First alarm

Readers,

How do you respond to your alarm clock going off first thing in the morning?

Do you get a sinking feeling that "oh no the day has to start!" or do you feel excited?

No-one feels the same way every day, but how do you feel most days when the alarm goes off?

How you feel when the alarm goes off should indicate to you the quality of your life.

If more often than not, you greet the idea of having to get up with disappointment, it means that sleeping is better than being awake!

If sleeping is better than being awake, then by extension being dead would be better than being alive because that's a lovely deep long sleep.

However, if your alarm clock going off excites you because it's a new day and a new opportunity to go after your goals and fulfil your dreams  - then congratulations, but this post isn't really for you.

For those of us who hate the alarm, we can only hate it for one of 2 reasons.

1) we haven't had enough sleep

2) we do not like what we have to do with our life now that the alarm has gone off

Let's deal with each one individually

1) lack of sleep

This could happen to anyone from time to time for a whole host of reasons. If it's only occasional, it generally doesn't pose too many problems.

However if it is persistent, it is important to resolve the issue because a bad nights sleep often results in an unproductive day and this is not a cycle you want to repeat persistently.

2) not liking our life

This is the crux of this post.
If you don't like your life to the extent that you don't like waking up in the morning, it is time to revolutionise your life.

It can start with some important questions:

1) what do I want to have achieved in my life by the time I die?

2) what can I do today to help me towards my end goal

3) what do I love to do?

4) how can I structure my life to ensure that I spend more time doing what I love?

Life is short. Days are even shorter. They come and go at tremendous speed. Morning alarms by extension also come at tremendous speed. If you hadn't thought about it before, I hope that this post has got you thinking carefully about how you currently feel about your morning alarm, how you would like to feel when the alarm goes off and most importantly about what actions you can start taking to ring the changes you want.

God bless

Fire

Readers,

How would you respond if there was a fire in your house?

By God's grace, I have never been in a house when a fire has broken out. However, recently a fire flared up in the kitchen of my parents house.

Fortunately no-one was harmed and no property was damaged (except the toaster!), but a valuable lesson was learnt by me.

For those interested, the cause of the fire was a croissant getting stuck in the toaster and overcooking to the point where a high flame began to soar from the toaster.

My parents house had a fire blanket which was used to good effect and the fire was safely extinguished before causing any further damage to the house or any of my family inside.

The thing is that when I heard this story, I thought about what would have happened if it was my kitchen.

I didn't own a fire blanket and had never been taught or even thought about how to respond to a fire.

Of course at previous jobs, I knew where the fire alarms, fire extinguishers, fire doors and assembly points were. However for my home, I had never thought about it.

After what happened though, I have purchased a fire blanket and a fire extinguisher and watched a few short YouTube videos guiding on how to use them.

Then I got to thinking..... How many of my friends and family have fire blankets and extinguishers in their homes? How many know how to operate them?

If only one reader of this post is motivated to go out and buy the necessary equipment and learn how to use it, my work is done.

I pray that no-one reading this ever finds them in a situation where they need to know how to put out a fire.
However I also pray that everyone reading is motivated enough to invest a small amount of time and money to learn just in case it does happen.

If the fire in my parents house and this post about it motivates even a handful of people to take fire safety more seriously, then that toaster was a very cheap sacrifice.

You could learn about fire safety and never need to utilise the knowledge or you could neglect to learn and I will leave the rest to your imagination.

God bless

Implementation

Readers

As I reach the ripe old age of 35, I find myself asking the important question...

"How can I make this year the best year of my life?"

There are going to be many things that are out of my control that could make the year to come good or bad.

However my response to what will happen will always be my choice.

In my 35 years, I have learnt many useful things and unfortunately some not so useful things.

However, the most important thing that I have learnt is the unique distinct critical importance of implementation over and above everything else.

To know and not to do is just as bad as not knowing.

For a long time, I believed that knowing was the most important thing. I have changed my mind.

Why?

I have come to believe that the majority of people don't do what they know they should do.

Have most people heard the old proverb "an apple a day keeps the doctor away"? The answer has to be a resounding yes. Yet do most people eat an apple a day? Do most people eat an apple a week?!

Do most people know that you are supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day to stay hydrated? I would think that it's fairly common knowledge.

Of those that know, how many glasses of water do you see these people drinking? Compare it to how many hot beverages and fizzy drinks we consume.

These are but two simple examples. The list is potentially endless.

The point is clear  - people unfortunately often fail to do what they know they should do!

So what is the point of this post?

My desire for my 36th year on planet Earth is to live a life of implementation.

I will act on what i already know and use this as my ladder to become the person I want to be when I finally depart from this world.

I would like to end this post by urging you all to think of 3 things that you know you should do, but don't.

Whether you start doing any or all of those 3 things doesn't matter. 

Some will and some won't. 

Many won't even bother taking a minute to think of 3 things. Is it that they don't know that they ought to reflect on their implementation behaviours?

I will let you be the judge.

God bless.