Decisions Decisions

Key West Florida on our honeymoon August 6th 2017

Have you hesitated while making a decision, not knowing which is the correct choice? Life puts us at crossroads many times a day. Choosing one road over the other by carefully balancing the pros and cons of each, listening to that gut feel and not letting others influence your decisions is very important If you want to be happy with your life. Decision making is an important skill that we all need to move up and forward, in our career as well as in life. on any given day, we often end up making hundreds of small and maybe insignificant decisions. When to get up, to exercise or not, what to wear, what to eat, where to go, how to go and much, much more? These decisions are made in a split second and are easy enough to figure but because they don’t really affect the outcome of anything. This changes when the decision is much more important. For example- what you wear to the office on a usual day is not much of an issue, but when you have that important interview lined up, then your outfit becomes an important decision-making process. If you have difficulty in making decisions, and agonize over your choices for days to come, wondering whether what you did was right, you need to stop. Look at the big picture and make the decision with confidence. However more thinking is not always good thinking. Learn to trust your intuition or gut feel. Give a deadline to decision making. Accept that you cannot always have it all; you might have to compromise a little and finally, is a decision you took ultimately proves to be wrong – remember that life does hand you lemons sometimes. So make a decision and be confident in it. Don't forget to love always forgive quickly and smile along the way. 

God Bless
Jason

Be Highly Motivated

Sunset on our lake the other night. Montrose Colorado

Be highly motivated. Do you struggle to stay motivated? Why does it seem like some people seldom need motivation? The truth is that some people have good habits. With these habits not only help them to be motivated but also to stay motivated. It's about making full use of your motivation when you do have it. Jim Rhon quoted "motivation is what helps you get started, but habits are what keep you moving."  Motivational waves are those times when we are really inspired to do tasks we have on our to-do list. Meaning, when your motivation is at a peak, you must immediately do the difficult tasks first to sustain your motivation. This motivation wave can certainly help you establish a long-term good habit. One major factor in our lives is that we are humans, so we will definitely make mistakes. But always remember, the past is the past, so leave it there and keep moving forward. There is no point worrying or feeling angry over decisions you made in the past or actions you wish you had done. We only have the present. So, keep moving on, and invest your time and energy into living life to its fullest. Stay motivated and work your way to the top. Lastly don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.


God Bless
Jason

Love What You Have

Rainbow, Mesa Verde National Park last week.

Gratefulness and appreciation for what we have may sound like a crazy way to achieve happiness, but in doing so you are training your mind to focus on the abundance in your life rather than what is lacking. When we focus on lack, we feel like failures. In fact, by doing this we are only making comparisons with others who are on a completely different path from ourselves. True appreciation for the people and things in your life will help you to realize just how much you do have. Whether it’s small things like the roof over your head, food in the fridge, a great friend you can talk to about anything, or having a hot shower every morning – it’s these things we tend to overlook and only notice when we don’t have them. Loving what you already have will instantly create feelings of fulfillment and abundance and will decrease the amount of time you spend dwelling on what’s not yet in your life. Focusing on the abundance rather than the lack isn’t about giving in. It isn’t about just accepting a bad situation and desperately trying to be happy about it. It’s not about accepting it’ll never change – it’s about shifting your perspective to a more positive one. Loving what you have is cultivating the feeling that you have everything you need while accepting that you’re always moving forward and that therefore every situation is temporary. It will diminish the feeling that you should always try to chase after something you don’t yet have while creating a better feeling of fulfillment and abundance for everything present in your now. Don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason

A Clear Path

A panorama reflection on Blue Mesa Lake a couple weeks ago.

Clear A Path

In order to be more confident in your decisions and therefore be strong enough to dismiss what others say, creating a road map of where you want go and how you’re going to get there, will bring more stability and less insecurity. By doing this, you will care much less about what other people are doing in comparison, or what they think about you. Start with a list of goals, note where you are now in relation to them and write out an action plan for how you can achieve them. You can make a one week plan or a one year plan. Whatever you feel comfortable with on any subject and you’ll start to feel a sense of moving forward. Self-improvement is a wonderful way to focus on ourselves but often we tend to self-improve when the chips are down in certain areas of our lives. However, it can lead us to ignore other areas such as work, learning or relationships. Focusing on more than one area will create a feeling that we’re establishing abundance overall which, in turn, will stop us from feeling lack and causing us to compare one area of our life to someone else’s. Write out a list of how you can improve each area of your life – perhaps learning something new for a dream job, an exercise routine to get healthy or improving your social skills in order to make new friends. Do a little bit at a time for each area and you’ll soon grow more and more confidence in yourself and where your life is heading. Now you are on your way with a clear path. Don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason

Respect Your Mate

Sunset on our lower lake last week. We our building our new home on the hill to the left where the taller tress are.


