VALUES

If you don’t know what your values are you are not plugged into your life.  You are adrift and don't even know it.  You're settling for whatever comes along.  

In order to be plugged into your life you need to know what you stand for, what you will and will not tolerate, where the line is to your self-respect.  Above all, you have integrity and what does that mean?  It means that if you say you're going to do something then you do it especially if that promise is to yourself. 

That's what it means to have values.

PICKY

I was once told that the reason I wasn’t in a relationship was because I was too picky.  I thought about that for a long time and even thought wow, maybe I should be less so.  And then it hit me.  THANK GOD I’m picky.  Why wouldn’t I be?

From what I see with people in relationships and circumstances in which they are incredibly unhappy or at the very least compromising their best selves, I would say that we are simply not picky enough.

And what does it mean to be picky? It doesn't mean you're arrogant, aloof and disengaged. It means you have values and you intend to stick to them.

STUFF IT DOWN

"Even when our instinct, our wisdom, confirms what we can see with our own eyes, we will choose to listen to the rationalizations coming from the voice in our head instead. Why? Because the voice in our head will always choose the option  that produces the least amount of fear and anxiety. 

How many times have we dated someone, or gotten into a regrettable situation, or not spoken up when we needed to, and then retraced our steps to find we ignored warnings from our instinct, the warning in our gut? That’s our wisdom. We all have it, but instead, we listen to our head telling us to be polite, not offend, not make a scene, go along to get along, let sleeping dogs lie, stuff those painful feelings down."

from Getting over ourselves: Unearthing old crap so we can move on

BACK

See it's not how long you've been away or fallen off the wagon or messed up or whatever.  It's about how you return and recommit.  That's what matters.

If anyone who ever had a goal or a vision simply stopped the minute they got knocked down, distracted, pissed off at the slowness of the process or whatever...for a minute, an hour or a decade, no one would ever accomplish anything.

CHANGE

You can't make anyone else change and no one else can make you change.  That's true.  Only you have the power to change yourself -- on anything.  In fact, changing yourself is the only thing you actually have control over.

Here's the thing, changing yourself doesn't mean making big, scary shifts in our lives, changing ourselves can simply mean choosing to react differently.

ANSWERS

The Universe has three answers for you:
1) Yes
2) Not yet
3) I have something even better in store for you

Believe. Trust. Let go.

ADVICE

The good stuff...

"[...] is priceless. Not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. Not imaginary, but practical. Not based on fear, but on possibility. Not designed to make you feel better, designed to make you better.

Seek it out and embrace the true friends that care enough to risk sharing it.

I'm not sure what takes more guts—giving it or getting it."

Seth Godin