This morning I decided to clean some old stuff off of my phone. I started with my notes since these are usually notes that reminded me of something I needed to do or an idea on writing.

I came across a note with five questions:

What inspired you today?

What was your passion today?

What was your biggest laugh today?

What are your to-do’s for tomorrow?

What is your goal for tomorrow?

I vaguely remember writing these down. It was a day that was particularly hard for me and the last thing I wanted was to get lost in negativity. I needed to remember the positives and keep moving forward.

I also remember that each day for about two weeks, at the end of normal working hours, I would ask my son these questions and we would sit on the back porch and discuss our thoughts.

Let’s take a closer look using yesterday.

What inspired you?

Yesterday I was contacted by an employer to provide a reference for a long-time friend.  Now this person isn’t a friend where we talk daily or we go hang out together. We’ve known each other for many years through belonging to the same professional organization, The AAPC.com.

Now you are probably wondering why this inspired me. The reason is because as the HR representative began asking me questions I was proud to know the job applicant.  Everything I said was true and honest. When I got off the phone I said to myself, WOW! I know a truly amazing person.

 I can only hope that someday someone will be just as inspired when they provide me a reference.

What was your passion?

Yesterday my passion was learning more about marketing my books and my blog, tina-reich.com. I read books, other blogs, listened to some live FB groups. Looked at my books on Amazon and I’m in the process of provided better, more creative descriptions to them. I spent most of my day doing this and I’m still not there.  But baby steps will get me there. I am always open to feedback and suggestions so go take a look at Amazon.com and then just search Tina Reich and all three of my books will pop up.

What was your biggest laugh?

When we sit down for dinner, we tend to sit in front of the TV.  We have a huge ottoman that doubles as a coffee table. It’s dinner time and most of the working hours are done, which also makes it TV time.

When we sit down with our dinner our 4 dogs seem to surround me.  Am I messy and drop crumbs?  I’m not sure. But our dogs have developed a habit and one that I do not like. To help them unlearn this behavior I pulled the ottoman really close to me so they could not fit. With of course the No, go lay down command. Three of them followed directions. All except Roscoe. He walked away then came back and laid down just so that his head with fit in the space between me and the ottoman. I laughed.  Well played Roscoe! He did lay down, with his snout between the couch and ottoman and inches away from my feet.

What are your to-dos?

The biggest one is to pay bills. What more can you say about that? Actually, there are 10 things on today’s to-do list but my number one priority is to get the bills paid.  Done….moving on to the second one which is to post my blog story. 

What is your goal for tomorrow?

My goal for tomorrow is to spend a few hours on my novel and a few hours reading. I often let the little to-dos get in the way of things I really should be doing. Tomorrow I will focus, I will write and I will read. What am I reading? Amazon.com.

If you asked yourself these questions what would the answers be?

Why should you ask yourself these or other questions at the end of the day? It makes you think! Instead of just letting each day go by and then suddenly saying wait what did I spend my time on? Did I accomplish anything? Maybe even answer who am I? What is my purpose?

Isn’t it time we learned about ourselves? That we empowered ourselves? Shouldn’t we be practicing self-improvement daily?

Go out in the world today with a smile on your face and joy in your heart. When you get home tonight take a few minutes to reflect on your day. Feel free to share what you reflect on and what you learned from it.

Categories: emotions Family Food Publishing writing

Tagged as: Family friends goals inspiration love passion pets read self-improvement write

reichtina

I retired from my traditional job to explore, practice, and create stories for people of all ages.