Have a Beautiful Day

Have A Beautiful Day

My coffee maker is set for 5:15 a.m., and my alarm clock is set for 5:30 a.m. But almost every morning, I am wide awake long before either has the opportunity to turn on. Why? I am a morning person. In fact, there have been times when I have been at my desk working as early as 3 a.m. Most of the time, including weekends, I can be found at my desk between 4:30 and 5 a.m.

I love the morning, that time before sunrise. It is this time of day when I can be alone with my thoughts, am able to write uninterrupted, and feel I am at my most productive. Ask me an important question at 3 p.m., and my brain is essentially a pile of mush. That is, however, until I catch my second wind, and go on to enjoy whatever I end up doing any particular evening.

In my book Love The Life You’re Living: A Beginner’s Guide to Awakening and Personal Transformation, one suggestion I encourage everyone to think about and adopt is this: pack a lot of life into your day. In other words, make each and every moment of each and every day count.

Make your moments special and meaningful. Make your moments productive and rewarding. Make your moments relaxing and memorable.

Over the years I have found the best way to begin my day is to thank the universe for the gift of a new day; expressions of gratitude have a way of returning more of what it is you love about your life back to you. I have also found that a good quote, an affirmation or two, thoughts from our ancient wisdom writers, or words of inspiration from a variety of people – especially creative people – are the best way to kick off your day. Keeping track of your thoughts, as well as your goals and all of the things which inspire or challenge you, is also, as I have discovered, best done by writing in your journal.

Inspired by a variety of sources, and noting where applicable the significance of some specific dates, I have created 366 entries, one for every single day of the year (including Leap Day), all of which are meant to be read first thing in the morning. Each entry, once you have read it through and thought about it (sometimes there are questions being asked of you), then go ahead and write about it in your journal. These activities – acts of self-evaluation, or goal setting, or the repetitiveness of affirmations – are all meant to have a positive influence on the rest of your day, even when some of those self-evaluations are possibly going to be uncomfortable conversations with your whole self.

Here is one of my favorite quotes. It can be an eye opener if you are seeing it for the first time – I share it often with clients and my social media friends and followers:

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, therefore is not an act but is a habit.

~Aristotle

Regardless of when you purchased this book, open it to today’s date and read the entry. Think about what the entry means for you in your moment, and write your daily/morning thoughts in your journal. If a specific passage or two from within the book resonates with you, underline them. Next year when you reach today’s date, it will likely be a gentle reminder of a thought you had in a particular moment, and you will be able to go back to your journal and reference what it was.

Understand that by simply opening the book to today’s date and contemplating the entry’s meaning for you in your moment, you have planted a seed of positive change and intent in your mind. You have also started the formation of a new habit. Tomorrow, your new habit will continue to establish itself, for soon after waking up and expressing gratitude for the gift of a new day, you will open your book to that day’s entry, and you will repeat what you did the previous day, which is to think about what the entry means to you in your moment. Establishing this habit at the start of your day sets the tone for the rest of your day, and what better tone to Imagine Believe Create for your whole self while thinking through and writing about a variety of things, and then continuing on afterwards with having a beautiful day.

As you continue to establish your new thought patterns and habits in the weeks and months ahead, I encourage you to share your experiences and stories. For example, did one particular entry have a profound impact on you? Did you accomplish the goal you identified on the 7th of the previous month? Did a quote, thought, or affirmation inspire you in some particular way?

If you are interested in sharing your thoughts and experiences related to the book with me, there are at least four ways to do this. The first is via Twitter, where I have created a hashtag for each and every day (#habdxxxx – the x’s represent the month/day) for you to share what a specific day’s entry means to you. The second way to share is via the book’s website www.haveabeautifulday.biz where there are links to Facebook, as well as to short promotional videos on YouTube. The third way is via my internet radio program, Have A Beautiful Day, where each week I will reference an entry or two from that particular week, and will welcome you to call in and discuss them with me. Details about my internet radio program can be found on my website’s My Media page. Finally, the fourth way to share is to connect via my website, www.bryanarndt.com, where you can send me a private message.

In spirit, I send much love and blessings your way. Have a beautiful day. 

Bryan