Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise happiness today!

Perhaps one key to true happiness is learning to discover it in every moment, not waiting for it to arrive with the achievement of some future goal. Happiness that comes from achieving goals is fleeting at best and sets us up in a never ending cycle of chasing the next “one.”

That doesn’t diminish the power of setting and achieving goals, rather reframes our dependence on being consumed by accomplishments as our source of happiness.

Happiness is not a goal, it’s a by-product.  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise happiness today!

As I read more about the science of happiness, commonalities are present among the studies identifying keys to whole heartedness and success:

• Live (or work) in the moment; avoid thinking about things you have to do later
• Of course life will hand us challenges – Remain resilient
• Develop mental discipline; be mindful of your thoughts and manage them well
• Be a compassionate observer of yourself, knowing when to adjust
• Manage your energy
• No nothing . . . absolutely nothing for at least a few minutes every day
• Treat yourself well; be kind to yourself as well as to others
• Venture outside your comfort zone
• Work at being compassionate and show it outwardly
• Stay in awe and in wonder of life

Of course, the above list is not complete.  Your homework: Edit and add to the list for yourself.

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise, intentional happiness today!

Only recently have studies of human behavior included research to understand mental health and well-being in lieu of an exclusive focus on deviant behavior. The results give us the luxury to access and implement strategies to live a healthier, more satisfying and meaningful life. 

Happiness seems to be a secret sauce that can help us be and do our best. Researchers who study happy people have found them to be more successful, with a realization that happiness is a choice, and believe it’s up to them to intentionally choose it every single day. They’re not held hostage by their circumstances and do not seek happiness in other people or in possessions.

Intention is the active desire and commitment to be happy.  

                                                                               ~Rick Foster & Greg Hicks, Happy People

Shall we choose happiness today?!

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise happiness today!

It’s been fascinating to observe the vast differences of how people handled the realities of the last year. Our daily lives were disrupted, to say the least, and for some, the challenges of the circumstances changed their perception of time and of being forever.

Many reported feelings of loneliness, some, despair.  Others responded to the calls of their inner voice and recalibrated life itself, finding a sense of calm, meaning, and happiness not experienced in their past.  According to Psychology Today, true happiness is:

Enjoying your own company and living in peace and harmony with your body, mind and soul. True happiness is state of mind constantly being in love with yourself. For being truly happy you neither need other people nor materialistic things.

Most of us experienced an increase in the time spent in our own company. My hope is that, as you read this, you take a moment to contemplate how enjoyable that time is for you.

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise patience today!

How dare that guy cut me off in this crazy traffic!  Really, you’re gonna step right in front of me in this long line? Who made you God to tell me how to do this? Can you go any slower?

I’ve come to understand that we’ll only judge others as harshly as we judge ourselves. Is the same true for patience? Are we able to extend patience to another if we have none for ourselves?  Not a human exists without flaws. Our essence is made up of that which is attractive, appealing, and alluring, as well as the opposite. Serenity requires forbearance of both and in many cases, generous mercy, beyond our current capacity.

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them … every day begin the task anew.  ~ Saint Francis de Sales

Look around and see how easy it is to observe and experience nastiness, criticism, unkindness, even cruelty. Perhaps today’s the day to turn a page to intentional compassion, encouragement, kindness, and charity. Difficult? Yes!  Worth the endeavor? I guess you decide.

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise celebrating today!

Although Cinco de Mayo is not widely celebrated in Mexico, it is observed in the state of Puebla, in honor of General Zaragoza’s unlikely victory over the French forces of Napoleon II in 1862. However, today, people all over The States will be taking the opportunity to eat great Mexican cuisine and drink cervaza, margaritas, or tequila in some creative form. In our celebrations, let’s not forget the words of Joe Baca:

Cinco de Mayo has come to represent a celebration of the contributions that Mexican Americans and all Hispanics have made to America.   

To that, I raise my glass!  Thank you for adding to the rich texture of our culture.

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise thinking today!

Vanna, my dear “soul sister” shared a bumper sticker she saw that made her smile and think:

Don’t believe everything you think

In case you hadn’t previously pondered it, each of us is addicted to our own thoughts.

Author Santosh Kalwar: We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.

