I got this message in an email today.  It’s good advice.

A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with his hair fashionably combed and shaved perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.  His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready.  As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window. I love it,’ he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

 Mr. Jones, you haven’t seen the room; just wait.’ ‘That doesn’t have anything to do with it,’ he replied. Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time.  Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged .. it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it.

 ‘It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice;  I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.

 Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away. Just for this time in my life.

 Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you’ve put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories!

WOW!  That’s powerful! 

My friend and colleague Diane Darling, Networking Guru and President of Effective Networking, Inc.  shared this with her readers and I wanted to pass it along.  It’s great advice.  I found at least 98 that I could benefit by doing more of.

Avoid tight fitting clothes
Get up 15 minutes earlier
Prepare for the morning the night before
Avoid relying on chemical aids
Set appointments ahead
Don’t rely on your memory … write it down
Avoid negative people
Use time wisely
Simplify mealtimes
Always make copies of important papers
Anticipate your needs
Repair anything that doesn’t work properly
Ask for help with the jobs you dislike
Break large tasks into bite-sized portions
Look at problems as challenges
Look at challenges differently
Unclutter your life
Smile
Be prepared for rain
Tickle a baby
Pet a friendly dog/cat
Don’t know all the answers
Look for the silver lining
Say something nice to someone
Teach a kid to fly a kite
Walk in the rain
Schedule play time into every day
Take a bubble bath
Be aware of decisions you make
Believe in you
Stop saying negative things to yourself
Visualize yourself winning
Develop your sense of humor
Stop thinking tomorrow will be a better day
Have goals for yourself
Dance a jig
Say hello to a stranger
Ask a friend for a hug
Look up at the stars
Practice breathing slowly
Learn to whistle a tune
Read a poem
Listen to a symphony
Watch a ballet
Read a story curled up in bed
Do a brand-new thing
Stop a bad habit
Buy yourself a flower
Take stock in your achievements
Find support from others
Ask someone to be your “vent-partner”
Do it today
Work at being cheerful and optimistic
Put safety first
Do everything in moderation
Pay attention to your appearance
Strive for excellence, NOT perfection
Stretch your limits a little each day
Look at a work of art
Hum a jingle
Maintain your weight
Plant a tree
Feed the birds
Practice grace under pressure
Stand up and stretch
Always have a “plan B”
Learn a new doodle
Memorize a joke
Be responsible for your feelings
Learn to meet your own needs
Become a better listener
Know your limitations and let others know them too
Tell someone to have a good day in pig Latin
Throw a paper airplane
Exercise every day
Learn the words to a new song
Get to work early
Clean out one closet
Play pat-a-cake with a toddler
Go on a picnic
Take a different route to work
Leave work early (with permission)
Put air freshener in your car
Watch a movie and eat popcorn
Write a note to a faraway friend
Go to a ball game and scream
Cook a meal and eat it by candlelight
Recognize the importance of unconditional love
Remember that stress is an attitude
Keep a journal
Practice a monster smile
Remember you always have options
Quit trying to “fix” other people
Get enough sleep
Talk less and listen more
Freely praise other people
Take each day at a time
Have a support network of people, places, and things

Here’s a poem written by a student at Germaine Lawrence School in Arlington, MA.  A group of the at-risk girls who are students there make New Leaf Touchstone bracelets.

When you have a bad day, pick yourself up, brush yourself off and remember:

Tomorrow is:

Another day,

Another experience,

Awaiting your presence.

Another chance,

To forget mistakes made yesterday,

And to start over fresh.

Another day to learn,

And add on to your wisdom.

Another opportunity,

To apologize to the people you’ve hurt.

Another day to tell the people you love,

Just how much you love them.

Another chance to prove to yourself that you can always do better.

We humans like to be right.  Even if being right means that we’re right about being wrong or not succeeding.  When we set a goal and miss it, even being able to say, “See, I knew I couldn’t do it!”  makes us feel good because we were right!  Yikes!  We’re wired to sabotage ourselves!  So, how do we set ourselves up to be right and succeed?  We need to monitor our self talk, those powerful message we send to ourselves.  We talk to ourselves in ways we’d never tolerate from others.  In order to set ourselves up to succeed AND be right, we need to develop mantras, affirmations, self-talk that is supportive and believable.  For example:  ‘I can do this if I just take one step at a time.’  ‘When I feel stuck, I’ll reach out and ask for help.’  ‘If I don’t succeed the first time, I’ll just try again,’  ‘It may not be perfect but it’s good enough for now.’ 

Believe you can, structure your actions to be aligned with your goal, stay concious, present and focused on the outcome you want to achieve and continually remind yourself of your power to succeed.  Think right and be right about your ability to change!

I don’t usually post on weekends.  But, as I sit here looking out onto a fresh snowfall on a lazy Sunday morning, I’m  feeling full, even overflowing with love and contentment..  I thought about why that is and  wanted to share some ahas.   How is it that I am I able to feel so positive and optimistic, inspite of the challenges I’m facing?  I’m building a new business and nothing is moving as fast as I’d like it to, my husband has been out of work for a month, my teenage boys sometimes drive me crazy, the economy is in the tank, every day, the paper is full of news about politicians who are unethical…there’s a lot for me to be anxious about.  But despite of all of this, I find myself joyful.   I am buoyed up by the knowledge that my business is making a big difference for the people who have discovered it, for the girls at Germaine Lawrence who make my bracelets, I’m having a ball learning and creating great offererings for people in my market and, I’ve met amazingly wonderful people along my journey to build it.  My husband is actively looking for a new job and has some great prospects and he’s exploring what he might do that would make him really happy.  While he’s not working, it has been nice to have him around (for the most part).  My kids are doing their job of being teenagers really well.  Their monosyllabic responses and grunts, time spent on Facebook and ESPN.com is perfectly normal for their age.  And, they are healthy, have a great relationship with each other, are polite, smart and active.  I’m blessed with wonderful friends.  I could go on and on.  My mood and sense of well-being is a result of having created a habit of noticing what’s good and being grateful as opposed to my historical practice of focusing on what’s wrong and what’s missing, which drove me into the abyss.  It’s a great feeling to have so much control over my emotions.  I’m able to create postive space for myself and those around me.  And that, I know, makes a difference in the world.