change

Life Detox

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

This is the first chapter of Life Detox. How we can cleanse, mind, body, and soul. Sometimes it’s just time to rip off the bandaid and be done with it! Choose to begin anew!

Chapter 1 

Why 

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”—Michael Jordan

Perfection is not the goal; persistence is our focus. 

You’ve all heard you need to find your way. True but, in this scenario, the why needs to be you’re sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired! Enough is enough. Well, I can tell you that over a year ago, that is where I found myself. 

(Get a pad of paper to do some writing) To make any lasting change, grab the paper! 

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself:

 

  • Is your life where you hoped it would be right now?

 

  • Are you depressed most of the time?
  • Are you merely going through the paces of daily life with no real direction, work, go home, that’s about all?
  • Are you unhappy? Why?
  • If money, time, education, depression were not the problem. What would fulfill your life?

 

 

Please take the time to put some real thought into the questions. If you follow along this way, we can save you a great deal of time. 

You must get very clear on what you would like to see your life become. One of the biggest epiphanies I’ve experienced don’t worry about the HOW, set your sail to the horizon of where you want your life. 

Imagine getting on a boat for a long journey. You set sail, and off you go. Along the way, you most assuredly will face rough seas. When you begin the rough journey seas, severe weather is not part of the equation when you decided to set sail. 

The end destination is more important than how we get there! If you had a chance to visit some beautiful faraway island, once in a lifetime opportunity. Would you not go because you MIGHT run into bad weather? Did you not go because you thought the how was more difficult — focusing on the “what if’s” instead of the outcome? 

Logic would suggest you have a plan that includes how. So how do you plot this course change in life without knowing how you’re going to traverse the course to a destination. When you set out on any journey let’s say a storm comes up, do you sail directly through it? No, you may have to recalibrate a new route. 

My point is you don’t know all the “how’s” that will change your course unexpectedly. However, if you worry yourself before you set sail, you’ll stifle any chance of real change! 

I can hear you! “How do you not worry about how?” These are bullet points that will explain: 

 

  • Have a clear definition of the result. Know what you want clearly! 

 

  • Learn to meditate on the result you desire, see it in your mind’s eye. Feel in every part of your being what it would feel like to have achieved that which you want most. 
  • Have unwavering faith it will happen. A prayer might sound like “God you know what I desire in my heart, I have faith you will provide everything I need for that, what you put in my heart to achieve. I don’t know how we will do this; I trust you have the way.
  • Pray for wisdom and guidance.
  • Set realistic expectations. Reach to be sure.

 

 

How to turn from wishful thinking to ACTION:

 

  • What is one step you can take right now to begin your journey? Forget the words significant steps, little steps. Every step forward creates forward momentum. 

 

  • Learn the difference between activity vs. productivity. 
  • Learn to plan your day for production — set reminders for tasks that produce results. Stay on task!
  • Take time to research and put into action what you learn to achieve your desire. Fill yourself as though you’re filling a pitcher with knowledge.
  • When self-doubt and the like hit your noodle, remember this, whatever negative thoughts you’re having it’s temporary. Work through it even when you think you cannot.

 

 

The how will come to you. Take steps every day, and you will begin to gain momentum. 

“When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it does no good! It serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.”–Joyce Meyer

A struggle for everyone.  When everything in your life is overwhelmingly worrisome. So how do we get through that?

When you begin to realize that no matter what you’re going through in life, it’s temporary. If you get flustered stifling any sort of progress the situation stalls or gets worse.

Begin to look at trials and tribulations as a coaching exercise. Learn to realize God is coaching you to become a world-class you! What do coaches do? They train you to go beyond what you believe you can do. Stretch yourself beyond your limiting beliefs.

Life is changing for me. I don’t look at difficulties as a problem, but a learning experience is preparing me to handle anything life can throw at me. Yes, at times, you can feel alone, lost, and defeated. At this moment I think of myself as running dead last in a race. I can choose to fail, or I can run my heart out and win.

God is merely working all of us out. He is training us to handle anything the enemy can throw to disrupt our life. Why can’t God fix my life? He is trying by letting you work through the pain to strengthen your resolve.

It hurts I can’t do it! God never puts more on our plate than we can handle. Hard to understand, but here is the skinny. Get through this because on the other side of pain is your destiny. Bigger and brighter than you can imagine.

Change the way you look at problems. They’re not happening at you they’re happing for you!

