Honor yourself by honouring your word. The other day a friend of mine had set forth on a new adventure to create what he believed was going to be a good thing. By saying this, and putting considerable energy into his new project, I made the assumption that he was committed to this course of action. I believed him when he said, he was going to begin this new project and finish it. He worked hard on his new project and I thought that soon he was going to have it completed, thus creating what he said he wanted and also gaining the respect from his piers that he was seeking.

He’d told me that his friends didn’t believe him anymore, when he said that he was going to do something and that he felt he had lost  their respect.  After a few weeks he declared that he had lost interest in his new project and was not going to continue anymore and was starting on a new one. The down side that I saw with this thinking was that I had also spent time and energy helping him get his project off the ground, Yes I learnt a lot from the experience and it certainly was not a waste of my time, however when he told me that he was not going to pursue this idea any more, I too began to lose some faith in him.

I let him know this, but now I’m not quite as willing to invest my time in helping him or invest my time in another one of his projects because he might jam out on the next one too. Each time he does not follow through with his commitment, my faith in his ability to do what he says he is going to do is undermined. Eventually I will probable land up like his other friends, where I don’t believe that he will do what he says and am not prepared to put too much time or energy in to helping him create what he wants, even though I really like him.

The other side of the equation is that every time he breaks a commitment to himself he goes through a similar process, where he starts not to believe in himself, at this point it’s also becomes hard for him to respect himself, because he does not believe  he will do what he says he will do. The feeling that he let his friends down also works against him to. Each time he does this, he erodes his own foundation a little bit, and without a good solid foundation, anything that is built has a high chance of falling down with even the smallest tremor.

There are a few things that are interesting in this: the first is, if you like the law of attraction, what you give off, is what you get back. The more that you break your commitments, the less you achieve and the less others are willing to help you so you attract that which you don’t really want and the opportunities seem to become less. The upside is that every time you complete something doors tend to open up and other people want to come on board to help you out because they want a piece of the action or just want to be part of the feeling that you are creating and they know you tend to create success when you do things.

Lastly, sometimes it just is not possible for a number of reasons, why you cannot complete your commitment and there will be a price you pay for that, but to minimize this price:

1. Think about what you are making a commitment to and whether you’re willing to put the time and effort into making it work, even if you think or others think you’re crazy.
2. Have a plan, so you know what to do and when you are going to do this.
3. Don’t give up to quickly, most people give up when 90% of the work is done and a little more effort would get them there.
4. Commit to things you like to do, it will be much easier and if you like doing it, you’ll probably do it anyway and with less resistance.
5. If you do decide to give up, be kind to yourself and others. Be really clear why you are giving up and explain to the other people involved why you cannot complete what you said you were going to do, they may be able to help and if your reasons are good and not just excuses they may be a little more forgiving and more willing to help you on a future occasion.
6. Finally; if you decide to quite, if you have tried your best and still can’t pull it off, you can leave with the feeling of knowing that you did your best which is something to build on and much as we would all like to succeed all the time it’s doesn’t always work out that way, So be kind to yourself.

Whose business is it anyway? Sometimes I find my mind is full of thoughts that I get lost in. Some of them are really positive and others not quite that good. I’d like to say that I am always able to let go of the not so positive thoughts, but this is not always easy.

One of the best methods I have found for letting go of these thoughts is to divide them up and give them back to their rightful owners. There are three kinds of business:

1. Gods Business.
2. Their Business.
3. My Business.

The first kind of business is Gods Business or some higher power. I really like this kind of business because I can do nothing about it, even though sometimes I get stuck there for a while thinking I can, like earthquakes, when someone dies, the state of the world today. Yes I’d love to fix these problems in the world, but people have been trying for thousands of years and we still seem to have just as many problems as before. It could just be that this is the way it is supposed to be, so that we will learn what we need to learn which is, we don’t have any control over it anyway even though we would like to think we do.

The second kind of business is Their Business and this is anything that someone else does or thinks. Give it up, it’s not your business, Yes – it would be nice if other people thought nice things about you and that they took your advice to fix their lives but as you have probably noticed most people don’t do this until they’re ready to, and sometimes that day never comes. This happens in relationships where people spend years trying to change the other person and nothing happens, it may appear to happen for a short time by enforcement but soon they return to their old path. Until one day one realizes that this is who they are and not the fantasy of who one thought they should be. At this point we can make it Our Business.

This kind of business is my own business and I can make a change here. I have complete control over what I  think. I am at the most powerful place in the world here. I have a choice in this moment as to what I wish to focus on. Yes, the earthquake may happen, someone may not like me or even be the way I think they should be and I don’t need to take it on, it’s their business. I can get stuck in other people’s business or I can let go of it because it’s not mine and by doing this I create a lot less suffering in my world and those around me.

Being in my business allows me to make a choice. For instance if I was downhill skiing and there was an avalanche, I could choose to try and outrun it or find a tree to climb. Not that I recommend it, but you could choose to stand there and see what happened and I’m sure there are a lot of other options too. The avalanche happened but what I do with it is up to me. It’s my business.