Carpe Diem!

Carpe Diem. Seize the day! There is no better time than the beginning of the new year to re-create yourself. I heard once that the American Indians believed that every morning was like being reborn. I think the notion of not being weighed down by our past habits and our old beliefs is remarkably liberating. One of my favorite books that I read last year at the recommendation of a friend was "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen (the Chicken Soup guys) and Les Hewitt. Just like the Chicken Soup series of books, the message is simple and straight forward. The simplicity is part of the book's genius. The very first passage of the book opens with a quote by J.Paul Getty. "The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might of the force of habit--and must understand that practices are what create habits. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him--and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires". In a nutshell, your practices create your habits. So if you want to have better, healthier habits, replace your bad habits with better healthier practices until they become ingrained as good habits. The book claims that 90% of our normal behavior is based on habits. Although this sounds like an overestimate, the point is still well taken that much of what we do is just routine and we are capable of reprogramming ourselves at anytime. Think of your mind as a wild meadow, with bad habits being the weeds and good habits being flowers. Without any work, only the weeds will flourish. If you want a meadow full of flowers, it will take a little bit of work. First you will need to pull out all of the weeds by their roots. Then you will have to plant the meadow with seeds of whatever type of flowers and plants that you want to sow. After that, you will still have to water the plants on a regular basis and you will have to continue to week out any unwanted plants on a regular basis.
Your brain in much the same. Because we live in a world of average people and we are very much influenced by mass advertising and mass consciousness, if left unattended and unmanaged, our thoughts will tend to be mostly negative (weeds). If you want to sow more positive thoughts (flowers), you need to pull out all those negative thoughts that have been subconsciously planted in your brain and then supplant them with the more positive thoughts of ideas and visions that you want to sow. Plants are most susceptible to harm in the very beginning and thoughts are no different. You have to tend to your thoughts daily by fertilizing and watering the seeds of your positive thoughts and weeding out the negatives thoughts that tend to creep back in, as they inevitably will. Eventually, after a while, your positive thoughts will grown big and strong with deep roots and they will require a little less attention. So as you decide to make more cold calls or wake up an hour earlier each day in order to get the jump on the day, the early stages of your new habits will present the biggest challenge. Your negative thoughts will be hard to shed. That little voice in your head will tell you you can't do it. It'll tell you that you will not succeed. Rip that voice out by the roots. Plant the new seeds of positive optimism by telling yourself that you can do it. With proper care and tending, you will soon find yourself past the point of inertia and the new habits will become easier and easier with each passing day. Using this method, you can do anything that you set your mind to do. And there is no better time to start than today. Carpe diem!