Commitment is the Key!

 Are You Committed?

    One thing that I have always struggled with growing up was commitment. Like I shared in my first blog, I would always have thoughts running through my head doubting my potential. How can you commit to change when you don't believe you're capable of change yourself? Luckily after reading many books about personal development, I was able to fight those thoughts of not being worthy of change, or success and truly commit to the person I am becoming today. I say "becoming today" knowing that every day has room for improvement. When you enter everyday knowing that you can improve on something, makes it less about being perfect and more about focusing on making decisions that will bring you closer to that end goal you might have. 

How do you beat the thoughts of self doubt?

    As I stated in the previous paragraph beating self doubt and lack of commitment took everything in me to accomplish. I developed a routine down for whenever I doubt my capabilities and this routine was brought to my attention by reading "Love yourself like your life depends on it." After reading this very inspiring book I wrote a vow to myself promising to accomplish everything listed everyday. My vow goes as follows "I vow to fully commit to my daily practices to maintain and clear and healthy mind. I vow to stick with this routine everyday and whenever I feel like I deserve less. I vow to remain honest with everyone, most importantly myself. I vow to make my decisions out of love and not fear. I vow that everything I do will be out of love for myself. I vow to love myself, because I am deserving of love." Reading this helps me make some of my hardest decisions, and leads me to choosing love above all else. For example if I am committed to a diet, but want a cheeseburger I will read this vow out loud, or to myself and ask myself if I really wanted to be healthier I wouldn't want to eat this cheeseburger. Sorry if that was a bad example, but what I am trying to say is that this vow helps my mind stay on track and committed to my end goals. That is how I am able to overcome self doubt and my lack of commitment.

Next Blog, and Daily Practices.

    Thank you all for reading yet another one of my blogs. I really hope that you are able to find some useful information. I'm sure you can tell that I am not an English major, but the content that I provide has one soul purpose. Help you all achieve your goals that you never thought that you could. On Wednesday February 2nd, I will be sharing with you my morning routine, and just the Robin Sharma says in his book The 5AM Club, "own your morning, elevate your life." I would like to end this blog by saying if you have any tips, or if you want to reach out to have a one on one conversation please comment and let me know. I would love to get to know you guys and hear some topics that you would want to hear. That's all for now though, until next time 😁

One Change can turn your life around!

One Small Change..Can Change Everything!

Why Forgiving yourself can change your life.

    As Master Oogway once said in one of my favorite movies Kung Fu Panda " Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that's why it's called the present." You cannot spend your life living in anything besides the present moment. It is important for us to understand that when we try to focus our attention on the wrong moment of time we are doing nothing, but wasting our precious energy trying to control things that we cannot control.  In this blog I am going to be discussing how I was able to let go of my past, and stop trying to control my future. I will give you a step by step instruction on how you too can forgive yourself and stay in the present moment. The present moment is where the magic happens, the decisions you make in the present decide your future.

   

The Future, Don't worry You'll get there soon.

 Let's talk about the future for a second. Everyone is always saying in the future I am going to study more, or workout more, whatever their goal maybe at the time. Instead of saying in the future I will accomplish this, or do that they could be developing a plan to get them to their goal faster. Whether that is purchasing a planner, and committing one hour to study every day, or buying a workout journal and keeping track of their workouts and what they are working out that day. There are many ways to reaching your goal, but you can't do that if you spend too much time visioning your goal in the future. At some point every successful person put in the work in the present moment. They developed a routine that kept them on track in pursuit of their goal, they didn't just dream about it. I say that to say that I too was the person dreaming of a goal, but not putting the work in to achieving my goal. There's a quote in the book, The 5am Club by: Robin Sharma, that says "Nothing works for those who do not do the work." First if you haven't read this book I highly recommend reading this book and adopting these habits into your own life. Trust me, just like many of you reading this I was not doing the work. It wasn't until I applied those same habits into my own life that I started to notice a huge change. I was at peace, living in the moment, working out everyday, and meditating. That is when I stopped worrying about who I could be and started to be committed to changing who I am, so that I could become that person. I wouldn't have been able to do any of that if I never forgave myself for my past. That's why this next portion of the blog will include the one change that can change everything for you, just like it did me.

