Bryan Parady's Blog, page 35

Conquer Your Day

This day is yours, it was meant to be conquered, meant for you to use your creativity, your passion, and your knowledge to better not just you but everyone around you.

So how do you do this? How do you conquer your day?  Conquer yourself. Your fears, misgiving, insecurities, hopelessness, all these things can be like a huge weight on your back shoving you down to the ground.  But another thing about all these things is they can all be conquered in your mind.

Most of the things that keep us stuck in life are not external circumstances, but rather inward ones.  Take control over your emotions, fears, and short-comings, after all they are only yours to overcome, it’s not something someone else or some five step program can fix.

You are enough and you can conquer.  Do it.  No more excuses, no more reasons why you shouldn’t.

From here on out only why you should, why you shouldn’t wait one more day to chase with abandon what makes you come alive, and what your God given talent is.

Conquer your mind.  Conquer yourself, the rest will all into place.

Win Your Mind

 

 

I work out a lot. It’s hard.  I’ve been doing it for years, but there’s still the days where I have a conversation in my head about the possibility of skipping a day.

So many things that we want to overcome and accomplish have to be overcome in our minds first. If we can win the battle in our mind over something, chances are the victory in the physical sense will be much easier.

Regardless of what it is.  Our thoughts have a bad habit of keeping us stuck.

Take ownership over your thoughts and realize, that you can do whatever task you are setting out to do, you were created to do just that, and anyone else or any thoughts you have that might say otherwise have to be defeated.   Remind yourself you are enough.

Remind yourself you do have the stamina, the endurance, and the strength to conquer any task that rears its head to you.

Kick butt today.  Win your mind.

Don’t Let Fear Stop You

Fear is something that we often conjure up when faced with something that we don’t know all the details about. We have a dream, but we lose sight of it and get caught up in being content with our average life.  We are perfectly fine with the good we’ve discovered without going after the great.

But we lost out on so much greatness by holding onto fears that more than likely won’t ever even come to fruition.

You have to kick your fear to the curb, stop the voices in your head that say “what if this,” and “what if that.”

The only thing those voices are good for is absolutely nothing.

You have the potential to do great things, but not until you step out and go for it, not until you overcome your fear that keeps you from taking that first step.  You can master fear.  It starts with one decision.  Isn’t it time you made it?

Don’t Rely On Others

It’s a fragile balance, knowing the need for other people in your life, while not relying on them to make it through your day.  When we put all our stock in someone they will undoubtedly let us down.  It’s inevitable, we are human and we suck sometimes.

But we are also great sometimes, and relationships can push us to be better spouses, children, parents, siblings, friends, bosses, employees, and better people.

We should look for the good in our relationships the things that we both offer each other and can give one another, but we also should keep in mind the need for our strength in solitude.  It is key to know that on our own we can be strong, we can be enough.

But we can also take satisfaction that our relationships can also bring additional value and strength.

Both strength in solitude and strength from relationships is good, just be sure your strength in yourself is enough to support you, and you aren’t relying on someone else for that.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Today I am heading to Navy boot camp.  I will be off the grid so to speak for the next 8-9 weeks.  I have been working hard at writing my posts ahead of time and scheduling them, so I hope you enjoy my blogs over the next 8 weeks despite my absence.  Unfortunately I will not be able to reply to your wonderful comments, but I look forward to them when I get back.

I must say I am very excited at the  new possibilities ahead.  Despite my OCD tendencies to have everything planned, I am for the most part very excited about the unknown, and look forward to telling all of you the many life lessons and stories I will have when I get back.

Best of wishes, and please continue to check my blog every day.  Talk to you in 2 months.

Be Bold, Be Daring

The caption above says it all.   Waiting around until you feel like going after your dream, or doing that crazy thing you really want to do gets you nowhere.

There has to come a day when you make the jump, when you take off running and don’t look back, and don’t give up.

We are kings and queens of excuses and through deliberation we will come up with every one in the book to keep us from doing whatever crazy dream we have.  Our excuses today have even turned into things like “I’ll miss the new episode of such and such show”. I mean can our excuses get any lamer?  Really?  Since when did a TV show, social media or some other distraction take precedence over going after daring and bold adventures?

When did knowing what happens to a fictional character mean more than making our own life filled with adventures.

