It Will Happen!

The new season is upon us, and even though the summer is refusing to leave, and autumn is beginning to show its colors, you have to know that the time has come for your “some day” to happen to-day. You have waited long enough and dreamt long enough, and stood by long enough. It is time to become what you believe! No matter where you are right now, you are in the right place at the right time to see your “something” come to pass. Just when you are at the breaking point and your critics have said there is no way out, and the naysayers have written your obituary, you have to know that the opposition that you feel is a real indication that something is about to happen! So stay the course, ride out the storm and watch as It will happen!

Although the task may seem impossible, you have to believe that you are worth it. You are worth accomplishing something great that makes a mark on the world. You are worth seeing your dreams and plans come true.  In this season of no limits, you have to be willing to Think Big! Talk Big! and Act Big! You have to refuse to let past failures be the road map to your destiny. Failure may have been part of the journey that you are on but you have to fail forward so that the failure becomes your stepping stone to where you desire to be. Refuse to give up until what you desire happens in your life. Be unwilling to let setbacks, others opinions of you, and a lack of resources deter you. Refuse to give your present pain the final say in your life. Refuse to let the boxes inside your mind, or limitations placed on you by others, keep you from believing that it will happen. You have to know your value and that you are worth more than other people will ever give you credit for. You have to think that you deserve it, talk about what you deserve until it manifests, and then make sure that you act like you have it all ready. It will happen!

When you start talking about what it is that you want to accomplish, there will be some people who don’t believe in you or your dream. They will attempt to put you in a box and place a lid on top of the box, and tell you that you will never get out. But you have get out of the box first by changing your mindset and then break out of the box physically by acting on what you believe. Now just because you get the lid of limitation off doesn’t mean that you are out of the box automatically. You have to put some work in to step out of the box. With each step out of the box you take, you will see yourself getting stronger and gaining more confidence and see that it will happen just as you planned. You may have to partner with some people who will help you leap over the wall. You may have to disappoint some people who don’t want to see you become victorious. But, just as the seasons change, see your situation changing and embrace your opportunity as you see everything you desired come to pass. As summer turns to fall, then winter into spring, know that what you have set your heart to accomplish your goal, then put your hands to work and then watch, as It happens! 

 

 

Leave the Box and Go For It!

For many years leaders have been recognized as thinking outside the box but this is your year to soar, to Leave the Box and Go for It! It is time to stop talking about going to the next level and actually getting out of the boat, walking on the water and going for it. Fear is the only thing that is paralyzing you from launching that business, writing that book, composing that song, going into the ministry, going back to school, or even marrying the girl of your dreams. Fear paralyzes but faith empowers! Just because we live in a fear-based society does not mean that you have to let fear dominate you. There are three types of people that you will encounter at any given time: those that are in the game, those that watch the game and those that don’t even know that the game is being played! It is time for you to get in the game, leave the box and go for it!

This is your time to step out into unknown territory! Don’t let the fear of the unknown keep you boxed in! It is time to go into enemy territory and not merely exist where it is comfortable. Do not settle for what you can get, but to take what you desire! Some people are never great because greatness causes us to cross lines. Stop saying no to what you feel you are called to do. Stop saying maybe later when time has been given to you to do it now. Stop rejecting the process because it is scary. If you want to see something else in your life, you have to be willing to do something else with your life. If you want to see more, you have to be willing to do more. There are four types of people that are surrounding you. There are standers and watchers, and there are movers and shakers – which one are you? Is there not a cause that will stir you up to step out the boat when others only sit by the sidelines? When you see your team down and it is 4th and goal, do you want them to settle or go for it? You can either give in, give up, or give it all you got!

Your situation may seem like it is impossible for you to overcome. You may even feel that all of your support systems have been removed, but instead of cursing the process how about praising the plan. The plan is to push you into your destiny. The process propels you to the edge and then pushes you over so you can see that you were meant to soar. Stop relying on the system to support you and hold you up. Learn to thrive in impossible situations that bury other people. Let the pressure of the level that you are on push you to the next level. Let the squeezing and discomfort of your current condition be the very thing that gives you strength to endure. The price of victory is often sacrifice and suffering! Stop sabotaging your future with your mouth. Stop complaining about what you think you can do and start confessing what you believe.Become what you believe, leave the box and go for it!

