“Surfboard Life” at Fish Art, Tybee Island, circa 2020. Photo by D. Paul Graham

“Monday 5 Things”™ ….. Choose to Build …..

I was going nowhere fast stuck in California traffic. While driving in and out San Francisco enroute to Sonoma, I was able to closely observe the city around me. Once one of my favorite cities, SFO has many buildings that were built some time ago yet are now virtually empty. Stunning examples of architectural virtuosity, yet mere shells of what they once were, or what they were intended to be. Thankful for the glow of red brake-lights in front of me, I mulled over the gift of a metaphor for life that was all around me. Of the people family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances in our lives, how many have built a magnificent exterior that is empty on the inside? What’s the state of your exterior and interior? I can speak from experience; I lived an exterior life for years, empty and hollow on the inside. Inching along in the traffic, I counted my blessings for where my life is today. This morning’s M5T reflects on consciously building a fulfilled life.

1. YOUR LIFE. Your life is your journey, your story, and your direction. It’s how you listen, learn, and share knowledge, understanding, and love. Your life is an evolution from birth, constantly learning, questioning, and growing. It’s finding those things that challenge you, move you, that make you feel alive at your very core. Your life is filled with countless interactions, endless roads of discovery, and those precious moments of clarity and surprise, fear and adrenaline, tears and laughter, and by its very nature, birth and death. Your life should not be constrained by time and space, nor should your life be defined and confined by others.  Your life is the power of connection, not only with others, but with yourself. Your life can bridge the gaps between comprehension and confusion, solutions and problems, and love and hate. Push through your limits and live to transcend expectations that others place on you, and perhaps even more importantly, yourself, by seeking out opportunities to improve. Be active in changing your perspectives and resolute in being true to the life you want to live. On this Monday, will you be the one to decide your day, or will others decide for you?

2. YOUR HABITS. You can choose to build healthy habits or poor habits. Studies have shown it can take between 3 weeks to 2 months for a habit to be ingrained in your life. Habits tend to either build up or sneak up on you quietly. How you spend your time will dictate your habits. Build habits can serve your goals and your successes, but demand strength and discipline. Habits shape your life dreams and even the smallest of consistent manageable efforts yield big results over time. You won’t overhaul your poor habits overnight. Let go of your past negative habits. Holding onto the past is exhausting. Building healthy habits take time, and setbacks are inevitable. Don’t beat yourself up. The goal is progress not perfection. Allow yourself to celebrate and reward yourself with even the smallest of notable change toward healthy habits. The people you spend time with will impact your habits. Invest in people who invest in you. Invest wisely. Find those people that will be honest with you, will challenge and inspire you, will love you for who you are, and will lift you up when you find the courage to ask for some help. In turn, invest back into those people. Positivity multiplies when it’s shared. On this Monday, what habits will you foster?

3. YOUR STRENGTH.  We can all use better physical, emotional, and spiritual strength. Physical strength isn’t just about lifting weights or running marathons; it’s about resilience. When you push through discomfort, you train your mind to face challenges directly. Movement feeds your body and soul. We have all faced those moments in life with obstacles from unforeseen events that at the time can seem debilitating. Emotional strength doesn’t mean avoiding tough feelings or circumstances but allows us to learn from the experiences and recover from them. Emotional strength is fostered when we learn to take a moment to simply breathe in the middle of a storm, or by making a conscious choice to be vulnerable with others, all the while continuing to move forward. Spiritual strength isn’t about religion. It’s having faith, finding a meaningful purpose for our lives, and connecting to something bigger, something beyond yourself. Spiritual strength centers, it balances, it’s intentional, it brings deep inner peace, and it allows for wisdom and clarity to make better decisions whether celebrating on a peak or struggling in a valley. Building strength is a balance that requires mindful consistency and poise. On this Monday, where is your strength?

4. YOUR MINDSET. Our thoughts can dictate how you respond to any situation. In a day and age where we are bombarded with negativity, it becomes all the more important that we challenge ourselves to think with positivity. Not everything you hear is important. We need to recast the framework of negativity with gratitude. Gratitude should be a foundation not a ceiling. It shifts focus from a spirt of lacking to a recognition of what you have in abundance. Gratitude allows you to stop chasing tomorrow and start valuing today. Choose how you feed your mind. Be ruthless in cutting out noise, chatter, and distractions. Seek out people and environments that uplift and inspire, that encourage growth and optimism, that offer clarity not chaos.  A positive mindset will not avoid or be fearful of change. It embraces challenges for the opportunities they present. Some of the strongest negativity in our lives occurs between our own ears in our private, sometimes darkest, thoughts. Outwardly, many seem to be the most confident in the world, but we all have past failures, squandered dreams, insecurities, and fears. We often use damaging voices in our heads that can hold us back in many areas of our lives.  Offer yourself encouragement instead of criticism. Practice self-kindness. On this Monday, where will you center your thoughts and mindset?

5. YOUR FIRE. Fire cleanses and purifies but needs to be fed with the right fuel to be sustainable. The fire within you, inspires, confronts, challenges, and allows you to seize the things in life that make the very essence of your soul feel alive. Your fire motivates, moves, and magnifies. When your inner flame is intensely burning, everything in your life is ignited. Stoke your fire by pursuing your curiosity, exposing yourself to new experience, perspectives, and ideas. Surround yourself with others that have their passions fueled by their own fire. Carve out and follow the path you set out for your life. Be resolute in refusing to allow others to try and dose your fire. If they try, find ways to burn brighter. Turn setbacks, frustrations, and failures into fuel that motivate you to grow, to persist, and to dream even larger than you first imagined. Above all, never let setbacks extinguish your fire. On this Monday, how will you stoke your fire?

Here’s to continually building those things that allow you to live your best life.

For over 12 years, D. Paul Graham has published “Monday 5 Things” ™, also known to readers as M5T™.  He is at peace with how he is building his life.

© 2024 D. Paul Graham.

You can reach Paul by email at dpg@imagegraham.com

“Monday 5 Things” ™ and M5T™ are trademarks of D. Paul Graham