Today’s Brilliance from Roslyn Franken

Let go of your past challenges. Accept who you are today. Look forward to each new tomorrow with a renewed sense of hope, faith and enthusiasm. Your past challenges do not dictate your future. If you keep looking in the rearview mirror of life, you will miss out on all the wonderful possibilities that lie ahead. Decide where you want to go, who you want to be and follow the path to take you there.

If the path is unclear, just take the first step and know that the next step will present itself. It may not be what you planned or expected, but trust that it will be what is best.

Accepting who you are today means forgiving yourself for past mistakes and imperfections. It is only when you can accept the reality of your today that you can move forward to a better tomorrow. Renewing your hope, faith and enthusiasm daily is what makes life worth living.

Be careful not to constantly do things to please others at the expense of getting your own needs, wants and desires met. Your needs, wants and desires are no less and no more important than anyone else’s. This means knowing what is truly important to you and learning to say ‘no’ to others.

Know your values and know your boundaries. Learn to communicate them. People won’t know your boundaries and where you stand if you don’t make these clear.

It’s easy to get so caught up in our never-ending To-Do lists and problems to solve that we neglect the things that are most important to us such as our health, relationships and overall sense of well-being. Make your health, relationships and well-being top priorities in your life.

Being kind to others is noble and wonderful. So is being kind to yourself. Try it sometime and you’ll see. It feels a lot better than the constant judgment, criticism and self-abuse we do to ourselves. It’s time to leave that self-critic behind and make room for a kinder and gentler inner voice.

Life can change on a dime. If there’s something you want to do in your life, don’t keep putting it off. You may say ‘not now’ and perhaps you’re right, it’s not the ideal time. But the ideal time may never come. As Martin Luther said, ‘How soon not now becomes never’.

Whether you want to lose weight and get in shape, quit smoking, or climb Mount Everest, you can put off the things you want for only so long. Don’t let YOUR ‘not now’ become YOUR ‘never’.