Let your Failure cause you to Fall Forward

Your past does not disqualify you from starting over and moving forward. They tell you that “if at first you don’t succeed, try, and try again”. That works for some people in some situations but not everyone is so forgiving and not everyone will give you another chance. Many people think that just because you failed in one area of their life that it is impossible for you to still win in life. Although people may write you off and tell you that there is no way for you to rebound and abound in life;  tell them to throw that obituary away because you are about to start writing your new life story. Your mess-up is a set-up for your come-up! Sometimes failure is just what you need to propel you forward. Failure can be the tool that ushers you into what you really are supposed to do and not settle for what you have been doing.

Your past can be your anchor or your propeller. If your past could not disqualify you from starting, what makes you think that it can disqualify you from finishing your race. There can be success from a failure. There can be a rising from the ashes of your life. Let the failure lift you up and not weigh you down. It is easy to give up on yourself and your future but your latter days can be greater than your former days if you don’t faint in your failure! Yes you may have done what they said you did but you are not who they say you are!  Let that failure be the catalyst that pushes you forward and cause you to:

Reexamine your life: Look at the circumstances that caused you to end up where you are. What changes can you make, what boundaries can you establish and what ideas can you generate to keep you from going back? Tell yourself “I won’t go back”.

Re-position your life: What new connections can you make that will open doors of opportunity for you.Do you need to change cities, change jobs or change friends?  You may have to get away from some people or activities so that you can stay focused on your forward movement. If no new opportunity exists for you, create one!

Re-imagine your life: Now that you are on the other side of the failure, begin to develop a plan for your life and re-imagine what your new life can look like.  You said if you were given another chance you would do things differently so now is your chance – do it differently!

Run for your life: Start today! Don’t waste the moment! Do it Now! Let your failure cause you to fall forward and don’t look back. You can move forward my friend and there are  people who are willing to help you. not everyone will abandon you in your fail so look for your ray of hope when it looks like all hope is lost. Stay focused! Stay committed! Stay consistent and face your failure head on.

Fitting in by Standing Out

Never forget that you were created to be an original! There is not another you in the entirety of history. The world will be a much better place with you as an original instead of a copy. We need more voices and less echoes in the world today. Be and Original! Be a Voice! I hope that today you become all that you were meant to be and not merely go through the routine that everyone else is going in. You are worth so much more, and you deserve so much more than merely blending into the mass noise that attempts to drown you out. You are an original masterpiece. Be an original. I have twins, but no matter how identical I try to make them, they have been uniquely and wonderfully made to be different.

Many people spend their whole lives trying to fit in to a mold or a rat race which is a box that actually limits your creativity  ingenuity and entrepreneur spirit. What would happen if you became the norm, the measure of success, the standard by which all others were gauged by? What if instead of you trying to fit into everyone else’s mode that they were trying to be like you? I want to encourage you that it is possible to stand out even while fitting in. People often think that in order to stand out you have to be weird, abnormal or crazy but I think that there are always fringes that try to distort the true meaning of uniqueness. You can stand out in your integrity, your character, your love, your commitment and your goals. You can stand out in your drive for perfection, cohesiveness, unity an charisma. You can stand out in the crowd while fitting into the organization, community, church or career that you have chosen. Your good works will stand out even while you fit in. Never become so engrossed in one way of doing things that you lose your ability to think of something totally different. It is not just thinking outside the box, sometimes it is thinking inside the box. Try to fit in where you have been planted and flourish there. Try to use your gifts, talents and abilities to better the lives that are around you. This will definitely cause you to stand out from others. Thinking about others first is not a common practice so when people learn that this is how you operate, you will stand out in their minds. People will want you to be a part of their group and will go out of their way to include you, support you or even promote you.  Fit in by standing out!

Remember the times when you found yourself standing out from others, like when you first realized that your voice was changing while other guys voices were remaining the same; or the time when you started excelling in algebra when others were still struggling with simple equations; or when your desires for something greater started to push you further and further away from those who were just satisfied to be a part of the sidelines looking in. You wanted to still fit in because you didn’t want people to look at you strange to not include you because you were different. You began standing out from the crowd and it felt uncomfortable but what you didn’t realize was that you were growing  expanding and developing. You were no longer being confined to the limitations that once rightfully had you constrained. And even though you wanted to stay a part of the pack, you were glad to moving forward. There was something encouraging about standing out and moving forward. This goes to show you that no matter how good being a part of the group is you still want to retain your individuality. This is a strength so use it don’t lose it.

