oh hey

To write. To capture to think. A jumbled mess of thoughts courtesy of yours truly.

One of the reasons that I love journaling is because it gives me time to think. My brain is always running a millions miles a minute, jumping from one thought to the next, but when I sit down to write a sentence... the thought gets completed. Which is not often the case. This blog this blog. Have you noticed some changes? I have. I personally think the content is better. No more "filler" posts to hit a post every weekday. No more forcing topics I find uninteresting. No longer a slave to the internet. To the web. To the blog world. Don't get me wrong, I love this blog. I love the connections I have made. I will always blog, but I no longer feel obligated to post everyday or check my email every 10 minutes.

It's refreshing.

And needed. Life is a little tricky at the moment. It's so full. So full of so many different things.

I know everyone has trials and difficult circumstances. I won't dwell on mine, but I do want to acknowledge them. Trials are very real. While they are not always pleasant I find myself growing. I can't say I'm thankful. I'm not sure I ever will; people who say, "I'm so thankful for this trial in life" tend to confuse me. However, I do think there has to be some purpose behind this. That this is part of the chisel that is helping shape me into who I am supposed to become. I hope I like her.

I had the opportunity to attend a workshop last week on enhancing my performance. It was career focused, but I am finding a lot of value in applying the things I learned to my personal life. There is also a quote that has been my mantra for the last two months. I have been living by these principles over the last few days and I have found immense peace because of them. Maybe one of you is looking for a little peace and one of these can help. It is these simple things have kept me moving forward.

1. Serving and loving others will increase your capacity in all aspects of life.
"When we ... serve His children unselfishly, the natural consequence is power from God—power to do more than we can do by ourselves. Our insights, our talents, our abilities are expanded because we receive strength and power from the Lord."
- Richard G. Scott (full talk here)

2. Focusing on one specific task until it is done is key. Switch tasking or multitasking makes you so much less effective and happy. Everything takes longer.

3. You need to respect yourself. To everyone this means something a little different. To me this means taking the time in the morning to make breakfast and pack myself a lunch. Going to bed early. To wash my hair more often and shower because I want to not because I need to. I had an eye opening experience. It was around 8PM and I said to Michael, "I really want to take a shower, but I probably shouldn't because I'll just take another one in the morning." He said, "If you want to take a shower take a shower." I know it seems simple. Such an obvious answer. If there is something that brings you joy, don't deny yourself simply because of logistics. Within reason of course.

My weekend was a mix of these principles succeeding and failing and for the first time in a while I wasn't afraid of Monday. I hope your Monday went ok, if it didn't, here's to Tuesday. Thanks for reading.

- harley