Appreciation Is The Key

It is with great joy that we start the New Year because we are blessed with so many opportunities.

Many of us take so many things for granted because we don’t take the time to appreciate what we have.  Many of us are always onto the next thing. 

When we take the time to appreciate we begin to realize the opportunities that we have and the opportunities that are ahead of us.

Appreciation gives you joy.

One could say that we at Leading Advisor are onto the next thing and in one way I can agree with you.

We are onto the next thing based on appreciation which adds value to what we have created and those who we serve and this adds value to what we are going to create.

It is only when you stop to appreciate that it becomes more real.

You become more aware of how well you are actually doing.

Failing to stop and appreciate what we have already created and going forward to the next thing sets the stage to come from a place of lack.

Failing to stop is a sign of an addiction to unmet needs.  Find out more in Curing The Unmet Needs Disease.

In the absence of appreciation, darkness prevails. 

Without appreciation, it is so easy to get pulled into the darkness of BNN ( Bad News Network ) and CNN ( Constant Negative News ). After a while, negative news is all you can think of.

In the darkness you think that the light of the next shiny new thing at the end of the tunnel will bring you fulfillment, but it will not. It is only a train of the next shiny new things.

The shiny new thing isn’t on the outside, it is on the inside. The doorway to the shiny new thing which is you, is on the inside.

Appreciation helps you to build deep roots for the deeper the roots, the higher the reach, the clearer the vision.

Sidebar – Instead of wasting energy, paper and time printing and mailing a courtesy hard copy of my monthly e-newsletter to our coaching clients, I’ve just decided to buy the first shiny new donkey for a family in South America. My clients are welcome to print off a hard copy of my e-newsletter from our e-broadcast.

When you appreciate you also get away from the ego mind trap of expectations. I am sure you have heard the whining of your ego bitching about how bad things are and that you may not have reached your ego mind’s goals of shiny new things for 2008. So what.  Appreciate what you have and from this place of joy go forward with new insight on how you can be of service in 2009.

Isn’t it time that you, your higher inner self took the time to appreciate what is versus being hypnotized by your ego mind that pretends to be you?

The ego mind is just a reflex organ that is addicted to the endless unmet needs based thoughts and actions of approval, control, recognition, safety and worthiness. Click here for Curing The Unmet Needs Disease.

Your ego mind’s sole purpose is to take.

Your higher inner self’s purpose is to serve.

Hard to believe this is a December 23^rd picture of lotus land where it snows one day a year and then it is gone. As of today, we have had sub-zero temperatures and snow on the ground for over 3 ½ weeks.

All of this snow shovelling triggered anger in me that I have not felt for a while.  I had convinced myself that my work was completed on December 19^th.

So I was reminded of the following Zen saying during over ten hours of snow removal since mid December.  “How do you get to Zen? Chop wood, carry water.  What do you do when you get to Zen? Chop wood and carry water!”

For me it was; “Shovel snow and go in with ten of my neighbours and buy a snow blower!”