I think that it is important to point out that fitting in should never require you to abandon who you really are. You should never compromise the real you to become someone who you are not. You have culture, beliefs and values that make you fearfully and wonderfully YOU. If we were all meant to be the same then we would all look-alike, act-alike and strive to be-alike and to me, that would be a boring world. There are some norms that enable us to a have a civil society and I am glad for that but I also appreciate that our uniqueness is an asset and not a liability. Your spouse, your children, family, co-workers, employers and friends like you for who you are. Go out today and do something great that stands out in their mind that reminds them why they love you so much, or like you so much, or want to be around you so much. Let your actions and your attitude be a constant reminder to all that you are an original and worth spending time with. Fit in today but also Stand Out!

Eric Smith

No Easy Wins

In this life you are not going to find too many easy wins. I know that some people make winning look easy and some people even make losing look easy for that matter. But it is important that win, lose or draw; that you face every obstacle, trial, test or circumstance with the same determination that no matter what the outcome, I’m going to give it my all. I know that people don’t like to struggle and like to take the road of least resistance but I have found that nothing worth having comes easy. Dick Bass stated that “Men are made strong  not by winning easy battles, but by losing hard-fought ones.” People don’t like to lose but I am persuaded that if I do have to lose at something, I’m going down swinging. This type of attitude will get you through the harsh reality that you will not win at everything that you do. Have you ever found yourself in a fight that you knew you couldn’t win but you didn’t want to go down without fighting back? Sometimes we may feel like we are going down for the count but it is important to remember that even though the battle is a hard one to overcome, don’t allow the enemy, circumstance or situation get an easy win. If you have to go down, at least go down swinging, kicking and screaming. At least let the enemy know that he was in a battle. You have to learn how to have victory in the face of defeat. Winning may not come easy but don’t let losing come easy either.

Not too many like winning the hard way. Easy wins are the preferred method chosen by some. But no athlete worth his weight wants to win a competition where the opponent just lays down and quits. Having an adversary or opponent that challenges you brings out the best in you. When you compete against someone who you feel is on the same level as you are, has similar strengths and weaknesses, you consider this a good fight. I can remember when I use to compete is sport karate, there were several guys from rival dojangs (Korean for training studios) that I would routinely come up against at tournaments. I always enjoyed fighting against these guys because it brought out the best in me. It made me compete on a greater level than I ever would competing against a weaker competitor. Even if I won, I knew that it was not an easy win. I had to earn the right to be called champion. In your life, no matter what you find yourself coming up against, you have to earn the right to be called a champion. Don’t look for the easy wins. You will never know how good you are until you go up against an equally suited opponent. Easy wins are not an option. Yes you may get a trophy but deep down inside you know that you really didn’t earn it and it doesn’t mean as much. But the greater the opponent, the greater the reward. I’d rather lose hard than to win easy. Always remember that it may not be easy but it is worth it!

No easy wins! The prize that you want, the success that you need to achieve, the victory that is in your hands will cost you something. but no matter the cost; No price is too great for this prize! You may feel outmatched, outclassed, outwitted, outgunned, outnumbered or even outsourced. Your situation may be poised to take you out at the opening bell. the odds may be stacked against you and it may look like defeat for you is just assured as victory for them; but once you settle in your mind that it’s not over unless you win, fight with everything you’ve got. For what you want to accomplish with your life, you may have to cry, but let it motivate you to push forward. You may have to walk alone, but let it motivate you to just keep walking past everyone else who decided to quit. Let the notion of failure propel you onward pass the possibility of you going down. Let it be the adrenaline you need to not give up but to keep pressing towards the prize of the high calling. The deck may be against you, people may leave you and victory may seem out of reach, but keep going until you win! It may not be an easy win but a win is a win! The race is not given to the swift nor to the strong but to the one who endures until the end!  – No Easy wins!

