Raj Daniels

What can I learn from this?

This one question can save you a lot of heartaches and prepare you for future challenges if you use it well.

When you find yourself at a standoff with another individual because you’re both holding on to your points of view, ask yourself, what can I learn from this? You might be surprised by your response. Your self-inquiry might prompt you to broaden your perspective and allow you to see something you were closed off to before.

You can also use this question when you’re struggling with a personal challenge. Instead of wishing that your problem go away, ask yourself what you can learn from it. This kind of inquiry might prevent you from similar challenges in the future.

Making a practice of asking yourself what you can learn from situations gives you a very active stance in life. It shifts your frame of mind from aggressor or even victim to one of a learner. You become a student of life.

This little act of self-inquiry will help you gain insights from your experiences instead of just letting them wash over you, and you can then use the insights to stock your arsenal of personal information for use in future situations.

So as you go about your day today, keep this question in the forefront of your mind. If you do, you might just find yourself a little smarter and even perhaps a little wiser than you were yesterday.

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The emotions you’re feeling right now are temporary.

Whatever you’re experiencing right now is temporary.

Whether you think it’s good or bad, it’s still temporary.

Rarely are moments that follow each other identical. It’s your response to the moments that make them feel the same.

At times, especially when life gets challenging, it might seem as though you’re mired within a situation that’s unchanging. But the reality is, it’s changing all the time. You’re just stuck playing your old response on a mental loop. I’ll admit it’s difficult to realize this is true, but it is.

Hopefully there will be many times in your life where you’ll experience such immense pleasure, you’ll wish for time to stand still. That the joy you’re experiencing in that moment would never end, but it will. And then, there will be times when you’ll wish just the opposite.

Coming to grips with the fact that moments are changing faster than you can comprehend is both challenging and freeing. Challenging because at times it can be hard to believe that whatever you’re experiencing is temporary. But once you do believe it to be true then you’re free, because you know and realize that how you feel in the next moment is not based on what’s happening around you, but more importantly, how you’re responding to the moment in your mind.

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What does it feel like to worship problems?

To build an alter in your mind to all the things that are inconveniencing or are not going well in your life?

To wake up every day and give your best energy to all that’s wrong in your life?

What if instead you worshiped your blessings?

What if you worked hard on the habit of directing your first precious waking moments to all that’s well in your life?

What would your life look and feel like if the first thought you have every morning is thank you?

It really doesn’t matter what you’re grateful for, just starting with gratitude guarantees that you’ll launch your day in a different direction.

There are those around you that would argue that problems need to be focused on in order for them to be solved, and to some extent I agree with them. But problems come in different flavors, shapes and sizes.

There are the big problems of world hunger and poverty, there are problems you might experience at work and then there are the ones that irritate or inconvenience you.

You know the ones I’m talking about.

The ones that fall in the category of, if everything just went your way then life would be so much easier. These are the problems that tend to be worshipped every day. And the more you direct your mind towards these problems, the more they grow in size, and soon enough they begin to interfere with you seeing all the good things in your life.

How you decide to spend your energy is obviously up to you. However, do keep mind that on a daily basis you have a limited amount of energy and the fuse you light first thing in the morning will tend to burn brighter throughout your day. So, do you want your day to be seared with the heat of your problems, or do you want bask in the glow of gratitude? The choice is yours.

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What kind of person are you?

I’m not referring to your age, blood type, gender, what you do for a living or any other such description. But if you’re confused then let me rephrase the question.

What kind of person do you think you are?

Still a little stuck?

Ok. Then finish this sentence.

I’m the kind of person that is…

Now use whatever adjectives you want and describe yourself.

Are you playing along?

I hope so, because this little exercise might just change your life.

You see, the words you use to describe yourself will begin to determine many of your outcomes in life. Since this might sound a little vague, I’ll give you a more solid example.

If you heard someone say this phrase, ‘I’m the kind of person that’s healthy.’ How would you expect to see that person behaving? You might see them make wise choices regarding food, or perhaps engage in an exercise program, or any other number of things that would align with their image of personal health.

When you set goals or desire particular outcomes in life it’s easy to get derailed because of the amount of effort it takes to stay focused and on track. But if you begin to align your identity with the outcome you’re seeking then it helps remove some of the will power required to achieve a goal. Think of your personal statement of, ‘I’m the kind of person that,’ as checkpoint on a journey. Every so often when you veer of course you can use your personal statement as way to get back on track.

Try it today. If you have a life goal or something else you want to accomplish, then create a statement for yourself describing the kind of person you would have to be in order to achieve it. Now use this phrase daily to remind you of the person you have to be in order to get there.

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Why they said it?

Why they did it?

You’ll never know their reality.

You might think you do, but you don’t.

You might have some insight in to why they do the things they do, but your insight is barely a sliver when compared to their entire being.

