Changes to this Blog and to Our Lives
March 3, 2024 by MarkHaroldsen
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We all know that life has its big bumps, surprises, and setbacks. And, yes, it also has many wonderful, fun, exciting, and pleasurable moments. It behooves all of us to constantly remember to live in the great “right now” and appreciate the good times. But, when we have setbacks, we also have to stop and look back at how they happened and figure out what we can do to make things better in the future. It can be hard to both live in the moment and fix and plan for those bumps in the road.
I’ve written a lot about living in the great “right now” previously and most people know they should not spend too much time worrying about the future or beating themselves up for past mistakes or bad decisions. That can be hard to do though. If you are like me, you have to keep reminding yourself to think more about the moment we are in. That kind of thinking can be very critical for our mental and emotional health and our great enjoyment of life. Meditation can help with this. Meditation works because, if you do it right, you truly are living in the moment while doing it!
Knowing all this and preaching it to others, I still wake up worrying about what I need to get done in the immediate or not too distant future as well as fretting a bit over what I missed out on doing yesterday. I have noticed, however, if I take time to write down my next day’s plans and actions the night before I go to sleep, I usually wake up much more likely to just get out of bed and get going on my to do list. My mind seems to be so much clearer and my thoughts are much more positive in the “now moment” when I do this.
Of course, we all need to think about the future and make plans, much of which is very fun and exciting like when planning a trip to Disneyland with the kids or a vacation to Europe. It’s the same with the past. We enjoy taking time (but not too much time) to relive our great experiences and the really memorable moments in our lives.
And then, of course, there is planning for the not so fun things. Sometimes there are things going on in our lives that make us realize we need to change things up. Recently I’ve been struggling with some health issues that made me stop and think that there might be some areas that I need to slow down in. This means that I have to look back at what I’ve been doing that I can maybe do less of and then think about how I want my future to look. It’s really been taking me out of the “right now” frame of mind. But I have been able to make some decisions and, I think, once I make a few changes, I can focus on my health when I need to and get back to living in the moment more and more.
One of the things I decided to do is to write posts for this blog just twice a month instead of every week. I aim to get them out on the 1st and 3rd Sunday each month. So, you can be sure to check in with me on those weekends.
It will be quite the change, after posting on this blog every week for nearly 15 years, to only write these twice a month, but it’s a good thing to recognize when change is needed. We all need to be really good about recognizing our priorities in life and be open to making the changes that will help keep us healthy and happy.
So, although going to just twice a month for this blog will feel like a big change for me, and maybe for some of you, thinking like this gives us a chance to really look around and figure out what other changes could really help lift our lives.
I’ve talked a lot about how important good health is to our lives as well as spending time with family and friends and all those other good things that keep us healthy and happy. So, maybe we can all take some time now to look around and see if there are changes we can make to be sure that time with our loved ones and our own health and happiness is a priority in our life.
The Power of Personal Questioning
December 4, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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Last week I talked about having a great passion and how, especially when you lose that passion, it can be really hard to move forward and chase what you want. The uncertainty and fear and can be such a big hurdle. So, as I promised in my last post, here are some things you can do to move forward.
First of all, doing some writing for yourself can be a huge boost in helping you reach your goals and improve your life. Ask yourself specific questions, like the ones below, then, don’t just think about them. Write down the thoughts that these questions bring up to make them more substantial and harder to ignore.
- Do I want to significantly raise my level of contentment and fulfillment?
- Do I want to become a better person?
- Do I want to be known as a person of accomplishment?
- Do I want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health my entire life?
- Do I want to live a very long, active life?
- Do I want to make a fortune—a million dollars, $10 million, or even $100 million? (Just think how much good you could do with that much money!)
- Do I want the increased choices and possibilities in my life that making my own fortune could give me?
- Do I want to leave the world a better place than I found it?
- Do I want to help others as I help myself?
- Do I want to travel and experience the world and its cultures?
Again, write down your honest responses to these self-searching questions. Develop some of your own “life questions” and answer those as well.
If it’s really about the missing passion in your life or because you are feeling unfulfilled, try answering these questions instead of, or in addition to, the ones above.
- What do you have a true passion for in your life?
- What part of your recent or past life—even during your childhood—really got you excited, to the point that you totally lost track of time when involved in it?
- Think about specific things you love and how they make you feel. Do you get excited about music, art, ballet, sports, outdoor adventures, writing, gatherings, social interactions, running your own small business, helping others…?
- What kind of breakthrough would you be ecstatic to have in your life right now? Would it be in the area of health, wealth, personal expression, spiritual development, or something else?
