Referring to a day not so long ago, I got up and realized that I was in control of the type of mood I was going to be in that day. For some reason it hit me in a way that simply opened my eyes to the possibility that I had more control than I had before realized. I could decide how I wanted to feel. I could choose what outlook or vantage point I could see or work from at any given time.

I don’t know exactly why that day was so different, only that it could have been a culmination of all my life experiences that had brought me to that exact moment. I was, at that exact time, finally ready to receive that piece of information and then process it into an understanding that was impactful for the way I would like to live and be. Kind of like the expression that I have always tried to share with students that I have worked with over the years, “…when the student is ready, the teacher will appear” – an expression I learned from a good friend and business partner some years ago.

In this case, the teacher was life, and in that moment, it taught me how efficient it’s flow could be. That is, like water, that when running downhill will chose the path of least resistance, it chooses the most efficient path based on it’s environment at the time – no thought, just flow.

Well, I think that the thoughts that fuel cognitive growth are much the same when my internal environment is ready to receive information. So, that morning, when I woke up, it just hit me. I can decide what state of mind I was going to attack the day with. So, I just breathed it in. I chose hope and service. I wanted to be hopeful and I wanted to be of service to the people that I came across that day, because I realized that on many days, I am too stressed or distracted to even think about others, which bothered me, so on this day I wanted to try something different, and I did. And as it turned out, it worked.

That evening, I went back over my day and found that I had, in fact, accomplished what I had set out to do. Not that I had manipulated and consciously planned out every move of the day, but rather that the situations, interactions, etc. that I experienced were lived through the filters of hope and service. This, for me, made all the difference in the world. This was me flowing downhill like water, this was me being a student that was ready to receive. This was me being connected to God, not fighting the path that I believe he has chosen for me, but rather riding the wave of that path that he created for me to ride. And I was riding it effortlessly. How cool was that? It was cool:)

One note that might be important was something that I gleaned from a coworker who is in the field of Mental Performance – Mr. Tim Kremer (The Spirit of Golf), who shared the idea of using the breath to breathe in whatever emotion I chose to feel at a given time, which then put me in control of how I wanted to feel – if it worked? So, I tried it, and well, it worked, as stated above. It was simple, my process was the following:

• I brought my focus to my breathing. Simply by saying, “Ok, I am going to focus on my breathing and listening to the air coming in and out a few times”
• Then I moved from thinking about the sound of the breath, to feeling of the rising and lowering of my stomach while I was breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.
• Then I shifted my focus to thinking about the word that best described the state of mind that I wanted be in that day. In that moment it was “hope” and “service”. I wanted to be hopeful about life and the possibilities that I believe to be out there, and to help people in anyway that I could that day. So theoretically, I breathed in actual hope and service by thinking about those words and their meaning during each inhale.

That’s it. Try it and see what you think. It was helpful for me, maybe it will be for you.
So, have the day that you want to have and start your day, your way!!