Luck is perceived as a chance occurrence.  When it comes to reaching your potential in life, you can increase your level of luck by embracing the following 3 approaches:

#1 Being Positive –  This involves seeing the possibilities in every situation you encounter.

#2 Believing in Yourself – This is an undying commitment to evolve yourself towards your full potential.

#3 Being Generous – This involves giving your time and talents without any expectations for returns.

Giving for the sake of giving brings its own rewards.  Generosity offers meaning, value, and purpose in life.  When you make others lucky through your generous actions, you also become a benefactor.  It is the most natural cycle of cause and effect humans experience in life.  Give generously and believe in yourself with all the optimism you can muster.  Inevitably, more luck will come your way as you enter the “community of goodness”, where good begets more good . . . good luck, that is!

Rituals are an important part of wellness.  They are the routine acts you perform regularly throughout your day or week.  When chosen well, rituals form great habits that benefit both mind and body while offering long-term benefits.

For instance, if you developed a ritual of exercising every morning before you start your day, you will likely feel more energized to carry out your days’ activities and have greater clarity.  Not only will you be more effective in solving problems, you will also be more productive and feel more satisfied with your accomplishments.   Whether you develop a ritual for sleeping well at night, achieving mental clarity, or eating more healthy foods, embrace great rituals for optimal living every day!

What do you love doing?  What activity have you found yourself totally absorbed with, in a happy and contented way?  Whatever it is, make more time to do it and more space in your life to grow your passion.  This is the key to developing untold joys!

For instance, if you love gardening, make time to study the finer details and practice the art. Visit garden centres, read books and get inspiration from beautiful photographs.  The art of gardening comes at many levels.  From proper soil preparation to plant choices and layout.  You might choose to design a vegetable garden, flower garden,  rock garden, or drought tolerant garden with permaculture plants.  You might want to attract butterflies or add a pond for fish, decorate with whimsical gnomes, playful fairies, or cozy rock homes.  Whatever you do, you will find that every step takes you deeper into your passion.  The options are endless and only limited to your imagination.  Happy trails as you cultivate your deepest passions on the road to more joyful living!

The word flow infers movement.  In the natural world, flow brings images of waterways while the realm of human experiences brings two distinctly different definitions.  The ‘flow of life’ pertains to life events as they happen, contrasting ‘in the flow’, which refers to one’s experience when skill level is matched by a challenge of equal or greater difficulty.

Being in the flow means you are immersed in the activity with total concentration.  During this time, you may lose concept of yourself and the passing of time.  Action takes over and hours seem to pass by like minutes.  The task feels effortless even though the challenge may be difficult.  You are inspired to succeed and adjust moment by moment as the project unfolds.

For example, if you were creating a personalized gift for a friend, you might start out with one idea and as the project unfolded, more ideas surfaced building one on top of another until you have an amazing product that is far beyond your original idea.  As if by magic, serendipity appeared providing all the necessary pieces, words, and resources you required to complete your special gift!  Potentiality awaits you when you are in the flow.  Embrace an open mind of wonder and curiosity as you witness the unfolding of your own greatness!

Today marks the 100th mental fitness tip in the Mind Master blog!  Knowing this brings a tingling sensation from within.  We have a come a long way since the first post 14 months ago.  We have covered a lot of territory and there is so much more to come.  Mental fitness is like a vast ocean with swells of growing awareness, tides of emotions and pockets of calm reflected in crystal clear waters.

Sensory stimuli are everywhere!  When bodily sensations arise,  we are alerted to something that requires our attention.  Whether it be anxiety, joy, fear, or passion, we can either respond mindfully or simply react without further thought.  If our reaction is a habitual one that does not serve us well, we hinder our capacity to grow in life.  In order to maximize potential, it becomes necessary to practice mindfulness.  Mindfulness effectively intervenes by creating space between the sensory stimuli and your response.

Mindfulness is the key to enduring wellness.  Bring full awareness to your experience in the moment.  Take time to simply breathe and reflect on your core values while keeping the bigger picture in mind.  Respond wisely with the ultimate goal of win-win.  At the end of the day, celebrate your wise decision knowing that you did the very best you could in that moment!         

