Committed to a Masterpiece Day, every day.
Creating Masterpiece Days are all about managing the most powerful tool available to us all "The Mind" and understanding that in many ways the human mind is like a garden, when weeded and cared for daily the shoots of inspiration grow, everything is tidy, well kept, and a beautiful place to be within ourselves.
Weeding the mind is a simple daily process to keep ourselves free from negative distractions such as the news, meaningless gossip, unwanted dramatics, negative perceptions, and definitely all forms of energy draining people.
A simple question to ask in every interaction is this. "Is this throwing logs on my fire of inspiration and life energy, or is it pissing all over the flames!"
The process of keeping the garden of the mind clear is all about habits and rituals that are so incredibly powerful when practiced daily, enabling us to change perspective and see everything as an opportunity in an instant, summoning at will our ability to respond positively.
No matter what the situation, the ability to reframe emotions in a different way allows us to create the personal growth that is found in getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, and this ability is at the heart of creating an opportunity mindset.
The ability to stand in the garden of our own minds and visualise the worst-case scenarios is just as important as seeing the positive situations we would like to have.
Two very important references here, James Stockdale, and Viktor Frankl.
The “Stockdale Paradox.” In short, we must simultaneously confront the (potentially brutal) facts of reality with an unbending resolve to prevail in the end. If you don't know James Stockdale, I highly recommend you look him up, his story is powerful.
Then Viktor Frankl, anyone with any genuine interest in the study of life MUST read as much Frankl as possible.
His quote says it all really.
“Everything can be taken from a person but one thing; the last of the human freedoms; to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Ultimately creating an opportunity mindset and cultivating Masterpiece Days are a daily practice of knowing there is no finish line, only a consistent striving to find more in all areas of life every day, consistently pushing to raise personal standards, learning to love the process above any outcomes, and training to perform in every situation at a moments notice.
And the benefit of this inner work?
Removing just two negative distractions or diversions from what matters in your life each week eliminates more than one hundred distractions a year, so prune those distractions daily and start cultivating Masterpiece Days.
Marcus Aurelius eloquently states it this way in his incredible book, Meditations.
“Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.” And: “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Ultimately this is all a process Inner engineering and taking your mind down the path of eliminating the excuses about why we are not getting the results in any area of life we apparently "Deserve". Brutally facing your own truth is actually simple, just not easy!
A couple of questions that should be asked on a daily basis to keep the flow in life.
When did you last evaluate the tasks you do every day against what’s most important to you?
When did you last evaluate them against who’s most important to you?
You have goals. You have time. You have energy. Where should it be invested?
If I am not getting it, whatever it is, I do not "YET" deserve it. I need to raise my standards. Adapt my processes. Improve my performances daily. There are results and excuses.
We chose every day.
Simple. (Not easy).
Comments