It's never how you start, but how you finish that counts.

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You've heard it said that slow and steady wins the race.  If there is one thing that I have learned over the last few years is that life indeed is no sprint, but a marathon.  How you make it through the miles and miles of stuff is ultimately up to you, but slow and steady is not a bad bit of advice to heed.

I have seen people in the past try to take all kinds of shortcuts when it comes to learning life's lessons, only to have to repeat most of them because they failed to learn the lesson that was meant for them.  I am just as guilty as anyone having done this, but I have also found out, maybe through trial and error, that it is best to ride things out, learn from them, verses having to go through the whole thing again.

I know of no one who hasn't had to deal with their fair share of lessons in life.  The key to any lesson is to take from it all that benefits you. In addition, see the good no matter what has happened or may be happening right now.  There are hundreds of sayings about perseverance.  We all know them, but they are the last thing we want to hear when we're in the midst of a struggle or fight.  If I had fallen off the horse who knows if I would have gotten back up or not.  In my estimation there is no such thing as winners or losers.  I see those who are willing to work at something and those who are not.  I also see those who stop at the first sign of conflict or adversity.  The question is, which category do you fall in?  When faced with a challenge is your first instinct to fight and move forward, or retreat back never to attempt this thing again?

We have all given up on something in the past.  We have all come up short from time to time.  There is no shame in that. What is shameful is when you simply quit.  What is shameful is when you let others tell you there is no hope, not a prayer in the world, no shot at such and such happening, and you believing them.  My father taught me that if it's worth having it's worth working for, and if it's worth doing, it certainly is worth doing right.  Well life is no different, no matter what you may be facing, so matter what you have gone through, and no matter what others may have said to you.  It is not the right time to sprint through life, only catching a tenth of what you need, what you desire, and most importantly what is meant for you.  Moving ahead a warp speed might be great in the movies but it certainly isn't meant to be the constant in any one's life.  Slow and steady my friend, slow and steady.

It would be great if our adventure was tame and there was nothing that popped up that surprised us, dashed our hopes, or otherwise turned things inside out.  The fact is, very few people ever have this type of life, and for most everyone there will be times when we are tried to our breaking point.  The issue is not that you face uncertainty, the issue is what do you do when you are looking at adversity smack in the eyes?  Do you high tail it out of there?  Do you look for ways to mitigate the affects of what ever you are facing?  Do you simply believe, as I do, that most everything we face is of our own construction, and we have the ability to overcome it?  Our words, our thoughts, and our feelings are a good indicator of how we will handle different situations in our life.  If everything you put your hands to seems to smash into a thousand pieces, then I will ask you what have you said about things, and more importantly how do you feel about things.  If you cannot feel the joy of doing what you love to do, then my guess is you will never have the opportunity to do it.

If one failure in life meant the end to everything we know and love, then we would all be in a box in the ground six feet under.  Failure is not forever.  Failure is just giving you another opportunity to do it better.  We have been conditioned to believe that failure somehow makes us less of a person.  Trust me, failure is going to rest on your door post sooner or later.  How you perceive a failure, or how you rebound from it, will tell others just what is important to you and what is not.  Failure is nothing more  than being closed off to your source.  Failure is nothing more then not recognizing the divinity that resides in you.  Failure is seeing everything as final and acting as though it is.  I am here to tell you that nothing is final until you take your final breath.  I have fought for things throughout my life, and it finally hit me not long ago, that fighting for something almost always comes because we have not truly believed in what we were doing, what we wanted, or what has been promised to us.

If you have had failure in the past, learn from it, but let it go.  If you have not reached a certain level, learn from it, but let it go.  If you feel like things will never happen for you, let that go, and never pick those thoughts up again.  Failure will  only come when you give up, period, end of story, case closed.  This year will be a year of breakthrough if you will follow a few simple rules.  Number one: get to know the real you.  Not the person that everyone thinks you should be, but the real you.  Rule number two:  never, and I mean never, forget that you are here for a reason, and you will walk in your destiny.  Rule number three:  always know and never let go of the understanding that peace, joy, and happiness are just as much for you as anyone.  Rule number four:  you can never change what has already happened, you never know what tomorrow will bring, so live in the here and now.  If you will do these simple things, you will have success and you will see your deepest dreams come to fruition.

Once again, it's not how things may have started that counts, but how you finish things up.  I know you can make great strides this year, and I look forward to hearing all about them.