Embrace your new horizons

I came across this saying "Don't be afraid to go where you've never gone and do what you've never done, because both are necessary to have what you've never had and be who you've never been".  Ir got me thinking.  As you approach retirement, it's important to embrace the idea that stepping outside your comfort zone is not only helpful but necessary for personal growth and satisfaction in your new phase of life. The notion of "Don't be afraid to go where you've never gone and do what you've never done" carries deep significance, particularly as you navigate the transition from a structured work life to a more open-ended and self-directed life.

One aspect of this sentiment is the opportunity for lifelong learning. Consider exploring new hobbies, acquiring new skills, or even delving into a subject you've always been curious about. For instance, if you've never tried painting, joining an art class could unleash your creativity and bring a fresh perspective to your retirement years. Engaging in new and interesting activities provides you with mental stimulation but also enables a sense of accomplishment and purpose.

Moreover, venturing into uncharted territories can extend beyond personal interests to include new social experiences. Joining clubs, volunteering, or participating in community events can introduce you to diverse individuals and broaden your social circle. This is important as the camaraderie and support of others can contribute significantly to your overall well-being.

On a deeper level, taking risks in your personal relationships can be transformative. Reconnect with old friends, initiate difficult conversations with loved ones, or forge new connections with people who bring different perspectives to your life. Building and nurturing meaningful relationships can add richness and depth to your retirement years, creating a support system that enhances your emotional and mental well-being.

The second part of the statement, "because both are necessary to have what you've never had and be who you've never been," underscores the transformative potential of embracing the unknown. By being open to new experiences, you can discover hidden talents, unearth untapped passions, and redefine your sense of self. This period of life offers a unique chance to shed previous roles and identities, allowing you to authentically be who you've always aspired to be.

For instance, if your career has defined you for decades, retirement provides an opportunity to explore different aspects of your identity. Whether it's starting a small business, engaging in philanthropy, or embarking on a journey of self-discovery through travel, embracing novelty can lead to a more fulfilling and purpose-driven retirement.

In summary, don't let fear hold you back as you approach retirement. Embrace the unknown, try new things, and foster meaningful connections. The uncharted territory beyond your comfort zone can be the source of personal enrichment, growth, and a truly fulfilling retirement experience.

Massive change starts small

Avalanches landslides, fires, mudslides or floods are very scary if you have witnessed one or have seen one close up you know that they can be life-changing. All of these massive events can start out as massive events, but more than likely they start out as small perhaps even insignificant events. A fire can start with a tossed match or a massive lightning strike; a mudslide can start with a pebble or a cliff giving way; an avalanche can start with a snowball or a side of a cliff dropping suddenly. 

No matter how they start, they can grow into massive life-threatening or life-changing events. It is the same for any action you take, any small step or decision you make can lead to massive action on massive dreams even amidst massive uncertainties.  You know this is is pretty much where anyone who's ever done anything massive had to start. The problem is not the massive action, it is the starting of the action that causes us so much pain and uncertainty. Once we start, things just get way easier as we get caught up riding the massive event we started. The key is to be on top of the action, not caught up in the action. For that to happen requires courage, strength, planning and good luck. 

Have you ever broken a promise to yourself?

Was there was a commitment you made to yourself and not followed through with?
Maybe about your health and fitness 
Maybe around your job or in your family life 
Maybe around a habit, you'd like to change 

Soooo?

Well, have you thought about why?

If you didn't... how did you will feel about that?

When we make a commitment to someone else we usually if we can follow through. However, if it is a promise to ourselves we do not always follow through. 

Well, a commitment is a commitment no matter to whom it is made. When you make a commitment there should be no difference in your desire to keep that commitment. it's not about keeping a commitment that you gave to someone else.  

It's about keeping a promise you made to yourself which is just as important as that commitment to the other person.

Your Intelligence Makes You Invaluable

Have you ever felt that you had nothing to offer…no gifts to share whatsoever?

During spells of frustration or despair, it’s common to feel worthless. It can seem that everyone else is far more brilliant, beautiful & worthy of consideration.

In times like these, take solace in the one thing that you can offer that no-one else can: your unique perspective.

