Tag Archives: Marathon

The power of habit

Ulla in recovery.Yesterday I skipped writing here and sending an inspirational quote, and with good reason I believe, as I was pretty tired and next to that ended up in the emergency room of a hospital because I had an asthma attack in the middle of the night and came home pretty late and pretty much affected by that.

And today I promised myself the rest of the day off after getting more clarity on the situation of our sick dog Ulla, something I was pretty much affected by most of the week.

But for quite a while I realize that I have developed a pretty strong habit of writing here every day and that no matter that I got a bit more flexible, to say it in a nice way, with it, it is pretty hard to skip as I have a pretty strong urge to do it, no matter how late or no matter how busy or tired I am.

So also today only a short post, but it is a post and I also sent the first batch of the daily inspirational quote and will send the second batch later also.

So yes, there is something to developing habits. They are hard to break (whether positive or negative, but I believe my daily writing here is a positive).

Dream, determination and persistence

I just saw a documentary on National Geographic about the Hubble Space Telescope and then saw in Facebook that today is Hubble’s 25th anniversary through a post of one of my friends.

And the TV documentary made clear to me that achieving a working space telescope was a journey with tremendous determination and persistence, as everything that could go wrong actually also often did go wrong.

But they did it! So another story that with determination and persistence one can achieve anything. And it all starts with a thought, a dream.

And a matter of Master Mind of course, as many people were involved.

Back home

Paradise locationI just arrived home, or actually a few hours ago, so it is much easier now to write my daily posts and send my daily inspirational quote email. And the last few days, last week I have thought a lot about posting daily here or not. And more often than not I didn’t post, as it was quite a lot of hassle with very bad internet on my smart phone and an internet cafe that was just a little too far away, or just not there as yesterday and the day before yesterday most of the day.

And it made me think a lot about doing things ‘whatever it takes’, as I could have done a lot more effort to indeed do my daily posts and send the daily inspirational quote. I could have put more load in my smart phone and take some more time to find better spots for internet connection or more time to really write a post. Or I could have asked friends with different cellphones, smart phones and tablets to let me use their devices. Or indeed walk or drive to an internet cafe or a location with a lot better internet.

But I didn’t, at least most of the time for writing my posts. And the main reason is that after more than two years of hard work,of discipline, of writing here virtually every day and sending an inspirational quote by e-mail virtually every day the number of readers and users has hardly increased after my first efforts to build some e-mail list from my own contacts, even though it has grown on its own for most of the time now. But very slowly, with maybe one person per month or so for the last few months.

And I know there are more ways, better ways to build audience. But until now I have hardly used that, as I believed (wanted?) the site to grow on its own through its content, through the things I write only, or at least mainly. And it didn’t.

And of course here come the Principles of Success in sight, as they may give the direction. But I have been persistent and stuck to my decision to write every day (and to let the audience grow through the content). And I desire more users, more readers, more listeners, more people to help, more people to inspire. And I took action, as I did quite a lot of things, like writing every day, but also building some awesome WordPress plugins.

But no, I have no Master Mind. And I don’t really have a plan (I think). And I did not really do anything autosuggestion.

And I realize I don’t really remember all Principles of Success right now, so it may be a good exercise to check this site against all Principles of Success and not only the ones that are relatively easy for me. As that is e.g. true for persistence.

But not today, as I think I have done enough for today. And I am not sure if Napoleon Hill puts enough emphasis on relaxation and rest and maybe flexibility. As those are also very important I believe.

Self analysis, question 25

My deskI was just thinking I have a smartphone now so I can make photo’s, something I longed for for quite a while as before I regularly wrote posts where I would want to add photo’s about things I was writing about, like the view or the house or the surroundings or the water system. But since I have a camera (through this smartphone) I didn’t see any need for posting photo’s with any of the articles. Strange isn’t it? So even now I wouldn’t know what would be an appropriate photo for this article as I am still working my way through the self analysis questions, but who knows where this article goes, so maybe I’ll add something. And if not I am quite sure in the future there will be many occasions where I could add photo’s. Or maybe just make a photo of my desk right now?