Eric Smith

Dreamers versus Doers. The Great Seperator!

As March Madness has ended, it reminded me of all the opportunities that the different teams had to win it all. Some missed it by one shot, one fowl, one missed play. They were so close to the goal but something happened and it prevented it from coming to pass. It also reminded me of different people I know, some are in the game, some are watching the game and some don’t even know the game is being played. I have found that there is one thing separates the dreamer and the doer. It also separates the wishful from the wealthy. Two people can have the same capabilities, same hope and same aspiration, but have radically different outcomes. How? One acted and the other did not.

ACTION is the great separator from the dreamers and the doers. Right now, there are opportunities, ideas, dreams or aspirations in your life that you know you SHOULD act on, you WANT to act on, but you are afraid to ACT on. Oh, you might be excusing your lack of action by your telling yourself you don’t know what to do, how to do it or if it will work out. I can tell you firsthand, nothing I have ever accomplished had I done before. There are some things that came natural to me and others that I really had to struggle to accomplish. But the fact of the matter is if you want to gain something, you have to do something, and if you want to do something you have to hear something first.  You may not have any experience in the thing that you want to do or the thing that you have been dreaming about, but that is where faith comes in. You have to just jump out there and do it, even if you don’t know whether or not it will work out the way that you want it to. Just jump in, get started and watch that dream come to reality.

Unless you become a doer, you will never know if the outcomes will evolve into  ways well beyond what you could have planned for or envisioned at the beginning, meaning all the paralysis by analysis is useless anyway because it will never work out as you plan. Faith without works is dead without action or being left alone!  The key is to just get started. Someone said to me recently, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase to take the first step.” That’s the key—just take the first step. Then when you do, take another. One at a time—one after another. Before you know it you will have risen to the top of an industry, maybe heights you could never have allowed yourself to dream of and set goals for, simply because you jumped in and got started. That’s all it takes, ACTION. You don’t have to see it to believe it, you have to believe it first then you will see it. 

Dreamers and Doers are separated and their results are totally different. Dreamers have to wake up from dreaming and go back to what they were doing before they started dreaming. What they were thinking on only remains in the unseen because they fail to take the next step. Doers take the dream and work it until it becomes the reality that they want it to be. They take the next step and put into action what they dreamed about. Don’t spend all your days just dreaming about a thing. I am not saying not to have a dream but if your dream does not call you to action, it has no chance of coming to pass. Don’t let your delay stop the dream. Even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream that was deeply rooted in the American dream. But you can tell that his dream was not just a day-dream because his dream took root. Some legs were put to it and it caused people to run. People need a vision or they will perish because they don’t see something greater than themselves or where they are. But somebody needs to run with the vision once it has been made plain. So wake up dreamer and get to work. Let us see your dream fulfilled in our lifetime and who knows what a better place this world will become because your dream took flight.