You see, nobody looks at the world the way that you do, nor thinks in exactly the same way. Once you start to engage your innate intelligence, be it simple and from the heart or complex and of the mind, your unique creativity begins to shine, and you become a beacon of brilliance.

You may be sitting on the one solution that no-one else can imagine, or you may hold just the right words to bring comfort and understanding to a tense situation. You never know until you start to apply your mind, your perspective & your creativity to something outside of yourself.

And sometimes, you don’t even need to EXPRESS your intelligence. Consider the CEO who sits with her team-leaders, intently listening to their ideas until brilliance is born. By simply sitting in active contemplation, you “magically” amplify the collective intelligence.

How will YOU influence the world TODAY? 

Get Clear On Where You’re Going

 Have you ever felt that there’s just not enough time in the day? Most often, when we run out of time for projects or pursuits, the reason is that we’ve spent a lot of time lost in ambiguity.

When you’re supremely clear about where you’re going and what you want to do, there’s no time lost. Your actions are clear & precise, and you can make an AMAZING amount of progress in just a short period of time.

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to eliminate the time-management nightmare.

1.   Plan your work.

Take a few moments to determine where you’re going and how you plan to get there. You don’t have to know all the steps or details; just write down the basic outline as you can see it.

2.   Gather your resources.

Get your tools in order. Make sure you have food & water and anything else you need to get started. What do you need to do this job right? Get it.

3.   Work your plan.

Give yourself a deadline, then follow your outline step-by-step. If you get lost or distracted, come back to your outline and see what’s next.

Before long you will have a finished product or project, and plenty of time to relax or do something else…like stare out the window for 20 minutes.

What are YOU going to do TODAY? 

Change One Thing

Sometimes it seems like nothing works the way it should. If you’re a human, you have probably hit that point at some time in your life, where work is no fun, relationships are a struggle and you don’t even feel comfortable in your body.

At times like those, changing your life can seem overwhelming. There’s so much to do…where do you even start?

It’s quite simple, really…just change ONE thing.

Read a magazine article you would never typically even consider. Try a new type of restaurant. Take a different route to work. Any simple change of scenery can shift your perspective, and has the potential to drastically transform your life.

It’s like a ship at sea…if it changes course even one degree, 100 miles later it’s in completely new waters.

Of course, the most profound shifts are the ones you make on the inside. Annoyance can easily be turned into fascination. Frustration can be flipped to become gratitude. Even anger can be transformed if you simply turn it into a song.

You don’t have to tackle the whole enchilada, just make one simple shift.

And the best part is…it’s all experimentation. If you don’t like your new perspective, you can always go back to your old one.

What “one-degree” shift can YOU make TODAY? 

Thought for the day

Each challenge of life adds to the suspense, adds to the mystery, adds to the chaos, adds to the possibilities, adds to the romance, adds to the adventure, adds to the joy.

And anything that adds to the joy should be embraced.

Sudden Change (continued)

Remind yourself to be present, to live simply, to keep centered and at peace as change swirls around.

I have been thinking a lot about my grandson-- and what would be the most important thing I could convey to him. It seems very likely that the world in which he will be an adult in will be radically different from the one we now share. What training could he get to help him cope with knowing the unknowable? Training and Learning to be flexible with his approach to life and to have a flexible mind will help him.

Accepting change, allows one to stay in balance and be in much better able to attend to any situation. A mind that is able to flex from one view to a new view is a mind that can meet any situation with compassionate and creative responses.


Flexibility of mind can be strengthened through sitting still. We need to resist the urge to jump up and do something about our thoughts and feelings. We need to have time to explore other options rather than the first automatic response, the habitual thoughts, and stories about a situation that we normally fall into. We have to learn to become pliable.

To help here are some more ideas on how to be pliable and go with the flow:

Baby steps. Take things in small steps. Try to bite off huge chunk, just bite off something small at first. So make your first attempts to go with the flow small ones try to focus on your breathing. Then try to get perspective after you breathe. Try the easier situations first

Laugh. It may help you to see things as funny, rather than frustrating. Car broke down in the middle of traffic and I have no cell phone or spare tire? I could be angry and upset, but if I think about it as a story to tell, the situation has humour, I can tell the story and laugh at my own incompetence and laugh at the absurdity of the situation. This however, requires a certain amount of detachment; you can laugh at the situation if you are above it, but not within it. Detachment is a good thing. If you can learn to laugh at things, you have come a long way. At first you may have to try laughing even if you do not think the situation is funny I try to create a story around the situation that will allow me to laugh and then the story will most likely become funny.

