Daily Yamabushi

Which will it be?

Is never an option?

How about now?

Make the most of the current moment. Do what you set out to do, and do it well.

Or don’t.

It’s up to you.

Where are you looking?

The answer may not lie in your smartphone. In fact, it most likely doesn’t. Get out in the world and find your answer.

Find competition, find a better you

More is better if it helps you.

Better competition is a better you, if you allow it. If you sit back and let the competition do their own thing, then they’re no competition, and you lose the opportunity for better.

Find better competition, find a better you.

Quit worrying about it

It can be hard to know in the moment, but if you find yourself being blamed for something minor that someone is taking completely out of proportion, find a way to not worry about it.

As with all situations like this, take a few deep breaths, then let it go. It’s not your problem, it’s their’s, and you need not worry about it anymore.

Putting down your phone

It’s now such an integral part of our daily lives, attached to our arms, we can’t even fathom life without it. It’s gotten so bad when I see people on tv, or god forbid, my phone, I can’t help but be jealous at their ability to keep themselves entertained without one. It has gotten to the point that if you’re able to spend any decent amount of time away from it, you’re some sort of saint and need to be worshipped.

There is a time and place to use your phone, and that time and place is not anytime and anywhere.

Get off your phone. Learn to live life without it. Get back to the real world.

On your way

When you’re on a road moving towards a mountain from a great distance it’s hard to know if you’re truly making progress. Yet all you have to do is look at the markers around you. You may not be heading straight towards the mountaintop, you may not even need to, but if you’re heading in that general direction, and if you’re heading in the first place, you’re making progress. Just keep going.

How can I win this? How can I make it a win?

Especially when times seem tough, when you’re still in the game you must ask yourself how you can win. Not only how you can win, but also how you can make it a win too.

This is how comeback kings make a comeback. This is how the underdog wins. Always fighting the good fight. Always in it to win.

Wishful thinking maybe, important nonetheless.

The unexpected happens. That’s a fact of life. Sometimes it rattles us, sometimes it shakes us to our core. And sometimes it’s impossible to see the positive because we’re too caught up with what’s going on around us.

That’s ok. In the moment it can be hard to see, yet with enough time, there is always some positive to come from the unexpected. Sure it may not be ideal, but it’s always there. You just have to be brave enough to see it through.

With kindness

You don’t have to reciprocate in kind. Hell you don’t even have to reciprocate. For many, even that would be a win. But the true win, the one where everyone wins?

Reciprocating with kindness.

How’s that for a better start?

With consistency comes quality

You would question why anyone in their right mind would day after day post a blog post such as this. I often find myself asking the same thing. I’ve now done this for over 2,000 days, in fact. Well, I think this little habit has so many knock-on effects, many I am not even cognisant of, that it just feels worth it. That and I have a pretty good streak going.

But one other massive thing about this is that we have these ideas in our head, ideas that one way or another could actually impact the lives of not only ourselves, but others in a huge way if dealt with correctly. Getting them out into the world like this is one way to see them in another form. Plus, ideas never appear on paper as they do in your head.

Trying to articulate them in the written form is but one way you can practice sharing your ideas with the world. Your thought pattern changes from ‘oh, that’s a good idea’ to ‘oh, I should write about this’, and then you start to think more of things that are worth writing about, or so the theory goes at least.

Those ideas in your head, with the right vessel and frequency of output are ripe for the taking. And they can take you places too, if you just keep it up.

I say so

It’s bad. It can’t be helped. It’s inconvenient.

If you say so.

And better them

“To the teacher that got me in front of the class and made me say my dream out loud then proceeded to tell me I have a 1% chance of being an All Black then told me to choose another dream…

Recent All Black debutant Ruben Love was told by his teacher he had a 1% chance of making the All Blacks.

It’s actually less than 1%. Much less. If 1% of NZers were in the All Blacks, or even 1% of NZ rugby players, well there would be a lot of All Blacks! So the teacher was wrong on two accounts.