Trying to figure out in your mind why a person behaved a certain way is almost impossible. Yes, if you have excellent intuition or even professional training then you might be able to get close knowing, but in most cases you’re just guessing in the dark. And even worse, you’re making up a story in your own head about why they behaved the way they did.

Why is this important to know?

Because it’s human nature.

We need to know why something happened because it makes it easier for us to digest and come to terms with. People don’t like open loops and ambiguity, so when all the answers aren’t clear, the mind starts making them up. And this is where things can get slippery because this is where the guessing starts.

The next time you find yourself attempting to speculate why a person behaved in a way that left you confused, remind yourself that ultimately you’ll never really know the real answer. Just like they’ll never ever really know why you behave the way you do.

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When’s the best time to take care of yourself?

How about now?

No time?

How about five minutes?

What if you committed five minutes out of every waking hour to take care of yourself?

Five minutes of stretching.

Five minutes of deep breathing.

Five minutes of walking.

Five minutes of dreaming.

Look, the truth is that rarely is any individual so busy that every minute of every hour is spoken for. So why don’t you capture some of your minutes that aren’t already committed and invest them in yourself?

Come on. Five minutes is less than ten percent of an hour.

You’re worth at least that, aren’t you?

If you don’t believe that your health and well-being is important now, then when will you?

Take a stand for yourself today.

Set an alarm if you have to.

Put a stake in the ground today and commit five minutes of every hour for yourself.

Try it for a few days and see how you feel. If after a week or so you’re not feeling any different, then you can always go back to taking no time for yourself.

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What brings you joy?

What makes you light up just by thinking about it?

What’s the thing you’d do all the time if you could?

Whatever it is for you, find time to do it every day. And if you really can’t find time to do it every day, then at least think about it. Let your mind and body experience the feeling it brings, essentially run your own simulation.

If you feel that you don’t have any such thing then I suggest you dig deeper, or you explore wider. Somewhere out there you’ll encounter a thing that elicits a smile when you think about it. Maybe not a full out grin on your face, but you’ll feel your mind glow.

Dedicate time to finding the thing that lights you up and you will find that it will pay off exponentially. The times when you’re having a difficult day or things are a little askew in your life, you can lean on the thing that gives you joy to change your emotional state.

So commit to yourself that today or at least this week you’ll spend time on doing something that brings you joy, and if you don’t have any such thing then commit to exploring and experimenting until you find something that does.

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The incoming call.

The unread email.

The next person you speak to.

All day long you’re evaluating whether the things you hear and see are good or bad, but what if they’re neither?

What if they just are?

What if it’s you giving meaning to the things you hear and see that are making them feel and sound good or bad?

Sorting things in to good news and bad news works well because it allows you to categorize your thinking, it makes life easier for you. Once you’ve categorized something as good or bad then you can build an entire story around it before you gain any more information.

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” said the farmer.

This short story illustrates that all though you might think something is good or bad at the time you first hear or see it, you never really know how it will eventually play out. So as you’re going through your day and judging events as good news and bad news, be aware that quite often the things you hear and see are only worth the value you place upon them in your mind.

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Be somewhere else right now.

Go ahead, give it a try.

Squeeze your eyes shut.

Clench your teeth.

Close your hands and tighten your fists.

Did it work?

Were you able to be in two places at the same time?

If you can accomplish such a feat then you’re an exception to every other living mortal and should call the national news station, because you’re about to be famous.

However, if you’re not able to be in two places at the same time then welcome to life like the rest of us.

No matter how much you might desire to be somewhere else in any given moment, it won’t happen. So what are your choices about the moment you’re in?

Well, besides acceptance of that moment, what else is there?

Now you can accept the moment begrudgingly, fighting it with every ounce of your being, or you can accept it for what it is. All that moment is made of is you occupying a space for a measured amount of time.

How you look upon that amount of time is up to you.

Simple enough right?

Of course not.

Or is it?

Your approach to the moment you’re in is up to you. You can be frustrated, impatient, or accept the moment for what it is. This doesn’t mean you relinquish responsibility for your life or live a passively. On a holistic level you can still gather and focus all your talent and energy to move you towards whatever you want to do, but being frustrated with a moment because you desire it to be different is… Well, I’ll leave it open for you to decide what it is.

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What are you saying to yourself right now?

Yes, even while you’re reading this there’s a little voice in your head speaking to you.

If you pay attention for a moment you’ll hear it loud and clear. The problem is that even if you don’t pay attention, it’s still speaking and you’re still listening. It goes on and on, blah, blah, blah, rarely stopping to take a breath.

Is your inner voice supportive, or is it one of your biggest doubters?

Is your inner voice kind to you, or is it constantly pointing out your flaws and mistakes you make?

Is your inner voice your friend?

Remember, you’re always listening to your inner voice, so wouldn’t it be nice it were an ally and not an enemy?