Keep a journal. This is one of the best uses of a journal I have been told. Once a day, try to recall what situations or changes happened to you and then write about those situations. Why did you get upset? Why did you laugh? What did you try to do? Did it work, and if not, why not? What can you do next time? This kind of recollection and examination, after the fact, will help you learn from the process.

Meditate. I am not good at keeping a journal, but I at least I do a daily review in my head. Do some meditation, or drink a cup of tea, or walk as a way of de-stressing. As you do this go over the day and examine it. I do some deep breathing, and then go over each situation, trying to see it as a detached observer.

Realize that you cannot control others. I sometimes get frustrated with other people; because they do not act the way I want them to act. It took me a great many years to realize that they are acting according to their personality, according to what they feel is right, and they are not going to do what I want all of the time. Once I learned to accept that I could not control them, and that I had to accept them for who they are, accept the things they do it helped I was less frustrated.

Accept change and imperfection. When I get things the way I like them, I usually do not want them to change. However, they will change this is a fact. I cannot keep things the way I  want them to be … instead, is it not  better to learn to accept things as they are. Accepting that the world is changing, and we are a part of that change helps keep me in balance.

Enjoy life as a flow of change, chaos, and beauty. Do you have an ideal that you try to make the world conform to? Guess what; that will likely never happen. Instead, try seeing the world as it is, messy, chaotic, painful, sad, dirty, beautiful happy and completely perfect. The world is beautiful, just as it is. Life is not something static, but a flow of change, never staying the same, always getting messier and more chaotic, always beautiful. There is beauty in everything around us, if we look at it as perfect. And as my friends say life is better than the alternative

Insight into change teaches us to embrace our experiences without clinging to them; to get the most out of them in the present moment by fully appreciating their intensity, in full knowledge that soon we have to have to let them go to embrace whatever comes next. Insight into change teaches us hope. Because change is built into the nature of things, nothing is inherently fixed, not even our own identity

Therefore, for my grandson, whose tools for meeting the future may be obsolete the day after they are invented, I encourage him to sit down and sit still while the winds of change blow over, under, around and through him remain flexible and enjoy whatever life changes bring.

Sudden Change

Two years ago I started blogging about things that interest me and my how time flys, I am still enjoying the challenge of finding the time to write everyday, but there is no shortage of things to talk about. One of the most interesting challenges I find is dealing with the concept of change.


How is it for you when something changes in your life suddenly and unexpectedly? A death of a dear one; change in the status of a personal relationship; a shift in your work life? Many of us attempt to go with the flow before we are overwhelmed by the situation. So how do you go with the flow? Many of you have your own approaches that work for you. These work for me most of the time.



Realize that you cannot control everything. I think we all know this at some level, but the way we think and act and feel many times contradicts this basic truth. Even if we like to think we can we cannot even control everything within our own sphere of influence — we can try to influence things, but many things are simply out of our control. We think we can control our morning routine, but there will be things that happen from time to time (someone’s sick, accident happens, phone call comes at 5 a.m. that disrupts things, etc.) that will take you out of our routine. We cannot control everything and the first step to managing change is to accept that things will happen Not might happen, but will. There are things that we cannot control that will affect every aspect of our lives, and we must must must accept that, or we will constantly be frustrated. Think about this for a time..

Become aware. This is extremely important. We cannot change things in ourselves if we not aware of them. One way to start down this road is to become an observer of own thoughts, a self-examiner. Be aware that if you are becoming upset, you can do something about it. It helps to keep tally marks in a little notebook for a week — every time you get upset, put a little tally and after a week, you will be more aware.


Breathe. When you feel yourself getting angry or frustrated, take a deep breath. Take a few. This important step allows you to calm down and do the rest of the things on this list. Practice this by itself and you will have come a long way already.

Pause. When you pause, you create space. Space to breathe, to think, to be without acting; the pause is the answer to so many of our problems. To develop the pause, notice your next urge. Is it an urge to go check something online? Or eat something you know is not healthy for you? Pay attention to the urge; learn as much as you can about it. If you act on it after the pause, that is OK. Just notice it, and pause, and pay attention.