Either way, Ruben Love took his chance in spite of the odds. He knew the odds, but he put them ever in his favour by showing up and staying committed to the cause. Soon enough, that 1% became a reality, and it just grew from there.

Get yourself ready for the big moments

Prime yourself. Get yourself ready for the big moments. Put yourself in the position where you can do what you’ve always set out to do.

Then do it.

And if you fall short, well then you can just say you were priming yourself.

Is just playing

Play, by definition, is the right way to do it. There are no rules. There is no proper way to do it. Anything goes. Anything else is not play, and it need not be called so.

Play, and don’t feel guilty about doing it right.

In the moment in the moment

Perfectly content is when you’re in the moment simply doing what feels right in the moment. You’re in the moment in the moment, so to speak.

Some are perfectly content sitting among the flowers. Others are perfectly content with a nice cup of tea. Still others are content having done a good job.

Find your perfectly content moment, and hold onto it.

Which one is it?

Room for improvement is your chance to do better. It’s your chance to prove yourself. Room for improvement is telling you that you aren’t quite there, but that you have what it takes. All you have to do is prove yourself, and that room for improvement becomes room to grow instead.

Dealing with addictive tendencies

I’m specifically referring to my smartphone, but this could be any habit or addiction you want greater control over.

Taking time off, forced or otherwise, is one good way to see your triggers. When you don’t have the luxury of your vice at your fingertips, you start to notice your body crave it, and patterns begin to emerge.

This in turn helps you be aware of what sets off the craving, and helps you prepare for time back when the vice is readily available, if you allow yourself that. This can help bring back the control into your favour.

Then judge.

It’s raining.

The bus was late.

I forgot my lucky pen.

All the lights were red.

They didn’t choose me.

Sounds unlucky.

Let’s see what happens. Then we can be the judge.

Perfect for goal orientation

When you’re doing something you have to but you’d rather not, it gives you hints as to what you really want to be doing. You get desires to be doing some other thing, or achieving some other goal.

Your subconscious knows this stuff, but with idle time or time doing things you’d rather not, it eats at you and you discover part of yourself you either never knew or had suppressed well.

Than words.

Actions speak louder than words. Actions teach louder too. Want to know the answer to your hunch? Place a bet on it. Act, and see the actions speak loud.

Without action you won’t know enough to truly know

You know it’s not going to be easy, you know it may not even work.

You do it anyway.

Because, what’s the alternative?

Regret at not having tried.

You know enough to know that without action you won’t know enough. Action is a sign of intelligence.

Dream to dare

Are your ambitions ambitious enough? Is it possible that they could realistically be bigger? Should you shoot for a higher star? What’s stopping you?

Well?

Dare to dream so you can dream to dare. It’s that simple.

Where is the fun?

You need something to excite you always, something to keep you hungry and entertained. If you’re not getting it, well, you need to consider whether your current path is working and whether it’s worth changing something so that you do get that joy.

Joy comes from passion. What are you passionate about, or, what could you be passionate about? Follow that. See where it takes you. Find the joy.

Feelings ‘in’ the moment

The other thing with worrying about things too much is that it keeps you from being in the moment. Although you may experience the things that are happening to you, if you’re too focused on something else, valid or otherwise, you may not be fully aware enough to appreciate those things in the first place.

This is not to say you should ignore your feelings if they are overwhelming. But at the very least you should be able to pick up on thought patterns when you see them arising, and have techniques in place to recognise when they are getting in the way, and be able to deal with them quickly.

One simple technique is to take a step back. It’s to take a break to simply assess the situation, and keep your thoughts and opinions separate from the facts. Then, accept that the facts are the facts, and continue about your daily life. Sure, this May temporarily take you out of the moment, but it’s better than letting your emotions get in the way of ruining an experience entirely.

A fateful reminder

Noticed a few grey hairs? A few more wrinkles than before? It might be age catching up on you.

This is not your cue to lament or brush up your makeup. It’s your call to action. It’s your memento mori, a reminder of your mortality, and a reminder that it’s time to get things done.

Successful people

If you surround yourself with successful people, it will help with your success. What if you surround yourself with happy people?