Eric Smith

Spring forward or Fall back

What are you waiting for? What are you reaching for in life? This is the time for you to step out on nothing but a wing and a prayer and go forward and not look back. This is your place in history, this is your opportunity to discover your hidden country and cross into your promised land. So what is holding you back? You have got to make up in your mind today that you are going to spring forward with your ideas and creativity or risk going back to what you were yesterday. It has been said that you can’t drive forward looking back, but I want to add that you can drive forward looking backwards, however, you will end up in a ditch or a wreck. You do not want your life to be one of regret or filled with wrecks so the only option that you have is to spring forward and spring into action. Springing forward requires movement and momentum. It requires you to change what you were doing. change what you have been, change the direction you were going in and chose to count it all a loss. When you are willing to count everything as loss then you can receive the true riches that await you. In order to Spring Forward, you have to learn to Forget. Some people let their past stagnate them and keep them from moving. But you have to change your focus.  Your past does not disqualify you from starting over and moving forward. Start today! If your past could not disqualify you from starting, what makes you think that it can disqualify you from finishing your race. Each of us has a race that we have to complete and you cannot let our past stop you. Now don’t get  wrong, we don’t rejoice in failure or make light of it but also we are not to be paralyzed by it. You have to learn how to forget somethings; no rather Forget All, so that you can move on with your life. You have to forget yesterdays mistakes and yesterdays victories because they don’t matter in today’s ballgame. You have to live a life on the run! Run so that you may obtain your prize. It may be beyond your grasp unless you reach for it or stretch for it. What you are reaching for is only beyond your grasp if you don’t reach or spring forward. If you can’t forget your past, can you press forward anyhow? If the answer is yes, if you can press forward then you can forget because both of those actions require movement. You only reach for something when you are close to it., but to get close you have to chase after it. The thing that you want in life may not even be close but you have to reach for it and sometimes to get a good reach you have to stretch or spring forward.  Stretching may produce pressure but it can be the thing that puts you over the finish line before others. If you have ever seen a track race in your life, you will notice that the runners do not cross the finish line standing straight up. In order to win the prize, in order to reach their goal, in order to cross over the barrier that signals your arrival; you have to reach forward. You can play it safe if you want to but playing it safe won’t always get you the prize. You can cross the finish line and still lose. It is important that you race to win not to just finish. Your message has to be heard, your voice has to be heard. You have got to learn to lean in and look up! Lean into what you want and look up to give thanks for making it. Sometimes life wont let you cross the line with your feet so you have to cross with your head. Whether you lead or nurture, you have to take action and lean forward. whether you guide or encourage, spring forward. Whether you direct or open up opportunities, reach forward and don’t look back. Don’t be afraid to take the risk but be very afraid of stagnation. Stagnation will stifle who you really are and stunt your growth into what you should be. There is victory in and through your struggles. Struggle for equality, struggle for opportunity, struggle for acceptance, and struggle for more from life.  Get your focus back and spring forward. As we set our clocks ahead over this past weekend it reminded me that I had to lose something to gain something. I lost an hour of sleep but I gained additional sunlight that shortened my dark times. Whatever you want to do in life successfully will cost you something and it may not seem like the ideal thing to do, but you must give it up so that you can have it all. Don’t let the unknown of the future trap you in the past. Don’t fall back into the same routines that 2012 brought you. Don’t allow your past to dictate your future. If not now, ask yourself when? Springing Forward is putting a pep in your step and a song in your heart and an idea in your mind and a stretch in your hand. If you can’t reach your destiny with your feet, reach with your hand. If you can’t cross the finish line by reaching with your hand, stretch forth with your head. Life’s’ victories do not always come to those who are the smartest, the cutest, or the wealthiest. But to everyone who will dare to step out on faith and keep on walking, sooner or later victory shall be theirs. Spring Forward my friend and have massive success!

Eric Smith

If it ain’t broke, Fix it Anyways

No matter how old or how young you are, there will come a time in your life when you will feel like you are not growing or going forward. You reach a point in your life where you just feel stagnant and like there is no life in what you are doing or pursuing. Some people experience this on their jobs where they feel that they have reached a career plateau. While others may even feel this way in a relationship, where there seems to a lot of inhaling but no exhaling. Stagnation can come in many forms and mean many things to just as many people, but what will you do when you feel like there is no movement in your life and there is no outflow for your inflow? Some people like the status flow and they even live by the motto “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. But I have come to challenge you into thinking differently about your life and your current situation. Just because it ain’t broke doesn’t mean it is working right. Fix it anyways!

When life seems to be stagnant and your pathways don’t seem to be producing the results that you once thought that it would, you need to look at your strengths and not accept mediocre or settling anymore. You need to become your own niche’ product and become the best in what you do. That may mean that you have to go back to school or get additional training but it is well worth it. You have to be continuously evolving if you want to avoid stagnation. You will not become stagnant if you continue to learn something new, and each day that should be one of your goals. If you stop learning, you stop growing. You need to challenge yourself! You need to reinvent yourself! You need to cultivate yourself by pushing the bar further than you ever imagined it could possibly go. If you want to see more you have to be willing to do more. And if you want to do more, you cannot settle. You allow stagnation to set in when you decide it ain’t broke.