- In what would you love to excel?
Think about all that. You may find, after taking time to really go through all your interests, that you have many unfulfilled passions. Which ones do you get the most excited about?
After all this questioning, take some time to contemplate and think about it, then write down what you believe to be your true, unfulfilled passions.
If you are doing something you are passionate about, there are a few more questions you should ask.
- Am I actually doing that special something that I have a great passion for?
- If so, am I doing it for the right reasons?
- What are those reasons?
Asking questions gives us the opportunity to really come to understand ourselves, what we are thinking, and maybe even what we want. But mostly, asking and writing our thoughts down make them more concrete and can jumpstart a plan to get more out of life, to find or chase a passion you may have been ignoring because you were afraid, uncertain, or just let life distract you.
The new year is just around the corner, so this is the perfect time to define what you want and start in on a plan to make that happen for you so you are living a fulfilling and passionate life in 2023.
Rallying for Passion and Against Fear
November 27, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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I’ve written about turning dreams into reality before and I do think there are lots of things you can do to really make those dreams come to pass in your life. It’s been said that “Lucky are those who have a passion for life, but blessed are those who have passion ALL their life.”
I don’t know about you, but I believe one of the most important keys to staying young, in nearly every way, is to flood my life with passion. For me, that comes from pursuing what I want out of life, really going after my dreams full force, keeping an eye on my priorities, and doing those things that I love to do with all the energy I can muster!
I set very specific and tough goals for myself, and I go after those goals like my life depends on it, because, you know, I really DO believe my life depends on it. When I write those goals down, I am much, much more likely to follow through and reach those goals. You see, I loathe the idea of living a life of insignificance. It’s like wasting the most precious resource in the entire world. A human life. My life!
If you don’t feel the same way, then ask yourself, “Why don’t I know what I want in life?”
That question is particularly bothersome if you once had a great passion for something and then you lost it somewhere along the way. Far too many people give up on life when that happens, fearful of the outcome if they try something else. But they’re losing out on so much more when they don’t try.
Here are 3 common fears that can slow us down or stop us from going after what we really want and dream about. Are one of these stopping you?
1. Fear striking out aggressively in a new direction because we don’t know what it will be like.
2. Fear of taking risks because risks include the possibility of failure.
3. Fear of the possibility, real or imagined, of losing what we have already.
When we give into these fears, we end up just sitting on our hands. We give up on having what we really want and totally miss out on having long-lasting fulfillment and contentment in our lives.
I’ve talked to many very, very successful people that freely admit they had an enormous fear of becoming a total failure, but they pushed themselves forward anyway and, most of the time, they were very successful, despite their great fears!
How did they do that? Well, everyone has their own specific methods, but next week, I’ll give you some ideas on how to push your fears aside and push yourself to go after the things you really want in life.
The Priority Mission
October 30, 2022 by MarkHaroldsen
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Last week I wrote about my great friend, Paul J Meyer, who was a major contributor to my making millions of dollars. Yes, he was a financial genius that helped thousands and thousands of people make a huge success of their lives. His book is a must read for anyone that wants to lift their lives to huge heights, and not just financially. His book is called Fortune, Family, and Faith—24 Keys That Bring Complete Success.
One area of his life that Paul talked a lot about was how to keep your priorities after you set your goals for various parts of your life. As I promised in last week’s blog, here are the 13 things he committed to in order to stay focused on his priorities. I recommend you use them as well.
1. Write down my priorities.
2. Decide that I will keep my priorities/commit to them.
3. Post my priorities in highly visible places.
4. Start with a very small action each day that reinforces my priorities.
5. Learn to do that small action right away.
6. Refuse to go to bed until I have done what I intended to do.
7. Create visible checklists or tracking systems.
8. Find an accountability partner, someone I can be honest with who will be honest with me.
9. Have picture reminders.
10. Concentrate on the benefits.
11. Review regularly to see if I am on target.
12. Choose to never make excuses.
13. Craft a personal mission statement.
About that last one, Paul felt that a mission statement would also help ensure that your priorities are the right priorities.
“Writing a life mission statement is quite simple,” he wrote. “You begin writing out your priorities in descending order and then answer the question, ‘What do I want to accomplish in life by keeping my priorities?’ or ‘Why do I have these priorities?’”
Paul also said that “You can keep improving your mission statement as time goes by. By fine-tuning it, you are simultaneously fine-tuning your overall life’s direction.”
Paul emphasizes that “a mission statement is not an exercise to complete and then forget.” As he goes on to note, and as I have seen myself, the mission statement provides things like direction, focus, and consistency in the things you do while keeping you on track with your goals.
