If we lack the courage to start...

We have already finished.

Thinking back, we may be able to recall what we have never started, but
wanted to, and what we never started...lies in the "bone pile".

We can always resurrect what we have wanted to do, by making a plan to
get it going.

What usually stops us from starting is our excuses and our focus on
what can go wrong or the road blocks that may get in the way.

But with a little courage, we can focus on the result and the
anticipated benefits and outcome, once we do begin.

Otherwise - if we don't start...we are already finished.

Yours in "Starting" - Coach

I saw an interview yesterday...

About a rising star in womens tennis.

It was about Melanie Oudin, a 17 year old who is ranked 67 in the world
for the upcoming US Open and placed in the top 16 at Wimbledon.

Her coach for the past 8 years is Brian De Villers, and he has a theory
of why there are not more American players in the top World rankings.

He said, "They are too soft in America. There are too many escapes
clauses for the players, whether it be college, or some other choice,
and most come from affluence, so the minute the going gets tough...they
bail.

Hmmm?

Yours in "Thought" - Coach

Should I do this...

Or should I do that?

Decisions, Decisions?

Remember - No decisions, is a decision.

When it comes to the decisions to "strap up" and start moving
forward, the time is now...

Or, we can wait until we are younger, richer, and better looking.

Yours in "Choice" - Coach

If you are in a Hole...

Stop digging.

We all get into a hole, once in a while, but hashing and re-hashing why
we got into it, or how bad it feels to be in it, gets us nowhere.

We need to change our thoughts into...how to get out of our Hole.
Simple as
that...just "spin" our thoughts and focus towards the solution and not
the challenge.

And soon enough, with a bit pf persistence, the dirt starts to fly back
in, and we start to rise out of our hole.

Remember - you dug it, you need to fill it back in.

Yours in "Shovel time" - Coach

Taking it to the "Next Level"?

An employee, who recently set a 30 day goal...finally broke though.

He was admittedly poor with making goals and accomplishing what he set out to do.

And since he has been putting things off for too long, he decided to make a goal, with little hope of actually achieving it.

But he made his goal in a record breaking 45 days, and now considers himself a "Champion of Goal Reaching"!!

Pretty cool...he also let me know that "With a little perseverance and outsourcing, you can accomplish anything".

Quite a shift in thinking...even though it was on "his time", he did it, and it's just the start.

Yours in "Nice job, Clarence" - Coach

Bad news, just left the office...

And started to make his way home.

He didn't start the day being bad news, but he sure will finish the day
with it.

He stopped by the grocery store on his way home and gave the clerk a
bit of his bad news in the way of letting her know that she was slow
and didn't know what she was doing.

Upon entering his home he wasted no time letting his family know how
disappointed he was with them all, the wife for not keeping up the
house, the kids for not finishing their homework and for them all being
happy when there was no reason to be.

And where did the bad news start? At work, where he was told by his
boss that he needed to do a lot better if he wanted to keep his job.

The sad part was, just like he, the clerk and his family, they did
nothing wrong...the boss was in a bad mood and just wanted to spread
his funk with his employee, but it didn't stop there.

Yours in "What are you Spreading" - Coach

What can we tell others...

About ourselves, that would "dazzle them", without making stuff up.

We can always make stuff up to make us bigger or more amazing than we
really are, that's easy, we can even tell things about our past that
can put us in the hero category that wasn't all that true. Maybe we've
even used the old saying, "The older I get, the better I was".

But what's the real truth? What is it that you do or have done that can
be worthy of re-telling?

If we have something that is or was "dazzling" - great! And If not, we
can always start today to have our future filled with the great things
we have done.

Yours in "Dazzle" - Coach

I thought it would be...

Just an ordinary day.

But then I start thinking about, what great things are going to happen
today?

Every great day has to start somewhere, and you might as well prepare
for it.

Some great days may not be as as great as others, but looking forward
to them will keep our senses heightened to be on the "look out" for all
signs...which we maybe wouldn't see, if we thought otherwise.

Yours in "Thought" - Coach

Every Journey...

Has to start somewhere.

Whether the journey it is a camping trip, expedition, or our life.

Planning our journey, for whatever we have chosen, starts with us, and
has no bearing of where we were before, in the past, with the exception
of experience and what we have already learned which can help to guide
us safely to where we want to go.

So we must not let our past dictate the journeys we choose, but just be
an aid, and let our experiences help us for our future ones.

Yours in "Start Fresh" - Coach

Ever start back exercising...

Only to find out that you started out doing too much, too soon?

We sometimes get ahead of ourselves, and the aches and pains of the
exercise serve as a demotivator to keep up our plan.

Usually time has passed since we were on an exercise program and we
tend to start were we left off...but as the saying goes, "we ain't what
we used to be" really speaks volumes when it comes to
our bodies.

You see, if we don't use it, we lose it, and with exercise we need to
start slowly, and over time we can gain it back.

Otherwise, we make every excuse in the world, not to go back to
exercising...when we start doing too much, too soon.

Yours in "Slow but Sure" - Coach