Are you valuable to people? Becoming a valuable resource to other people will keep you on your toes and keep you from becoming stagnant. People should be  coming to you for advice all the time for your expert or professional opinion.  When you position yourself to be an asset to people instead of a liability to them, you are showing that you are able to fix what is broken in their lives. You become a resource of knowledge that can turn into speaking engagements, raises, books and other opportunities. In other words, you become a leader and expert in your area and other people will value you because of what you know and who you know. This can only occur by being proactive and not reactive all the time. Becoming proactive will increase your visibility and may expose you to risk, but if you are sick and tired of being stuck in a rut, and going through the motions without any results, you will risk it all so that you can have it all. I heard it said before “be willing to do the things today that others won’t do, so that you can have the things tomorrow that others won’t have”. However, you won’t take calculated risks if you think that it is already fixed.

No matter what, you cannot be afraid of change. Many people stagnate because they are afraid to let go of their comfort zone, even if they are not really happy with the job they do. Change is almost always good for you. Learn to embrace opportunities for change.  People are stuck in ruts all the time, spinning their wheels going nowhere fast. Don’t let this be your testimony. Don’t let this be your life’s story. Stagnation will steal you of your drive so it is important that you recognize it, change your direction and plow full steam ahead. You may think that you have everything going on in your life. You may think that there is nothing in your life that needs to be fixed, but you and I both know that is a lie. Don’t let stagnation keep you from what you can become. If it ain’t broke, still look for ways to expand yourself, even if it means adding value to others, this will help you to stay fresh. Jewel Diamond Taylor said “Champions aren’t made in gyms, Champions are made from something they have deep inside them –a desire, a dream, a vision.”  Make yourself a 30 day challenge and go for it! Write me back and tell my how you did and all about your new adventures.  It’s never too late or too early to start. Even if it ain’t broke, fix it anyways!

Eric Smith

When the Storm is too much to bare

What do you do when the pressure of life is too much to bear?  What do you do when you feel like you have been dumped right in the middle of an ocean and left to fend for yourself? Have you ever cried out for help because you felt like giving up, throwing in the towel and quitting; and it seemed like no one heard you? When the pressure is on, what do you do, what do you turn to and who do you turn to? The pressures of life can seem so great and your strength to survive the next wave can seem so small. It would be nice if you could just push the “easy” button when hard times come your way. It would be nice if you had a lot of resources at your disposal that could insulate you from the trauma and turmoil that seems to surround you. The fact that you are reading this post lets you know that you are a survivor and that when all hope seems lost, life has a way of throwing you a lifeline that will sustain you until you are able to stand on your won feet and press on.

But what do you do when you don’t know what to do? When it looks like everything around you is caving in the oceans seem to be overrunning your banks, take a moment and push pause on life, search for the peace and let the storm subside. I know that you look like everything is going great for you, but some time in your life you have faced some storms. Some of these storms have been light afternoon showers that are common when the sun is out but all of a sudden it starts to sprinkle in your life. This can come in the form of a co-worker losing their temper with you or a spouse getting upset with you for what seems to be no reason. This light storm comes and although it is not enough to break out the umbrella, it is enough to get your attention to say I need to check the weather next time before I go out. Other storms you may face may seem like category four hurricanes, when all hell is breaking loose in your life and it feels like this tsunami storm is going to take you out. An example may be the electric bill, cable bill and mortgage are past due and they just cut your pay at work, and you are maxed out on your credit cards from last month and there is one bag of ramen noodles in the cupboard. This type of typhoon has the potential to take you out and can seem overwhelming to you.  It may even look like there is no way out because everyone is at your door and the only way out depends on you, or so you think.

One thing that I have come to learn about surviving the storms that I think I can’t bear is that they don’t last forever. I know it seems like they are never-ending but I know if it had a beginning, it has to have an ending. I also know that it is during these times that it is wise to not make major decisions.  The storm may be pressuring you to do something major but don’t give in to it. You may feel like you are in survival mode, and you may have to break out the life jackets, but hold on, help is on the way. No matter what the challenge, no matter what the obstacle, you have a life-preserver near by that will help you tie a knot in the rope and help you to hold on when you want to let go. You have to remain calm in the storm and not panic. If you panic, you can make a bad situation worse. If you panic in the storm, rapid movements may pull you under when you should be floating on top of the water. It is during these trying times that we must remain disciplined and focused. There is only so much that you can do, so do what you can and trust God for the rest.

