readers to “forget the past year” and suggested instead to adhere to the following ideas “with a smile on your face and a sense of accomplishment in your heart.”  (I’m including a concise edited version of their original post and have added a few pull-quotes and photos of my choosing.)

15 Ways to Live a Year with No Regrets

• Be the leader of your own journey. Too many capable people don’t pursue their dreams and goals because they let their fears or others talk them out of them. Choose to be stronger than that. Choose to do the things in life that move YOU. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not YOU.
• Embrace uncertainty. Sometimes what you don’t want is exactly what you need. Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.
• Take calculated risks. Life is short. The risk to remain perched in your nest is far more detrimental than the risk it takes to fly. Spread your wings. Fly! What a disgrace it would be for you to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of your full potential.

• Don’t just study it, do it! Combine your knowledge with intention and action. Life is all about learning AND doing!
• Put diligent effort into your biggest goals. If you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. Expecting to win without preparation and hard work is arrogance. Expecting to win because you’ve prepared and worked hard is confidence. Laziness does not pay. Effort pays.
• Think you CAN. If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. Change breeds growth. Step by step you can get though anything.
• Respond with the power of your positivity. Talking about our problems can be an unhealthy addiction. Break that habit and talk about your joys, victories, and blessings instead. Envision problems no longer being a problem to you. Envision the frustrations around you no longer frustrating you.
• Flow with life rather than against it. Transform the energy of resentment into the satisfaction of achievement. When you choose to love what you’re doing, you’ll be able to do more of what you love. Allow your actions to add positive value to the moment. Make the choice to simply enjoy what is.
• Be extra kind to people. All people, but especially those closest to you.

• Value what money can’t buy. People who spend all their time trying to make money spend all their money trying to make time. This year, be wealthy in healthy relationships too.
• Share your love openly and honestly with those you love. Express your love. Tell people what you need to tell them. You never know when you might lose your opportunity to do so.
• Be wise enough to walk away from needless negativity. When other people treat you poorly, keep being you. Don’t ever let someone else’s bitterness and bad behavior change the person you are.
• Forget trying to please everyone. Some people are not going to agree with you or like you no matter what you do or what you say. Get over it and get on with your life. Focus on how you feel about yourself.
• Let your presence overpower your fear of judgment. Train yourself to be present without regretting how others once made you feel. Change the way you think.

• Say “goodbye” so you can say “hello.” In life, goodbyes can be gifts. If certain people or certain opportunities close you out, take it as a direct indication that they are not part of the plan for the next step of your life. Life is simply making room for other things.

I have other blogs of Marc and Angel’s that I will be sharing in the coming days, but in the meantime…

Another blog I enjoy is “The Classy Woman:  The Modern Guide to Becoming a More Classy Woman,”and I loved the author’s recent post stating these 2015 goals she has set for herself:  (Again, I’m including a concise edited version of the original post.)

• Complain less. Complaining isn’t classy. In the words of Maya Angelou, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
• Spend more time doing what make me most happy. Karla M. Davis, the blog’s author, wrote that she’s happiest “when I’m creating, whether I’m writing, decorating, designing, trying out a new recipe or taking photos.” I agree and I also agree with her as she wrote, “I realized a big part of why 2014 was not my favorite year was that I have forgotten to make time for myself.   I lost sight of what truly mattered and was fulfilling to me and I’m ready to get that back.” Bingo!
• Stop procrastinating. Yep, I’m on it too.  Tomorrow?  Nope, today!

“Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”

George Washington Carver

So there you have it, two portions of two powerful blogs that I hope to live by this year.  No worries.  No excuses.

Do you have any favorite blogs you follow that you’d like to share?  I’d love to know!