So how do you make it an ally?

Practice.

Sounds simple enough, but practice is a very deceptive word. Practice is not a sometimes or one and done activity, it means all the time.

Are you willing to commit to saying kind things to yourself all the time?

Okay, if not all the time then at least most of the time?

Are you hesitant?

Look, if you speak to almost any person that’s world class in their field, you’ll hear them say that they believe in themselves. They motivate themselves. They raise their game and their standards by speaking to themselves in a positive voice.

So why not try to do the same for yourself?

Try it today. Say kind words to yourself and lift yourself up. Be your own best friend, just for today and see how it makes you feel.  What do you have to lose? If you find it doesn’t work for you and that you’re not enjoying it, you can always go back to being unkind to yourself tomorrow.

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Where would you be without oxygen?

I can pretty much guarantee that you wouldn’t be reading this without it.

Oxygen fuels your life.

Oxygen is also the primary fuel for fire. If you want to put out a fire, starve it of oxygen and soon enough it will be gone.

You can consider the thoughts you have as mini fires, and your awareness of them and willingness to ruminate on them as the oxygen they need to stay alive.  The difference between oxygen and your awareness is that oxygen doesn’t discriminate, it’s readily abundant. However, when it comes to your awareness, you can choose where you want to direct it.

If this sounds unreasonable to you, it’s because you’ve chosen to empower, or fuel the idea that it’s unreasonable. And over time the idea of unreasonableness has taken root and you’ve fed it the oxygen it’s needed to stay alive.

You can choose to suspend any belief or thought you have by not feeding it. By not giving it the energy it needs to survive. If you practice this, you’ll find that soon enough the thoughts and beliefs you choose to eliminate will go dormant, notice that I said dormant and not dead. They’ll never quite disappear; in fact they’ll be just waiting for that moment of weakness when you’ll supply them with the energy they need to come alive again.

Your thinking patterns have becomes grooves in your mind because you’ve been feeding them all the oxygen they need. If they’re not serving you, then stop fueling them. Stop giving them the oxygen they need to survive. Again, if you don’t believe this is possible, then keep feeding this thought, watch it continue to flourish and prove you right.

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Your age.

Your bio.

Your name.

Your race.

Your resume.

These are all your surface level attributes, these labels barely scratch the surface of who you really are.

There’s so much more to you.

Imagine for a moment you read the ingredients for a recipe. You’ll get an idea for all that constitutes that particular dish, but you won’t get an idea of the depth or range of flavors until you actually taste the food. And the same applies to you.

The labels that are used to describe you and everyone else make it easy for sorting and to put in categories.  The labels make life easier for the category makers because now they don’t have to spend time thinking, they can just pick the labels they like and discard the ones they don’t.

You know deep down that there’s so much more to you than the labels that are assigned to you, and there are times when you’ll also feel constrained by the labels. Almost everyone around you experiences similar frustrations too.

Just like there’s more to you, there’s more to others too. And the only real way to explore and understand others is to remove preconceived notions about the labels. You can do this by listening, and spending time connecting with those around you.  Once you begin to do this, you’ll find that others will be willing to do this for you too. And that’s when they’ll have the opportunity to learn that there’s so much more to you too.

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How you think about a person is how you’ll treat them.

Let that marinate in your mind for a moment.

If you think about a person with anger, contempt, irritation, or any other negative feeling, then regardless of your words, your feelings will still be conveyed, even if you attempt to hide them. And the same is true for positive feelings.

It’s been said that only 10% of communication is verbal, the rest is body language and tone. So even if you try to hide how you feel, your messages about how you think are still being transmitted. And a person can hear, or even feel what you’re really saying.

If you really want to convey love and warmth towards someone, then think of reasons why you’d feel that way towards them and you’ll find that your body language and tone will fall in line accordingly. If you don’t learn to do this then your attempt at words of affection will ring hollow, and they’ll sense it.

There will be times when this is difficult to do, but let this be the exception and not the norm. Perhaps Maya Angelou said it best when she said “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

So keep in mind the thoughts you have about an individual will be the launching pad for your actions and words towards that person.  And no matter how hard you try to mask your emotions, eventually they’ll feel what you’re really thinking.

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Maybe and might.

Both of these words are relatively non-committal.

In fact, it’s been said that if you tell someone that you might do something, or that maybe you’ll show up, then the likelihood of you doing so is extremely slim.

They’re a pair of slippery words that give you huge gaping holes to get out of commitments and situations.

But if used well they can also be wonderful opportunities, especially if you use them as tools to motivate yourself.

When you’re struggling up against a challenge you can convince yourself to give an extra amount of effort because if you do, then maybe you’ll be able to overcome it. The maybe is your sliver of hope. It’s the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel that keeps you moving forward.