Humility is our greatest teacher.  Humility is the state of being humble, modest and respectful.  Humility shines the light on our imperfections as well as our need for others and things outside of our being.  For example, we need farmers to grow our food and doctors to assist with our ailments.  They are all resources we rely on to sustain ourself through.  Humility reveals the true nature of all living things.

How can we cultivate humility?  We can do this by spending more time in nature.  Lessons on humility are abundant in our natural surroundings.  Trees, wildflowers and spores live harmoniously alongside one another, sharing nutrients from the earth and sky and in turn, providing nourishment and protection to other living species.  A delicate ecosystem is visible everywhere you look.  Witness the interdependent nature of all living things on our planet.

Just as plants need sunshine and water to fully blossom, we too require light and water (and other elements!) to grow our true potential.  Choose one day this week to indulge yourself in mother nature’s embrace and reap the lessons she has to offer.  Maintain awe while observing the amazing ecosystems in your surroundings and on your return trek home, express gratitude for all the people and things in your life that support living well!

Preferences are good!  Knowing what you like and what serves you well in life is very important.  Preferences allow us to make good choices to maintain optimal wellness.  For example, I prefer to dine outdoors in a serene environment.  These are my personal preferences which I believe enhance the quality of my life.

Personal preferences do not make one person better over another.  They only reveal the unique nature of the individual.  Problems arise when labels are attached to preferences.  In reality, preferences are neither good or bad and are simply reflections of personal choices.  Refrain from labeling preferences as they only bring judgement.

We all have judgements.  Resist judging yourself or others.  Judgement comes from our past and is something that we can consciously suspend by choice today.  Commit to practicing compassion instead.  See yourself and others as evolving pieces of art.  No one is perfect or free of blunders.  The best anyone can do is their best and learn from their mistakes.  Release judgement, embrace compassion and you will free yourself to be all that you were meant to be! 

Stretch yourself beyond your field of vision. Know which direction you want to head without needing to know the exact route. See yourself somewhere in the distance without ‘seeing’ exactly where you will be. Relax into the journey and embrace an attitude of open wonder as you adventure into a new frontier.

Growth involves changes.  Open yourself to being redefined beyond your current place in life; beyond your current views, current knowledge and level of understanding.  Like a rebirth, allow yourself to be reinvented and born over and over again.  This is where the essence of vitality and living fully resides.  Open yourself to a wondrous life.  Open yourself to potential!

Recognize your capacity to change.  This is key to developing your potential.  Recall times in your life when you faced challenges and grew through them to reach new heights.  There is no limit to what you can achieve once you set your mind to it.  Evolve your own greatness by mindfully choosing actions that advance you in life.

For example, if you want to develop greater self-control and assertiveness in times of conflict, you could take advantage of peaceful times and think of different ways of responding.  Rehearse a compassionate response that neutralizes the situation and helps to dissolve the tension.  Refrain from allowing yourself to become vulnerable and reacting defensively.  You might choose to say “I see you are upset.  I feel concerned about the situation and would like to resolve this problem together.  Would you be open to brainstorming a solution in the morning?”  Think forward, choose mindfully and one step at a time, you will gradually come to realize your true potential!

Developing your potential has a lot to do with play.  Are you aware of the children’s toy called Silly Putty?  It is a small piece of flesh-coloured dough that comes in a plastic egg.  The putty was dubbed ‘silly’ because you can do fun things with it.  One of my favorites, as a child, was pressing it into newspaper images of cartoon characters and stretching it to outrageous proportions.  The putty also bounced well and it delighted me to watch it ricochet back and forth against hallway walls.   You can see the silliness that the putty evokes.  What does this teach us about potential?  Everything!

Like the putty, we too are pliable.  We can stretch and reinvent ourselves over and over again, throughout our lifetime.  We are only as limited as our mind allows.  Deepak Chopra, author of SuperBrain, states that we have a relationship with our brain and we can either nurture it or ignore it.  Nurturing our brain means making sure that we have the right amount of stress, the right amount of stimulation, plus ample opportunities for creating and having fun.  Joy is the path to potential.  See yourself as flexible and not rigid or fixed!  Find what you love and your potential will naturally rise!