I am a huge advocate for reading.  My wife and I go through books and audiobooks like nobody’s business, but even in reading you have to be reading things that are challenging you, not just feeding your fantasies and helping you to live a fictional life.  Then you have to act on what you read.  Take the lessons and apply them to your life.

Distractions kill us, they keep us stuck.  Deal with them and move forward.

What Way?

Which way am I supposed to go? This is an age old question that seems to be even more prevalent today than ever before.

The fear of choosing the wrong path keeps us from choosing any path.

Usually people are faced with two different things.

1.  They have so many things they want to do they don’t know which to choose.

or

2. They don’t know what one thing they are super passionate about.

I fall in to the category of the second. Which is a big reason why I joined the Navy.  I can sit around and try to figure crap out in my head and make all these great plans and never get anywhere or I can try some things and make headway.

Because when we start moving in a direction it naturally narrows our focus and shows us what truly want.  It really doesn’t even matter what direction, try things, go after things, and see them through.  You will grow through the experience, meet people you never would have otherwise, and you will have a much better vision of what you want for your life.

So go for it and quit dragging your feet.  If those we consider “great” had just stuck with their thoughts and hadn’t done anything the world would be a much worse place. Which leads us to ask if we started doing and stopped talking about what we would like to do, or should do and actually did it, how much better off we would all be it.

Quit talking and start doing.

Going Nowhere

 

Picture a car that doesn’t run.  It’s sitting on a piece of property.  It’s rusty and looks like garbage. Now imagine some people come and see this car and they are like “we are gonna make this the best looking car ever.

So they set out to work.  They sand it down, replace the broken parts, they redo the upholstery inside, give it an amazing paint job, and set up some huge lights around it to attract attention.

They work really hard at it, and finally the car looks amazing inside and out.  Then they start telling people about their car, convincing people to come see it and sit in it.  Before long hundreds and even thousands of people visit the car.  They walk around it, they sit inside it, and they love it. So much so that they keep coming back once a week to sit inside it.

But there’s one problem.  In their zeal to make the car look great.  They never do anything to the engine, and as amazing as it looks, it gets people absolutely nowhere.  It looks great, smells great, and draws crowds.  But ends there.

This is what I think church has become.  Not interested in building something to send people off in, just trying to get them to come in.  Fill it up, draw attention, fill the pews so to speak.

Somewhere we’ve missed the mark entirely.  And no matter how fancy. hip, relevant, or stirring you make that building it has no driving force.

Maybe that’s why people are leaving the church at an unprecedented number….there’s nothing in it to help them move forward.  Just stagnation.

What Matters?

What really matters today?  If you asked people you would probably get a very varied response.

It’s a legitimate question.  Our moral compass often gets way off track, and it’s easy to start spiraling out of control wondering which way is up or down.

What if our way of looking at things is completely backwards?  What if the things we think are important such as our career, job, amount of money we make, car we drive, neighborhood we live in are all secondary to far more issues.

What if the way we talk to our friends, coworkers, spouse, or children has far more weight in the importance of life.

What if the things that truly matter deal with how we’ve made an impact on the people around us.

Sure someone may comment on that new car we are driving, but when they are really going through a hard spot in their life do they trust us to come and talk to us about it?

Every now and then it’s really important (I know it is for me) to really evaluate our motives, what we are doing, and where our emphasis is placed.

Show Up

Often in life half the battle is showing up. A few years ago I worked a job where I developed a really good rapport with the head manager. Each morning this manager, an assistant manager, a supervisor, myself would show up about 30 minutes early. Then without fail, almost every morning would show up about 5 – 10 minutes late.  There would be no excuse, no explanation, they would just show up late.

Now my manager was pretty easy going with most things, but he had stated from day one (it was a new branch that was launching) that he expected above all everyone to be on time each day.

But day after day, people would show up late.  This reflected very badly on them when it came to promotions and raises.

Which brings me to my point.  Often times just showing up when you are supposed to can go an incredibly long way.  It’s the simple yet often overlooked qualities that keep people from advancing.  If you want to get that raise or promotion, then show up a few minutes early, do your work faithfully, and complete your assignment on time.

It’s not rocket science, but it goes a long way.  Just show up….on time.