There is more about mission statements and other thoughts on priorities in his book 24 Keys That Bring Complete Success. Pick it up and find more great words of wisdom to live by.
Prioritizing Your Lists
September 7, 2018 by MarkHaroldsen
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Last week’s blog challenged you to become the next Richard Branson. I’m still waiting for that invitation to jump in your hot air balloon and travel over the Atlantic Ocean! But, more importantly, I hope my words got you thinking about list making.
I ended my previous blog, which was all about how successful you can be when you make lists, by asking the question, “How important is it to prioritize your list?”
Of course, the answer is that prioritizing your lists are absolutely critical, that is, if you want to do much bigger and better things! However, most of us humans after we’ve made a list, will often make the mistake of NOT prioritizing the items on them. You may be thinking, “Hey, everybody knows you should prioritize!†And that may be true, but most people simply don’t do it, even if they know it’s very important!
I’m acquainted with many bright and intelligent people who treat virtually situation – every business deal, and every contact – equally. Ok, I’ve been guilty of doing that myself from time to time. People will even let a very low priority phone call or even a walk-in salesperson interrupt a high priority project or meeting that they are involved in. They have no sense of priority. They often move from one small, easy item to another small, easy item on their “to do list”, simply because they are easy and to get them out of the way.
Once in a while, if there is still time in the day, they’ll finally get to some important items, or even a top priority item. I’m sure most of us have done this, on occasion, but we need to realize that leaving our top priority items until later will hurt our progress and productivity to a large degree.
If we give it some advance thought and plan our day, we are more likely to stop ourselves from “taking the easy way” and not be oblivious to the great power of doing the top priority items first. Probably the biggest reason all of us can, and do, too often leave the top priority items until later is that those are usually very challenging and very difficult, and people just don’t want to push themselves. They do the easier, lower priority and only moderately important items first so they can check them off the list. I guess it makes them feel good or feel like they’re getting more done that way.
Have I taken the easy road myself? Yes, of course I have. Most of us are very human in that way and we slip up once in a while. Sometimes we slip up more often than that. But by knowing that’s the wrong way to approach my list, I can concentrate on giving the top priority items a top priority position on my list which will help me reach great heights in my life.
If you dwell on this idea and acknowledge the fact that doing the easy things on your list first can keep you from accomplishing great things, you are much more likely to prioritize properly. And when you do slip up, and am totally aware of that slip up, you need to admit that to yourself and take corrective action. I am sure you can do this because I can and I’m pretty sure, you and I are not that different.
A Billionaire and a Popstar
August 31, 2018 by MarkHaroldsen
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I’m sure you’ve taken note of certain people whose lives seem packed full of many marvelous activities, adventures, and experiences. Have you ever wondered how they do it all? Well, a big part of their success is that they are good at making, keeping, and working off of lists.
A good example is British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who credits his lists of things he wants to accomplish as the key to his getting so much done. He takes the time to go down that list often, adding to it and checking off each item as it is completed.
Here’s a guy who, at the tender age of 25, had the nerve to make a $100,000 offer to buy the Caribbean island of Necker that was listed for sale at $6 million dollars. No, the seller didn’t accept that low ball offer but, later, Branson did buy the entire island for a mere $180,000 which ended up being one of his favorite paradise getaways. And get this … his super luxury cabin rents out for $65,000 a night! Wow. That’s my kind of real estate investment – a place you can rent out, when not using it for yourself, that provides a super great cash flow.
Today, his Virgin group of businesses owns more than 200 different companies. Among these companies are businesses that specialize in air travel, finance, retail sales, music, cell phones, internet, hotels, and even a railroad. In 1999, Branson attempted, and broke, world records in hot air balloon travel and in a transatlantic small boat crossing.
Pop star, Madonna, also has a reputation as a big list maker. Although her accomplishments are in different areas than Branson’s, she attributes her list-making to keeping track of her priorities and getting so much done.
Lists are one of the secrets used by the rich and famous every day of their lives. They help them to run their businesses and to expand their ventures. List making is a common trait of millions of successful people regardless of race, sex, nationality, or occupation. Lists are used to lift their lives and propel them toward fulfillment. And lists can do the same for you and me!
Once again, as I write about this, it truly motivates me to make more lists and be more consistent in doing just that. But here’s a good question to end on: How important is it to “Prioritize” your lists? We’ll talk about that next week.
In the meantime, how about you or your son or granddaughter become the next Branson? Hey, it could happen, and then maybe you will invite me to a hot air balloon ride across the Atlantic!