Here are some exercises you can do to change your state-of-mind: Crank up some music that gets you dancing. Music can immediately improve your state and put a smile on your face. 

 

  • Breathe. Take 60 seconds or so and breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, beautiful and relaxing. 

 

  • Pray — nothing like a good prayer. You can hand God the garbage he is ready to be a blessing to you and carry it out. 
  • Meditate. Find the right place to meditate and relax your mind and body.

 

 

Take a walk. Get outdoors and walk to help relieve muscle stress. Throw on some headphones and good music. Change your state-of-mind, and you will change your life. 

Time outdoors can be incredibly cathartic to the soul. Taking in nature, walking by a river, standing on the beach, anywhere that God has touched the landscape. You can look up and happily say to God, “show off.” Smiling in awe of the world around you. 

When you can take these moments to find clarity in your head, good thoughts, new ideas, and fresh perspectives will become the norm. 

One thing that I did put up a bird-feeder. Birds are incredibly funny and beautiful to watch. I have found myself sitting for long periods just enjoying my birds and clearing my head when I’m not trying — just enjoying the moment.

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Choice, Decide Already!

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

Choice

If I asked you to make a choice right now to be happy, but you’re suffering through a terrible divorce. Could you be satisfied just by making that choice? The short answer is yes! Before you hit the refund, button hears me out.

What stops you from choosing to be happy in a moment is you. I should say years of conditioning yourself that you can’t just simply change. Why can’t you? Should be the real question.

Let’s take our divorce scenario to a little higher level. If divorce is imminent even though you don’t want a divorce.

Two options:

Option A:

  • Stay bitter, sad, emotionally done, not having any thought as to a new future.

Option B:

  • “Choose” to be happy. Yes, the person whom your life revolved around is gone. The Universe, in its infinite wisdom, is taking you down a new path. Presuppose for a moment that this new life if given a chance, has more love, joy, happiness, and fulfillment than you ever thought possible.

If you choose to be happy, “Option B” certainly has more promise. The simple act of choosing one from another is incredibly powerful.

Over a year ago someone that I am proud to call a friend explained away my own pain from divorce like this: “If you could have your wife back today and go right back to the way things were, OR, you could have the relationship you never thought possible. Which would you choose?”

That’s when I knew that I had to make a choice for myself. If something in your life is meant to be, then it shall.

The real rub is that for years-and-years, we conditioned our minds towards limiting beliefs. We end up saying:

  • If I just change, she will come back.
  • If I learn to keep my mouth shut.
  • If I lose twenty pounds.

The problem is NOT you, it’s the paradigm that is so entrenched in your head you can’t shake it off. Using the divorce analogy just scrapes the surface of this problem. This book is not a “how to get over divorce” book. NO, far from it.

How to change limiting beliefs, the unknowing lies we tell ourselves every day. What our journey well reveals to us, we can make a choice and move on, NOW!

Prayer, self improvement, society

Choice do you really want me to pick?

Yes, friends easier said than done. However, very doable. With some guided practice, you can learn to decide, stick with it, no regrets, and blaze a trail for others to follow. Pardon the cliché!

How do you we make these changes you ask? Training our minds to a new healthy reality. Who says you can’t do something; you need only look in the mirror? That’s who!

Part 1:

How many years have you heard phrases like?

  • You/I don’t have that kind of luck.
  • No education, you can’t do that.
  • You’re too fat.
  • You’re too skinny.
  • You’re not part of that social group.
  • Oh, honey, why don’t you lower your sights to something more realistic.

From as many years ago as you’re able to remember we’ve all heard the limiting phrases getting stuffed into our mind.

What is being communicated to you is, “If I can’t do you surely cannot.” By well-meaning parents, family, friends, and other well-wishers. So, if these lovely people are telling me this, it must be true. NO, not only NO; HELL NO!

The only person on this planet that knows whether YOU can do anything is YOU! It does not matter what your Mom, Dad, Grandmother, Friend, Boss, has to say about what you can do. The ONLY person that knows is your period!

People close to you will naturally want you to play it safe. None of us want to see a friend hurt. Who the heck says you must hurt? I’m not shouting at the top of my lungs “oh God, don’t write the first Novel you failed English literature.”

Again, I go back to the systematic brainwashing society shoves down our brain. How many folks have completed Marathons in wheelchairs or with lost limbs? Hundreds if not thousands. Why Choice! The choice NOT to allow something horrific to bring them down.

