“If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.”

-unknown

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 980 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 16 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

You know you’ve asked this or have been asked ….

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Compliments of “BuzzFeed Life”

From accidents to delayed airlines, to corporate cutbacks, and down right nasty people, you will without a doubt encounter things throughout your life that you cannot control. You can try to be prepared for the worst case scenarios but lets face it, you are not a psychic and you don’t want to live your life in fear.

You can have a plan B ready but sometimes even that wont work. its ok to pause at those moments and take it all in. I call this the time to re-evaluate the situation. But don’t get stuck doing that for too long, because no matter what, you aren’t going to turn back time and undo what was done. Sometimes there are certain times when you can take steps to rectify what has happened. Bu that will most likely take action on your part.

Other times there will be no one to turn to who has any power to affect what has happened. What’s done will be done, and it will stay done. Its t those times, you need to regroup, and get moving. Think of any sports team dwelling on a bad call, a bad play, an injury. They don’t have the luxury to dwell on it. regroup and move on to the next play. Sometimes you will have more time than others. But other times your actions will need to be immediate.

Action is your friend. Even if it leads to failure, it will allow you to get that out of the way so you can move on to succeeding. Inaction does nothing for you. It allows things to happen to you. Calculated action is better than blind action. But blind action is better than “Analysis Paralysis.”

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

~Mark Twain

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When you don’t get what you want who’s fault is it? How often do you ever walk away from a failure second guessing yourself and not being able to find one area of improvement ? Most times there is something more you could have done. You could have started preparing earlier. You could have focused more. You could have pushed harder.

There are a lot of times I cut my workout short because I am ready to move on to the next item on my to-do list. Or I push a project to the back burner because something else grabs my interest. Even if we don’t vocalize it, we often prioritize things in our minds simply by our actions. And it will show in our end product. Other times, you will walk away knowing you did absolutely everything in your power to give it your best, you will knock it out of the park. You will know the feeling of true success when you feel the power of your hard work manifest itself in you reaching your goal.

If you know you had nothing more to give – you truly had no more energy to dedicate to your goal, not one more minute was available to work on that project, and you know you couldn’t have started preparing any earlier, and it still doesn’t work out – then know you gave it your best shot, and it just wasn’t meant to be.

Don’t dwell on failures – your competition for your next goal is already hard at work.

“Winning means you’re willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.”

~Vince Lombardi

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I think it’s everyone’s ideal plan to find meaningful and satisfying work. Not everyone is driving to their dream job every morning, but I think most people mostly enjoy what they do. (If not I hope those people seek change fast!) but what about your non-working hours? You should enjoy your job and it will somewhat define you, but you have to have a personal life too.

More and more people I talk to do not know what they enjoy doing in their free time. I’m both baffled by this and yet not surprised. Once you update your status, put the kids to sleep, and get to your “me time”, what fills your head?

The possibilities are endless. And you have to have something to go to when you need to clear your mind or just simply seek pleasure.

Some of mine include cooking, motorcycles, trying new restaurants, watching football, running, being outdoors, and traveling. And that really is only the tip of the iceberg for me. So it seems hard to believe that someone wouldn’t know what they enjoy doing. Yet, so many people have not taken time to discover themselves or simply don’t pursue their interests.

It’s these interests that will define you outside of work. It’s these interests that will keep you sane when work gets rough (and it will). And it’s these interests that can be the foundation of a job that is truly one of your dream jobs.

Don’t be the person seeking every hour of overtime the boss offers. Spend time with your kids. Make plans with your significant other. And if you are without either of those – go make some friends and enjoy everything this world has to offer. Otherwise, you might need to ask yourself what you are working for in the first place …