And strange to see how technology evolves, as I installed Dropbox on my smartphone and allowed it to put photo’s I am making straight ‘in the cloud’. So while writing my photo’s are being copied from my smartphone to the internet to my computer, so they go a long way while the devices are just next to each other. And that makes me think about distance as recently I saw some shows on TV about the Universe. And the Universe is huge, meaning reaching anything even with the space of light is still very slow, where for humans the speed of light is unimaginably fast. So yes, in a way the distance my photo’s just traveled are very small compared to the size of the Universe, almost the same as the distance between my smartphone and my computer. Where to me the distance the photo’s traveled is enormous, as they probably traveled out of the country and back into the country, maybe even through the United States, which is fifteen thousand kilometers away.

Anyhow, that is not what I wanted to write about as I wanted to write about “Do you have a definite major purpose, and if so, what is it, and what plan have you for achieving it?”. And while reading this question I can straight away see a relation with the photo of my desk, as you may see that there are some photo’s around my desk that represent things I want to achieve. And on the window on the other side, the direction I am looking at, there are more photo’s and they are all related to my definite purpose or things I want to achieve.

So yes, I do have a definite major purpose and until now I decided to keep it to myself as I consider it something private, even though some friends may be able to guess what it is. And maybe you are able to guess what it is or could be as sometimes I make some statements about it in this site. And strange, as I always think I don’t have a plan how to achieve it, but somehow I have as there are things written in my definite purpose document I always relate to, so somehow my definite purpose is slowly being cut up in smaller peaces that are more easy to handle.

And funny, looking at the photo, as Iwa is sitting on the chair in front of them and she is the one I was thinking about when thinking about making photos with my smartphone and posting them in this site or my Dutch blog. So again, the subconscious mind or Infinite Intelligence seems to be at work here, tonight.

So what is my definite purpose about? Well, simple, about love, romantic love. And about sharing that in the world. And in order to achieve that I need money and fame. And I also found out that I just want to be rich, really rich and enjoy that. So somehow I also fitted that in. And somehow also things like giving are part of it, and being patient.

And yes, the strange thing is that since I started with that document, wrote the initial version and later refined it, somehow I am living it, somehow I am getting closer to my goals, to my definite purpose. And while writing this is that somehow Infinite Intelligence is helping me and answering one of my desires in my desire document. As one of my requests to Infinite Intelligence in that document is to help me with planning, as I consider planning one of my weaknesses.

So again, while writing this article I see my desire document unfold, come to life.

God is great! Thank you, Lord.

Self Analysis, question 17

Ah, today’s question is an interesting one: “Do you tolerate negative or discouraging influences which you can avoid?”. And the interesting part is the ‘you can avoid’, as somehow related to anything ‘success’, relating to successful people I have the feeling that they just made it through their own effort. And even Think and Grow Rich states something like that. But this question implies there are things you cannot avoid. Or could it be it is just challenging you, challenging me to also think about what you can avoid and what not?

So do I tolerate negative or discouraging influences. Yes, I certainly do, as I consider my partner as a negative influence on my life. But he is my partner and I don’t want to leave me. And somehow my house is a negative influence as it is too big and too expensive to maintain in my current situation. And the place where I live somehow has a negative influence on my life, but as I love the house I want to stay here and rather make the place a positive place than moving elsewhere because that would be easier.

So this is a very interesting self analysis question as it makes me think again about how I choose in life, what I chose, somehow whatever the consequences. And those two things, my partner and my house, are life choices for me that I don’t want to change. And somehow they go back to what I learned about definite purpose and sticking with decisions, or at least change them slowly if ever.

And still, no matter how bad my situation is, no matter how bad I often feel, somehow I have gotten stronger, much stronger the last two years since I started reading Think and Grow Rich and working from it.

So yes, I choose some negative influences I can avoid as I don’t want to run away anymore. This time I want to stick around and make it work.