    

Yesterday is history. You can't change it.

    The hardest thing for me to accept was not being able to change the past. If I would have done this I would be better off today, If I could only change that one decision I made. These thoughts consumed my life ten years after the tragic grain bin accident I discussed in my first blog. The thoughts alone would keep me up at night. That's when the guilt consumed me and I turned to drinking as my way to drown the thoughts, which only worked if I got blacked out drunk. I have two amazing children and a very supportive fiancee that had to witness me, in lack of better terms, kill myself. Have you ever felt that the past is holding on to you so tight that you can't move forward in your life? That's how I felt I couldn't focus on the present with my children and it wasn't until I made a vow to myself to lose my victim mentality that I started viewing the accident as a way of the universe, or God, whatever your spiritual belief maybe is telling me that I have a purpose to fulfill. I truly believe that purpose is helping you. I'm sure if you read this far you're probably starting to question what is the one change? That one change my friends is easier said than done, it is forgiving yourself. That is the only way you can truly leave the past in the past. If you forgive yourself for whatever mistake, or poor decision you made you can finally move forward and leave yesterday as history.

Forgive yourself today, be free tomorrow

    How do I forgive myself for something I can't correct, or change? That's a great question, just like if you were to forgive someone else. You make a sincere apology, develop ways to prevent the action from happening again, and stay true to your word. It might sound weird apologizing to yourself, but I suggest that you write your apology down on a piece of paper. Underneath that apology write down everything you are holding against yourself, that you might hate yourself for. This took me awhile to accomplish, my list was very long and thought out I recommend you do the same. At the end of the paper write I forgive myself, over and over again, you'll know when to stop. Once you're done writing find a quiet place with a mirror and read it out loud. Then you'll start feel something "shift inside you" as  Kamal Ravikant explained in his book "Love yourself like your Life depends on it". Another great read that I highly recommend, this where I developed this strategy, just made minor tweaks that I noticed help me feel a better connection for myself.  After you feel the shift of energy inside you rip it up, burn the page, whatever you got to do to release those inner demons that have been holding on to you for so long. You did it. You forgave yourself it's not magic though your problems don't just disappear but you took the first step into changing your life. That's why I feel this is the most important step to take. Remember every journey starts somewhere and the you got rid of the only thing that is holding you back, the person you use to be.

Next Blog Monday 31 Jan 2022

    I hope you are able to make that first step into changing your life for the better. Next weeks blog I will be discussing how commitment is the biggest attribute to have when you are trying to revamp your life. I will also be sharing with you the vow that I made to myself all thanks to reading Kamal Ravikants book "Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On it." It was a pleasure chatting with you all today, and I look forward to hearing everyone's point of views on the topics I discussed. I am always going to be better than the day before, so if you have any suggestions for me please reach out and I would love to hear them.

Thank you again for taking the time to read my blog, I'll see you all on Monday. Until Next time 😁

My First Blog Ever!

 WELCOME TO MY FIRST BLOG EVER!

Introduction and Why blogging is important to me.

    Hello Everyone! I want to say thank you to anyone that is taking the time out of their day, or night, to indulge in my blog. I'm going to take this opportunity in my first blog to give a perspective of my life, and why I feel that my blogs will benefit you in ways that you can't even begin to imagine. I know personally I couldn't believe the difference in my everyday life when I started to develop love for myself. Before we dive too deep into why self-love is important and ways that you can practice the same steps that I currently take I want to introduce myself.

