August 16

Focus is falling in love

Focus is not attained by trying. Focus is falling in love with the effort, with the moment, with the possibilities.

Do not tightly clench what you seek to focus upon. Rather, gently let go of all else.

If you force your focus, you are focused on your own forcefulness and not the work. When you have the desperate need to focus, you zero in on the desperation and not the effort.

Focus is a joy. Allow it to softly take hold, feel the joy, the sense of satisfaction, of purpose, and let the feeling grow of its own accord.

Focus is not about you, not about your abilities, not about your ego. Genuine focus is genuine care about what you’re doing.

Let the joy of focus be yours. And generously let goodness and value flow from all you do.

— Ralph Marston

August 17

Life is to live

This is a unique moment, and you have a distinct perspective on it. Be sure to make good use of the opportunity.

Remind yourself to do more than just watch, wish, complain, opinionate. Make it your business, today, to participate.

There are people who can benefit from your encouragement, from your presence. There are all kinds of situations that can be improved with your efforts, problems that can be solved with your insights.

Life is not to waste, to hoard, to worry about, or to make excuses for. Life is to live.

Life is to live, and here you are, able to do that right now in your very own way. Life is to live, with intention, with love, with wonder, awe, courage and gratitude.

Today offers much you can do, and much regret you’ll avoid by going ahead and doing it. Life is to live, and now is when.

— Ralph Marston

August 18

When strength is a necessity

There are times in life when strength becomes a necessity. Times when strength is not optional.

At such times you have no magic escape route, nothing to fall back upon. And, you discover how much strength you can gain, and utilize, when you must.

Any situation, any experience, any setback, any success, has the potential to make you stronger. Too often that potential goes unrealized, for it is easier to just let it float on by.

Yet there are times when you have no choice, when you must find a way to pull new strength out of every moment. And at those times, you do.

Consider how amazing that is. Just the thought, just remembering you can, is enough to plant fresh seeds of strength within you.

Every day arrives full of opportunities to build strength. Take those opportunities, even when you don’t have to.

— Ralph Marston

August 19

Consistent effort

Occasional effort can create the illusion of success. Consistent effort is what brings lasting success, achievement, fulfillment.

Are you working out once or twice every couple of weeks, or every day? Are you writing a chapter just when you feel like it, or every morning before breakfast?

Your life is too precious to merely dabble. In work, in play, in health, wisdom and relationships, you deserve the luscious fruits that consistent effort will bring.

A single heroic effort might be fun and impressive, but is soon forgotten. Yet small, unassuming efforts, when repeated with consistency, can bring a never-ending stream of value.

If you’ve done it once, you can do it again, and again. When you do, great things result.

Give your life and your world the benefit of your best effort, not once, not twice, but over and over again. With consistent effort, build a path all the way to your most treasured dreams.

— Ralph Marston

August 20

Your potential

You know what you can do. Are you doing all you can?

You know how capable, how effective you can be. Engage that effectiveness to its fullest extent today.

Life has given you much. Now is your chance to give even more.

Stop wondering where you’ll start, and just start right where you are. Quit asking yourself what you can do, and begin doing what you can.

Rise calmly, confidently above worry, anger, ego and despair. You have good work to do, so experience the satisfaction, the fulfillment of getting it done.

Today, you are new achievement ready to happen, new goodness ready to be born. Now, live up to all your potential.

-Ralph S. Marston

August 21

Difficult is nothing to fear

Maybe difficult is not so bad. Maybe easy is not so desirable.

Easy makes you soft, complacent, vulnerable. Difficult makes you strong, decisive, capable.

Easy puts you in danger of being arrogant, disrespectful and bored. Difficult fills you with a wealth of gratitude that connects you to life’s richest abundance.

The more you must work for something, the more you must invest yourself, the more it means to you, the more value it has. A difficult journey makes the destination all the more appealing.

Wouldn’t it be nice to stop worrying whether the day, the job, the encounter will be difficult? Wouldn’t it be great to just stride right up to the moment and meet it with confidence and joy?

Look back at what you’ve learned from life, and you’ll realize you’ve learned this. What is difficult is nothing to fear.

— Ralph Marston

August 22

Connect with respect

Each time you meet someone, you have a valuable opportunity. You have the opportunity to be respectful.

Does every person you encounter deserve to be treated with respect? Maybe not, but that doesn’t make your respect any less useful.

Because respect is not a weapon for enforcing the judgments you make about others. Respect is a powerful tool you utilize to establish positive connections.

People know whether you respect them or not. If you seek to create the best possible outcome when dealing with others, respect is essential.

Disrespect might feel powerful at first, but it actually weakens your position. Choose instead to enhance your own strength by choosing to respect others.

Listen, speak, act and think with genuine respect. And forge connections that will serve everyone well.

— Ralph Marston

August 23

Purpose that lives within you

Give yourself a reason to live at your highest level today. Set a goal that compels you to pull the best values, thoughts, words, efforts out of yourself and to share them with all of life.

Hope is never lost unless you choose to ignore it. Choose instead to build each glimmer of hope into a spark, then a steady flame, then a brilliant blaze that lights the way forward.

Within you are specific desires, your own concepts of what can make life good. Bring those desires out into the open where they will engage your full attention.