Get perspective. This always helps. You know how when you are watching a movie, the camera zooms away, and you can see much more of the world on the screen than you could before? How it goes from close-up to a larger, panoramic view of things? That is what you want to happen your mind’s eye. Start to zoom away, until you are far away from things. Whatever happened does not seem so important. A week from now, a year from now, this little incident will not matter at all. No one will care, not even you. So why get upset about it? Just let it go, and soon it will not be a big deal. Change is happening exponentially and so the future, while always full of surprises, is always different from what we think it will be and is completely un-knowable to us right now so we do need prespective.

Practice. It is important to realize that, just like when you learn any skill, you probably will not be good at this at first. Who is good when they are first learning to write, read, or drive? No one I know. Skills come with practice. Therefore, when you first learn to go with the flow, you will mess up. You will stumble and fall. That is OK — it is part of the process. Just keep practicing, and you will get the hang of it.

Change your mind, and everything else follows

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who  cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
- GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Change has a very negative connotation for most people. On a deep emotional level we are creatures of comfort and we automatically seek out that which feels good in the moment. We long for comfort and this usually comes from that which we know; that which is familiar to us. Once we can comfortably deal with and "know" all the "unknowns" we can "relax" – because your nervous system and your mind is designed to find and attach a meaning(s) to everything and therefore something new is always a confrontation between that which is and that which will be in your mind.

The unknown is always something that your mind and your nervous system has to "unravel" afresh and this very process feels uncomfortable on many levels. When something becomes comfortable you get used to it as you remove all the "unknowns" and your automatic behaviour can take over again. Our nervous system works primarily by conditioning and by repetition we notice and assume patterns that are consistent. This system is really there to serve us in helping us being more efficient and to be able to do more, more efficiently.

Your mind is designed to always look for the best way. Through repetition we learn certain orders and sequences in which things happen and we learn to recognize and respond according to these sequences. Every emotion you experience, for instance, is nothing but the result of a sequence of events and reactions triggered by your unconscious awareness that generates and creates the actual feeling which is nothing but a sensation in your nervous system.

To change anything you must first of all become aware of these patterns. You must become aware of what goes on under the surface of your conscious awareness. This is not difficult and everybody can do this. You need not understand everything about the human nervous system to use it.

Simply be aware of the fact that there is a part of you that responds and acts "automatically" based on your past experiences and associations. The challenge is to go from one pattern, one that does not serve you, to one which does. You quite literally would have to change your mind in that you have to change the way you perceive yourself and your life. Doing things differently will feel uncomfortable at first, but you can rest assured that the "uncomfortable" will become "comfortable" as you start to form new associations and new patterns of association.

The process of making the "uncomfortable" comfortable or making the "unknown" known is the way we grow as human beings. What you are comfortable with represents your comfort zone which includes all the experiences that you can comfortably deal with. If you don't expand this "zone" then you simply won't expand yourself as a person. The need to grow and become more as a person, is a deep emotional need that all humans have.

Without growth you simply won't be happy. All growth, although it feels uncomfortable in the moment always feels immensely fulfilling in the long term and it is this feeling that we all really crave for; the feeling that we call "good". You can do something that feels comfortable and "good" in the moment by staying with what you know, but true fulfilment comes from pushing beyond your comfort zone and creating a sense of pride in yourself. Growth means change and change involves risk and risk is the process of stepping from the known to the unknown.

The truth is that all of life is constantly in a process of change. Nothing ever stays the same. It is the nature of all of life, including you. Even if you do nothing life will still change. For you to progress, you have to decide to consciously initiate and create the change. You have to consciously put yourself in the uncomfortable place where you can grow and as you do this you progress. Progress is by choice while change is automatic. To be in control of your life you have to consciously choose to change and to keep changing yourself to become the person you want to be. 

All change starts with a change of mind. You have to start by changing your thoughts about want you want to change. In changing the way you think about something you immediately change your perception and consequently the way you feel about it. When you change the way you feel you change your behaviour and that is how you progress. Constantly trying to change behaviour will rarely create long term and lasting change. Change your mind and the rest will follow! If you don't change then you simply won't grow and if you don't grow you are not really living.