    

My Story and Struggles

    My name is Christopher Lawton and I was born and raised in a very small town in the northwestern corner of Illinois. I spent my first eighteen years of life in the same place, rarely exploring outside of the county I grew up in. When I was two years old my dad left, he's back in my life now and I love him very much, but while I experienced life without him I developed my first negative attribute, feeling worthless, or in other terms never good enough. This view of myself led to countless problems in my future relationships with my parents, significant others, and friends. I would always find myself questioning why they are with me and find a way to create distance from that relationship. When I turned fourteen I was involved in a tragic grain bin accident. I had gotten my first job with a friend that I have played baseball with for the previous seven years of my life. Although we weren't close I respected him for having the most loving heart and never being afraid of being himself. Something that I have always struggled with every since my dad left. It wasn't until the third day on the job that my life came crashing down around me. Everything is still a blur to me eleven years later, and I don't want to misguide anyone on what actually happened to cause the accident. I will summarize that my friend was engulfed in corn, and I rushed out to get help leaving him behind with our other two coworkers, who were both eighteen at the time, trying to rescue him from suffocating on corn. After I climbed out of the 55 FT gran bin I  screamed for help and instructed a worker below to call 911. Time began to stand still what took less than ten minutes felt like three hours for the emergency services to arrive. Not even an hour later the whole community was sitting outside of this grain bin to hear the news on if everyone made it out safely. When I say the whole community I mean everyone in the county came to observe. As I made my way down the ladder I was met by my dad, he came back into my life when I was nine years old, and I saw everyone. I felt like I was in a movie, but had no emotions as I was still in shock. It wasn't until later that night that I found out my friend and one other coworker had passed away. That was the moment when all my emotions hit me once, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of guilt. Guilt is a difficult emotion to process, especially when all you do is blame yourself for something that you had, or have no control of. This led to yet another negative attribute that I carried with me throughout my life up until this past year. After the accident I coasted through high school not applying myself and barley making it by in each class I took. I couldn't picture a future that I was alive for the longest time, which explained my lack of effort. When I graduated I was fired from four different jobs within the same year, and I was bouncing around between my friends and grandmas couch. Something shifted inside me one day and I decided that enough was enough, I am going to join the military, like my grandpa before me I enlisted in Air Force. This was the best decision I have made in my entire life. The Air Force had consequences if I didn't apply myself in every task that I had to accomplish, this decision was the beginning of my life making a change for the better and for the first time in a very long time I started to feel I had a purpose. Although I had a new beginning I still struggled with the same problems that I did in high school, I didn't feel good enough. Guilt took control of me and I took blame  for everything that went wrong in my life instead of appreciating the good. I won't go into too much detail but these emotions caused me to pick up very bad habits at a young age. Some of theses habits I'm sure you can relate to, but we will save that topic for another blog. Fast forward almost seven years now, I have two beautiful boys and a gorgeous fiancee that I am forever grateful for. I wouldn't be where I am today without my past though,  I know this was a lengthy introduction, but it's necessary for you to understand where I started so you can appreciate how far I came. Once you see that then you will be able to trust in the steps that I take and start to apply those in your daily life as well.

    

What can I do for you?

    You might be asking yourself, so I know who you are, but what are you going to teach me that I don't already know? That's a great question and I will follow it up with these questions. Have you every felt like life is working against you, or that you hate starting something that you want to do because you know that you won't finish it. How about have you ever looked in the mirror and were disgusted with what you saw? Theses questions are just a few of the ways that I thought about myself, and I want to help you so you don't have to feel that way again. In the next Blog I'm going to discuss one key change I made in my life that completely changed everything about the way I view myself. I was able to forgive others by doing this, and most importantly I forgave myself. My next post will be on Wednesday January 26th, 2022. I am beyond excited to help you all make the changes needed to be able to forgive yourself the first step in living a better and healthier life. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts on things that I could be doing better, or something that you want me to talk about in the future. This blog is a way for me to get my story out to the world and help as many people as possible, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you everyone for spending a moment to learn about me and why I am blogging. Until next time 😁