Mediocrity is a disease of the mind. It’s a cure; “Choice!”

Part 2:

How to break free, so Choice comes at will.

  1. Meditation / Prayer: see yourself through this practice as free of limitation. That my life, my choice to see it through as a vessel of the Universe. Not some, “I don’t have this or that mentality.”
  2. Put the affirmation “Choice” Refrigerator, bathroom mirror, reminders on your phone daily.
  3. Learn to believe in yourself. Take the training wheels off your life. When you feel you can’t do something learn to ask yourself; who said! With enough training and knowledge, you can bloody well do anything you want!
  4. Practice, Practice, Practice! Do not give up or in at the first sign of difficulty. This is something you must want as much as air. We’ve all heard the businessman who asked a guru “how do I become successful,” the Guru replied, “meet me at the beach at 6:00 AM and don’t be late.” The next morning the businessman is on time, and the Guru takes him out into the water up to there chest. The Guru grabs the man and holds his head down in the water until the man was in great distress. Lifting the man out of the water, the businessman screams, “Why did you do that?” The Guru calmly replies, “When you want success as-bad-as, you wanted to breathe, then you will find success!”
  5. Gain knowledge. The reason people quit is insufficient knowledge. If people aren’t saying to you, “Wow, I have no idea you could do that.” If the wow factor is not WOW, then gain more knowledge. Become a voracious reader.

Nothing on God’s good earth prevents you from achieving anything. If you set your mind to something, trust that God will give you the knowledge, and move the Universe into alignment for you. Believe that as much as you want to breathe (like our Guru analogy).

All it takes is a choice. Your choice to stay status quo or your choice to live a life most would only dream about.

“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.”–Bradley Whitford

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Train Until You are Stress Proof

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

When ill-prepared to do anything, this creates undue stress that does not matter the task. It’s natural to have tension when you feel nervous about a task at hand. Having knowledge gives you power. Hence, train until your stress-proof.

So many just give up long before they should. A top reason is folks get uncomfortable because they don’t want to appear for lack of a better word stupid. None of us want to look silly in front of our peers.

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Most of us have experienced this in our lifetime. When beginning a new change, task, or any change for that matter. Put training, educations towards that task before perhaps announcing “hey, I’m doing such-n-such!”

Here are a few tips on training:

  1. Set time each day for training one of the three; Mind, Body, and Soul.
  2. Train until what you desire comes to you flowing like a river. 
  3. Become a voracious reader. Knowledge is true power! 

These easy tasks will help you strengthen your stress tolerance.

Don’t only give up. Evaluate your plan:

  1. Do I have sufficient knowledge?
  2. Am I truly prepared? 
  3. What is scaring me?

When you can identify what’s wrong, fixing that becomes easy. Don’t sell yourself short! Sometimes, the slightest of change in your trajectory will move you right back on task. Making a big deal that potentially is nothing is a snap judgment. Get that type of reaction out of your head.

The way to change, happiness, success, love, joy, you must be prepared. You must understand your desire completely. Then and only then, when you’re absolutely clear, the flood gates of life open!

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Tying it All Together, Sneak Peek

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

This is a little sneak peek from the new book I am working on Tying it All Together. So many books out there that fix this or that. As part of the Life Research Project, we begin to pull all of my books into one. 

What was always lacking for me in self-improvement was solving a little piece of the puzzle when I needed a complete life change, total immersion. 

Enjoy this from a current book project Tying it All Together.

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“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”—Thomas A. Edison

First, we get out of our language anything to do with lack. The “I can’t” or “I don’t have” is not part of the English language of your new life.

Second, nay Sayers are just that. People who can’t do a thing themselves and naturally you can’t either if you listen to that bilge. What you’re now looking for are Mentors, people who uplift you.

Throughout history, people have done things that others said could not be done. Or invented things that folks need. All the while, naysayers are “It can’t be done.” Horse hockey!

Limiting beliefs are placed in our sub-conscious over years of saying I can’t. This is also not limited to just that phrase. Years and years of self-defeating language has us convinced we cannot.

Dogpile on top of that, family, friends, managers, whomever, telling you that you don’t have what it takes, you don’t have the education, people who do that are gifted. What? You can teach yourself anything.