To understand how and why respect is so pivotal to a relationship we must first understand what respect is and what it looks like. Respect is the fundamental understanding that your partner is not you. He or she is not an extension of you, not a reflection of you, not your toy, not your pet, nor your project. Your task is not to control the other person or try to craft him or her into your version of the ideal mate. In a relationship, your task is to understand and accept the other person as a unique individual. Respect allows you to see the other person as an equal and valuable team member. You learn to work in tandem with that person to meet the needs of the team and accomplish the team’s goals. Any successful relationship must be rooted in love. However, love is not enough. Love brings bliss in the early stages of relationships, but it only grows and blossoms if it is tempered with respect. I think this one touches home with all us humans. Work on this today and make your relationship with your mate the best that it can be. Don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason

Today Is A Blessing

Arch's National Park-Moab Utah. 3 weeks and we will be heading back for our annual trip.

Today is a blessing whether it seems like it or not. In fact every day is a blessing. No matter how you feel or what you encounter during your journey be thankful for where you are and where you have been. Be thankful for where you are going to go and the journey you are on. By being thankful you create value and gain momentum. By excepting each day as a blessing you will open up a whole new world with many possibilities. It's easy to be thankful when life is going well. With a positive attitude and a little gratitude life will reward you, more positive things will come your way for sure. We often don't show gratitude when life isn't treating us right. Life's difficulties and your response to them will make you stronger and bring many more blessings your way. Just because today doesn't seem like a blessing doesn't mean that it won't bring greatness to your life later on down the road. Remember everything happens for a reason. We often don't understand why things happen but I don't thing we are supposed to understand everything. Show some gratitude and except this day and every day as a blessing and great things will come your way. Don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way. As always thanks for visiting my thought today.

 God Bless
 Jason

Make A Difference

The San Juan Mountains, Western Colorado

You can make a difference if you choose. You are the difference if you want to be. Every moment of each day is an opportunity to make a difference. You can make a difference in your life as well as others around you. Stop wondering what the difference might be and start moving forward today. You are here and you are putting in the effort so you might as well make it great. Choose to focus on the positives and not worry about the negatives. Follow your dreams without worrying of failing. Stop wondering whether or not you can do it. Make a difference and find out that you can succeed. You can do anything you put your mind to, so start making a difference today. Don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason

Pain And Suffering

Capital Reef National Park in Torrey Utah. Planning our trip this spring.

Pain And Suffering

Everyone goes through hard times. We all know that feeling, someone close to you has died, or a relationships break up. No matter what happens, there are bound to be times when we feel pain and suffering in life. The difference between pain and suffering, though, is that with pain, we feel it immediately, sometimes intensely and then it naturally passes through us. Not so with suffering. When we suffer, we hold onto our pain for longer than necessary. We hold onto it because in a weird sort of way we enjoy the pain, because we’re lost in it, or even because we think we need it. Suffering is the decision to keep eating the chocolate, even when we feel sick. Or to hold onto the jealousy we feel in our chests, instead of talking about the issue with our partner. It’s ignoring our true selves. You already feel bad. Worrying on top of this with the thought about how someone else might see you is a sure-fire way of holding onto that feeling for a lot longer than you need to. Bear in mind that we all do this at some point in time. Some people set about organizing things at a fast pace, some just need to watch TV and snack all day long. Whatever it is you need to do, let yourself do it. And don’t torture yourself for it, either. Just relax! If you find yourself tensed up and in pain, there is nowhere for it to go. And there is also no way of you knowing what to do next. If you’re tensed up and stressed out, you can’t think clearly. So just relax, relaxing doesn’t mean you can change the situation that brought you pain. But at least you have the choice to change what’s going on for you right now.Life will always bring us pain, but we get to choose the type of pain we experience. Letting go of suffering means we can move through pain and maybe even one day feel something different. But for now, allowing yourself to feel the pain is enough. Next don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason

