Spring Brings A Fresh Start

Dressing up is uncomplicated and it doesn’t use much of your brain capacity to select the kindof outfit to wear. How about you, when was the last time you have honestly went through your closet and started eliminating and giving away clothes you have not worn or enjoyed wearing because it’s no longer your style? Prioritization and elimination are still my theme for this year. Sometimes we become too overwhelmed and overly stressed because we don’t have our priorities aligned with what truly matters and what we truly believe. But as the Apostle Paul had reminded us with food and clothing we must becontent. That’s where the simplicity lies, and the beauty in life is in learning to live with contentment.

Setting Up A Healthy Boundary

The next priority maybe this spring is that we constantly have to set up a healthy boundary. Let me remind you once again that a boundary is not for you to feel superior or as though you think highly of yourself. Not at all. For some odd reason, people have a misconception that placing a healthy boundary is simply thinking that you are above everyone else. Do you have that feeling of annoyance when you have been trying and giving people the benefit of the doubt and yet they constantly makes the same mistake of violating your boundary and have no regard for your feelings? You are somehow become fed up with people’s ignorance.

One of the greatest things about growing older is that you will eventually come to a point in your life where you no longer care too much about having 30 friends or so. Looking back, as I pondered my life, I have always kept a small circle of friends because I somehow knew that I did not need 15 friends or more when they were not genuine enough to be around with.

 Proverbs 18:24 says, "A man of many companions may come to ruin but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

All you need is a one true friend, a genuine one, and an authentic one. Therefore, stay away from fake friendships and cultivate the real ones and even some of the family members in your life. Isn’t it sad that we are surrounded by some individuals who have no identity that they will emulate you and start copying you? Sadly, narcissists usually have no sense of identity. They mirror you and start imitating your style and the way you do things. You are your own unique identity and you must embrace and cultivate the kinds of traits God has given you. Everyone else is taken and you’re only doing yourself a disservice for trying to be someone else that you’re not. So, why not know thy oneself?

Know Thy Oneself

According to Aldous Huxley, “There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that’s your own own self.”

Wouldn’t you agree that once you know who God made you to be and you start owning who you are, the less likely you’ll be prone to adapt to society’s mold? When you know it’s inaccurate and erroneously wrong. From my previous podcast where I shared about never being afraid to shake the status quo and staying curious about the world around you by learning about your likes and dislikes. Knowing what matters to you the most by not conforming to a society’s standard. Take the good and sift out the bad and the rotten. Therefore, if you don’t know your principles, you are most likely to follow the dictates of others even if deep down your core it’s not what you stand for.

Develop A Skill

Spring is also a time to enhance your communication skills or any skills you want to develop. Another part of my priority this year is to improve on my communication skills especially listening to understand instead of responding. Because I like to hear myself speak. The majority of our marital problems or any relational problems or lack of communication. Therefore, teaching our children to communicate at a young age is probably one of the greatest gifts we can ever provide for them so that they will have an advantage in life.

Wear Something You Love

Spring is also a reminder to wear something fabulous and beautiful to make you feel confident and not cocky and to own yourself and to be who you are God created you to be. It’s about time to get out of your head. As I always do in my head trying to over analyze things, should I start something or should I not? Procrastination my friend is really the robbery of starting anything. Start even if you’re not ready. Even if you don’t feel confident enough. I think spring is a good time to start something new. Maybe you want to learn a new language or pick up a new hobby or something that you want to start that you’ve been putting off.

The Effect of Procrastination

Procrastination is one of the things that I have to really get rid of because I believe the more you procrastinate, the more you put it aside and the longer you wait you’re just going to stuck in analysis paralysis. I myself like to analyze things. I usually love to find out the result, the consequences of, will it work or will not work? At the end of the day, if you don’t take the action you’re just going to end up wishing for something. So the best way to start something new is in the spring season where you just have to tackle whateverit is that you’re afraid of.

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Conquer Your Fear

Fear, according to the abbrevation that they have given us is False Evidence Apearing Real. So, fear is something that is not real. It is something in our imagination and that’s something that we have to really tackle as well. Because any time we want to start something new, we usually have our brain trying to protect us. Because we are not condition enough in our society to take a risk. Most of us as children, we were told not to do this, you can’t do this because what if it doesn’t happen? And my bottom line, as I become older is that what if it doesn’t happen? What if it doesn’t work? At least, you’ve tried. At least you have given it a shot and if it did not work, guess what, you’re not a failure for even trying. The fact of the matter that you just tried and you put your foot down and you took a risk into something that you have not done before.

Define Your Own Success

You might have a misconception of what success is. Success doesn’t mean that you have already achieved something. It’s about learning and trying your best and if it does not work, find something else that you would love to do in your life. The same thing with riding a bike, when you ride a bike for the first time I rode a bike when I was probably in my 30s. That’s when I started learning a bike and I know it’s a little old because I was not allowed to ride a bike when I was a lot younger. But the matter of the fact that I want to make a point is that riding a bike, it doesn’t happen one day, you have to do it constantly and continuously. And the longer you do it, the more you practice, the better you become. The same thing with driving. With anything in life. It does not mean that it doesn’t work if it doesn’t happen the first time and that you’re just going to give up and quit on your dreams.

Invest in Yourself

And another thing to start fresh in the spring season is maybe start evaluating where your life is going. I am here to tell you that all you have is yourself. Self-improvement for me is the greatest investment you can give on yourself. Learning something new. Stop wasting your time on petty things in life. Do not pacify the negativity in your life. If it does not contribute to your growth. Eiminate it. Get rid of it. For me, I have made a lent. I know you’re not really Catholic. I’m not really Catholic any longer. Although Catholic is still a Christian so lent season is usually giving up on meat or something else. For me, in 40 days I’m just going to give it out there I have decided not to look at my cell phone as much as I can or be on my YouTube channel or my social media. Now, you could do something else other than removing yourself from binge watching over the things that no longer contribute to you.

You can do however you want it to be. But for me, that is my lent. I have decided to not spend too much time on my social media and be more focused on journaling and picking up some shows that I have missed because lately I have discovered that we are so addicted to our cellphones and to our social media that we no longer have the ability to live life. We’re just simply like robots, unaware, unconscious of what we’re doing and it’s really sad because we just don’t know how much time I have wasted, always browsing through the internet and sometimes you become so bored that you have no idea that you’re actually just mindlessly doing things that are not contributing to your future.

Be Mindful of Your Time

And so part of the things that I like to do on Spring is to really be mindful of where my time is going and how I spend my time. Because as I said once, when you lose your time, it’s gone . It’s something that you cannot take back. Each one of us are given 24 hours, 7 days a week and it is a gift from God. It is up to us whether we use it wisely or we squander it in a way that it does not going to help us improve our lives. Improving our lives is the only thing that we can control. Unfortunately, we cannot control other people. If there are people in your life who are stagnant who have not have a growth mindset. It is up to them. It is actually not your control. As much as we want our family members, our friendships to be in the same wagon as us or in the same level as us but it’s just not reality. But we cannot really force them to be in our same level. This is why majority of us are stagnant or we become so complacent because we adapt to our environment. But you can change your environment not location.

You can do however you need to do in your life. Read +good books, listen to a good podcast that’s going to stimulate your brain. Enhance your self-development and of course by the help of God. Because our confidence is not in ourselves but in God alone and the moment you really read God’s word. It gives you the understanding and the insight and the ability to know and discernment to know which one is good and which one is not. The wisdom of the Lord is different from the wisdom of men, for God is the one who gives wisdom. He gives us the insight of how to do life and the Bible is the most practical word and it’s the most practical tools that we can use.