12 Rules To Living Your Best Life

Choose To Live Your Best Life

LIFE IS HARD.

You know that. I know that. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, and a lot of MUD in between.

In the midst of "Perfect" lives displayed on social media posts, everybody has challenges and difficulties that disrupt their lives and the best-laid plans they carefully put in place.

Every life story is different, but none are written without some crinkled pages and some smeared ink. Face it. There will be valleys. And sometimes it seems like we'll never see the top of a mountain again. And even worse, there are times when you are sure that your valleys far exceed the number of dips that everyone else in the world must endure.

"You make a life out of what you have, not what you are missing." 

-Kate Morton

So, it looks like we all share the roller coaster of life. Hands in the air celebrating the top of the track and holding on for all it's worth as you encounter the speedy descent with its twists and turns. There's no true top to enjoy without experiencing the bottom. There's no pleasure without pain to compare it to.

Why then, do some people weather the storms better than others? Why do two people endure similar heartbreaks, but each reaches the outcome with a different viewpoint? Why does one person knocked down stay down, and another take a punch and rise to fight again?

It comes down to the foundation. Is your life ruled by solid principles that anchor you in the storm and allow you to keep the shore in sight? Or is your life a bag of loose hopes left in a rowboat without oars that is driven out to sea or tossed upon the rocks every time even the slightest wind arises?

Here are some principles that will help you strengthen your resolve and allow you to withstand life's ever-changing weather patterns.

12 Rules To Living Your Best Life

1.   Have Faith

• It has been said that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything
• Believing in something greater allows you acknowledge the cold hard truth that you don't know all the answers and don't have to.
• Belief allows you to go on when your strength is gone.

2.   Make Peace With Your Past

• You can't start the next chapter in your life if you keep re-reading the last one

"My future starts when I wake up in the morning" 

-Miles Davis

3.   Be Willing To Fail

• There is no victory without the chance of defeat
• Failing is not a character flaw. Not being willing to try is.

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. 

-Thomas A. Edison

4.   Know That Everything Has Its Season

• All storms pass. That's what makes us celebrate sunshine and rainbows.
• Every difficult storm we go through teaches us something. Pay attention to the lesson, not the lightning.
• Never let a pothole on the road be the end of your travels.

"Just like there's always time for pain, there's always time for healing" 

-Jennifer Brown

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:" 

-Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV

5.   Be Your Best Self

• There is only one you. There will never ever be another you. Make it count.
• Be a student of life
• Read

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them" 

                                                                                        -Mark Twain

6.   Love Without Reward

• Be vulnerable. A heart protected is safe, but that's not what a heart was made for.
• If you put true love on one side of the scale, what can you possibly weigh it against?

"Money can't buy you love" 

-The Beatles

"Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own" 

-Robert A. Heinlein

"And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE." 

- Bible, I Corinthians 13:13

7.   Hop On The Train

• The truth is you can't get where the train of life can take you if you don't get onboard.
• Stop talking and Start doing
• There is no finish line without getting out of the starting blocks

"If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done." 

-Bruce Lee

8.   Give More Than You Get

• Giving makes you happy by releasing chemicals in your brain producing a "giver's high"
• Giving promotes joy in both you and the recipient
• Giving inspires more giving and the world could use less taking.

"Give, and it shall be given unto you;" 

- Bible, Luke 6:38 KJV

9.   Find Your Purpose

• Having a purpose gets you running when others are standing
• Having a purpose energizes you when exhaustion threatens to derail you

"It is not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something." 

-Winston S. Churchill

10. Don't Compete With Others

• Being the best YOU should always be your top priority
• True happiness comes from being content with what you have not what you want
• Set lofty standards for yourself and compete to achieve those

11. Don't Quit

• Many victories are won just by outlasting the circumstances
• You leave no legacy from the things you might have done
• Nobody ever remembers the ones who quit

12. When In Doubt, Smile

• Smiling can lessen tension, stress, and anxiety
• Smiling makes you more approachable
• Smiling boosts your energy and attitude
• Smiling is contagious

There is only one you and only one life for you to live.

Live your best Life.

START TODAY!