It may not be your fault

Why results may not be your fault.

Strive not to be a success,
but rather to be of value.

Albert Einstein

Making Change work

I have been reading a most fascinating book called, Good Habits, Bad Habits – that is helping me to understand how I can make positive changes and keep them.

The chapter I am on right now explains that most of us underplay the role environment, other people and various other outside factors have in our success and overplay the role that our \”self-determination, will, resolve, etc.\” have in our final outcome.

As a result when we fail at something we tend to get depressed even though it may not be because we didn\’t try hard enough, employ super positive imaging or even pray enough because there will always be outside factors that can override our best intentions and change everything.

The book is not saying that we abdicate our personal responsibility for making change but rather that we take into account externals and work with them to give ourselves a more realistic chance of change success.

Here\’s Proof!

I just took two pictures of sunflowers that we planted a few weeks ago. Two plants were placed in our front yard and three plants were placed in our back yard.

The flowers in the front I thought would have a lot of sun but it was mostly morning sun – when the sun was at its coolest point. The three flowers in the back had mostly afternoon and evening sun which of course were the hottest parts of the day.

And of the three, one of the backyard plants had even more sun than the other two and outdistanced them in growth.

Work with Externals to Improve the Odds

These thoughts are nothing new and I have read variations of these same thoughts in such things as organizing one\’s office and living space or how to study better at school. But revisiting truths presented in a new way I find very helpful and empowering.

So, one thing I have been wanting to do more is to work out every day with weights as I know this is important for brain fitness as well as physical strengthening. Every day I think about it but I don\’t do it.

So this morning I put my small cardboard box of leg weights and 3 pound dumbbells in my bathroom, along with my exercise chart . . . because I will see them and can do one set at a time throughout the day.

This may not work as I haven\’t tried it yet – but if not I will find a better place and work something else out but I feel that I need to work more on positive environmental changes for exercise success than putting up a motivational quote about it. 🙂

And other things

Other things I have been about was working with a new book blog for 21 days to see if it was going to be a good channel of time and energy. After 21 days . . . the results seem to be . . . not so much. Of course it usually takes 1 – 3 years to really judge a blog\’s success but I don\’t know that I have the stick-to-it enough for that. So that is still in undecided stage.

I have not been feeling like blogging here every day . . . so I\’m not. Not dropping off the planet with it but letting go of the daily.

I am finding a lot of fun in updating my coding skills with Lynda.com. I found out that our library offers the courses for free! Super, duper happy dance! I have taken a lot of courses through them in the past but decided I needed to cut back on that expense . . . and now I don\’t have to.

Basically I am just enjoying the summer, finding new dishes to cook with zucchini . . . , reading, playing puzzles and OH! one more thing.

I am back to working on creating a cook book out of the recipes from Jon\’s first wife (RIP) that I hope to have done to give as Christmas presents. This is not a \”for sale\” book but just a fun – home project. I have tried several of her recipes already and they were delicious so I\’m confident this will be a treasured gift.

Working on doing the layout for both the cover and interior with InDesign and then may have the pages and cover printed at a place here in Vancouver that will print the pages (full color) for only $54 for ten books. That\’s pretty darn affordable. I will do the page punching and spiral binding myself which is usually the biggest expense.

Anyway I may share some of the recipes along the way and if anyone is interested might even make a few books available (at cost and shipping) for the cookbook junkies out there – I know I\’m not the only one who loves to read cookbooks! 🙂 My favorites actually are the church or nonprofit fundraising books – they have the best recipes!

Gratitude Moments

If you would like, please add \”your\” three gratitude moments in the comments. It\’s a great way to pick up your day and it\’s fun for the rest of us to read!

1. Letting go and having more fun
2. Reading good books
3. Hamburgers and home fries for dinner!

Puzzle Time

108Encouragement-20 24At the seaside 25Cuddles

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