escape

Dear Why Team member, 

I hope this message finds you well.

Mahatma Ghandi said, "Be the change you want to see." Why is this statement so important and so powerful? Because our lives, and how we see them, depend wholly upon our attitude, on who we are being.  Anais Nin said, 'We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."  

Does your current default setting on your attitude... 

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...propel or limit your life? Do you like how you are currently responding to the challenges in your life?
How often do you reluctantly get out of bed in the morning?  When you awake, do you look forward to what your day will bring and what you will bring to your day?  Or do you find yourself hitting the snooze alarm more and more?

Why pay attention to these details?  Why invest time into why we do what we do? Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."  I once heard that on average we have 55,000 thoughts a day and that 95% of them are a repeat from yesterday.  Does this not define a rut?!  Plato said, "Know Thyself."  Why?  Why is so much of our life driven and dictated by habit?  Because habit is efficient.  We simply could not accomplish very much if we had to consciously think about everything we do.  And while habits support us, and can propel us, they also can weaken and limit us.  It often depends on the specific habit and how it was developed - reactively or proactively.  While our culture focuses on habits of behavior, know that all action is born from thought. 

It is habits of thought that largely determine the quality and benefit of our lives, to ourselves and to others.  How do we both develop and embrace habits that empower and also effectively address those habits that limit?  Recognize that you have a default setting on your attitude.  Your attitudinal default setting has been set more by the culture in which you live or more by the intentional habits you've consciously developed. Why pay attention to your default setting? Because it will largely determine your behavior in the heat of the moment. When is it best to fortify a castle?  Not when it's under attack, but rather before the onslaught.  How do you fortify, strengthen your Fort?  By exercising, with more intention, your daily life disciplines of thought.  How you think daily, either consciously or unconsciously, develop your habits of thought and thus your habits of behavior.  Your thoughts determine your attitude, your attitude determines your altitude.

You have the power to set and reset the default settings that determine the quality of your life.  Why is this important?   Because your behavior will be born from this setting, if not set where you want it in advance, behaviors may ensue that are less than that in which you aspire. Intentionally think on a higher plane and you'll find your behaviors reside there as well.

Take time to think about what you think about.  Make time to be more intentional with your thoughts.  Why?  Because we become most what we think about most.
Make time to observe your thoughts, time to improve your thoughts, and you will be more for yourself and those you seek to serve.

Make it a great week!

Steve Luckenbach