Give yourself something good, meaningful, valuable, inspiring, satisfying to do with this day, with this life. Realize what a massive opportunity you have right now, and take it.

What a terrible shame it would be to possess great capability and to never use it. Give yourself a reason to make full use of all you have, of all you can do, of all you can be.

Focus the power of your life on the beauty and fulfillment of all you love. Give life the full benefit of the purpose that lives within you.

— Ralph Marston

August 24

Magnify the beauty

Life can be tough. You can be tougher.

You’ve worked your way through every difficulty so far. You’ll get yourself through this one.

Life can be beautiful. You can magnify the beauty.

You’ve often known how good life can be. You’ll find a way to create much more of that goodness.

Obsess no more over what’s wrong. Grab on to what’s right, and expand it to fill the entire space you’re in.

Whenever you’ve been your best, that’s what you’ve always done. Take this opportunity to take your world even higher.

— Ralph Marston

August 25

Live the encouragement

If you feel the need for encouragement, give it. You cannot help but be encouraged when you are encouraging others.

It is impossible for encouragement to flow only in one direction. Instead of striving to get encouragement, make it your business to live the encouragement.

Live the encouragement, in your words, in your assumptions, your attitude, your responses. Imagine the positive possibilities, then act in accordance with what you imagine.

Some situations seem to have little room for encouragement. But encouragement doesn’t require much room.

Encouragement simply asks for your presence, your caring, and your honesty. Make the moment a little more positive, and suddenly you’ve created encouragement.

You are a natural when it comes to encouragement because you can bring it forth just by being you. Live the encouragement by letting your highest thoughts, hopes and values flow out into every moment.

— Ralph Marston

August 26

Another path

Make the effort, expect to achieve. But don’t expect the achievement to unfold exactly the way you thought it would.

Plan carefully, without getting trapped by your plan. Pay attention to the plan, and pay even more attention to where the plan leads.

Don’t ignore opportunities, ideas, approaches just because you didn’t think of them when formulating your plan. Go with what actually works, not just with what you thought would work.

Be uncompromising about the goal. Be flexible about the way you get there.

Even when the path you’ve chosen is blocked, you can still reach the destination. There is another path, another approach that will bring you to the place you intend to go.

Keep up the effort, know that you can find that path, that you can travel that path. And you will.

— Ralph Marston

August 27

Give focus, get excellence

You’ve spent time and exerted effort to get focused. Add great value to that focus by maintaining it for a while.

Bright shiny distractions tempt you to look away. Take a deep breath, remind yourself how worthless those distractions are, and stay focused.

Diversity of experience enriches life. Yet there’s no point in doing many things unless you do each of them well.

There will be time later for other activities. For now, focus all you have on doing your best to finish this one task.

The more committed you are to maintaining your focus, the more effective, productive, creative you become. Give what is in front of you the time and attention it deserves.

Gently let go of the urge to know it all, to see it all, to experience it all at once. Give focus and get the excellence it produces.

-Ralph S. Marston

August 28

Higher calling

Life begins again on this day. Now is your chance to do it right, to do it well, to live it with meaning, purpose, genuine love.

Opportunity arrives fresh with this moment. The universe spreads out before your eyes, and you can step into it in whatever direction you choose.

Old, beloved longings, dreams, passions stir within you. New ideas, resources, capabilities enable you to act with more experience and effectiveness than ever.

You are able to focus now on what matters. You are where you can give energy, support, sustenance to all you love.

It can be easy, can appear sophisticated and enlightened to be cynical. Yet you feel a higher calling, led by love to make life the best it can be.

Feel the courage, confidence, assurance of that higher calling, pushing you into this new moment. Create with this day a living substance that flows from and expresses your highest vision.

— Ralph Marston

August 29

What you give out

What you give out, you get back. To get back good stuff, genuine love, respect, consideration, give those things out.

That’s simple and easy to remember as a concept. Yet it only works for you when you work to put it into practice.

Before you speak, plan, or act, ask yourself. How will it affect the people around you?

That doesn’t mean you must live in fear of what other people will think or say about you. It does mean you can always improve on the amount and quality of consideration you show toward others.

When you’ve consistently done well in life, it’s because you’ve consistently remembered to be considerate. When you’ve strayed away from respect and consideration toward others, you’ve likely brought more struggle into your life.

People, organizations, communities, cultures that have respect and consideration embedded throughout them, thrive and prosper. It’s always a good thing to remember, always a good way to live.

— Ralph Marston

August 30

Days yet to come

You cannot be certain of what will happen tomorrow, and in some ways that’s a good thing. Because uncertainty compels you to develop courage, creativity, flexibility, commitment and initiative.

If you could know in advance every precise detail of how your life would unfold, would you really want to know? Just imagine how limited, confined, pre-programmed it would make you feel.

Great joy and satisfaction often come from living through what you were not expecting. The most treasured memories, the rich, stirring stories you tell, arise from such times.

Something you don’t yet know about will happen soon. Though you cannot be certain what it will be, you can be certain it will come.

In the days yet to come, as uncertain as they may be, you will grow stronger. Your life will gain substance, richness, experience and wisdom.

Though it can be frustrating not to know exactly what’s next, keep in mind that it’s also a blessing. For uncertainty makes anything possible, and there’s a lot of good you can do with that.

— Ralph Marston