I Have Not Failed

Wilson Peak, 14,023 Ft. Picture taken from above Telluride Colorado on Saturday. This peak is the peak seen on the Coors Beer Can and used in most of their advertising.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Think of any dark situation that you have endured in life, and you’ll find that there’s a hidden good behind every bad that happens. We may not like it, but failure sometimes is nothing more than a stepping stone to a path that leads to our dreams. “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. These were the famous words uttered by Thomas A Edison, when he finally made a light bulb, after “failing” to do so 10,000 times. Imagine 10,000 failures! Had he given up after five attempts or 10 or a 100 – we still may not have had the light bulb. So what you need to remember, what we all need to remember, is to stay positive even when faced with rejection or failure. Failing at something doesn’t mean that we cannot achieve success ahead.  It means that more work needs to be done, more attempts need to be made. The only way to fail is to give up. You’ll often hear successful people say that it’s better than to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. There’s no success without a list of failures behind it. When you try your hand at something for the first time, you’re not likely to succeed at it. Remember the first time you played ball? Or tried roller skating? Chances are that you sucked at it. Life’s like that, you fail only when you give up. Try, try again. And even then if you don’t make it, try some more! There’s simply no such thing as failure. Not achieving something means you learn, and then try it all over again till you finally do. I have not failed just fallen short a few times. Don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason

Be Unstoppable

Canyon Lands National Park, Moab Utah last spring.

Our highest potentiality is fulfilled when we realize that we create our own destiny.  We cannot expect to achieve our goals through others, instead we achieve our goals through our own actions. Become unstoppable and reap the rewards. Be your own creator. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson . These are great words to live by in deed. Next have no fear. “In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we’re made up of.” – Howard Schultz The moment you quit worrying about what other people think of you is the moment you truly realize what freedom feels like. People will become jealous and will attack you  However, these people play at a lower level and will never confront you, they will always go behind your back.  Just remember that these people bring no value to your life and if they are jealous of you then you must be doing something right. Next be crazy and different. It takes a vast amount of courage to act on crazy and different ideas.  However, the people who move the world forward are those who act on their crazy ideas. Master these few step and you'll be unstoppable. Don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason

Kick Start Your Day

Our beautiful San Juan Mountains viewed from Bear Creek Lodge, Mountain Village CO. 1-15-17

How many times has this happened: you have a great weekend, you’re ready to go for Monday morning, and then something happens and it all hits the fan. You’re behind before the week even begins and you’re in a super bad mood. It really shouldn’t be this way, but this is the reality of life. Well I have good news for you. This happens and will happen but why not make it a little bit easier by doing a few simple things. Start off by having a plan. Perhaps it's a daily devotion or a morning workout. If at all possible try not to skip any of these things that fuel your body. Next set some goals everyday. We know that goal setting is important, but lots of folks think in terms of setting long and short range goals, not daily goals. Start by making a list the night before of the things that are priority accomplishments for the following day. If the first 3 get done, you’re good. If more get done, that’s an added benefit. In order to set daily goals, you have to plan for obstacles. That means you may have to say no to certain distractions or requests. It means you may have to delegate duties to others. If you have trouble doing these, you need to be curious as to what’s driving that. Next be flexible, We all love to plan. But when our plans go up in smoke, we have to flexible and come up with creative ideas to make things work in the moment. Flexibility requires that we learn to control our emotional responses. We can’t go around freaking out when things happen because guess what? They will. Start the day before with these couple of things and kick start your day. Always keep your head up and don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason

Work Smarter

Ice Climbing in Ouray Colorado a few years ago. The Ice Climbing Festival is coming up in a couple of weeks.

A common myth is that if you are productive you will get more done. Another theory is that by staying busy you are going to be more successful. However, we all know from experience that choosing quantity or quality isn’t always the right way to go about doing things. One way to switch your approach to success is to work smarter, not harder. Don't try to squeeze as many items into your day as possible but simplifying how you can get them done. The expected outcome is faster achievements, less stress, and improved time management. It sounds simple, but we’ve all made the mistake of leaving the most important task until the very end when there’s little chance of ever completing it. To avoid falling into this trap start by identifying the two or three tasks that are the most important to complete, and do those before anything else, regardless of how long they may take. To be successful you need to get an early start. It’s logical that the greater the number of hours you have, the more opportunity the more you will accomplish. Next pay attention to the task at hand. Distractions make it harder to focus on the task at hand. Your attention is torn between multiple points of interest, and your ability to concentrate is severely reduced. Try these ideas and you will be on your way to accomplishing your daily goals and working smarter.  Don't forget to love always, forgive quickly and smile along the way.

God Bless
Jason