Maybe and might are both expressions of possibilities, and you can use this to your advantage. Yes, they can provide you with ‘outs,’ in certain situations, but they can also leave options open for you.

So although some of those you interact with won’t like or appreciate your maybes and might’s, you go ahead and use them at your will. Use them to open the doors that work for you and close the ones that don’t.

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Where can you find the instructions to life?

How will you know if you’re assembling your life correctly?

The truth is that you will never really know.

You might have some semblance on your way through your life that you’re doing it correctly. You’ll look around and see what others are doing and you’ll attempt to match your life to theirs.  At times you’ll feel as though you’re right on beat, and there will be other times when you’ll feel way out of tune.

Fortunately and unfortunately life doesn’t come with instructions. I say fortunately because if it did then all of our lives would look and feel almost identical, and where’s the fun in that? But it’s also unfortunate, because at times when you’re grasping for answers, it would be so much easier if there were a set of instructions to turn to.

Now there are certain guiding principles that you can choose to adopt that might make your life a little easier. For example there’s the golden rule ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ which is a solid rule to live by and will probably serve you well.  And there are a few others that could serve as a mini foundation for you to build upon, but that’s really all there is.

You’ll come across all kinds of advice and tips and tricks that might look like instructions for your life, and some might even work for you, but you will not come across a set of customized instructions designed specifically for you. You and your uniqueness will have to figure your own instructions for life as you go along.

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How do you remind yourself that you love the people you say you do?

Do you pray for them?

If prayer is not your thing, then do you actively think good thoughts about them?

Do you appreciate them in your mind?

Do you mentally list the reasons why you love them?

It’s very easy to say that you love someone, and at times just saying it can become a habit, but reminding yourself of the reasons strengthens the foundation of why you love them.

Your mind, like any other muscle needs attention and exercise. Consider the practice of reviewing reasons you love someone as mental reps, similar to working any other muscle.

When you actively practice reminding yourself why you love someone, be it a friend or in the romantic sense, you’ll develop a deeper sense of appreciation for them. You’ll also be able to navigate the bumps and rough patches that come with any relationship just a little easier because you’ll have the reasons you love them top of mind.

Look, your mind is a busy place and it’s constantly prioritizing what you think about and while it’s doing this it’s very easy to neglect some of the more important parts of your life. So, sometimes you have to step in and reorganize and prioritize what’s important to you.

Now this doesn’t mean you have to spend hours fawning and swooning over someone, nor does it mean you accept transgressions against you. All I’m suggesting is that if say you love someone spend a few seconds or minutes reminding yourself why. If you do this on a regular basis you’ll begin to feel a deeper sense of love for them and they’ll be able to feel it too.

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How open minded are you?

How willing are you to have your beliefs, ideas and thoughts challenged and tested by others?

If just the idea of having your mind changed by others makes you uncomfortable, then maybe you should consider being a little more open minded.

Having your mind open to different or new ways of thinking shouldn’t be something you fear. In fact, at times, you should welcome the idea of being challenged. The opportunity to gain a new perspective can be quite beneficial, especially from those that have different, or more experiences then you do.

Having an open mind doesn’t mean you agree to, or accept every new idea that’s brought to your attention. It means that you’re at least willing to listen, and to some extent, perhaps even admit that you’re position about a subject might not be entirely correct.

Being closed minded drives you towards conclusions and judgements much faster than if you hold an open mind. The reason is because you already think you have the answer or you think you know what it right.

The benefits of having an open mind are infinite, because you’re free to change, to learn, to explore without boundaries. You’re open to considering and evaluating alternatives, you’re not bound to one set of beliefs. Having an open mind will also increase your level of empathy, which in turn will strengthen and add greater depth to your relationships.

So as you can see, having an open mind is going to be much more beneficial to you over the course of your life than a closed one. I just hope that you’re open minded enough to accept this idea.

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Make an effort today to brighten someone’s day.

Send a thank you note

Give a sincere compliment.

Make a surprise phone call.

It doesn’t matter who it is, nor how you do it, just do it.

Don’t mull on it, or spend too much time thinking about it. In fact, right now as you’re reading this, just stop right here and think of someone.

Do you have a person in mind?

Okay, you can stop reading right here and go do it.

I hope you’re not still reading.

If you are then you’ve fallen in to the ‘I’ll do it later’ trap. And although you might, you also might not. Not because you don’t care, but daily events have a tendency to line up in front of you just waiting to be addressed. And the next thing you know, you’re getting in to bed and all of a sudden you’ll realize that you didn’t do it.

Look, if you need one more reason to go do it now, then here it is.

When you make the effort to brighten someone’s day, you’ll feel your day brighten too. It’s a strange, almost reciprocal effect, even though they didn’t do anything for you, it makes you feel better about the kind of person you are.

So please, no more waiting.

Go do it now. And enjoy the feeling of having your day brightened too.

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