You may encounter storms that are too much for you to be bare all by yourself. But you have to remember that you are not all by yourself.  You have to walk by faith that you are going to make it no matter what may come your way and not walk by what you see. Seeing can be scary and faith can seem so far away, but you can’t let yourself drown in worry and fear. They come to take you under but you need to trust in something that will take you over or anchor you in place so that you will not be moved. Storms of life will blow and meet you at a time when you think you are doing ok. You need to make up in your mind that no matter what comes your way, you will not cave in, go under or quit. This storm will pass! There may be some damage, injury or even some loss, but just think back to the last storm you encountered and you thought that the storm was the big one that was going to do you in. Guess what, you made it and you will keep on making it as long ans you don’t lose hope.

Eric Smith

Come off break and get back to work

There are moments when you can feel like clocking out, going on break, and never coming back. This usually happens when you are faced with seeming insurmountable challenges and your mind tells you that it doesn’t take all of that, and that you should just walk away, or that you deserve better. This feeling may even come when you are faced with an illness that has so depleted your strength that you feel powerless to overcome and the desire to stop fighting seem to overwhelm you. Or you may be faced with a relationship that seems to be stuck in neutral and there is no passion, no fire and you may wonder to yourself that if you were to walk away, would they even notice that you were gone. In moments of this type of trial you need to take a moment and take some deep breaths and breathe out slowly. The worst thing that you can do is quit. Don’t panic, this is just a test! The quicker you pass this test and get over the desire to get even, or go off or walk away, is the moment you begin to come off break and get back to work.

Taking a break is the easy part and we need to take breaks every now and then. It doesn’t require commitment or any amount of thought to go on break because you just do it. Going on break allows you to temporarily leave the stresses of what you have been going through. It gives you a time to relax, refresh or relieve yourself. Relaxation because life can be tough and you need to just chill out and think about all the possibilities and opportunities you will be giving up on if you let life stress you out. If you have ever received a hot stone body massage, the first thing they tell you to do is to just relax, close your eyes and let all the tension just roll away. This is what you need to do when the stress gets to great for you to handle – just relax. You have got to make up in your mind that no matter how hard it gets, you will take time to relax but you will keep going.  You also need to take the time to refresh yourself  because what lies ahead will require some strength. The journey ahead is full of tough times, terrible challenges and tempting temptations but you cannot give up now. You have to press on through the desire to cave in and give up, and in order to do that, you need to be refreshed. Think about how you feel when you drink a glass of ice-cold water after a long hard workout. It feels refreshing. It calms you down inside and gives you a feeling of a fresh start. Take the time today for a refreshing moment. Push pause, and go on break but don’t stay on break; you’ve got to get back to work. There is a danger of staying too long because you need the sandpaper of life to reveal the inner-strength you have. But just like pure gold when it is tried in the fire, impurities float to the top, so you need to relieve yourself today. Relieve yourself of all the toxins that have been building up in your life such as anger, bitterness  jealousy, hatred, fear. These poisons will cause you to have toxic relationships and you need to go on break and get rid of them. If you don’t take the time to relieve yourself, you will begin to cramp up and you will be no good for anyone because you will only be thinking about needing a break and not on completing your work. Going on break gives you the opportunity to relax, refresh and relieve; so take a moment to take break.

However, It’s time to get back to work, break time is over! You cannot let your enemy to getting the job done win. You have work to do, for others and for yourself. Notice I said take a break and not leave. Some people take a break and never come back. Just remember that no matter what  you are going through on the job, in the home or inside yourself, you are tougher than you think you are. It is not the time to retire but the time to refire! “The race is not given to the swift , nor to the strong, but to the one that endureth until the end”. The journey is long and you cannot waste too much time on the sidelines. Get in the game and keep on fighting, keep on pressing towards the mark  and finish the race that has been set before you. Taking a break is necessary for your success. You do not want to be so bound up by responsibilities that you do not take time to help yourself to relax. Believe me, people around you need you to take a break sometimes because if you don’t, you will drive them crazy. So don’t get me wrong, taking a break is necessary. You need a break and like McDonald’s used to say “You deserve a break today”, but don’t let your break become a full-time job. We need your productivity, ingenuity and creativity. You are at your best when  the heat is on so don’t stay on break all day because it will cost you. Your ten minutes are up, it is time to come off of break and get back to work!

Eric