And, Christopher Hitchens writes in Letters to a Young Contrarian:

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

To challenge our thinking, Vera Nazarian shares this quick test:

If you have never changed your mind about some fundamental tenet of your belief, if you have never questioned the basics, and if you have no wish to do so, then you are likely ignorant.
Before it is too late, go out there and find someone who, in your opinion, believes, assumes, or considers certain things very strongly and very differently from you, and just have a basic honest conversation.  It will do both of you good.

This is not a call to change a mind for the sake of changing a mind.  Rather to explore your own unknowns. New information, perspective, or evaluation helps us to understand the how of our thinking and to sincerely listen with a welcoming mind. Then, life offers endless conversation opportunities to learn.

Things change when we change how we see things.     ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise verses today!

Our recent national struggles have motivated me to revisit our nation’s history and dig deeper into how we got here. It’s also ruffled my curiosity about Americans who are less empathically supportive of our Black, Brown, Asian, Native and all other marginalized fellow citizens, who, for centuries, have been pleading to be seen, heard, respected, and understood by those who possess the power. 

Our past tapestries are too tightly woven with global stories of bigotry, discrimination, disenfranchisement, inequity, and hate so fierce it has led to genocide. Unfortunately, one can pick up a newspaper and read equally brutal stories today, around the world, and in this nation we love. History repeating itself?

History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it usually rhymes.  ~ Seth Godin

Pain, tears, and agony of ancestors echo in our halls of justice. So I wonder what verses we’ll choose to compose now. Will our prose of humanity continue to be a refrain of discord, dissonance, and dissension? Or, can and will we rise above, work to understand, and abstain from such stuff of our past? We have the opportunity to create couplets of compassion, sonatas of sustainable harmony, and cantos of coherence. But, will we?

In solo, one struggles to have their voice heard and their past understood as an extension of today’s reality. However, a voluminous concert of humanity, united in vision, voices, and action toward the pursuit of a more perfect union increases the chances of rhythms of historic change, of hope, and an opportunity to step safety into tomorrow.

Together, let’s shift from might and fight to what is right, left behind to being kind, injustice to justice, disparity to equity, disjointed into united, and disproportion into forward motion. We hold the conductor’s baton in our own life as well as the invitation to harmonize with humanity in the call for collective morality. Our choice. 

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise normal today!

The last year has taught us a lot about what it is to be human. Do you hear people talking about our “new normal” or wanting to “return to normal?”  And, have you ever tried to fit into being “normal.” Well, “normal” itself has changed.

I’ve recently learned that Unilever has decided to remove the word ‘normal’ on their personal care product labels. Why? Because when it comes to people, normal is an artificial construct. Normal is the center of a statistical bell curve, not a standard that we ought to seek to achieve, even if we could.

Normal is a distribution, not a person.

Yay us! Freedom to explore, discover, and be you rather than striving to be normal . . . whatever that was!

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com

Wednesday Wisdom

Seed tomorrow with wise kindness today!

Out of nowhere I received an email about the benefits of being kind. Hey, why not? The recent reduction of generously extending consideration, compassion, and charity inspire me to find the notion of Random Acts of Kindness intriguing.  There’s something compelling about giving to others without any request, expectation, or promise of anything in return. Contained in the email were benefits of kindness:

1. Can increase the feeling of strength & energy.
2. Generates endorphins, the body’s natural pain killer.  
3. Can become less depressed 
4. Can make one feel calmer 
5. It has been shown that people that are more kind have 23% less cortisol (the stress hormone) and age slower than the average population. 

Offering kindness makes a difference to the giver and everyone who receives. Perhaps today we can begin or continue a habit of expanding humanity in our everyday moments, starting with easy things like:

..  Increase attention to what’s happening around you to know when the need for kindness calls

..  Find opportunities to compliment someone you encounter during the day

..  Hold the door open for someone, or the elevator.

..  Smile genuinely at 5 strangers you pass throughout the day

..  Clean out your house and make a donation to your local charity

..  Allow someone to merge in traffic (as hard as that might be!)

..  And, the list goes on

As I practice, I suspect extending kindness will become easier over time and am convinced it will benefit the giver, perhaps more than the receiver. 

Life is calling . . .  Today’s the day!

Visit http://www.The Success Studio.com . . . Learn Lavishly. Live Significantly. Leave a Legacy.

www.marilynnsemonick.com

To read archived Wednesday Wisdoms visit http://www.thesuccessstudio.wordpress.com

Marilynn Semonick, CEO (Chief Exploration Officer)

Educator, Consultant, Coach, Facilitator, Professional Speaker

Marilynn@marilynnsemonick.com