Okay, I give. You can’t teach yourself to be a brain surgeon. My point with this statement is I doubt you’re looking to become a brain surgeon, don’t overthink what your ability can or cannot achieve. Start, try, give it a shot, jump, swim, just begin is the point!

So, in this chapter, we’re going to start replacing limiting language and thoughts. How you say, well I have an answer for that. Without this step in the process, later in the book, you will have more difficulty if you don’t make the changes now.

What do we have to change:

  1. Replace limiting thoughts with thoughts of okay how do I achieve this (the what is irrelevant at this point).
  2. Be aware of the language, the words that we use. I can’t, is NO longer a word in your mind’s dictionary. Don’t worry; I am going to share how to get rid of this stuff.
  3. Self-defeating actions. Self-sabotage, and worst of all, procrastination.

There is a lot more to the life changes than just the three I listed. You get a general idea.  As we move through chapters, we will cover a great deal more ground.

For many years we teach ourselves unknowingly that we can’t achieve certain things. Limiting beliefs are ingrained in our subconscious mind over the years. Taking time now to change this old habit and create new ones will take work and time.

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Investment in Your Own Success vs. Sacrifice

/ Robert Bruton / Leave a comment

The buzzwords “what sacrifice are you willing to pay?” Is your life of happiness, joy, abundance really a sacrifice? 

Throw the word sacrifice out the window and replace it with; Investment in my own success!

After thinking about this a lot. What I have come to learn is I am not making any sacrifice in my life. To some degree in my life, I have since you hear over-and-over again. Sacrifice, what you are prepared to do? What I am sure of is I am ready to make an investment in my own success.

joy, happiness, success

Some of you will be saying the sacrifice I have to make is time. I am going to have to work night & day to complete my dreams. Work weekends, never having a life. Horse Manure!

Making an investment in your own success also includes time. For those of you that say I don’t have time, I suppose you don’t understand how to manage time properly. Don’t scream! Here me out.

Activity vs. Productivity
You can be busy as hell all day long. What did you accomplish? Learn to fill your day with productivity. Organize is the key! 

When you can learn the difference between these to words, time will begin to heal itself. Here are some examples that will help you get started:

  1. Plan your day down to the hour. Have set activities from hour-to-hour that net a result. Tasks.
  2. Learn to limit social media to downtimes NOT during activity hours. Seeing what your sister is making her kids for dinner can wait. Social media is the biggest killer of productive time.
  3. During productive hours shut off the world for a bit to focus. Setting boundaries for idle chitchat is okay. Let friends and family know you will be off the air from this time to that. Emergencies are obviously the exception to the rule. “Mom, can I have $20 to go to the mall can wait for an hour.”

Fill your day with productive time, not wasted time. The three items above give you the idea.

If you feel like you have to give up something to be successful, you need to rethink your plan. For many, it’s time with family. Dedicate times for date nights, time with children, school functions, and kids firsts. Organize your time. Calendar in your day!

calendar, organize, details

Typically, when you organize your day. Take out distractions best you can. Finding twenty hours a week in wasted time is an average.

When you work this out, you can have time for family, social, and activities outside your career. Making an investment in your life includes family. Make times to be present for spouse and children.

You will be more productive when you organize your life out to include growth. Which leads me to something many are doing, and I just began.

Begin your day at 4:00 A.M. 

Before you scream, hear me out! 

Most folks get up between 6 am, and 7 am to get ready for work. So let’s assume for a minute you get up and six. You have the same 24 hours that we all get. Break this down:

24 hrs. – 8 hr work day = 16 hr left – 2 hr commute = 14 hr left – 6 hr to sleep = 8 hr. 

You have Eight odd hours to fit in time for family, and investments in your own success. This can fluctuate a bit from day-to-day, but overall, this is how hours in a day can break down.

You cannot become successful without organizing each day. Activity is just that activity which produces nothing typically. Productivity produces purpose and results.

When faced with the dilemma that you’re sacrificing things in life, that’s really no life at all. I am not suggesting that sometime you may have to make a tough choice. What I am saying for sure that that will always be the exception NOT the rule.

Organize down so the contingency has a contingency. Have the discipline to follow your daily tasks to the letter. Try to never leave a task for tomorrow. If you have to make sure to knock it out first thing, before starting your routine when possible.

Change does take time and you will have setbacks. Just keep grinding forward. Even when you see NO way, believe me, a way will be made if you stay in faith.

What investment in your own success will you make today?

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