Why Encouragement?

​Dear Why Team member,

I hope this week’s message finds you well and continuing your search for keys to unlock more of your potential in this exciting New Year! Even though we talk about and try to be present in the moment, life happens, and we can get carried away and forget our old disciplines. So, this week’s key is: Encouragement. 
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Why Encouragement?

To access more courage. 

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Have you ever considered that there cannot be courage without fear? We humans live with the awareness that we will physically die. It takes courage to face this fact every day – especially as we start another year - and in those moments when we're fully conscious that tomorrow is promised to no one. This task of living is made all-the-more difficult when our best-laid plans for the future go sideways. For example, we may follow all the rules of nutrition and exercise only to find that health issues arise or our back simply gives out. Our love of status quo is a desire for immortality. Life is change, and to live it more fully is to embrace change, embracing it with courage and with a hope and a faith in the future despite our fear. A belief that our best days lie ahead, not behind, if we would but more fully live in each of our newly given moments. Earl Nightingale is known to say that “the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice; it is conformity.”
If the plans you laid out went sideways, don’t conform, and get on the self-pity bandwagon, look at it as the puzzle piece you need to better see the big picture. And until that bigger picture is revealed, do your best to enjoy the process.

When we live and appreciate each given moment the best we can, we are empowered to better influence our future in a positive direction. Know that no matter how hard life may be at times, there is so much in which to be thankful; however, the reasons to be thankful can become obscured by our focus on what is or what might be lost. When we really appreciate what we have right here, and now, we begin to fill those empty, fearful places that, if not addressed, can steal our hope and joy. 
Never forget, that if your joy has been stolen, it's an inside job. 

Your thoughts are your choice. Why choose those thoughts that weaken and destroy? Below are a few thoughts that I hope will help you unlock more self- encouragement and be of strength to you.

​ I hope you choose to make it a great week,

​Steve Luckenbach 

​“When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,When the funds are low, and the debts are high,And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,When care is pressing you down a bit,Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,As every one of us sometimes learns,And many a failure turns about,When he might have won had he stuck it out;Don’t give up though the pace seems slow-You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than,It seems to a faint and faltering man,Often the struggler has given up,When he might have captured the victor’s cup,And he learned too late when the night slipped down,How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out-The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,And you never can tell how close you are,It may be near when it seems so far,So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit-It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit”

― John Greenleaf Whittier